WS 127 The benefits of using advanced mobile technologies and global spectrum
harmonization
EMILAR VUSHE: Good afternoon. We are about to start our programme. We are sorry for a little
bit of a delay. A prior workshop started late and then, therefore, ran late to the IGF schedule. We
welcome to what I think will be a very interesting workshop given that spectrum is at the heart
of much of the way the world accesses the internet. Some are landline and some are satellite.
They provide an important means of connecting world wireless networks. Today, we're going to
explore the advance of technologies and advancing access to broadband communications. As
we've heard throughout the IGF, it's an important enabler to a greater collaboration, social
interaction and a contribution to overall economic development. In addition to just talking
about the technologies , we will focus on the need for additional spectrum, how that need needs
to be managed, and efforts at h harmonisation and how that has to be factored into a larger
process where other legitimate uses of spectrum exist or continue to need to be accommodated.
But what we are seeing as a backdrop here and Dr Pepper will speak to this, we are seeing
uncredible projections of increased mobile traffic which underpins the need for more spectrum.
Cisco has predicted an 18-fold increase. There is a real question as to whether the existing
spectrum and the 700 mega hertz is enough to meet this need if these projections come
anywhere close. This is part of the discussion that will be happening in preparation. Let me turn
to introduce today's panelists. I'm going to introduce them in the order in which we've all
agreed they're going to speak. First is Dr Robert Pepper, on my far right, who leads Cisco's
global technology policy team. His background spans government and industry, where he was in
key technology positions in the federal information commission for well over 15 years and has
been with Cisco since 2005. Even though he left government, he continues to be an invaluable
resource to the government through Cisco and his work on advisory committees in the United
States and the United Kingdom, dealing with spectrum policy and spectrum technology
networks. Next, we have Alex, who is a doctorial candidate in the department of geography. We
will hear a little bit about Alex. He has been working with APC on their spectrum development
project. Next is Jacquelynn Ruff, she is the vice-president for international public policy at
Verizon Communications. She too shares with Dr Pepper a background in government, having
been at the federal communications commission. They is a lawyer and an engineer. She spends a
good deal of time working with international organisations, not just the IGF as a forum, but also
APEC and the OECD. Next is Joseph Canhanya, who is a legal expert in the government of
Kenya's national communication secretariat. Last but not least is Peter Lions, directors for
spectrum policy in East Africa. Peter brings to the discussion analyst background where he
focused on emerging telecom entities, technology companies. It is an interesting overlay to the
discussion. I will ask Bob to kick off today's discussion. Thank you.
PANELIST: Thank you, Jennifer. The UN broadband Commission recognises that we will use
radio technologies for providing access to broadband. There is work we have done at Cisco with
our forecasts with the visual networking index, which is a rolling five-year forecast of both
demand and adoption of broadband and the internet. By 2016, there will be three and a half
billion people on the internet mostly with broadband. The way that they're primarily going to
connect is going to be through wireless technologies . If we think about it just as a matter of
practical, you look around this room, if you can get on the Wi-Fi network here, you're
connecting your device with wireless technology. We see a decreasing number of devices being
connected with fixed wire connections. Increasingly, the devices we are portable devices. As a
result, as you will see, we're forecasting that using radio spectrum to connect devices both while
you are outdoors and indoors is becoming the most important thing way for accessing the
internet and will become the prime airway which people in growing economies will access the
internet. We're forecasting as part of our study that by 2016, global IP traffic will reach a run
wey of 1.3zeta bytes per year. Putting that into perspective, if you add up all of the traffic and all
of the traffic for the internet from the beginning of the internet through this year, it will be 1.2
zeta bytes. In 2016, in that one year, that will be more traffic across the internet than all of the
history of the internet to date! We're seeing a huge growth in internet traffic. When we take a
look drilling down on my bile traffic, from 2011 to 2016, we are forecasting 18-times growth of
mobile traffic. This doesn't include fixed Wi-Fi. Mobile traffic will increase by that much. If you
look at the increment, the increased use of mobile data from 2015 to 2016, it it is more than four
times the total of the total internet traffic this year. What causes this? We have more people
connected. We have more devices. If you take a look at the devices, there is a significant shift
taking place in the types of devices being connected to access the internet. In 2011, for example,
48%, about half of the devices connecting - sorry 56% were laptops. By 2016, we're forecasting
