Mr. Marcus Matthews:

In our written submission we have given an overview of the evolution of broadband radio technology. We referred to the speed in 2012 as being 30 Mbps and remarked on the jumps experienced since then. The products themselves are now rated for 200 Mbps and some of the members here have connections installed that are achieving that speed in licence-exempt bands, which are noisy. Regarding the evolution of long-range technology, by 2025 the prediction is that 500 Mbps will be possible. I am referring to long-range and serving multiple premises from the same site.

At the moment, in respect of short-range provision, a new category of short-range broadband radio technology has come on stream which allows premises to be linked together. It is like laying wireless fibre. That is the easiest way to describe it. That technology operates at about 1 Gbps. In the second quarter of next year that technology is going to become multi-gigabit. It will then be in the range of 3.5 Gbps. If there are strings of houses within a reasonable distance of each other, it will be possible to install these radio units and it is possible to keep going-----