The first Measuring Broadband New Zealand report to
include low earth orbit satellite alternatives shows the
technology outperforms fixed wireless by a large margin.
Tests show New Zealand customers on the Starlink
LEO get average peak hour downloads of more than 120 Mbps.
The average equivalent speed on the 4G fixed wireless
network is 25 Mbps. Starlink is almost five times as fast.
Starlink compares even better with copper-based
ADSL broadband which averages 9 Mbps. Rural customers who
can get VDSL see average peak download speeds of 33 Mbps.
To put this in perspective, an everyday fibre
connection downloads at 300 Mbps.
Measuring
Broadband New Zealand reports are prepared by UK-based
SamKnows on behalf of the Commerce Commission.
For
now, SamKnows has fewer of its white box probes installed on
LEO connections. This means there is more uncertainty, but
the data is significant enough to highlight the advantages
of LEOs for rural users.
A download speed of 120
Mbps is comfortably more than enough for people to run
multiple high definition TV streams or to work while other
household members play or relax. Fixed wireless broadband
users can push up against limits.
Satellite
off-peak speeds average 178 Mbps compared with 35 Mbps for
rural 4G fixed wireless connections. At 19 Mbps Starlink
upload speeds are ahead of rural 4G fixed wireless uploads
(16 Mbps) but behind urban fixed wireless uploads (21 Mbps).
It’s worth pointing out that the low number of data points
means we should accept the three, in effect, perform at the
same level as each other.
Satellite latency (42
ms) is better than fixed wireless (~51 ms) but behind VDSL
(~19 ms) and ADSL (~25 ms).
There is a
considerable gulf between rural and urban 4G fixed wireless
broadband performance. MBNZ clocks the nationwide average
off-peak 4G fixed wireless connection at 39 Mbps. This
plummets to 27 Mbps at peak times. The rural off-peak
average is 35 Mbps which drops to 25 Mbps at peak times.
Urban fixed wireless users get 50 Mbps off-peak and 33 Mbps
when things are busy.
The report goes on to show
that rural users are more likely to see below average fixed
wireless speeds.
Gilbertson:
“Step-change”
Telecommunications Commissioner,
Tristan Gilbertson, says the MBNZ results show LEO-based
broadband means a performance step change for people in
areas beyond the fibre network. It is, but the monthly cost
of a Starlink connection is more than twice the price of a
basic fibre connection. It is a bargain for well-heeled
rural New Zealanders, but a stretch for low-income families.
Starlink backtracks on data cap
plan
Starlink has abandoned its earlier plan to
cap residential broadband accounts at 1TB per month and
charge overage fees to customers who use more data.
The data cap was announced in November last year
and remained in the small print on the website’s support
FAQs until earlier this week.
Under the now
abandoned terms, customers would have 1TB of what Starlink
calls ‘priority data’ each month. Beyond that they could
choose to have their service throttled or to pay US$0.25 per
gigabyte for additional data.
The new FAQ page now
says standard plan users have unlimited data. It now divides
users into ‘standard’ and ‘priority’; previously
there were ‘residential’ and ‘business’.
Half of worldwide mobile subscriptions will be 5G
by 2027
London-based Global Data says there were
1.7 billion 5G mobile subscriptions worldwide at the end of
2022: 18 per cent of all mobile subscriptions. That will
rise to 5.5 billion by 2027; 48 per cent of the total.
The technology has not yet taken off as expected
and the 5G sector needs to find a strong mass market case
for consumer markets beyond fixed-wireless broadband.
Operators have not been able to command a premium
rate for 5G mobile. The data analytics company says
operators will look to cloud gaming, augmented reality and
virtual reality as opportunities.
To date, 5G
mobile technology is not yet widely available in its
standalone form which promises higher speed, lower latency
and higher density. That will change its appeal for
enterprise customers.
AST SpaceMobile
claims first satellite voice call using everyday cell
phone
AST SpaceMobile says it successfully
completed the first two-way voice calls using its BlueWalker
3 satellite. While a satellite-enabled voice call is
unremarkable, the callers used a standard Samsung Galaxy S22
mobile – that is a first.
The call connected
speakers in Texas and Japan. They had a continuous
connection between the handset and the satellite at the
Texas end. In Japan the call was relayed to the receiver
using the normal local cellular network. Engineers from
Vodafone, Rakuten and AT&T took part in the preparation and
testing of the calls.
AST SpaceMobile plans to
offer a worldwide cellular broadband and voice service from
space using everyday mobile phone handsets. The company says
its testing shows the downlink signal strength is able to
support cellular broadband speeds and “4G LTE / 5G
waveforms”.
Caption: AST SpaceMobile Chairman &
CEO Abel Avellan and an AST SpaceMobile engineer completing
test calls in Texas
Pearse moves to
domain name commissioner role
InternetNZ says the
new domain name commissioner is Barbara Pearse. She moves to
the Domain Name Commission from the Financial Markets
Authority (FMA) where she was head of monitoring and
oversight, supervision. Pearse started in the new role on
May 1.
In other news…
The
modern internet was 30 years old last Sunday. The
European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) released
the World Wide Web into the public domain
on April 30, 1993.
Kantar estimates that
Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing
results in over 1 million fewer users in Spain. The
market research company says the move had an instant impact
on Netflix’s bottom line. Kanter points out that Canada
went through a similar dip when Netflix changed the rules
there. The user numbers later recovered.
The
worldwide semiconductor market is stuck in
a bad place with Gartner
estimating revenues will drop 11 per cent on 2023. The
market for memory chips will fall 35.5 per cent this year.
There’s an oversupply of chips all round and overcapacity
in the memory sector. Gartner says the industry faces
long-term challenges as innovation in phones, tablets and
PCs dries up. Growing tension between China and the west is
not helping.
Meanwhile mobile phone chip
specialist Qualcomm issued a gloomy
forecast saying sales of chips for handsets was down 17
per cent year on year. The company told the Wall Street
Journal it sees no immediate recovery in weak demand for new
phone handsets.
LEOs trounce fixed wireless broadband
was first posted at
billbennett.co.nz.
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