Mobile broadband spectrum battles

Following on from Viviane Reding's comments last week, the European Commission has formally opened a consultation period on how the digital switchover spectrum should be managed on a pan-EU level. Predictably, given the success of GSM, they are trying a repeat performance with mobile broadband.

Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden and, of course, Finland have already committed to releasing some of the digital dividend spectrum for mobile broadband... and as we've seen from the Digital Britain report, the UK is heading in a similar direction too.

However, the point isn't that regulators are making spectrum available for mobile broadband, the point is what spectrum is available. We're seeing auctions at 2.6Ghz, refarming of 900mhz and now 790-862mhz (the so-called 'digital dividend' band).

You can see why the Commission is claiming that at extra €30 billion in economic benefits could be realised through continued EU co-ordination.

However, this all brings me back to a point I raised last month - who manages the spectrum? Is it the national regulator (you only need to look at Finland to see a regulator happy to plough their own furrow)? Is it the ITU? Well, it should be the ITU. Afterall, its of limited use having an LTE dongle that only works in the. We may as well go back to CDMA v. GSM battle of yesteryear.

So you can see why the European Commission is getting involved. But there are much bigger stakes to play for than just what happens to the old analogue TV spectrum. If mobile broadband is going to deliver real economic benefits, we need to think much bigger. And the ITU needs to step up to the mark.

Digital Britain - what it means for mobile operators

Yesterday's publication of the Digital Britain report has predictably been met with headlines about the imposition of a broadband ‘levy’ (or ‘tax’ to you and me) to help fund the future investment in a national high speed internet infrastructure. But, as the appointment of Martha Lane Fox as ‘Digital Inclusion Champion’ perhaps mischievously suggests, is this all a little bit of a lastminute strategy?

There are some interesting points contained within the report (Martha's appointment not being one of them!), not least the news that ISPs are going to be made responsible for policing their own subscribers. This is maybe not such good news for the ISPs, but for anyone selling DPI-related products, it can only be a good thing ... but more on this in a later post.

One area that hasn't received much attention thus far has been what it had to say about mobile networks. There has been some moaning that mobile is just being seen as a stop-gap solution until fixed networks can sort themselves out and deliver the requisite speeds (a heady 2Mbps) to the more remote, broadband-deprived parts of the country. However, I think that's a bit harsh, to be honest.

The report not only acknowledges that next generation mobile networks will be able to deliver data rates of up to 100Mbps, but clearly says that both 3G and LTE have a key role to play in delivering the goal of universal broadband coverage.

What is of perhaps more significance though is:

• WiMAX is essentially dead in the UK. While it advocates "the immediate release of WiMAX-suitable 2.6Ghz unpaired TDD spectrum for auction", the reports lays its cards on the table and states that there is "an encouraging consensus amongst incumbent mobile operators for the mobile broadband networks to be based on either 3G or LTE. This does not preclude a new entrant using other technologies, such as WiMAX, but in the highly competitive UK mobile radio market it is highly unlikely that such a new entrant would have the market power to de-stabilise the vital standardisation that underpins national and international mobile roaming for UK users."

• The 'Big Auction' for 2.6Ghz paired FDD spectrum (i.e. the spectrum for LTE) is set for mid-2010. But, there is still a big debate to be had over spectrum refarming before this can happen. Essentially, if Vodafone or O2 (who occcupy 900Mhz spectrum for their GSM services) want any 800Mhz spectrum for future mobile broadband services they will have to trade in their 2G spectrum. The reason, simply, is that the economic advantages of 900Mhz over 1800Mhz (greater cell coverage etc.) are such that the regulator has to balance it out so T-Mo and Orange aren't penalised. So the auction of 800Mhz and deployment of LTE rests on how easily 900Mhz can be refarmed.
  

• In a bid to drive universal mobile broadband coverage and so get 3G services as nationwide as 2G, the terms of the 3G licences are going to change from time limited to indefinite in order to give operators a chance to see an ROI from extending their 3G coverage. What's more, the Digital Britain report seems to favour network sharing in the sub-1Ghz spectrum as a way of expediting this network expansion, not least because lowering the cost of delivering broadband coverage to the last 10% of the UK is critical given that they are so well dispersed and "not a viable market" on their own.
  

Overall, the Digital Britain report seems positive for mobile operators. I've heard murmurings of people saying LTE could solve all the problems and so we wouldn't need to pay the 'broadband tax' to bankroll building a nationwide high speed fixed network, but realistically this was never going to be the case. Any anyway, the economics of delivering mobile broadband in remote areas is still something that needs help from the regulator to balance.

Either way, with several important spectrum issues to be resolved over the next 12 months, it's clear that there is still much to play for in the role mobile networks will have in policies to finally deliver a universal high speed internet in the UK.

Who manages the spectrum?

Spectrum is again dominating the headlines but this time it is the regulators themselves who are in the news. As a child, I was always told that children should be seen but not heard - and I can't help thinking regulators should be the same. Their impact should be seen, but they should never be the headline makers themselves.

