Melbourne: the wireless broadband Mecca

Brisbane's urban sprawl, and Sydney's hilly terrain make wireless services difficult to roll out successfully, as the services require line of sight, and diminish over distance. However, Melbourne, with a clearly defined central business district, and clustered industrial areas, provides a perfect backdrop for the rollout of wireless broadband services.

"There are some interesting things about Melbourne that makes it perfectly suited to wireless broadband," explained Keith Ondarchie, chief executive of Melbourne-based wireless broadband wholesalers Access Providers. "It is relatively flat and there are some very tall buildings that give you a wide range."

While Perth and Adelaide similarly offer a geography well suited to wireless broadband rollouts, Sydney and Brisbane present difficulties.

"In Sydney there are a few clusters of businesses in places like Lane Cove and Parramatta, but businesses are spread out across the city, so you would need far more base stations to service the customers," Ondarchie said.

Industry pundits also point out that while city radio frequencies are often heavily laden with traffic, 802.11 technology is perfectly suited to regional areas.

Frank Romanin, managing director of ASX-listed ISP Datafast pointed out that the 802.11 technology could be offered at competitive prices in regional areas where unlicensed frequencies could be used.

"In the city you really need to license a spectrum to guarantee service, and that increases your capital costs substantially," Romanin said.

Michael Hampton, director of Tasmanian-based broadband wireless provider describes the radio connectivity as "frontier technology", due to its suitability to outlying areas.

"We are not really interested in the CBDs," Hampton said. "There are already too many service providers competing, whereas wireless is often the only way to get decent services into country areas, there is simply no other cost effective way of doing it."

This is all good news for regional Internet users, as a range of urban ISPs look at rolling out services to regional areas. Some notable examples include Melbourne-based Omniconnect, which has announced the roll out of broadband wireless infrastructure aimed at improving connectivity between hospital services in regional Victoria, and Planet Netcom in Sydney which plans to rollout wireless connectivity to regional centres in NSW and QLD over the next 18 months.

Find out more about wireless broadband in Australia, read ZDNet Australia's latest broadband feature article, Why go wireless?.