Communications

NNN CO: Narrowband aspirant in talks with Telstra, Optus PREDICTION Wireless will compete M2 GROUP: Taps Vocus for fibre launch with wired, then converge in long term INTERNET OF THINGS: Warning on risks and pitfalls COMMUNICATIONS DAY 18 November 2015 Daily telecom news & analysis since 1994 ISSUE 5024 Wireless ISPs lash out at successive gov’t telecoms policies Successive federal governments have bungled Australia’s wireless telecommunications policy in giving free kicks to major mobile carriers while passing over other wireless players. That was the picture that emerged when BigAir chief executive Jason Ashton joined fellow wireless networking industry luminaries, Cirrus Networks founder Eric Heyde and Vertel chief executive Andrew Findlay, for a panel session at CommsDay’s Unwired forum in Sydney – a rare opportunity for the three to share a stage. Findlay launched the first volley, taking aim at the federal government’s A$100 million regional mobile blackspots program. He argued that that the federal government’s tenders were skewed in favour of Aus- tralia’s incumbent mobile carriers and overly prescriptive in terms of “what a mobile service looks and feels like.” Little room was left for innovative alterna- tives, he lamented. “I look at the way these things are written and they just seem prescriptive about an outcome that they want, rather than say- ing ‘here’s the problem we’ve got what are some innovative ways to solve it’,” he said. “If you got that money from the mobile blackspots program and the (Universal Service Obligation), you’ve got the ability to do something really smart in an area where’s there’s a lack of infrastructure-based competition, which is really a problem that the NBN was conceived to solve – so why not extended to other problems you’ve got like the blackspots issue?” Ashton and Heyde also said that they’d seen no opportunity to engage in the blackspot programs despite having extensive experience in regional wireless network rollouts. However, Ashton went further – fixing his aim on the NBN’s fixed wireless broadband network. He argued that it was a missed opportunity to introduce mobile infrastructure competition to regional areas while delivering broadband to the bush at the same time. “Put it under the remit of the NBN, cancel the fixed wireless rollout and turn it into a mobile rollout, make it a wholesale only network and you’ll probably get a much better outcome,” he said. “I’m not concerned about being crowded out. I just think they could have worked better with industry and perhaps taken a step back and thought about what they were building in those regions in terms of what the constituents are asking for.” Ashton pointed, between them, Cirrus, BigAir and Vertel operated an extensive fixed wireless network consisting of hundreds of sites – including some in highly remote areas. However, he said that NBN had never considered cooperating with them. “I’m sure we could have collaborated with them if there was an opportunity to do so but there hasn’t been any opportunity. We can’t combine our backhaul resources, we can’t combine our operating resources – they’re doing their own thing effectively,” he said. Ashton also argued that NBN could have used the federal government’s 700MHz spectrum – left unsold and in limbo following a controversial auction in 2013 – to establish a regional mobile network. Heyde suggested that the problem was deep within NBN’s organisational DNA. “There was never any chance that they were going to build a network that was going to be run economically. Could it be done? Absolutely it can be done but I think you need a different culture than the one NBN has got,” Heyde said. Andrew Colley Wired and wireless: complement to competition to convergence, but maybe not in Australia Fixed and wireless access technologies are on course to compete increasingly with each other in the near future, according to iMediate Consulting principal Robert James, but then to converge in the longer term. However, James warned that structural settings in Australia, particularly around the NBN, might inhibit this otherwise natural progression – and that the increasing capacity of wireless could in turn disrupt the NBN’s own business model. In his address to the CommsDay Unwired event, James noted that wireless and wired offerings had been complementary until recently, but were now intruding on each other’s market space. He noted for exam- ple that Optus was already offering mobile broadband packages at A$70 per month for 50GB, at speeds of up to 12Mbps downstream/1Mbps upstream in 2300MHz coverage areas – an offering that would suit the needs of a large chunk of the fixed market at present, based on current usage patterns. And he referenced several US mobile plans aimed at high consumers of streaming video. On the other hand, he observed that there were also avenues for the fixed network (via a wireless last-mile) to encroach on some of the traditional mobile space, as with the Telstra Air Wi-Fi offering. But James also highlighted a third phase, of convergence, which he suggested might start COMMUNICATIONS DAY 18 November 2015 Page 2 around 2030; well after the expected introduction of 5G and even the completion of the NBN rollout. “What I’m suggesting here is that instead of having two different fibre infra- structures – one for the fixed network and one for the mobile network – if you’re getting to a density of cells of maybe 15 small cells per macro cell. you actually need fibre down the same streets you’d need if you were doing fibre to the kerb or any kind of HFC deployment. My suggestion is that for companies like Verizon or BT, you’re likely to see them roll one fibre down the street, connect the premises that want a fixed connection, and put wireless on a pole for those people that don’t want a fixed connection – and those people that want a mobile service. And I’d characterise this as being converged.” However, James said that while this might be a natural evolution in somewhere like the US, the same might not apply in Australia “because NBN is defined around the idea that fixed networks are different to mobile, and that structural separation would be a great idea. So the sort of things that vertically integrated players around the world will do will be much harder.” James added that NBN could well find the ongoing growth in wireless capacity disruptive; though he acknowledged that a good number of premises would likely retain a fixed line, “the idea that 80% of premises will always take the NBN is definitely under threat, [as is] the idea that ARPUs will grow over time rather than decline.” “My suspicion is that the high adoption of NBN in the latest corporate plan may be chal- lenging... [and] that price competition will be higher,” he added. “Together, that would mean a significant shortfall of revenue... [while] structural separation could disrupt the natural evolution of the industry [to wireless and wired convergence].” “If I was the government... in the urban areas I’d try and remove all the roadblocks to spectrum, poles, power and backhaul, and generally facilitate the move to small cell models,” he suggested. “In rural and remote areas, Australia is in a very unique situation; it costs an awful lot of money to build networks [there] and the government has frequently indicated a posi- tion of having to subsidise it. The obvious answer is to have one network and do it well; my suggestion is a shared LTE rural network that would cover the universal service obligation, public safety, fixed broadband and mobile wholesale.... arguably, many people might think that was what the NBN should have been in the first place!” Petroc Wilton New dedicated IoT network aspirant already in talks with Telstra, Optus NNN Co, the Australian startup looking to facilitate a dedicated, collaborative narrowband network platform specifically for machine-to-machine communications, is already in talks with the country’s mobile operators – with a view to mutually beneficially co-operation. As first revealed by CommsDay the idea behind NNN Co is that existing 4G networks, while having a key role to play supporting some machine-to-machine applications, are less well -suited to efficiently serve very large numbers of low-throughput, low-power connections. And 5G might address such needs but is still years away. Instead, NNN Co has been investigating low-powered, wide-area networks using industrial, scientific and medical-band spectrum (a number of allocations, typically unlicensed, ranging from 6.76MHz up to 246GHz) which could be made available immediately and could use much cheaper cell-site tech than consum- er mobile networks. NNN Co isn’t looking to run the whole show as a single entity, but rather to enable a col- COMMUNICATIONS DAY 18 November 2015 Page 3 laborative approach; indeed, Zagarella believes that no one person or organisation can or should own the IoT in Australia. “We partner with those who need and want to build out an IoT access network... for specific needs,” he said. “We provide access to a nationwide network of servers to ensure the high reliability, redundancy and security capabilities as required; and then we work with partners with different skills and capabilities to collect that data from a wide range of devices.” “We oriented towards... LoWAN because of its strengths in meeting the power requirements, throughput, link budget and of course the cost requirements... but also, and probably most im- portantly, how it lends itself to the collaborative business model that we’re adopting.

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