Ireland needs to move fast on 4G spectrum plans

bealtine

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/22339-ireland-needs-to-move-fast/

Ireland needs to get moving on the 900MHz spectrum issue, urges IrelandOffline. It has proposed creating a new single operator that will serve other mobile operators in managing 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum networks to 100pc of the country.

As news emerged today that UK regulator Ofcom has given mobile operators the green light to trde spectrum in a move that will increase mobile network capacity in the UK, the lobby group IrelandOffline has hit out at this country’s lack of clarity on the subject.

The 900Mhz slice of spectrum enabled the traditional 2G networks. But today as more and more devices are 3G-based and moves are afoot to move to 4G spectrum in the 1800MHz and 2100Mhz spectrum areas, it is high time the 900MHz spectrum is opened up.

“There is no reason why there should not be 100pc coverage in a small country such as Ireland by now. 100pc coverage was understandably not a condition of the original GSM licences owing to cost at the time of issue and no operator today is obliged to cover more than 85pc of the population...except that we all know they do.

“Nor were the original GSM licences amended to require 100pc coverage at any stage despite such an objective being a reasonable and proportionate one for any telecommunications regulator in a developed economy.

“We do not intend to go back to 85pc population coverage again because of some regulatory foul up by Comreg. 85pc population coverage in Ireland is circa 60pc geographic coverage,” IrelandOffline said.
One mobile network operator to serve all operators

IrelandOffline proposes voice and text should be 100pc available across the country between now and the expiry of the existing 9000MHz licences in 2013 and with 100pc 1800MHz spectrum coverage as distinct from 70pc to 80pc today.

It says universal data services at a minimum of 128Kbps should be 100pc available after year one and that this should rise to 1Mbps after two years of a new regime commencing.

To achieve these targets would mean creating a shared radio access network (RAN) owned by one company (RANCO) that will install the required masts in locations operators don’t view as viable today, or they could provide existing masts to the RANCO in return for equity.

IrelandOffline argues that it would be much cheaper to supply 100pc of national wireless coverage on one network.

“This network will require 4000 cells on day one and up to 10,000 cells within 2 years. Operators can compete with their own network in cities and large towns, which is where they want to compete. Geographically 80pc of Ireland is a burden for any mobile operator and they make their money in the remaining 20pc
“It is desirable that [the] RANCO is to be given the Universal Service Obligation in areas where ADSL is not available or programmed to be delivered and also in SAC/SPA and National Parks where population is low and where planning constraints are onerous.

“RANCO is to provide low latency (not mobile) services in these area in addition to mobile based (3GPP standard) technologies.”

IrelandOffline says the existing proposal from ComReg is to shut down a working network that has 100pc population coverage today and replace it with one or two networks that will initially only support 85pc coverage.

“The loss of service will be more profoundly felt in rural areas,” it warned.

It urges that RANCO consultation and creation must predate any spectrum auctions and that the NewERa NGN plan must ahave a single network design to plug their fibre backhaul into.

“Time is running short. Hop to it Comregy before you destroy the two most valuable networks in Ireland come 2013. In genuinely advanced countries none of this matters, they have already licenced their new Mobile Spectrum and rolled out their networks. We have not even started the regulatory process,” IrelandOffline said.

John Kennedy

bealtine

This is a report on this press release:

http://irelandoffline.org/2011/06/another-fine-mess-you-made-of-things-comreg/

clohamon

Excellent.

A few queries though.

1. Can Ranco be designated a USP if it doesn't own the spectrum license?
2. Can Ranco compete with its owners in the cities on the same spectrum?
3. How can Ranco be forced to make future technology upgrades in the absence of competition?
4. What body would evaluate the legacy mast network for the purposes of allocating shares in Ranco?
5. Does Comreg need new powers to regulate the capital structure and ownership of Ranco?
6. Can Comreg have anything to do with the management of Ranco while at the same time being the regulator?
7. Has this proposal been submitted to Comreg?

watty

Ericsson has demonstrated LTE Advanced in Sweden this week, delivering speeds 10x that of regular LTE - over 900 MB/s in fact - by aggregating carrier spectrum into bigger blocks. According to Ericsson, that offers not only higher potential top-speeds, but better performance even when the network is congested.

The ONLY way to do mobile Data is have each Spectrum band as a single Block managed by one Wholesale operator.

The Digital Dividend (790MHz to 870MHz) and old GSM 900 (876MHz to 960MHz) should be treated as one block. One Wholesale Operator / RAN.

The "all IP" and IP6 make this easy to manage.


Digiweb Flash-OFDM (876 & 921MHz, previously GSM-Tetra) and GSM-R (880 MHz and 926MHz) are in technical breach of licence as The F-OFDM is only in part of Dublin (National Licence) and GSM-R unused .

The SRD band at 868MHz can remain as is in middle of a new guard band (instead of current empty space below 921MHz and above GSM uplink).

960 - 872 = 88 MHz Downlink.
862 - 790 = 72 MHz uplink.

Add one more TV channel to uplink = 80MHz, just 4 x LTE 20MHz channels up (Each TV channel or Digital MUX is 8MHz)
Downlink is 4 x LTE

Proper LTE is 20MHz + 20MHz PER CHANNEL. Less than this just gives 3G performance.

Ideally you want maybe another 2 x 20MHz Channels. Extend Downlink to be 872 - 992 MHz and uplink to be 742 to 862 MHz. It's not as if we need the extra TV channel space. That gives 6 x 20MHz LTE channels. ONLY. Really an absolute minimum for 1st generation LTE, never mind LTE Advanced. Even that will not deliver Broadband. But it will be typically 5 to 10 times better that using only the E-GSM part of band split to 3 operators and Digital Dividend separate.

The remaining UHF TV band 470MHz to 742 MHz gives 272 MHz = 34 allocations. That easily allows 3 or more Multiplexes nationally using 34 allocations. There will never be viable Pay TV on Irish DTT, so 3 Multiplexes is fine.

Mike 1972

Is 100% coverage technically possible given that terrestrial broadcast TV coverage is only (at most) 98% (and theyve been rolling out their network since the early sixties) ?

watty

No, 100% population coverage isn't possible. 100% Geographic is even harder.

For a Mobile system Geographic coverage is more important than population as people can be out driving, sailing, walking, cycling. For Fixed Broadcast such as TV, Population coverage is more important.

The 1st 70% of population can be done with less than 40% Geographic.

To go from "proper" 90% population to "proper" 95% needs nearly double number of masts. Then to go from 95% Population to 95% Geographic needs many more masts.

Broadcast coverage is easier than Mobile as you are not limited on Power or height or coverage area. Mobile MUST limit power and height (coverage) even on downlink to avoid inter-cell interference.

Avoiding inter-cell interference on 1800MHz or 2100MHz is much easier than on 750MHz to 960MHz (old TV "digital dividend" + GSM). At 750MHz to 960MHz the modem/handset signal easily goes to / from wrong cell as it's not a directional aerial. Fixed Wireless would use the spectrum over 8x better as it uses directional roof top aerial rather than ground level omni-directional aerial.