Electric fences are a problem with POTS when they are poorly designed and maintained. The major problem with ADSL in rural areas is the distance from the nearest enabled exchange - only a relatively small number of rural people are within the 5-7 km distance that ADSL will reach. It is likely that wireless technologies will be necessary to reach anyone more than this distance for an exchange and for some satellite will be the only practical solution. According to Fonterra, there could be as many as 5,000 farms (probably not dairy farms) in this category. --- Frank March Senior Specialist Adviser, IT Policy Group (and member of the PROBE project team) Ministry of Economic Development, PO Box 1473, Wellington, New Zealand Phone (+64 4) 474 2908; Fax (+64 4) 474 2659; Mobile (+64) 21 042 9205 -----Original Message----- From: Cameron Kerr [mailto:cameron.kerr(a)paradise.net.nz] Sent: Tuesday, 1 July 2003 00:35 To: nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Subject: Re: [nznog] Multicast status in New Zealand On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 11:20:32PM +1200, Lin Nah wrote:

Some of the target audience in the groups above tend to live in rural areas and it is a challenge for them to get a 56k dialup connection going (without worrying about line quality, electric fences etc) let alone worry about high speed internet. Hence the need for Project Probe.

That raises an interesting question. If a primary problem with POTS is with electric fences creating a large amount of interference, how on earth is ADSL going to fare??? Surely its higher frequencies would be even more messed up. Or would they use wireless for people in that position? _______________________________________________ Nznog mailing list Nznog(a)list.waikato.ac.nz http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/nznog http://www.govt.nz - connecting you to New Zealand central & local government services Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the Ministry of Economic Development. This message and any files transmitted with it are confidential and solely for the use of the intended recipient. If you are not the intended recipient or the person responsible for delivery to the intended recipient, be advised that you have received this message in error and that any use is strictly prohibited. Please contact the sender and delete the message and any attachment from your computer.