Mr. Marcus Matthews:

Technically, it is a mesh networking technology. All of the elements interlink with each other. It is exactly like a fibre cable. When a fibre cable is laid, all of the homes that it passes will be connected to that same cable and all of those houses will share that same bandwidth. These multi-gigabit broadband radios do exactly the same thing as fibre cable except they do not need the wire. That is basically how it works. Regarding the evolution of speeds, we are already seeing multi-gigabit products coming onto the market now. It is admittedly a category of short-range radio technology. On the long-range technology, however, we are already up to 200 Mbps and the conservative estimate is 500 Mbps by 2025.

When I appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts I remember that there were discussions on this issue in the context of wireless technology. I heard figures mentioned of 20 Gbps. I tend to stick very close to hard research that I trust and that figure of 500 Mbps by 2025 is a very realistic. That is the evolution of where we are going. There are appendices in the back of our submission which contain information on the specifications under development. The fastest specification at the moment is just over 10 Gbps. In the context of short-range, we are seeing great speeds. To transfer that into the longer-range radios takes time. Regarding where this is going, however, and based on the technology shifts experienced to date, there is no reason to doubt that trend and trajectory will not continue.