that 48%, about half, will be smartphones and laptops will only be 25% of the way we access the
internet on wireless devices. The tablets are growing quite rapidly. We are expecting in terms of
the traffic about 10.5%. That may grow given the proliferation of tablets. It is going to be video
that is driving the demand and the utilisation of the internet and broadband. Video of all kinds
and video doesn't mean traditional one-way video streaming or downloading movies. It is also
two-way video. It's Facetime, it's Skype video from device to device, from my tablet to your
tablet realtime video communications. It is short form. It is long form. It is going to be view to
the big flat screen television in your home. What is coming - when we did this most recent study,
for me, this was the most startling finding. This is not a forecast. This is real data from 2011. It
was the first year there were enough customers or consumers in the world for us to actually
measures 4G traffic. We found that 4G users consume 28 times more data than non-4G. 2G and
3G blended together. It is a none incremental change. It's leap in data utilisation and
consumption. So, as we move to the LTE networks that are going to be needed to support the
demand, it will create additional demand. The other trend we are seeing which is a major shift is
if we look at the mobile data, right, the data that is associated with a mobile device like my
smartphone for which I have a contract or a pre-paid or post-pay relationship with a mobile
operator, right, if we take a look at that traffic, what we are forecasting is that by 2016 globally
22% of that traffic will be offloaded. It will be offloaded to Wi-Fi. In the US, it will be 37% we're
forecasting to be offleaded. What is offloading? It is where for the convenience of the mobile
operator, my device looks for a cell. It could be licensed spectrum, but increasingly it is
unlicensed Wi-Fi. It could be the Wi-Fi, the biggest trend that we now see in the mobile industry
are the licensed operators using Wi-Fi and other smart cell technologies in combination with
their licensed macrocell offload data traffic. The network is fixed. The device is mobile. What
happens when my signal comes from my mobile device to the tower, it goes into a mixed
network fibre. So, we see this as resulting in the trend we call the heterogenous network. It is
licensed for outdoors. 80% of the use of a device is indoors and sitting down. But we need a lot
more spectrum outdoors and then i indoors we need the Wi-Fi and the smart cell that we have
in homes and offices. We did a cloud study and cloud readiness. When you look at cloud
applications in aggregate, cloud is the next big thing. Everybody agrees with this and everybody
sees it as a big trend. What we see in cloud, you have basic cloud services and advanced. People
use not just one but multiple cloud applications. When you look at looking at what we call
concurrent cloud applications and begin to look at advanced cloud, it's going to require
significant download speeds of 21 megabytes uploading about 9 megabytes and low latency,
latency of less than 100 milliseconds. Even for intermediate cloud, it will require more than 150
milliseconds. This has very significant implications for the wireless networks that are being
built which are going to require fewer hops, shorter distances anding a regation back into fibre.
Over the next five years, global mobile data traffic will grow 18%. Some are forecasting even
more. There will be more users, each using more bandwidth. Each user will have more devices
and each device will be more powerful. It will be driven by video. 4G and LTE is going to drive
non-incremental change. This is going to be in a very good sense a disruptive change but we
have to get ready for it. Networks are becoming heterogenous. Small cell indoors and smart cell
o outdoors. It will be fibre or in rural areas it will be satellite, especially in rural developing
markets. We're going to need more of a spectrum, much more spectrum for both the macrocell
4G reasoned outdoors and we are going to need more for the next generation of Wi-Fi which is
either 80 or 160 mega hertz wide channels. We can only find that in the inner frequencies
around 5.85 gega hertz. For the outdoor networks, the macrocell is at 700 mega hertz. The band
goes from 692 all of the way up to 862. There are different regional plans but these plans also
need, I believe that they're going to converge but they need to be harmonised. We will work
quickly on the digital television transformation. There is a lot of talk about white spaces. A lot of
that discussion is very misplaced. I say that as one of the people that created the concept of
white spaces at the FCC. The white space concept is using spectrum that is allocated for one
service, television. There is a geography where there is no TV station. You can opportunistically
use it locally. That is what we need to do. There are some people who are proposing white space
in a very different way and to take spectrum from the licensed band and create some separate
for u unlicensed but that really fights the spectrum characteristics, the prop gation
characteristics. We will have that for licensed broadband. If you want broadband, you will need
broad bands. We will have opportunistic spectrum being useed. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Bob. Alice is next.
