Victorian clinics get 86km wireless link

South Australian integrator MIMP has launched what it believes is the world's longest commercial wireless broadband link, linking radiology centres in Victoria's Ballarat and Geelong in one 86km hop.

Allan Aitchison, general manager at MIMP, said the $400,000, 40Mb/s full duplex wireless link would supersede ADSL and ISDN technology for large, private Victoria-based radiology practice Lake Imaging.

“I'm not sure exactly how many users they expect, but they handle big files, [such as X-rays], between 30MB and 600MB in size,” he said.

The new link used best of breed Cisco and Enterays switching, RF Industries antennae and wireless equipment from Brisbane-based EM Solutions to link Lake Imaging clinics in Geelong, Ballarat and Melton. ADSL would continue to be used as backup technology in case of wireless failure, Aitchison added.

The wireless WAN was expected to be extended to Lake Imaging practices in Bacchus Marsh, Gisborne and a western Melbourne suburb, Caroline Springs, by Christmas, he said.

Aitchison said he had looked far and wide and Googled everywhere but couldn't find evidence of any longer commercial wireless broadband link anywhere in the world. The only longer ones he had found were much slower or using quite different technologies, he said.

“Interesting things happened with [our] link because it has positive tunnelling. So when the weather's bad it gets better,” Aitchison said.

Local ground formation characteristics had improved the transmission potential of wireless. Normally, bad weather meant bad wireless. “We couldn't believe it at first,” he said.

John Livingston, chief executive at Lake Imaging, said wireless WAN would help the radiology practice keep growing. Result turnaround times would be faster, he said.

“We've worked very hard to make sure the experience people get at any of our practices – spread over 150km – is what they can expect all the way through,” Livingston said. “We can link our three major hubs in Geelong, Ballarat and Melton to loadshare for transcription and reporting.”