"The other thing is that the radio spectrum is a finite resource, as technology improves we have been able to cram more data through the medium, but the fact remains that you are prone to interference with the more devices you use. Try sending a MMS when you are in the middle of a packed football stadium and you'll see what I mean.
Theoretically at least, there is no limit to fibre throughput."
There are a couple of points here that should be clarified, 3G/4G uses dynamic bandwidth, what this basically means is that the bandwidth is spread into two parts, data and voice. Voice is given priority, unused additional bandwidth is allocated for data calls, as the voice traffic increases data calls are shed, ie voice priority overrides data as it might be a 000 call for example.
In mass traffic situations it is not interference that causes the problem as all calls are handled sequentially and given a "time slot" keep in mind all the handsets operate on the same frequency within their allocated bandwidth , and are given a unique id (similar to ethernet LAN etc), they also have to wait for an available free packet to send if a collision occurs they will resend the packet. What this means is it is not interference it is lack of bandwidth that causes the problem. Bandwidth in this case is not actual frequency bandwidth but available power output from the cell, the more power the greater the modulation envelope (quadrature modulation) and the more channels (calls) the cell can handle.
For big events the Telcos can, and do put more call handling ability into the local cells by increasing the cells output transceiver modules and their power output if required, along with channel cards etc but there is a cost benefit ratio they will abide to. They will also install portable micro cells for big events etc like the Grandprix / Footy grand final etc to provide additional call handling ability.
Now for fibre, fibre does in reality have a throughput limit, ie how many "time slots" you can put down it, as the equipment connected to the fibre has a handling limit, this is why they are now using different colored laser so that they can add more
channels to the fibre. Generally though as Technology doubles I think from memory every 10 years you could say that
in ten years time the equipment will be able to handle twice the calls it does now, so on so on.
Why can't everyone have cheap wireless? Well one reason is bandwidth, with todays technology you just can't squeeze that many calls in, that's why your TV went digital to make more bandwidth available so that they could sell it to the Telcos.
Also keep in mind wireless is the Telcos premium product, Telstra initially designated their 3G roll out as the Jersey project and rightly so, it certainly turned out to be their cash cow. It is unlikely the prices will go down, Telstra must be very happy these days. most have moved onto mobile services, they get a premium return for their invest, they have let the fixed network run down to reduce costs and now the Government has to buy that off them as part of the deal to push their white Elephant, the NBN.
Ever wonder why Telstra was locked out of the initial NBN contracts? One reason was Telstra wouldn't give the Government an assurance that if the Government had to buy the Telstra local access network (they weren't sure they could "aquire" it legally without out paying Telstra compensation and it turned out they couldn't), that Telstra would guarantee not to use the money to expanded their 3G/4G network to undercut and compete directly against the NBN which they of course would have done.
Why did the Government have to build the NBN and not the Telcos? the Telco's aren't that stupid that's why!
Telstra a few years back was looking for a system to replace their aging Telephony network, the main suppliers weren't really interested in supply equipment as no one knew the direction Telecommunications was heading with IP Telelphony on rise, the only manufacture that had a product that looked like it might work off the shelf was a Chinese company, but at that time the upper management of Telstra was not pro Chinese. Telstra determined the only other viable contender was Alcatel so went with their system, many hundreds of millions (probably more like a billion) of dollars later the project was canned.
It is very dangerous to be a leader in the Technology markets, if your the first to jump one way and then everyone else follows as was the case with Telstra and 3G then your ahead, but if everyone else goes down a different path then you've just wasted hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.
The Government may learn the same lesson in the near future if a leap in Technology comes along and makes the NBN obsolete overnight.
Now where does this all lead? I remember seeing an article a few years back where a couple of scientist had stumbled onto something that was called co linked protons or something the like. The way they had described it was they could create two of these identical whatever's in a lab at the same time and then separate them, they then found if the attached a proton I think it was to one a proton instantly appeared on the other. It did not matter how far apart they separated the two "units" the same thing happened, one could be on the other side of the planet in a phone for example or on the other side of the galaxy.
They could not explain the process that caused phenomenon, but did point out there appeared to be no delay between the proton? being attached to one unit and a proton being attached to the other, and that this could lead to instantaneous communications to anywhere, or even matter transfer though the original item would most probably destroyed in the scanning and a perfect copy made at the other end rahter than the actual item physically transfered. One of the scientists indicated theoretically it was possible but that he would not be volunteering to hope into such a unit to test it out!
I did search awhile back to see where their upto but can no longer find any mention of it on the net, seems to have disappeared, if anyone else remembers the article and knows of a website involved in the project please let me know.
I suspect that such technology would not be released in the near term as there are is a lot of investment in the current communications industry and it would not be to their or their investors good interests for such technology to suddenly appear on the market.