Alice Munyua: Hi everyone. I can't even hear myself. Can you hear me? Just a show of hands, does
anyone know what spectrum is? Okay. I know it can be quite confusing. There is a little bit of
science to it. In terms of how spectrum should be managed and the opportunities it's a no
brainer. First of all, I want to talk about the relevance of spectrum to developing countries.
Developing countries are benefiting immensely from spectrum and some are poised to be
benefiting a lot more. There is a lot more benefit that can happen. It requires good regulatory
practice and advocacy. Just to give you some internet statistics. About three African countries
which are considered to be the leaders in ICT, I'm talking about Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.
So, in South Africa, we have only eight fixed line telephones per one hundred people. In terms of
mobile phone connections, we have 126 mobile phone connections per 100 people. Chances are
you know someone who has two phones but they would probably have a phone. We have eight
fixed line telephones per 100 people. In Kenya, you have 64 people per 100 people who are
using a mobile phone. Of that less than 1% are using a fixed line. It's less than 0.5% who have a
fixed line ADSL. In Nigeria, we have 75 mobile phone users per 100 people and only0.35 fixed
lines. You have decent, for Africans countries, internet access. In Kenya, 29 users in every 100
people. In Nigeria, we have 28. Most of these people will be accessing the internet from a
cellphone. This is the year that it's happened and more people will access the internet through a
cellphone through wireless technologies than through a fixed line. Because of the importance of
mobile phones, spectrum is relevant to developing countries. About ten years ago, a very
important concept in the debate was leap frogging. But basically mobile phones allowed people
in Africa because of infrastructural deficiencies to leap frog that need for fixed lines. They are
still needed for many reasons. But the mobile phone technology was the great enabler that
enabled tens of or hundreds of millions of people in the developing world to access and make a
phone call for the first time. The second round of leap frogging is now happening in terms of
mobile internet. The other importance of spectrum is called the last mile, your internet
communications go through a lot of infrastructures and go through undersea cables and go
through satellite transmissions and go through copper and fibre wires in the ground and the last
mile, in the developed world has conventionally been fibre and copper, but this last mile which
can get people the connectivity is often through wireless technologies . We talk about LTE as
well as GSM and 3G technologies . It is not necessary using a mobile phone and having mobile
internet but it is augmenting existing infrastructures to provide internet to everyone. So, yeah, it
is extremely relevant to developing countries. There are opportunities and challenges here. The
first opportunity is that in many developing countries there is less use of spectrum because
there are less technologies there before. The challenge is that it can be expensive and that
spectrum also needs to be managed efficiently. If it's not managed efficiently, there is
interference. Then there is bad quality of service and, yeah, it doesn't provide what you want it
to provide. You need human capacity in dealing with this. You need regulatory capacity. We do
need strong regulations when it comes to spectrum. The one issue when it comes to spectrum is
a level playing field. Spectrum is sold. It is sold for a licence fee and used for a certain amount of
time. It's either auctioned or the price is set by the government and it is assigned to different
operators. It has the advantage and they're able to afford spectrum. It can be negative to your
competition. If more spectrum is a a awarded to more players, we have competition. On top of
that, you also want the spectrum to be used efficiently. So there are arguments that a higher
price will authorise the operator to use the spectrum more efficiently. On the other side, it is not
necessarily so if that inhibits competition. In the second point, the big issue is regulatory
capacity. It can be a bottle neck to getting spectrum out there. You need great human capacity in
the regulator. It helps if you have an independent regulator. Before we allocate the spectrum,
asign it to different users, and before you assign the spectrum to different countries, you need to
conduct the complete spectrum audit or at least a near complete spectrum audit that gives you a
sense of what spectrum is free and what spectrum is not free. It is another challenge. Many
developing countries have not completed a spectrum audit. South Africa has been waiting for a
spectrum audit to be completed for more than three years at the moment. I have mentioned this,
auctions. There is an argument that spectrum will be efficiently used if somebody pays the
highest price for it. So, it is cost and competition implications. Opportunities for developing
countries is (a) what is called the digital dividend and this will come when analogue
broadcasting of television and radio gets switched off and digital broadcasting gets switched on.
