Shared Infrastructure Said One Key to Universal Broadband

Telecom firms can share entire networks, or just fiber ducts, as a way to reduce investment needed to competitively serve thinly-populated areas, Kurth said. The alternative might be monopoly service in such areas, he said. “Regulators have to decide whether we accept this sort of sharing.”

Such network sharing may be necessary to competitively serve 60 percent of France’s population, said Jean-Ludovic Silicani, chairman of the French Autorite de Regulation des Communications. He said such sharing may be necessary because of the importance of building out broadband, which he compared to investing in railroads a century ago.

There should be no regulatory obstacle to infrastructure sharing, Kurth said. Such sharing could be just backbone, or extend as far as the active radio components of a wireless broadband network, he said. They would compete on the service provided on the network, he said: “Companies still have to be competitive and independent.” For example, regulators should not allow them to share business plans or customer data, he said.

Sharing infrastructure is “an excellent way to maximize use” of a network, said Amr Badawi, executive president of Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority. He said such sharing is already being encouraged in Egypt, despite “issues among the operators” that discourage sharing. If nothing else, nationwide roaming on cellular networks “with reasonable commercial terms” is one way to share networks without actually sharing infrastructure, he said.

Especially in rural areas, infrastructure sharing “has become the only way to make economical” such broadband networks, said Mohammad Omran, chairman of ETISALAT in the United Arab Emirates. He said such sharing “should not be enforced” by regulators, but “should be encouraged.”

Regulators and others agreed that universal service-type funds should be used to expand broadband to poorer and more rural areas, but they said governments can’t afford the full cost. They also disagreed on how to define “universal” and “broadband.”

Broadband is becoming more important to those that have it than TV or cellphones, said Nongluck Phinainitisart of Thailand, president of the Asia-Pacific Satellite Communications Council. But she said “broadband doesn’t have to be very high speed” to be more helpful than what most of those areas already have.

Some reasonable level of speed is necessary to make broadband useful enough, said Alvarion Vice President Mohammed Shakouri. Sub-100 kbps services don’t work, O3b Networks founder and CEO Greg Wyler said. “The stuff that drives Internet growth requires higher speeds” and low latency. He said 512 kbps can be useful, as long as latency is low.

Shakouri said broadband shouldn’t be defined by speed or the number of connections: “It should be defined by the applications” that can and do run on it, because “connections without apps is a waste of money.”

Universal broadband doesn’t necessarily mean broadband to every individual, said Guangcheng Li, president of China’s Fiberhome International Technologies. He said broadband to the family is often enough. Others said even broadband to a village can be useful, even if provided by a solar-powered satellite backhaul link.

Despite the importance of universal broadband, many governments are “sitting on” universal service funds for a variety of reasons, including being unsure of what to fund, Phinainitisart said. “You can’t be so careful that you don’t move.” She said if countries don’t have a universal service fund they should start one, then “just implement something.” Governments are under strong pressure to build out networks because “people vote and they want access,” she said.

Uganda already collects 1 percent of telecom revenue, puts the proceeds into a universal service fund, then uses reverse auctions to allocate the money to companies willing to build out networks, said Patrick Masambu, executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission. The Ugandan government built a national backbone network to get broadband closer to those areas, he said.

Time to Start Allocating Broadband Spectrum

Next, governments “must give out spectrum” for broadband wireless, Kurth said. He said one key in Europe is the “digital dividend” spectrum in the 800 MHz band that was previously used by analog TV.

But broadcasters don’t want to give up the spectrum. “We don’t have enough spectrum today,” said Lieven Vermaele, director of technical services for the European Broadcasting Union. He said broadcasters already are looking for additional channels to launch new services, and spectrum is needed for mobile TV, HDTV and even 3-D TV: “If less spectrum becomes available, terrestrial TV will become an inferior service.”

And there won’t be a digital dividend in parts of the world, said Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, CEO of digital broadcaster Sentech of South Africa. She said there’s hardly any cable in Africa and few can afford satellite TV, so terrestrial TV will lead for the foreseeable future. Africa is dominated by public broadcasters, and independent broadcasters are hoping any “digital dividend” will be used to provide channels for entrepreneurial competitive TV services. -- Michael Feazel

ITU Notebook

Finding enough spectrum for broadband wireless will not be easy, speakers said. Intelsat General Counsel Phil Spector, for example, said several national regulators are allowing terrestrial broadband services in C-band frequencies, even though WRC 2007 allocated those frequencies permanently to satellites. Mobile broadband is key to quickly providing broadband service to many areas, said Karl- Heinz Laudan, Deutsche Telekom vice president-spectrum and technology policy: “But wireless broadband needs broad spectrum.” Spectrum can be used more efficiently if there are regional agreements on how to use it, said Jean-Pierre Bienaime, chairman of the UMTS Forum. He said it’s spectrum fragmentation that threatens mobile broadband. Speakers said there will still be disputes, but Spector said engineers could probably work them out if lawyers and politicians didn’t get so involved. Spectrum is available, said Lieven Vermaele of the European Broadcasting Union. He said, for example, 2.6 and 3.4 GHz bands are available, there are “white spaces” in cellular bands and there should be a “mobile dividend” by forcing cellular services to give up 2G spectrum, now that 3G is so widespread. But he said using white spaces in broadcast bands, particularly by unlicensed devices, would be a big mistake. He said unlicensed spectrum users are “the worst thing that could happen” because of the interference they cause.

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One of the keys to successful broadband rollout is “glocalization,” said NTT DoCoMo CEO Ryuji Yamada, in one of the few “English” words he used. He said glocalization means using a truly globalized infrastructure, but going very local with the applications and services on the higher network levels: “This is all about the services we deliver, which must differ by nation and culture.” Networks must “leverage the benefits of global scale” while still linking with local customers, said Vodafone’s Matthew Kirk. He said localization isn’t necessarily geographic -- it could apply to interest groups or working groups, for example. Vodafone now has as many customers in developing countries as it has in Europe, he said. Backbone infrastructure can be the same, but interfaces must be “tuned” to individual markets, said Hamoud al-Kussayer of Saudi Telecom.

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Security will be “one of the hottest issues in the regulatory discussions of the future,” said Carlos Blanco of Spain’s Telefonica. He said network neutrality backers often forget the issue of network security. Building trust in the network is “at the heart of bridging the digital divide,” said Matthew Kirk of Vodafone. He said his company uses the same security standards in developing as in developed countries.