It’s All About Spectrum
by Jim Baker
Back in June the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent a clear signal about the availability of wireless broadband spectrum in the United States. “Spectrum is the oxygen of wireless, and the future of our mobile economy depends on spectrum recovery and smart spectrum policies,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “Our nation’s ability to lead the world in innovation and technology is threatened by the lack of sufficient spectrum for wireless broadband applications and services.”
The FCC was responding to the announcement by the Obama administration that, as part of the National Broadband Plan, it would support the freeing up of 500MHz of spectrum for wireless broadband services by 2020. Together with the FCC, the government will draw up a timetable and plan for such allocation by October 1. This has significant implications for broadband availability, not least in the public transportation sector where evolving data-intensive applications for connecting trains and buses to the Internet require more and more bandwidth. Frustration has been running high among transit operators who are under pressure to respond to federally mandated initiatives, including positive train control (PTC), yet are challenged by legacy narrowband technologies and the scarcity of suitable spectrum for the wider range of broadband applications. There’s little point expending vast amounts of money and resources in a rushed, knee-jerk response to government strong-arming when, in fact, the industry could do with calm and constructive consideration of all the possible bandwidth needs over the next 10 years and the creation of a proper road-map.
Last week two major events occurred in the wireless industry that could have immediate impact on these issues. First, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) announced that it was buying the network division of Motorola for $1.2 billion, which will include the latter’s mobile network infrastructure operations and customer base in North America. Motorola has major carrier customers including Verizon and Clearwire’s WiMAX business. The deal now ranks NSN as the third largest infrastructure provider in the United States after Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, and places NSN in the front line of 4G long term evolution (LTE) build-out. Moreover Motorola had a major market share in the public safety sector, and the acquisition gives NSN the opportunity to capitalize on 4G broadband data solutions for CCTV, for example, which is directly applicable to the mass transit market.
Second, in a week that must have been hectic for the company’s public relations team, NSN announced that it had won a $7 billion, eight-year contract to roll out a hybrid terrestrial/satellite wireless broadband network for newly formed operator LightSquared. The wholesale-only network will combine LTE and satellite technologies to cover an estimated 90 percent of the U.S. population coast to coast by 2015. In a move opposed by incumbent mobile carriers, the FCC recently relaxed rules to allow LightSquared to use a 59MHz block of spectrum for its terrestrial network that was originally reserved for satellite-only deployments. The company will utilize a mixture of band, including blocks at 1.4GHz, 1.6GHz and 2GHz; the seamless integration of LTE and satellite technologies is the world’s first, and the wholesale structure will allow mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) to offer LightSquared’s network in verticals such as mass transit, logistics, public safety, healthcare and education.
This is significant because one key problem facing public transport and freight rail operators is the lack of a single carrier who can deliver consistent network coverage throughout a long haul journey. It is particularly problematic when vehicles pass through rural and remote areas where terrestrial 3G networks don’t reach. NSN and LightSquared plan to build in excess of 40,000 4G LTE base stations — filling in the gaps with two-way broadband satellite — and launch commercial services through partners in the second half of 2011. While this has huge potential for mass transit and freight applications, it could also help to move the United States up from its current ranking as 20th in the world in providing broadband access to its citizens.
While new arrivals such as LightSquared are helping define the future, spectrum usage in mass transit has grown organically over the years and is now spread without any particular coherence, including ETMS (electronic train management systems), monitoring and wayside signaling at 220MHz; trackside/platform broadband networks at 900MHz, 3.6GHz and 5GHz; and specialist 5.9GHz DSRC (dedicated short-range communications). The problem with these frequencies is that they need dedicated network infrastructure purpose-built, pushing the costs of deployment ever higher. Commercial mobile carriers have an opportunity to reserve slices of licensed spectrum specifically for mass transit use, should they find sufficient business justification. In Europe, 32 countries collaborated on the GSM for Railways (GSM-R) platform to provide secure and interoperable rail-centric communications in licensed mobile operator frequencies, and today NSN and Alcatel-Lucent are championing an evolution to LTE for railways, known as LTE-R.
If the mass transit industry can make a concerted effort to work with mobile carriers and systems integrators to analyze the business opportunity; determine the range of applications; and create a strategic plan for spectrum usage; then there is a much better likelihood that the transport industry will get the infrastructure and bandwidth it needs, while the mobile carriers will be able to further monetize their spectrum. That way everybody wins.
Jim Baker is managing partner at Xenventure, a market strategy and private equity firm based in San Francisco and London. A C-level wireless industry veteran, Baker has been involved in many deployments of wireless technologies on passenger transportation worldwide and is a recognized industry expert on Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G convergence. He is an active member of the Joint Council on Transit Wireless Communications [http://www.transitwireless.org] which is developing a strategic plan for implementation of wireless technologies in mass transit. Contact Baker via LinkedIn.