A THORNLANDS inventor wants to build seven radio towers in a bid to boost internet reception across Southern Moreton Bay Islands using US military technology.
But first he needs to get a carrier licence to provide the transmission infrastructure.
Greg Walter, whose company Moreton Bay ISP was registered last Monday, said his idea had already piqued the interest of 70 bay islanders frustrated with slow internet speeds on Russell, Macleay, Lamb and Karragarra islands.
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He said a single tower earmarked for Karragarra Island within the next three months would beam high-speed wireless to homes, businesses and recreational areas within antenna line-of-sight.
Subsequent phases, to be rolled out from March next year, would involve the use of “multi-polar signal processing” and additional towers to expand reach.
Mr Walter said he had spent the past three years investigating the distortion-reducing technology used by US Coast Guard and other enforcement agencies.
He said the approach would enable Wi-Fi beams to cut across trees and other objects, making it vastly superior to the line-of-sight technique.
“Using special radio equipment which was originally built to serve large US military bases, the speeds are expected to exceed those of NBN-fixed wireless,” he said.
“It has a four-time greater range. There’ll be full saturation of the islands by 2019.”
Mr Walter said his project, supported in-principle by the Bay Islands Chamber of Commerce, would mean faster internet for residents, businesses and tourists.
While a capped number of clients would pay for the service offering speeds ranging from 25 to 100 megabits per second, visitors could tap in at public areas including parks and ferry terminals.
“This means the islands become like one big resort with seamless roaming from home to motel to many community precincts,” he said.
Mr Walter said the internet provided to the islands would be transmitted from Brisbane via fibre to Redland Bay.
Bay Islands Chamber of Commerce vice president Col McInnes said faster internet speeds, if delivered by Moreton Bay ISP, would help existing businesses.
“The most important thing is reliability,” he said.
“It will have a fiscal economic benefit to islanders, making businesses already there more sustainable.”
Mr McInnes said service provided by Moreton Bay ISP would rival the NBN, which had not yet been rolled out across all of the SMBIs.
Mr Walter said 10 per cent of profits generated by Moreton Bay IPS would also be handed back to the SMBI community via the Bay Island Chamber of Commerce.
