Melissa then heads off to Melbourne Road where she has an appraisal of a 3 bedroom townhouse with Mr & Mrs Croft and then onto a number of homes to change the QR-Code on some signage. These are the first of many stops for the day for Melissa, but it is by no means an extraordinary day – in fact it is just another day in the life of the modern real estate agent.

Whilst talking with the owners of the home Melissa showcases a presentation on her iPad and shows recent local sales to the Crofts that she prepared the evening before. After the presentation Melissa sets about doing her appraisal on her iPad and takes a couple of accompanying note style photos with a voice recording. She chat’s some more with the owners before saying her goodbyes, jumping in her car and heading off to her next appointment.

Before Melissa does this, she checks her emails and messages once more and uploads the appraisal to her head office with some voice notes, recorded conversations and instructions to her assistant.

Her next appointment is a photo and video shoot on The Strand, the house is a gorgeous Victorian mansion Melissa signed earlier in the previous week. Melissa takes a range of photography around the property, her weapon of choice is a Canon 8D and it takes breathtaking photography and True HD Video. Finishing the shoot, Melissa gets back in her car.

Her Canon camera is setup so that she can directly wirelessly beam both videos and photography to her server, matched against the appraised listing. These will be picked up and treated by the office multimedia staff before going live.

Note: After doing a number of courses, Melissa is now an accomplished photographer, she takes her job as a real estate agent seriously and photography is now a major part of that job and of course she wants to be the best, so she enrolls in a number of TAFE courses – just to stay ahead of the pack.

Her final stop for the day is a Open Home and there is a lot of interest from prospective buyers. It is a condition of entry into the home that each person enters their details into the system (and their perfect property match) and these details are matched against their ID – for security purposes.  Every person who enters the open home is added to her contact database and matched automatically against that listing.

Every Open Home Melissa impresses both prospective buyers and sellers with the systems she has employed. When a visitor to the Open Home gets home themselves a welcome email is sent automatically from the system with an invitation to join Melissa’s database and a chance to win an iPad a month if they join her subscription list.

Melissa has a number of similar meetings before heading home again. She may go into the head office later in the week, but this is no longer a necessity.

The Missing Link

What is missing from this equation? What is needed to fill the void? We have the first version of the iPad, cameras now wirelessly connect to servers, car stereos are now available in wireless hard drives versions.

The one thing missing is competition in our industry for true wireless broadband and the only way we are going to get the package we require is if we have true competition. Unfortunately the scenario the curent government is facing, is having to pay back tens of billions of our own money for something we once owned.

There is a massive lesson for everyone here. We should never sell public assets to a private company if that sale simply creates a monopoly, unfortunately we allow successive governments to do this and it has to stop. One only has to look across Australia where state and federal governments continually try to reap as much money as possible from the sale of assets (usually to pay of mismanaged debts), only to create monopolies that cost the taxpayer, even more money. Banks, airlines, airports, roads, power, water and lotto just to name a few.

$100 per month, unlimited Internet, unlimited wireless and unlimited local, national and mobile phone calls is what we all should be aiming at for one business user. There are billions in profit here for the right company to provide this service, but the only way for it to happen is to get true competition.

What we are now seeing are hungry Internet players thinking they can charge separately for packages (voice, internet and data).  We have to resist this and look for all you can eat plans or possibly think outside the square.

If the large Internet providers do not come up with the right plan, the other solution may well be Wimax. This would allow an agency like Sweeney’s to create a large pipe to their office and setup a wireless dish on their building and give access to all of their staff and families. This could connect everyone wirelessly up to 10-15 kilometres range from the office, allowing them to do everything they need wirelessly.

One thing is for sure, we need to hope the deal the government has just done with Telstra is supported wholeheartedly by the other players. Industry analyst Paul Budde is someone I look to for his analysis of Australia’s telecom industry and he is lukewarm on the deal but impressed with our current governments strategy.

So talk to your industry groups and ask them what are they doing about this, are they going to go into bat for all agents? Or will it be up to you individually as well?

It may take some time for this wireless standard to make inroads in Australia, particularly because Telstra will not support WIMAX, but with heavyweights such as Intel and just about every mobile phone maker onboard it could be a pretty dumb decision in the long term.

