Business Opportunities and Challenges with TVWS and LSA for Telco Companies
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Business opportunities and challenges with TVWS and LSA for Telco companies Student: Arnaud Châtaignier Supervisor & Examiner: Jan I Markendahl Supervisor: Ashraf Awadelakrim Widaa Ahmed Maxim Teslenko Master of Science Thesis Stockholm, Sweden 2014 Student: Arnaud Châtaignier Supervisor & Examiner: Jan I Markendahl Supervisors: Ashraf Awadelakrim Widaa Ahmed Maxim Teslenko Wireless@KTH School of Information and Communication Technology, KTH-Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden. February 2014 Report number: TRITA-ICT-EX-2014:18 ABSTRACT Over the last ten years, the demand for data has been increasing exponentially. To meet this demand, there are three ways to proceed: increasing the number of antennas, enhancing spectrum efficiency, enlarging bandwidths. This paper is focused on the last option, enlarging the bandwidth, and more precisely on the reuse or secondary use of frequencies through Licensed Shared Access and TV white spaces. This work aims at determining the potential development of these two new regulatory regimes and the potential impact on the telecom ecosystem and business. There is a common understanding of TVWS and regulators are implementing similar frameworks. The industry and regulators have launched plenty of trials and developed many standards. There are even some examples of commercial releases. However, the amount of channels available for TVWS activities is still uncertain since regulators have not stated their positions on the balancing between TVWS and digital dividend (refarming). Their decision will influence the market size and consequently the market take-up. Similarly to TVWS, national and international coherent regulatory frameworks are being developed around LSA. There is also a common view on uses among actors. Indoor coverage is one of the most mentioned uses. This will enhance the actors’ confidence in LSA, and might consequently increase investment. However, standardization is needed to bring the necessary economies of scale. The incumbents’ willingness to share their spectrums and the fees level are still unclear. These last parameters will have large impact on LSA take-up. The second part of the thesis tries to determine what ecosystems might develop. With TVWS, there are no licence fees or coverage requirements included in licence, which lowers the entrance barriers. This paper presents strategies where other players than MNOs provide connectivity. These strategies, which were built through group exercises done by Telecom workers, bring opportunities to these new connectivity providers and also values for its potential clients. Moreover, these new connectivity provider strategies possess real strengths and only limited weaknesses. However, the MNOs’ reluctance to support this new ecosystem is the most dangerous threat to its development. To a slightly lesser extent, LSA also lowers the entrance barriers into the connectivity-providing business. This is a game-changer for indoor coverage since LSA might enable the development of scenarios and ecosystems which were previously considered as hypothetical. Thus, scenario where a Managed Service Providers or a Network Equipment Providers offers connectivity (without MNOs) to a premise or a MVNO has the potential to take up. This strategy is valuable for connectivity providers and their clients. Here, financing this strategy is also a challenge, but the most important risk might arise from the MNOs’ pressures on the ecosystem’s actors to prevent this strategy from developing. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I wish to thank all of those who helped me to realise this work. In a first place, I would like to express my gratitude to Jan I Markendahl for offering me the great opportunity to join his team. It has been a real pleasure to benefit from his advices and his management. I want to thank Ashraf Awadelakrim Widaa Ahmed for the quality of his comments and his interest in my thesis. I wish to thank Neil Urquhart for the confidence that he placed in me and for the opportunities he offered me. I also want to dedicate some words to Maxim Teslenko. I really appreciated his support and his investment all along the project. I want to thank Amirhossein Ghanbari for the quality of his advices which really help me to build my line of reasoning. I also truly thank Henrik Eriksson for his opposition work which proposed very valuable ways to improve the thesis. Eventually, I am grateful to all of those who participated to the workshops. I learned a lot during these two sessions. Furthermore, their insightful ideas, suggestions and analyses enabled me to build my thesis. Arnaud Châtaignier Stockholm, February 2014 ii CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgement ............................................................................................................................ ii Contents........................................................................................................................................... iii List of tables .................................................................................................................................... vi List of figures ................................................................................................................................. vii 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Background ..................................................................................................................... 8 1.2 Motivation and Research Questions ................................................................................ 8 1.3 Related Work ................................................................................................................... 9 1.3.1 LSA ............................................................................................................................. 9 1.3.2 TVWS ........................................................................................................................ 10 1.4 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 10 1.4.1 Understanding LSA and TVWS ................................................................................ 10 1.4.2 Determining Actors ................................................................................................... 10 1.4.3 Determining settings .................................................................................................. 10 1.4.4 Determining Actors’ positionings and opportunities ................................................. 11 2. TV White Spaces ................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Background ................................................................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Principle ..................................................................................................................... 12 2.1.2 Regulation ................................................................................................................. 12 2.1.3 Technical viewpoint .................................................................................................. 13 2.1.4 Trials and commercialization .................................................................................... 14 2.1.5 Spectrum available .................................................................................................... 14 2.1.6 Summary and next step ............................................................................................. 15 2.2 Actors ............................................................................................................................ 15 2.2.1 Regulators .................................................................................................................. 15 2.2.2 The incumbents ......................................................................................................... 15 2.2.3 The Network Equipment Manufacturers ................................................................... 15 2.2.4 The ISPs and MNOs .................................................................................................. 15 2.2.5 Third Party ................................................................................................................. 15 2.2.6 The WS device manufacturers ................................................................................... 16 2.2.7 Over The Top ............................................................................................................ 16 iii 2.2.8 Database Designers ................................................................................................... 16 2.2.9 Database-Database interface Designers ..................................................................... 16 2.2.10 Spectrum Monitoring ............................................................................................. 16 2.3 Uses ............................................................................................................................... 16 2.3.1 Machine-to-Machine ................................................................................................. 17 2.3.2 Rural Connectivity....................................................................................................