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This is a very city centric report.
Virtually no digital radio for regional areas given that there are only 8 DAB+ transmission channels available in the populated areas of Australia. High power transmitters have to be at least 336 km apart.
No live radio for the 470,000 Australians + tourists and itinerant workers in remote areas once they are mobile away from home or villages.
With the large areas of fires, no radio which can display maps of the affected areas, giving detailed text instructions and the re-routing of GPS around closed roads, remembering that mobile phones and wireless NBN towers and their powerlines are most venerable to fire.
One remark about use of the L band for DAB+ transmissions. This was already discussed on this site elsewhere.
While some DAB+ receivers such as Pure's Siesta clock radio and the Toyota Camry's infotainment allow reception of the L-band, satellite transmission of DAB+ has failed in Canada.
In addition Mr StJohn mentioned that when a satellite signal is obstructed by a tree or rain or a building, then the reception fails. This is especially so when a simple dipole antenna is used in clock radios and cars compared to a high gain dish with a tracking servo which is expensive.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting Belfield
Anthony.
The Canadians had L band but terrestrial not satellite. The reason they used L band is that they and the USA use TV channels 7 -13 for TV which is DAB channels 5A - 10D in the VHF band 3 which is much more likely to get through buildings, terrain and trees that L Band cannot. It was also DAB and not DAB+.
Interesting that it took the ACMA 9 1/2 months to release their response on a Friday when Parliament will not meet until August. This is a tactic that the ABC used to switch off high frequency broadcasting in NT and WA.
The ACMA has ignored the availability of TV channels 0 - 2 which are not longer used for DRM where there is now a 6 channel modulator on successive transmission channels this will allow 18 audio programs to be transmitted using a single band 1 TV transmitter. On the other extreme most regional commercial stations have an AM and an FM transmitter which could be replaced by a single DRM+ transmitter, giving stereo to the AM program and better sound.
5G, may well be "old hat" by 2030. In the SMH, 8-12-2020 https://www.smh.com.au/technology/nokia-leads-a-6g-wireless-project-for-european-union-20201208-p56lgm.html the engineers are preparing for 6G technology by 2030.
It is not all one particular entity such as Nokia involved in 6G. Engineers are developing a transistor which can operate in the W-band at 95GHz, source,
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8962214. Currently engineers in Argentina and China are experimenting with 6G satellite communications, source, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-launches-worlds-first-6g-experiment-satellite/2034321 .
The latency of the 6G service is expected to be 1000 times faster (1ms) than 5G, and also operate in the Terhertz band source, https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1909/1909.11315.pdf#:~:text=The%20capacity%20of%206G%20cellular,high%20data%20rates%20%5B32%5D. , page 2 of 12.
Given the potential for higher speed wireless communication, I still posit that fibre-optic communication will be faster than wireless because the wavelength of light is several times shorter than the wavelength of 6G resulting in more data capacity.
Given that engineers/physicists have developed transistors being able to operate at frequencies in terrahertz (THz), it would not surprise me that these transistors will operate in the light frequency.
Remember that the limitation of speed on fibre-optic networks is the speed of the electronics on both ends of the fibre-optic cable.
I know, because when I studied science at Macquarie University, I received a top mark in a fibre-optic laboratory for the limitations in speed of fibre-optic communications.
Thank you,
Anthony of researching Belfield