Sponsor's Message

Well setting aside the fact that they're devices loaded with electronics, they also use up valuable areas of the radio-frequency spectrum.

I was interested to read recently that Telecom are about to place a greater emphasis on the provision of RF-based services -- something which they already appear to be doing as it snaps up more spectrum.

This is probably a smart move on the part of Telecom because we're becoming an increasingly "unwired" society with an increasing number of folks ditching fixed wiring for wireless links.

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination.

Take the rapid proliferation of wireless LANs for example...

Why bother running messy and expensive cabling when you can plug a simple little card into your PC or laptop and instantly connect that machine to the company's servers?

This move to wireless has also had an impact on regular folks, a growing number of who have opted to ditch their PSTN connection in favour of using their cellphone, especially where they have a plan which offers a goodly number of "free minutes". In fact, thanks to competition between Telecom and Vodafone, even a pre-paid mobile can give you almost unlimited nation-wide mobile to mobile calling for less than the price of a month's fixed-line rental.

The only problem I see with this move to wireless connectivity is the fact that the radio-frequency spectrum is a fixed resouce of finite size -- and we're starting to chew it up at a growing rate.

Already we've seen cordless phones shift from the 40MHz band to 2.4GHz, then spread out into 1.8GHz and now 5.8GHz -- where next?

Unfortunately we can't just keep going up in frequency for this kind of stuff because eventually you find that the signals wont travel very far if there's any kind of obstruction. In fact we're already using frequencies that were previously reserved for radar units because of this every characteristic.

Even the spread-spectrum stuff, which is designed to share frequencies with other similar units, reaches a point where congestion causes problems. When that happens, the only option is to allocate even more spectrum to those applications.

So it would appear as if, sometime in the future, we're going to find that parts of the RF spectrum will become very valuable and capable of fetching quite a significant premium. Just think back to the incredible prices that were paid a few years back for parts of the 3G spectrum for an example of this.

How long, I wonder, before wireless becomes far less useful, due mainly to the levels of congestion and the cost of buying a tiny slice of a finite resource?

Yes, improving technology means we can make better use of the spectrum we have (just like modems have gotten faster and faster) -- but there are theoretical maximums that represent a brick-wall to such advances. This means that we'll always be placing greater pressure on the frequencies we have and their price will continue to rise.

I wonder how many wireless devices there are in the average Kiwi home.

Why not chip in and tell us how many devices or services you have in your home that rely on a piece of the radio spectrum for their operation.

How does this compare to 10 years ago?

Go have your say in The Aardvark Forums

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!