Many African countries are behind the deadlines on this. Nigeria and Kenya and South Africa are
behind. Obviously, the issue is regulatory capacity. The second issue is while there is a great
demand for broadband, you don't want to leave people behind who are relying for most of their
news and media from radio and television. When you do this analogue switch off and digital
switch-on, you need to have everyone buying your devices. There is a question of subsidies
there. That is often a bottle neck and that needs to be dealt with. Another opportunity is white
spaces. It was discussed earlier but white spaces are the little gaps that were allocated in the
spectrum not being used. With the better technologies and the better use of spectrum, these are
able to be used. The second thing is adaptive regulation. Possibly regulation needs to be adapt to
specific conditions and specifically geographic conditions. It might be a good idea to allocate
spectrum geographically instead of allocating spectrum to one company who may not
necessarily use it for the whole area. You might want to sell that on a regional business is. You
would need databases to orchestrate that. In every country, we need to map out what spectrum
is available, what spectrum is allocated to what functionality, what technologies and this also
needs to be transparent. The only way that this can benefit everyone is it is a transparent
process. Spectrum audits need to be conducted and available on the website of the regulator or
the ministry of communications. Yes, it is also a good idea to consider not always just auctioning
off spectrum to the highest bidder but to set aside some spectrum to new market entrants to
encourage competition at the same time and to make use of unlicensed spectrum, which in most
countries is what Wi-Fi is. Those bands needs to be protected and other unlicensed spectrum
that could be useful for the public good must be identified. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: Now, we will turn over to Jacquelynn Ruff who will give us a case study from
the US market. Thank you.
MS RUFF: I have a few slides here.
THE MODERATOR: Bob and Alex have given some background for the spectrum updates that
are coming. I think Jackie is ready.
MS RUFF: I'm not wearing my headset so I didn't hear what she said. Here I am! So, the first two
speakers were great. They set the context very well. What I'm going to do is do a deeper dive on
a particular case study which is the story of Verizon Communications. We are a major wireless
provider in the US, that recently began deploying LTE Fourth generation broadband service on
the digital dividend type of spectrum that was just discussed. We have done that quite quickly.
What I want to share with you what that experience was like, because we really have been the
most mover and pioneer, which has its positives and sometimes its risks and challenges, but I
will try to move that all quite quickly. Let's see if I can make this mouse work. This gives you a
little bit of a picture of the map of the US. A couple of interesting things here. One is that, of
course, like many other existing operators we were taking our existing network and
reengineering it. It really has some cost savings and efficiencies to be able to do that. Another
interesting point is that the spectrum in the US was auctioned before the digital transition. As a
matter of policy, countries are trying to consider doing it the other way around. We were able to
have the auction happen and start testing this new technology. In the meantime, the broadband
spectrum was being cleared and the government was assisting in the transition. I think that was
an affordability issue that the previous speaker mentioned. There were some subsidies there.
The auction was in 2008. The network began to be deployed at the end of 2010. Now, we cover
about two thirds of the population in the country and by next year we will cover our entire
national footprint. You can see that this moved pretty steadily. It might be able to go faster for
other countries coming later. Just a couple of points here. It's probably not that easy to see. We
are using a new technology which has become quite widely used. We were starting this new and
nobody really could predict exactly what would happen. As it turns out it has done very well.
The speeds that we get in the US are five to 12 megabytes per second down link and 2 to 4
uplink. We get in some places much faster speed. In laboratories, we get even faster. In other
countries or other types of geographies, you might get faster. The point I would like to make is
that those speeds even at five to 12 megabytes per second is real broadband. It is really highspeed internet. It is possible to do amazing things with that. It also has much lower latency.
