advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

Telkom “couldn’t give away” LLU if it wanted to: GSMA’s African head on TVWS, regulation and more

The interview’s over, and as we shake hands and stand to depart Mortimer Hope laughs.

“Just in case there’s any doubt,” he says, “I don’t like TV White Spaces.”

Not that I did have any doubt about Hope’s feelings towards recent trials of TV White Spaces (TVWS) or, indeed, unregulated broadband services in general. It wasn’t a focus of our discussion, but it did rather take over somewhat – albeit in a generally good natured way. And for good reason: as part of its commitments under the National Broadband Policy, SA Connect, ICASA and others are looking hard at the idea of using TVWS as a low cost option for getting more people online in South Africa. Beyond that, communications regulators around the world are warming to the technology, and Hope doesn’t like that much.

That’s because Hope, once head of regulation at Vodacom, is now the director for Africa at GSMA, the global industry body for the mobile phone industry.

GSMA is big, and GSMA is powerful. With over a thousand members ranging from infrastructure vendors to network operators to handset manufacturers, it’s the primary forum for different parties to hammer out their differences and agree on standards so that a Sony phone on Cell C’s network can talk to a Samsung phone on Verizon in the US, for example.

GSMA organises one of the world’s most important technology trade shows – Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona every year – and it also spends a lot of time lobbying governments around the world on its members’ behalf.

We’ve met up to discuss the organisation’s position on wireless policy in Africa ahead of the World Radio Conference (WRC-15) in November this year. WRC is only held every three or four years, but it’s where big decisions about global radio spectrum get made.

The hope for GSMA is that at WRC four new bands will be assigned to mobile networks for 5G broadband. The fact that some of those proposed encroach on C-band frequencies currently reserved for the satellite communications industry means it could be a bit of a bunfight, but with spectrum capacity for mobile internet services at capacity – especially in countries that haven’t freed up the old analogue TV spectrum yet – extra bandwidth is the main concern of operators across the world today.

And here in South Africa, of course, it’s even worse as the chances of the Digital Switchover – when analogue TV broadcasts are turned off and their precious wavelengths reused for internet services – happening any time soon are remote.

In the end, though, Hope and I don’t even get round to talking about WRC-15 specifics. While regulators and governments drag their heels, I ask, shouldn’t we spend more time investigating alternatives like TVWS?

TVWS – or dynamic spectrum allocation as it’s becoming more commonly known – is a method for finding and using unlicensed bandwidth in the radio frequencies assigned to analogue television broadcasts. Essentially, it’s a way for internet companies to access that particular spectrum while government dawdles on the digital switchover. As a potential force for connecting the unconnected, it’s a lot more convincing a technology than Google Loon or Facebook’s internet drones.

When it comes to TVWS, though, GSMA is in an interesting position. On the positive side, GSMA has a vested interest in getting more people online, just like national government and technology companies.

The problem with TVWS is that, while it sounds good on paper, it’s not really being exploited anywhere in the world. Mobile networks and GSMA partners, says Hope, are reluctant to invest in the technology because they see it as unreliable: available frequencies are subject to change and interference. They’d need to spend a lot of money to make it work, and couldn’t guarantee the kind of service their customers want using it even if they did.

Governments and technology companies like Microsoft and Google – both of whom have invested in TVWS trials around Africa – have less of an issue with quality of service. Their primary mandate is expanding coverage of basic services, not acquiring high value, high bandwidth data customers. But when challenged that technology trials have shown that TVWS is an effective way of expanding the broadband network, Hope is actually the most convincing spokesperson I’ve met at GSMA on the subject.

“The problem with TVWS for commercial installations,” Hope says, “Is that we want and need dedicated spectrum to provide services. If you have to invest R2bn in a network upgrade for a new technology, you aren’t going to use TVWS.”

Especially one, he adds, that might be turned off soon anyway.

Perhaps more to the point, while the TV broadcast spectrum is regulated, TVWS-based internet would be unlicensed. GSMA members don’t like that, because they spend a lot of money for the right to offer 3G and LTE services through the cell network, and the idea of opening themselves up to competition from technology companies experimenting in the area isn’t attractive. As well as Microsoft and Google, at least one major networking firm in South Africa is also investing in TVWS research.

Unfair competition in telecoms is also a big issue for Hope, and he happily weighs in on the conversation around ‘over the top’ (OTT) providers like WhatsApp, which use data connectivity to effectively undercut services previously offered by mobile operators.

The problem, he says, is not that OTT services expect a free ride – which is an issue for some of his members – but as with TVWS the playing field isn’t level.

“What people forget,” he explains, “Is that in some countries SMS communications are taxed. Where that’s the case, OTTs must be taxed too. Same service, same rules.”

He saves his real ire, however, for the African Union (AU). One piece of news from the recent conference in Johannesburg – which was overshadowed by the Al-Bashir debacle – was that a proposal was made to require countries who can’t afford steep increases in AU fees to raise the money through new taxation – including, specifically, tax on SMS.

“SMS is dying out anyway,” Hope sighs, “This would just push people to other services faster.”

I wouldn’t want to paint Hope as being purely reactionary, though. Despite some concerns from members he’s very keen on the principle of reducing handset costs and expanding the number of smartphone users. He has some good ideas about how to increase competition in fixed line services too: including that every road newly built or recently maintained should, by law, have cabling ducts for fibre built into it.

He’s also positive about the ideas put forward in SA Connect for new infrastructure in rural areas to be built according to the principle of “open access” so that they are more commercially viable for operators.

What he’s less keen on, however, is that Telkom has been chosen by government to implement the National Broadband Plan.

“We have concerns that Telkom is the ‘lead agency’,” Hope says, quoting from the recent Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services decision. “We don’t know what that means, for a start. If that means Telkom is building the mobile broadband network, well people don’t trust them.”

Hope may have a point. Telkom’s recent promotion – offering uncapped LTE access for just R599 in urban areas – has been much less successful than one might assume. Hope says that you only need to look at what’s happened with fixed line broadband to see the level of distrust people have for the incumbent.

“Telkom dragged its feet on open access, and look what happened,” Hope says, “Other operators are now building fibre networks. Telkom said they don’t want to do Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) so everyone went around it, now operators wouldn’t want LLU if they were offered it tomorrow.”

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement