Home is Where the Hub Is? Wireless Infrastructures and the Nature of Domestic Culture in Australia

Abstract

The commercial rhetoric that surrounds wireless infrastructure proposes to radically alter our everyday lives. A recent Telstra advertising campaign featuring images of a kombi van driving along an open road to the classic tune I’ve been everywhere suggests wireless infrastructure offers the ‘freedom’ of ‘true mobility’ (Telstra 2006). Other providers make claims of ‘convenience’, ‘no worries flexibility’ and ‘always on’ connectivity to signal the ease and ubiquity of the service (See Optus 2006; Unwired 2006) . On the most basic level WiFi and WiMAX technologies enable the transfer of high-speed data wirelessly and operate via electromagnetic signals broadcast ABsTRAcT