Robert Pepper was talking about for cloud services it becomes really important to not have a
little bit of a gap, a latency gap, as well as for voice services. The type of video streaming that is
used today could drive the high demand this morning is the type of streaming video that could
be really important for medicine or energy services or e-government. It will be equally
important for every type of service. The point I'm making here is the global evolution of this. So,
the real testing for LTE began primarily with three companies, Verizon Communications,
Vodafone, which owns part of Verizon Communications wireless, and China Mobile. In the
second box, you can see the early adoption, it may be hard to read, but it is operators from
around the world testing it to see could we really get a technology that was going to work and
be adopted everywhere in many different countries. At this point, globally, there are more than
300 carriers that are doing trials or deploying. There is the list of countries there. You can see it
is long and it's not even the complete list. So, now I'm going to turn to a couple of things that we
think are particularly interesting about how this is playing out in terms of the services that are
being offered or the way of doing partnerships around it. In the US, like in other places, we have
rural areas. We have remote areas that it is very costly to serve with broadband. Even if we have
a licence, we may not serve them just because the economics don't work. But there may be local
operators, in our country at least, who have good customer relationships, et cetera. Our
spectrum policy is such that we can lease to them. It's like renting to them the spectrum. It is a
little bit different from an MDMO because they are reselling the whole package. Here it is the
spectrum. They continue to build out in their own area. They maintain their brand name, et
cetera. But then they connect into our national network and have Verizon Communications
quality. This is a new thing to do. We found a lot of interest in it in the US. Verizon
Communications. On healthcare, there is work on using mow buy technologies , maybe cloud,
for different medical issues. In education, that picture in the middle there, the long thing that
looks sort of like it's made out of metal is a robot. It is controlled through the wireless network
and is connecting with a child in his home who for some reason cannot go to school. The robot is
in school with the class mates and tells the child everything that is going on. It is something that
is brand new and is being tested. Sustainability on the end is about energy management, some
things with that car in terms of traffic management so on. I will say on the first one, healthcare,
it is interesting to see the studies on health is and will become even more important as we get
more high-speed internet around the world. It is increasingly important in developing
economies. You can see the statistics on where it is being tried and where it is being used and
what it ds for things like compliance with tuberculosis treatment or care for senior citizens, for
example. So, we can have more discussion in the Q& A. Some of these things have been obvious
as takeaways from this. We have broadband speeds and we can transform economies. It is
suitable for rural areas. My point at the top is that the public policy environment is very
important for making these things possible. It will be different in different countries. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Jackie. I will present a perspective from Kenya.
PANELIST: Good afternoon. It's almost good evening. Mine will be very, very short. I'm giving a
perspective from Kenya and luckily there has been some contributions from the past speakers,
especially Alice. The perspective of the government in Kenya is that in these matters of
infrastructure, the government has to lead given that sometimes the private sector in as muchs
they would want to get involved perhaps are c constrained by sometimes the economics. The
underseas cable landed in Mombasa and subsequent to that there were three other undersea
cables that are then available at that point. Next, the government has tried to bridge availability
of broadband in the hinter lands. Through what we call the national optic fibre initiative. The
government says we will build this the way we build the roads. We are about to hear from
Robert, it appears that the consumption of the internet in relation to the network is 28 times. I
think this is good news. We would want too engage in this because it means there is a lot of
money to be made. In Kenya, the mobile penetration is at 29 million currently out of 39 million
people. It is upwards of 75% penetration. The internet numbers are 7.7 million and 98% of
these are mobile phones. We are doing this using only 50% of the bandwidth that is available
within the country. There is a lot of room for growth within the country. In relation to the
question of spectrum and the usage thereof, the government has put in place a committee that is
currently working to look into the question of broadband availability in the country. There is the
initiative on the operation that has been under way for three years. The switch-off is 2015. We
are anticipating to switch off in 2013. In all probability. We are currently involved in the digital
migration process. There has been some deadlines that have been set which were pushed. It was
June of this year and it was pushed further. We are happy to note that even in the developed
worlds, such as the US, we saw a postponement of deadline! It is perhaps to take care of those
niggling issues especially on the question of availability and affordability. On the clearance of
the spectrum that is underused by the brokers, the broadband committee is looking into this
and the regulator which is a communication committee of Kenya is in that committee and it's
the one to manage the spectrum on behalf of the country. In all probability, by the end of next
year, we should have a very clear indication about how that cleared spectrum is going to be then
made available for broadband purposes. Now, in relation to the overall framework of the
government we have what is known as vision 2013. We are working on the medium term
framework. We are anticipating ICTs generally, including any services offered. We are
anticipating that by 2017, 10% of the GPD will be from this industry. It is why the question of
broadband and broadband access to the majority of people is a key concern for government.
Now, in relation to the question of economics of it, for the vision of accessibility is a key concern.
We are aware that the gadgets and platforms are out of the range of the citizens of the country.
