ComReg proposes two national wireless broadband licences

damien

Yes Muck another ComReg consultation:

http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg04107.pdf

The proposals in this document provide the basis for increasing competition through the licensing of wideband digital mobile data services in the 420 MHz and 900 MHz bands. One of the objectives of this consultation is particularly to encourage the rollout of services in areas that are not currently adequately serviced by other technologies. ComReg believes that this would be a valuable complement to our existing initiatives in this area.

According to ElectricNews:

The regulator is proposing to make spectrum available in both the 420 MHz and 900 MHz frequency bands for up to two national licences in each band to provide services of between 384 kilobits and 500 kilobits per second.

Is this going to piss off the 3G people ?

jmcc

damien.m wrote:

Yes Muck another ComReg consultation:
http://www.comreg.ie/_fileupload/publications/ComReg04107.pdf
Is this going to piss off the 3G people ?

The who? Actually the ones who may get pissed off by this are the Group Broadband Scheme people. Coverage at 420/900 MHz is a lot easier than at 2G4 and above. These could be very valuable licences to the incumbents and I would not be surprised to see Eircom trying to get its grubby hands on them.

Regards...jmcc

spongebob

There have been some rumours about a Tetra / CDMA450 type licencing round . Portugal has a live CDMA450 carrier even if it is really an American technology not an ETSI one .

An explanation of CDMA 450 and its 50km radius cells can be found here .

http://www.telecomasia.net/telecomasia/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=94929

It is extremely spectrum efficient which is why any Regulator should give it a chance. It has a great Mhz per Mbit ratio. Each cell with a radius of 50Km gives coverage of 7000 Km2 or more. 10 of them could NOMINALLY cover the whole country .

"Its biggest advantage, as Gorham puts it, is “coverage, coverage and more coverage.” A cell size is typically 50-60 km (or even 120 km, in one case off the New Zealand coast). By comparison, W-CDMA cell sizes are a puny 1 or 2 km in radius."

I have no issue with it (save to wish the project well) as long as the coverage requirement is 100% or 95% Geographic in view of the low number of basestations needed and the general flatness of much of Ireland.

The 3G operators can go **** themselves. After the crap that 2 of them spewed about the nomadic BB proposal last year in the 1800 Mhz band (another 500kbit technology) I have no sympathy for them . I may change my mind about o2 if their small scale Wimax buildout where they have no 3G obligation shows evidence of joined up thinking and joined up coverage.

M

spongebob

jmcc wrote:

The who? Actually the ones who may get pissed off by this are the Group Broadband Scheme people. Coverage at 420/900 MHz is a lot easier than at 2G4 and above. These could be very valuable licences to the incumbents and I would not be surprised to see Eircom trying to get its grubby hands on them.

Regards...jmcc

This is not optimal for Eircom. The handsets are made for this spectrum by the likes of Huawei ....not Nokia . I have never heard of a fixed / mobile combo handset ........essentially Dect at home and Tetra/CDMA450 outside .

Eircom would have to subsidise the hell out of them to get them going.

It is a good nomadic option and a serious challenge to 3G and its per Kb pricing model IMO . The equipment costs and the complexity of the technology make it sub optimal for GBS deployments .

M

jmcc

Muck wrote:

This is not optimal for Eircom. The handsets are made for this spectrum by the likes of Huawei ....not Nokia . I have never heard of a fixed / mobile combo handset ........essentially Dect at home and Tetra/CDMA450 outside .

Eircom would have to subsidise the hell out of them to get them going.

It is a weird left field option for Eircom. It would give it a sort of mobile solution that may be better than taking over Meteor or buying airtime minutes. It would be a hell of a lock-in for Eircom as well. Though the Gombeen Man and his cronies have probably sweated Eircom's assets to such a critical level that it would have to borrow significantly to implement anything. They would be looking for a cheap, backdoor solution.

It is a good nomadic option and a serious challenge to 3G and its per Kb pricing model IMO . The equipment costs and the complexity of the technology make it sub optimal for GBS deployments .

The problem with GBS is that the 2G4+ technology is unsuited to the Irish terrain. 3G is still at a vulnerable stage in its evolution and this technology could be very disruptive.

Regards...jmcc

spongebob

I make it they can equip 25 towers nationally to cover 30km radius for E250k each .

National network for E10m and charge landline rates IN LOCAL CELL and mobile rather than national rates out of your home cell.

Lash these out subsidised http://www.mobilecomms-technology.com/projects/radiomovel/radiomovel2.html

Not an insane proposition for Eircom TBH but not a data proposition which is what Comreg seem to be after.

Then there is a yoke that could support FIA in certain cases !

http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/April2004/6961.htm

MMMmmmmm . Then again Eircom made complete sh1te of all the WLL and Rurtel and 3.5Ghz spectrum they ever got so why change now

M

SkepticOne

Eircom would certainly go for these licences. Not good for the country, though.

