Backhaul, November 2014: the industry 25 and 10 years ago

25 YEARS AGO. The cover of the December/January 1989-90 issue of What's New in Radio Communications featured the (now very clunky looking) Bird Electronics model 4391 digital wattmeter from Vicom. The back cover featured the apparently 'mindboggling' KL series VHF/UHF series base stations from Unilab in Perth.

Elsewhere in the magazine we carried news of NEC winning a contract from the Electricity Commission of NSW to replace its 22-hop microwave system between Sydney and Tamworth; the Quiktrak system that told police when a car had been stolen (using strategically placed radios in urban areas that activated transponders in vehicles, and triangulated their positions); and advertiser Autophone Australia was pushing the recent arrival in Australia of Zetron products and systems.

10 YEARS AGO. The cover of the November/December 2004 issue of Radio Comms Asia-Pacific featured the release of Kenwood's FleetDispatch software. Inside, we carried news of a research project in the UK to stream high-quality video images from surveillance cameras direct to police officers. Known as Vigelant, if implemented the system would need a “national network for high bandwidth information exchange with interfaces to both mobile and rapidly deployable units", which in turn would require a “flexible national network incorporating broadband technology including WLAN, satellite, fibre and direct-link microwave components". Sound familiar? And what, no mention of LTE?

And Bob Horton, acting chairman of the ACA (now ACMA) summarised the agency's recently released report into spectrum use in Australia. Some numbers: the Australian economy was $12.3 billion larger in 2002-03 than it would have been without telecoms regulatory reforms introduced in 1997; the reforms resulted in 54,000 extra jobs and a 97% increase in the output of the telecommunications industry