This is something that maybe as time goes on, they will become more cheaper and more
available so that it is anticipated that perhaps given the economics of scale that it's possible that
these gadgets will be available to the majority of the citizens of Kenya. There is a correlation
between content and the optic of broadband for that particular purpose. The government is
currently looking at perhaps four areas. There is one in education and there was a project
launched in a pilot status where classes from one particular school in the country is transmitted
to the rural areas so students in those rural areas can access the classes in the manner in which
they're taught in the capital city. It is a pilot project. It could be deployed using the broadband
network to rural schools. There is a question of health. Health is one key application that are
needed on this broadband network. There are e e-doctors available now especially on the SMS
platform. On the internet platform, we don't have sufficient impetus to drive that. In agriculture,
that is one of the largest contributor to the GPD of our economy, we are looking at several
applications that run on that marketing side in relation to agriculture. Fourthly, there is
incubation industry in terms of entrepreneurship. The government has been very supportive of
the incubation centres that are presently in Nairobi. I was asked to speak on this having not
prepared very well. I'm speaking on behalf of our permanent secretary in the industry who may
be available to speak in another forum during this IGF. That is perhaps the moment at which the
government of Kenya is approaching this particular issue. I'd be happy to take questions
thereafter. Thank you very much.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. To close with the formal remans is Peter Lance.
Peter Micek: Good evening, everyone. I recognise that I'm the last speaker so I'll try to keep
things as interesting as one possibly can when discussing spectrum! I would like to start by, first
of all, thanking the people and government of Azerbaijan for their hospitality. It is a beautiful
country. It is my first time visiting. I want to visit many more times in the country. I live in Dubai
so it's a very easy trip for me. My name is Peter Lions. I'm the director of spectrum policy at the
GSMA. A little bit more about the GSMA in a second. Before I start here, I thought, you know, it's
late in the day, attentions are possibly waning. I will start with my first assignment for GSMA.
They sent me to a meeting in the congo in 2010, it was west central Africa. I remember it took
many, many hours and many connections through many airports to finally arrive to the congo.
As the flight was preparing to land, I remember looking out of the window and seeing complete
darkness. The sun was just setting and the jungle was completely dark except for one road with
street lights. Now, we landed and I went from the airport to the hotel. On the way to the hotel,
we crossed this one street that had lights. I was shocked to see at eight o'clock at night the street
was full of young people. They were school age. I asked the taxi driver, "what is going on? Is
there some kind of protest? Some kind of trouble?" I looked a little closer and I noticed that each
of these schoolchildren had their school books in front of them. Because they did not have
electricity or even light at home, they were studying in the street under the street lights pacing
back and forth, memorising, reading, discussing. I thought this was really incredible. This is
really, I think, symbolic of what the mobile industry is trying to bring to developing countries.
We're trying to bring light. We are trying to bring knowledge. We are trying to bring
information. Spectrum is the electricity of the mobile industry. In some cases, electricity is the
electricity of the mobile industry. When you don't have electrical grids, you have to run
generators. With that in mind, and with the imagination of these thousands of young children
studying under street lights, I'd like to bring you my presentation. What is the GSMA? The GSMA
represents more than 800 mobile phone operators around the world in more than 200
countries. We also have associate members which include all of the technology companies, the
equipment vendors, internet companies, entertainment et cetera. So, what is at stake when
we're talking about mobile broadband for the mobile industry. As Dr Pep per said, it is a huge
increase in data traffic.
NEW SPEAKER: I'm sorry there are no captions.
[The Skype connection has been lost. We need someone to Skype call us, please.]
PANELIST: What does it mean for economic growth? Let's look at the subSaharan African analysis we did. By 2025, just over ten years from now, we could
add 82 billion dollars in annual GPD to the GPD of sub-Saharan Africa. This means
you can add, over 12 years, 28 million new jobs. Okay, what does adding 28
million new jobs and 82 billion dollars in GPD mean, it will help bring 40 million
people out of extreme poverty. These are people living on less than a dollar 50
cents a day. This is why it's important. This is why harmonised spectrum is so
important. We need a stable licensing framework that promotes long term
investment and transparency. We need a harmonised spectrum that allows for the
devices to be produced in scale to increase jobs and production. To go back to my
story at the beginning, we have light sitting here, we have internet connectivity
mostly, we have our computers, and we have our devices. We were discussing this
in great abstract ways. What would be the tangible benefit to those
schoolchildren in the Congo? Think about what would about he the tangle benefit
in Azerbaijan? This is really the issue that is at stake here. We have to bring
connectivity, knowledge and light to the people around the world. Harmonised
spectrum is the first step in delivering that. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. We are running a little late, so Dr Pepper has
gone on to another workshop. The fellow panellists have stayed behind. We
wanted to see if there were any questions from the floor. There is a microphone
behind you. If you would each like to queue up, that would be great. If you could
introduce yourself before you ask your question.