SkepticOne

jmcc wrote:

It is a weird left field option for Eircom. It would give it a sort of mobile solution that may be better than taking over Meteor or buying airtime minutes. It would be a hell of a lock-in for Eircom as well. Though the Gombeen Man and his cronies have probably sweated Eircom's assets to such a critical level that it would have to borrow significantly to implement anything. They would be looking for a cheap, backdoor solution.

From the point of view of stifling competition, these licences would be very attractive to Eircom.

If Eircom have any sense of responsibility towards their shareholders they should go for them. They can worry about the licence conditions later - they are easy to get around with ComReg anyway.

damien

ComReg to offer new wireless broadband licences
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news4a.nv?storyid=single3999

29.10.2004 - A number of international mobile operators have shown interest in potentially obtaining licences to offer broadband mobile data services in two new hitherto unlicensed bands of the radio spectrum, the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) said yesterday.
The operators, whose names were not disclosed, are all non-Irish firms currently offering services over the Public Access Mobile Radio (PAMR) – also known as ‘business radio’ – band in other countries and which are now looking to enter the Irish market. None of the three GSM mobile operators in Ireland has so far expressed an interest in taking up a licence, ComReg said.

At a press briefing at ComReg’s HQ in Dublin, ComReg said that it planned to offer a total of four national licences – two in the 420MHz band and a further two in the 900MHz band – as well as possibly offering several regional licences if there is enough spectrum left over. The bands were made available in June this year by the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), the international body governing spectrum management, which designated them for PAMR services.

According to ComReg, there are situations where users require specialised data services delivered via a dedicated data-only mobile network rather than public cellular mobile services. Technological advances in recent years mean that these PAMR services can offer data speeds in the hundreds of kilobits per second, at least as fast as 3G technology, which runs at speeds of up to 384kbps or roughly equivalent to DSL, the most widely deployed broadband technology in Ireland.

Dave Gunning, director of market framework at ComReg, emphasised that unlike cellular networks whose business model required mass-market penetration, PAMR promoted niche applications aimed at vertical markets and the provision of residential internet access. He speculated that market entrants would initially target small towns without DSL access and business parks as possible early profitable revenue opportunities.

Gunning added that ComReg had had discussions with a number of international operators. “We’ve had a level of interest that we think is real,” he said. There are currently PAMR operators in Portugal, Spain and Eastern Europe but Gunning would not confirm that these are the same operators with which ComReg had been in talks.

ComReg is now inviting firm expressions of interest from potential licensees during a consultation period that will last until 11 December. Gunning expected that ComReg would be ready to announce the next stage of the licensing process in early January 2005 and if demand for licences was over-subscribed, ComReg would run a competition for them.

Licences will cost €1,000 per base station for a national licence and €2,000 per base station for a regional licence. Jim Connolly, senior manager for spectrum management at ComReg, guesstimated that a minimum of 150 base stations would be needed to give an operator even skeleton national coverage, which would put the bare minimum investment needed at €150,000.

ComReg also gave a progress report on another recently introduced wireless broadband frequency band, Fixed Wireless Access Local Area (FWALA). Since FLAWA spectrum was made available in September 2003, some 79 licences have been awarded to nine different operators. Four of the licensees are in the Dublin region with the rest being clustered mainly in the Midlands.

According to ComReg, some 3,700 corporate, SME and residential customers have so far been signed up to data services whose speeds average 500kbps for residential customers rising to about 2MB for corporate users. FWA technology, which operates in the 3.5GHz band, offers coverage of between 15km and 30km depending on topography and other factors and is mainly targeted at areas in which there is no DSL coverage.

ComReg said there were a number of benefits associated with wireless broadband from a new operator’s perspective, including rapid speed of deployment, relatively low infrastructure cost (compared with fixed line and fibre-based broadband), instant connection for customers, and scalability or ability to expand the network as new customers come on board.

Gunning said that ComReg was committed to extending the availability of broadband data services to the public to the greatest possible extent. “Our role is to ensure that consumers have choice,” he said. “Yes, you can have 3G but it’s important to have other options and we can enable these.”

tribble

Muck wrote:

. I have never heard of a fixed / mobile combo
handset ........essentially Dect at home and Tetra/CDMA450 outside .

oops, ignore this - i misread Mucks post.

jwt

It's a pity Comreg decided to put this up as a proposal rather than just give the licences to parties that..

Are expressing a willingness to use these frequencies

Have the financial clout to make it happen

Have proven the technology in Europe and Asia



I'm willing to bet that Eircom O2 and Vodafone will snap these up as fast as possible and then sit on them just to save face from the 3G fiasco.

And what's more ComReg will sit on their hands and claim that they are only doing their job and following instructions!

And if it ends going down the beauty contest route, well Depsey's comments on prime time regarding hindsight will be shown to be just another sound bite.

Here we have a technology that can deliver wireless BB to 90% of the country geographically, at a reasonable price. Any bets on whether ComReg are going to f**k it up once more.

Watch this issue very closely, you may get to see Ireland's opportunity to catchup in BB terms smashed on the rocks of bureaucracy.

John