Telstra still has a problem because it still thinks like a monopoly, the days of proprietary technologies are over, the world is beginning to demand freedom of choice.

Many companies have already developed products with 802.16e in mind, cleverly thinking it was a fate accompli that is would one day be ratified and they have been proven correct.

I have been talking up WIMAX for quite some time and it will change the way Real Estate Agents do business across the world.

The new technology called WIMAX (for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) will allow Real Estate Agents (any business + home users) to receive high speed broadband wirelessly instead of over phone lines with the signal reaching around 45 kilometres.

The first wave of products using Intel’s wireless technology should be available this in Spring 2005 and we will see this supported by every manufacturer of modems/routers and mobile phones on the planet.

What do you need?
1. The first thing you will need is a broadband connection (which most agents have). Broadband speeds will be around 12 – 24 megabytes a second in most capital cities across Australia by then which will make it perfect for sharing.
2. The second thing will be an Antenna to distribute the signal
3. The third thing will be an Interface to control who you will share this connection with usernames, passwords as settings.

How will it work?
1. You will never need to logon from a vendors or buyers home, you will have Internet access with your mobile phone or laptop anywhere within 45 kilometres from your office.
2. As most people live within 45 kilometres from home businesses will be able to offer broadband to the homes of staff as well.

How much?
To set up an office should be around $500.00. With each user costing around an extra $100.00 per access card. In the future all laptops, computers and mobile phones will have the chips as standard, so the cost will come down very quickly.

The great thing about this technology is that Telstra’s stranglehold on our pockets will slip and we will see new players entering the market, we will also see VOIP really reach its market, being able to call staff for free anywhere within the range.

Bring it on!

Why will it work?
Intel and Nokia and a host of other companies are going to build the connection bridges on their computer chips so anyone who buys a device in late 2005, early 2006 will be WIMAX ready. The fact that it will cost less than AU $1000.00 to set up your own base station that can securely share data access to 100s – even 1000s of users.No more wires and no more Telstra.

Why is it so damn cool?
Unlike Wi Fi (which you may see at Airports, Coffee Shops) WIMAX signals can pass through clouds, trees and walls so you do not need direct line of site to the base station. Small communities can set up their own base station and offer it throughout their community (sell it maybe) so country towns will finally get in on the Internet revolution. It is also based on non proprietary standards so anyone can get into it (unlike 3G).

Who will suffer from WIMAX?
Think of companies like Hutchison (the 3 company) who paid millions and millions of dollars for the 3G spectrum, imagine how they feel to have an open standard to compete against. Imagine spending billions of dollars on equipment only to see Mrs Smith down the road becoming a competitor (don’t you just love it). SO all Telco’s will feel the heat with WIMAX, they will probably have to offer a mix of 3G and WIMAX just to survive.

Why is this so good for Agents?
Agents are road warriors! Their best work is performed out of the office and on the road. WIMAX will give them the ability to source critical information from any location, so they can spend more time out of the office and with vendors/buyers, where they make money, not sitting behind a desk waiting for the phone to ring. So whether it will be sending information (images, VR tours, files) directly to the server or accessing documents they will always be connected!

WIMAX bring it on!

However they have a limited range of about 30 metres.

Officially known as IEEE 802.16, WiMax has a range of up to 45 kilometres and at speeds of up to 70 megabits a second. This service has been around for a number of years but because of the set up cost being in excess of $25,000 it has not been able to take off.

But it is set to become one of the greatest choices for Real Estate Agents because of backing from industry giants, Intel, Nokia and Alcatel.

What will you need to make it work?
The first thing you will need is broadband internet access into your office, this can come from a variety of suppliers in the form of fixed line ADSL or even Wireless, which most agencies already have.

The next thing you will need is a base station and a pretty good firewall. Once you have this all you will need is devices such as capable Laptops (Intel Centrino) or PDA/Mobile phone.

You give the access to how many users you want whether at home or from work as long as they are within 45 kilometres of your office they will have access to email and web. Things like doing property reports, appraisals, uploading images from cameras and even your own telephone exchange will all be possible in the future.

The great thing about WIMAX is that users do not need direct line of site to the base station. This means as long as you are within range you can get access either sitting still or roaming.

I would think by the end of 2004 the total set up costs for this will be around the $2000.00 mark!

So if you hear the word WIMAX you should get excited!