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SILICON SILIC CHIP www.siliconchip.com.au Publisher/Editor Nicholas Vinen Technical Editor John Clarke, B.E.(Elec.) Technical Staff Jim Rowe, B.A., B.Sc Bao Smith, B.Sc Tim Blythman, B.E., B.Sc Technical Contributor Duraid Madina, B.Sc, M.Sc, PhD Art Director & Production Manager Ross Tester Reader Services Ann Morris Advertising Enquiries Glyn Smith Phone (02) 9939 3295 Mobile 0431 792 293 glyn<at>siliconchip.com.au Regular Contributors Dave Thompson David Maddison B.App.Sc. (Hons 1), PhD, Grad.Dip.Entr.Innov. Geoff Graham Associate Professor Graham Parslow Ian Batty Cartoonist Brendan Akhurst Founding Editor (retired) Leo Simpson, B.Bus., FAICD Silicon Chip is published 12 times a year by Silicon Chip Publications Pty Ltd. ACN 626 922 870. ABN 20 880 526 923. All material is copyright ©. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written consent of the publisher. Subscription rates (12 issues): $105.00 per year, post paid, in Australia. For overseas rates, see our website or email silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au Editorial office: Unit 1 (up ramp), 234 Harbord Rd, Brookvale, NSW 2100. Postal address: PO Box 139, Collaroy Beach, NSW 2097. Phone (02) 9939 3295. E-mail: silicon<at>siliconchip.com.au ISSN 1030-2662 * Recommended & maximum price only. Printing and Distribution: Editorial Viewpoint 5G and the stupid Broadband Tax When I first heard about the upcoming 5G mobile technology and its touted high data speeds, my first thought was: isn’t 4G fast enough? 4G is capable of data delivery at close to 1Gbps, and that seems more than fast enough for most users’ mobile data needs. You could fill up the flash memory of a 256GB phone in less than half an hour at that speed. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it isn’t the maximum throughput that matters, it’s the aggregate bandwidth in a given area. It might be possible to get 1Gbps download if you’re the only person in your suburb who’s awake, but when thousands of other people are all trying to stream videos at the same time, each only gets a small slice of the pie. This became especially apparent to me when my NBN connection was down (as detailed in my June rant…). Many people were working from home due to COVID-19, so 4G data speeds in my area were miserable during the day. I was lucky to get more than 1Mbps most of the time. So having more spectrum space and more mobile ‘towers’ servicing smaller cells starts making a lot more sense. There are more and bigger ‘pies’, so even if the maximum size of a slice is similar, users can still get larger servings when demand is high. It still seems like it will be a vast job to roll out 5G across all urban areas in Australia, given how many millions of microcells that would require, but at least the rationale for doing so makes a certain amount of sense. The existing NBN infrastructure presumably will help with that. That brings me to the stupidity that is the recently-passed Broadband Tax (its implementation now delayed until January 2021). As David Maddison points out in his article starting on page 12, that doesn’t apply to 5G connections, only fixed line internet. But you have to wonder if that might change if lots of people ditch their NBN connections and hop onto 5G instead. Can you think of any other area in which a monopoly is funded by taxes placed on its competitors? I can’t. That the government has to funnel money to the NBN from private businesses to keep it going shows how poorly it was conceived and executed. Despite all this, I can’t imagine mobile broadband taking over from fixedline services. It would be a colossal waste of spectrum. Even if mobile data can burst to higher speeds than the NBN, the aggregate bandwidth available is much more limited. Perhaps the ideal would be a fixed-line connection for streaming video and so on, plus wireless technology used in parallel to speed up large downloads. Altronics catalog delay Astute readers may be aware that Altronics publishes a new catalog every 18 months and, as the last one was bundled with our March 2019 issue, you might have expected to get a copy of the new catalog with your copy of the September 2020 issue. However, COVID-19 has caused delays in sourcing products and, as a result, Altronics has decided to delay their new catalog. So if you live in Australia, you can expect to receive a copy of the next Altronics catalog with your copy of the March 2021 issue of Silicon Chip magazine. In the meantime, please see their website at www.altronics.com.au to see what they have on offer. Nicholas Vinen 24-26 Lilian Fowler Pl, Marrickville 2204 2 Silicon Chip Australia’s electronics magazine siliconchip.com.au