In a week when Europe goes to the polls to choose who will the lucky passengers to board the EU gravy train, sorry, I mean be elected to represent us in the bastion of democracy and freedom that is the EU, it seems only right to have a look at the role the European Commission has to play in the great spectrum debate. In particular, where does their role begin and end?

The regulatory landscape used to be quite simple. The ITU would be responsible for the global management of the radio-frequency spectrum and satellite orbits, while on a national level each country's regulator would be responsible to managing spectrum usage. But things have got a bit more confused now that the EU has waded in and positioned itself as a supraregulator.

The issue has come to a head with the decision of the EU to award Inmarsat Ventures and Solaris Mobile enough radio spectrum to run trans-Europe satellite data networks, effectively forcing the hand of national regulator such as Ofcom who in theory still have the final say over how much each operator will have to run their network down to the UK's street level.

According to The Register, the spectrum concerned, two blocks around 2GHz, has been allocated to satellite data services by every country in Europe. The EU has been deciding, by beauty contest, who would offer the best connectivity to the remotest parts of the EU, and it's come down to Inmarsat and Solaris, but they'll still have to do regional deals with the regulators in each country, with Ofcom presenting one of the more serious obstacles.

But does the EU actually have the legal authority to make trans-national spectrum awards? And what will happen to the companies not awarded the right to operate a satellite service in the S-band spectrum? Well, they'll fight the decision in the courts, claiming the the European Commission does not have cross-border jurisdiction over spectrum. According to ICO Global Communications, the US satellite operator and one of the losers of the EU's beauty parade, only the ITU has the authority to allocate and manage spectrum and orbit resources on an international basis.

However, LTE spectrum auctions start to finally take place this year, you can see the EU wanting to poke its nose in more and more. Keen to replicate the success of GSM, which provided a consistent pan-European cellular coverage and enabled easy roaming between states, you can see the EU trying to influence spectrum auctions so that there is a similar pan-European mobile broadband coverage.

One route seems to be to simply open up the existing GSM spectrum for use by UMTS-based systems. Back in April, the EU amended the GSM Directive to open it up for HSPA deployment (see my earlier blog on this) in a policy known as spectrum refarming. National regulators are following suit with Swiss regulator ComCom announcing that it is enabling all three licensees to use their existing 900MHz frequency also for UMTS applications (although obviously they're not in the EU!).

So, taken together, we can arguably see that not only is the 900MHz spectrum being lined up for mobile broadband, but also that the European Commission is prepared to be increasingly activist in issues of EU spectrum and so may even go as far as mandating it.

Where does this leave the ITU? Well, I had the privilege of meeting the ITU a couple of month's ago and I must admit I left feeling a little underwhelmed as to whether they actually have any clear vision of what they are doing. It seems as if they are content to leave regional spectrum issues to the appropriate regional governmental authorities and instead focus on the more worthy issues of communications poverty in disconnected parts of the world.

The way seems to be clear for the EU to take a lead on European spectrum issues - pending, of course, the legal challenge mounted by ICO.

Putting GSM out to grass?

The decision of the European Parliament to amend the GSM Directive on what technology can be used in the 900Mhz band of spectrum seems to have passed unnoticed by much of the media. The reality is, however, that after years of lobbying, it is a potentially a very significant decision that deserves more attention (and I don't often say positive things like that about EU decisions!).

The GSA has gone on the record as saying that "this groundbreaking spectrum agreement in Brussels enables more Europeans to benefit from mobile broadband services. It is a clear signal to all regulators to prepare the path in their respective markets for a new wave of HSPA deployments in the 900 MHz band." 'Spectrum refarming' as the policy is known will finally enable the rollout of mobile broadband to rural and semi-urban areas because (and excuse my idiot's attempt at physics), the lower frequency of the 900Mhz waves mean they travel further, and so the cells are bigger.

So it's all good news right? The digital divide is going to be bridged.

Well, yes and no. Look at the GSMA site and you'd think all is hunkydory. According to the GSMA, spectrum refarming has a number of potential benefits more mobile operators, including changing the economics of rural mobile broadband, stimulating capital investment (like operators are keen on CAPEX right now) and improved in-building penetration.

Oh, that's right. Weren't femtocells meant to solve the problem of poor in-building coverage with 3G? Well, at 900Mhz, it's not a problem any more. But that's ok, because there's still LTE femtocells...

Or maybe not. The GSA and GSMA both predict a new wave of HSPA deployments in the 900Mhz band ... it begs the question, with HSPA deployed at 900Mhz, the CAPEX has got to be lower than rolling out LTE. Sure, LTE maybe more efficient but if you can deliver mobile broadband services in two bands, the crunch point in capacity where LTE becomes a no-brainer is pushed further out.

The decision over spectrum refarming is important. But the ramifications are perhaps more far-reaching than some are admitting and the law of unexpected consequences will still hold true.