A full year ahead for the RFUANZ

I am pleased to report the Annual General Meeting of the RFUANZ was held on 11 November via Zoom. The remit to change our Rules to include ‘electronic’ mailing of all AGM notices, ballot voting and termination of membership was passed. This is another step forward with technology and ensures efficiencies can be made going forward.

The election of the 2021 committee saw four newcomers, Justin Wonderlick (Vital), Steffan Kennerley (CSE-Genesis), Carl Garner (Ashley Communications) and Daniel Erickson (Amateur Radio Emergency Communications), joining myself as Chairman, David Johnson as Vice Chairman, Mike Head as Treasurer, Dale Roberts and John Laughton as committee members, and Debby Morgan as Secretary. Although the committee now numbers 10 in total, often throughout the year for various reasons some members are unable to continue. The additional number will allow the business of the organisation to continue without any further glitches, which is why the chair accepted all 10 members.

Training continues to be the main focus for 2020–21 for RFUANZ, with David Johnstone leading the initiative for the potential to establish a Level 4 qualification. This qualification would be more specific to the industry, but will require outside funding to develop. David has reached out to WISPA, TUANZ and RSM, with a broad agreement from them that training needs to be developed at this level. The seeking of financial assistance to do so is ongoing.

Finally, below is an interesting article that has been supplied to us, and approved for circulation, dealing with a new technology on the New Zealand landscape.

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What is Terragraph?

Gigabit fibre-like speeds are becoming an industry norm as global IP traffic looks to increase threefold over the next five years. The number of devices connected to the Internet is expected to double and physical fibre deployments will not always an option.

Terragraph is a technology that operates on the 60 GHz unlicensed band delivering fibre-like speeds. The resilient mesh technology enables a multi-node mesh network, allowing for built in signal re-routing to ensure high availability and reliability.

In markets where fibre access to consumers is cost prohibitive and slow to deploy due to factors such as permitting, trenching etc, Terragraph can be a better alternative to provide fibre-like connectivity at a significantly lower cost. It is also much faster to deploy and can be brought to market in a matter of weeks.

Using street-level mmWave radios, Terragraph leverages existing street furniture to create a wireless distribution network ideally suited for last-mile fixed access.

One benefit of Terragraph is faster time to market, with it being faster to deploy than wireline service because it mounts on existing Street Furniture and does not require costly Right of Way Permissions. Another benefit is that it can be easily scaled as demand grows, greatly reducing the upfront investment needed.

Terragraph is suitable for: high-capacity Wi-Fi; mobile backhaul; dense urban and suburban areas; smart cities; subdivisions and retirement villages; bandwidth-hungry carrier-grade projects; and smart security.

Corey Weir

Chairman

Radio Frequency Users Association of New Zealand