NEW SPEAKER: [inaudible].
THE MODERATOR: Thank you for that question. I have an opinion but I would
certainly first turn to my experts on the panel and see if anybody would like to
respond to the question about cognitive radio technology.
PANELIST: I think down the road there are opportunities for these
technologies. At the moment, the technology is not even close to where it needs
to be to really be a suitable possibility for spectrum management and for cognitive
spectrum management; we are talking ten years plus down the road. In the
meantime, the most benefit will be from licensing, assigning spectrum with certain
rights and obligations. You know, this use of spectrum should be regulated and
should be used in a very sort of method logical way. Yes, in the future, cognitive
radio technology will be available.
NEW SPEAKER: There is a certain characteristic about spectrum that it's a
scarce resource. We need to look at regulation and planning.
THE MODERATOR: I will take this opportunity also to answer. It is a near time
solution but it is certainly very important, given the data projections, as well as
the other uses of spectrum which are not just commercial mobile broadband,
to find technologies that allow for a dynamic use of spectrum. In the United
States, right now, there are efforts that are looking at different ways for users and
operators and technology companies to develop sharing mechanisms. We are not
there yet other than looking at exclusive geographical separation but it is being
looked at because we are running out of the low hanging spectrum, if you like. We
need to find ways to make better use of it.
NEW SPEAKER: I'm very glad to hear hello hello I'm very glad to have this
panel allow me. [Inaudible] [Inaudible]. One final point is the issue of patents.
THE MODERATOR: I can't hear you; I’m sorry.
Jacquelynn Ruff: Verizon has a history of using different business models, being
maybe a first mover on things. For example, Verizon adopted wireless number
portability. It was the first in the market to do that and before the regulator
required that. The view is that what is really going on right now, we are an
extremely competitive wireless market. We have four national wireless operators
and two regional. Any place a customer is, they have at least six choices. That
drives a number of operators and ourselves included to try and figure out what
does the customer really want. For example, we rolled out the Android operating
system. At that point, we didn't have the iPhone. There were policies behind that
from the government position.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you. Pete per, did you want to have the organisation
point of view?
PANELIST: There was a question on shared spectrum. In Russia, in the 700
megahertz where there is essentially three megahertz slots and four operators.
Okay, so four doesn't go into three. What happens? How did this spectrum end up
being divided up? Each operator went for 15 megahertz each. Spectrum sharing
will be commercially driven. The operators are going to make the decisions that
are the most commercially viable and the ones that make the most investment
sense. There has to be a framework, a legal framework in place that allows these
commercial agreements to take place. I think it's going to be commercially driven.
We have to allow those kinds of things to happen and there have to be that legal
framework to do that.
PANELIST: I would add a slightly different angle. The sharing between
commercial wireless operations and other services and that is perhaps a question
but I don't know if it's part of your question, but sharing with each other. When
you look at the spectrum tests that are going on, they're that type of environment.
I believe the United States is very much driven by the extreme congestion that
there is toward the primary markets. With other legitimate uses of that band,
the bands in question, whether it is satellite, radar, and other very important
services, how do you enable that? This is what is driving it in the United States for
exploration to co exist in some fashion. I don't know how you make that case in
India. It depends very much on what the other uses are and a willingness to invest
in that process. I believe there was a question on PATS.
PANELIST: I was going to say I don't know... dinner at 6.30.
THE MODERATOR: Another quick question here. It is definitely the last
question. Thank you, Jackie.
NEW SPEAKER: The information technology of Azerbaijan national science. I
have one question.
PANELIST: In relation to the government, they are working on e development.
There is something in there that they want to look at. There is development
needed on the availability of government data that can be accessed by the public
and used by them. It is ongoing. The whole idea about spectrum, we are very
keen to look into it in Kenya. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: In light of the impending host gala this evening, I think
we're going to have to close this workshop. I would like to ask you to thank our
panellists for participating today.
THE MODERATOR: I'm sure you can find them at the gala tonight. Thank you.
NEW SPEAKER: Sorry, could I just say one thing? A lot of what I said today
was thanks to a colleague who I have worked with is Steve Song. Everything I have
ever learned about spectrum is from Steve Song. You can find a lot of what I have
been saying online. Thank you.
THE MODERATOR: And now we're officially closed.