Widespread deployment of mobile WiMAX is in the licensed (2.5MHz and 3.5MHz) bands. In the U.S., for example, Sprint Nextel has an extensive holding of 2.5GHz spectrum, which covers a very large percentage (roughly 85 percent) of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets. How does this affect municipalities?Widespread deployment of mobile WiMAX is in the licensed (2.5MHz and 3.5MHz) bands. In the U.S., for example, Sprint Nextel has an extensive holding of 2.5GHz spectrum, which covers a very large percentage (roughly 85 percent) of the households in the top 100 U.S. markets. The use of wireless technologies based on licensed bands, however, may place limitations on municipalities deploying city-wide networks.
With licensed spectrum, regulatory agencies, such as the FCC in the U.S., mandate rules that keep the systems operating in harmony. Ownership of licensed spectrum in a particular area means that only that license holder can operate in the spectrum in the defined area. This is good for the operator because it reduces competition, but it means that municipalities, if they choose to go with the licensed technology, end up “sole-sourcing” the wireless network from a single operator. In this situation, the municipality could find themselves at the mercy of the operator with little power when problems arise. The municipality, however, can have much more leverage if the operator is making use of city-owned mounting assets.
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Jim,
This would be true if the City has not mandated that the service provider follow the OSPN model. In the case of Grand Rapids, MI, they did and Clearwire is complying with that model.
Will be interesting to see if other WiMAX operators follow the OSPN model.
Karl
Jim,
At the IET‚Äôs WiMAX London 2007 last week this was one of the topics of discussion that came up in passing and in various forms (availability of spectrum for public services, provision of WiMAX in licensed and unlicensed bands). I would add a few more pro’s and con’s for licensing, from the discussion and personal experience. This is only a quick brain dump of course…and the issue of licensed vs unlicensed spectrum regulation is a topic which can carry ideological baggage: I personally find this unfortunate as it can prevent tax payers and newtroks subscribers getting value for the money. The points below are from the perspective of engineering/economics.
Pros
1) Scale economies. Where a service provider services a multi city region or nationwide (and we shouldn’t assume this has to be an incumbent cellular operator like Sprint Nextel), which subject to the right commercial conditions might be passed on to the municipality.
2) Interference protection. None of the issues of interference with self provided systems as you’ve posted about recently. This improves certainly of network quality and potentially increases range/capacity.
3) Higher power limits. Enabling extension of the network into lower population density areas, while still being cost effective.
4) Facilities based competition. Higher power and scale economies should make multiple 3rd party networks more feasible, which a municipality could choose between. I know of at least three operators looking at extensive WiMAX deployment in the US.
Cons
1) ‚ÄúRight size‚Äù licenses. I’m not sure if I’ve seen any regulator get this right in geography or bandwidth. Too many small licences reduces potential value and increases spectrum acquisition complexity, too few large licenses makes it impossible for an innovative small area deployment. Where licensing is localised there tends to be pressure towards aggregation. We’ve seen that over time in the US with cellular, and even during auctions like the 3.5GHz band in the UK (all 15 geographic licences acquired by a single bidder).
2) Municipal budgets. It’s difficult for public sector to bid against private sector for licences and win. Last week at the conference the UK police service and advisors to county councils gave Ofcom a hard time about this at 2.5GHz.
3) Border co-ordination. The smaller the licence region, the greater the proportion of area is subject to measures to reduce cross border interference, reducing the spectrums value through deployment restrictions.
4) Spectrum rationing. The biggest problem with licensing spectrum is freeing it from other uses, resulting in a spectrum scarcity pushing auction prices up, beyond the reach of lightweight innovative deployments. Broadcasters and defence users don‚Äôt like giving up spectrum…
5) Availability timescales. Freeing spectrum and distributing it takes time, which may not coincide with the requirements for the service.
I don’t quite understand why you think the issue of licensed vs unlicensed bears on competition and puts limits on municipalities. What is limiting is dependency on a single provider, not the method of spectrum regulation. Key issues to avoid would include proprietary technologies, and exclusive service or site access agreements. There is of course an associated issue of control of network requirements, meeting the needs of a municipality, but again this is not an issue of spectrum management regime.
All in all licensing could in fact be empowering for deployment of public services and wireless broadband, rather than limiting, but only in the right regulatory and commercial environment.
Richard