In general, companies have balked at the high cost of laying down the groundwork necessary to accomplish widespread broadband infrastructure in rural communities as the connection and supply fees they would need to charge to see a return on their investment would be unpayable for most, thus rendering the venture moot.
But while people from all sectors fight about what should be done and what is the best method to do it, Internode, one of Australia’s most popular internet service providers, has been quietly deploying a WiMAX network that seems to be doing the job just fine.
“It is true to say that most people are surprised by the speed quality and the fact it is just as fast and responsive as any other high speed broadband service. In the end, customers don’t largely care what technology is used to get the service to them, they just want fast, reliable and affordable broadband,” says Kym Cleggett, Operations and Infrastructure manager for Agile Communications, Internode’s sister company. “Sometimes we can get too involved in the technology rather than the outcomes and WiMAX is just another means of getting that fast service to someone’s home computer.”
“The cost per connected customer to build and connect a network to the outside world and install customer equipment ranges from $4000 to $6000, depending on the area and density of the population. This when you are building a whole of region network not just cherry picking the good bits.”
Internode’s third and latest deployment of this technology after successful rollouts in the Yorke Peninsula and Coorong regions is in the Riverland region in Tasmania and spans as far south as Mannum and as far north as Renmark. This project has involved the laying of 28km of fibre optic cabling, alterations to an existing tower to help support the network and the creation of three new towers, one of which is over 90m tall.
“The resources needed to build a network like this are extensive with many contractors and several quite large infrastructure builds. The 90m tower is free standing so has many tonnes of steel and concrete. These networks are large capital works and take some time to build and commission,” Kym says.
The network itself is capable of sustaining a very reasonable speed provided environmental conditions are right. As it is a wireless network, line of sight (LOS) of the tower is of high importance.
“The network has been built with reliability in mind and many things were done to ensure that like using space diverse microwave links to reduce any environmental impacts that plague microwave in many areas when there are inversion layers at times of the night.
“The WiMAX network can reliably provide high speed services out to thirty kilometres providing that there is good LOS. In many instances speeds approaching 12Mbps can be achieved past 20km but it depends on the LOS being good.”
An undertaking like this is obviously a complex one and a lot of thought goes into where to set up next.
“Site selection is not simple and must fit the network design, be on rising ground to provide sufficient height, ideally have power close by and have the owner willing to lease the space at a price that does not make the network commercially unviable,” Kym says.
When tackling a project like this, there will always be difficulties encountered on the way, but Internode are experts now in troubleshooting through these and working with local communities to get past any issues that arise.
“There were no real different challenges from our other networks though it is fair to say no two are the same. We have experienced people who understand what is required and we always use a flexible approach to the project so that changes can be made to accommodate any variations that come along. That can include a landowner not wanting the tower on their land meaning minor design changes to the network.”
“The new (Riverland) network is a partnership between the state, federal and local Government to build the network in the first instance to provide cost effective services to government agencies in regional areas. It was also required that the network had to have community benefit hence the WiMAX component to provide high speed broadband over a large area for residential services as well as business.”
Internode’s fan base is already quite substantial, but moves like these enable them to reach out to areas that have been previously dismissed by other companies as not worth investing in. Forums such as Whirlpool and review sites like CNet Australia consistently rate Internode as one of the best performing ISPs available.
“Community support has been significant over many years from the communities that we have built network to. Our whole approach has always to work with the community to achieve outcomes that benefit the community and allow a sustainable network to be built,” Kym says.
“It is much better to create a partnership with the community than to just impose yourself. In the main, that means working with the local councils as they are usually the single largest entity in regional areas and truly represent the community.”

Contact
Internode
www.internode.on.net