Rural wireless broadband site in the Tasman/Nelson district. Photo / KiwiWifi/Chris
OPINION:
As the climate emergency rolls on after Cyclone Gabrielle, the consensus is that we need to beef up our communications networks everywhere, including rural and remote areas, with better coverage and improved resilience.
The good news is that there’s a diverse group of smaller rural and remote providers ready to invest in network builds: wireless internet service providers or WISPs.
WISPs know their customers, communities and literally the lay of the land they operate on and can play an important role in building out networks for resilient communications.
Sadly it looks like the WISPs have been dealt a body blow by the government in the latest radio frequency spectrum allocation auctions.
The government has made it clear that it wants 5G and nothing else, even though WISPs and industry organisations protest and say going down that route doesn’t achieve the best result for rural New Zealand.
Here’s what’s happening: the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is currently auctioning off first rights of refusal to share non-national wireless broadband spectrum on Trade Me, in used condition and with free shipping.
Auctions close on Wednesday and Thursday this week.
RF spectrum is a finite resource and rights to use it are usually hotly contested. You can see that from earlier auctions like the 700 MHz one which saw Vodafone, Spark and 2degrees pay $259 million to use the bands for 4G in 2014.
In comparison, for the 3.3-3.8 GHz spectrum band MBIE has gifted most of the spectrum to the telcos, while auctioning off rights to share small allocations at $250 plus GST, with other charges on top, with national rights holders excluded from bidding.
Although we’re only talking about two 20 MHz bands, they could be used to build service with decent speeds, and the overall pricing is at a level that suits smaller regional providers.
All good, right?
Sadly not. Indications are that telcos bent MBIE’s ear on what is a relatively complex technical matter relating to the configuration of the spectrum band, making it useless to smaller providers.
Without wanting to lose readers by delving into impenetrable radio engineering jargon, the bug bear here is that telcos persuaded MBIE that any equipment in the new band must synchronise with urban 5G networks.
Spark in particular asked for this.
The official view aligns with what the telcos wanted.
Radio Spectrum Management Policy Manager Dan O’Grady said the ministry considered all users in the band, government objectives on 5G delivery and expansion, existing 5G networks in operation - and the fact the majority of the 3.3 to 3.8 GHz spectrum is intended to be used for 5G.
However, configuring the spectrum in such a way means far less reach - 9km cell sizes instead 32km - forcing providers to use expensive and power hungry telco gear or accept interference from operators with 5G networks.
What’s more, you’ll need many more cell sites to cover an area than if the reach of the transmission tower went further.
If you’re further away than 9km, well, you won’t get the 5G the government is gunning for. This is a point made by the WISPs which appears to have been ignored.
MBIE Approved Radio Engineer and author of a recent Asian Development Bank paper on connectivity Jonathan Brewer believes the government got it wrong.
So much so that Brewer submitted an alternative proposal for the spectrum band to MBIE last year based on European standards for 4G and 5G network coexistence.
Vendors have produced inexpensive existing equipment for 4G costing hundreds of dollars and not thousands. Said gear is low power and solar ready; on the face of it, that approach would mean faster, cheaper and much easier to manage remote site deployments.
O’Grady disagreed with that.
The 4G LTE/5G compatible option comes with a number of disadvantages compared to a 5G only, he said. Increased latency (delay or responsiveness), inefficiencies, and the lack of full management of interference risks to 5G networks are some of them, according to O’Grady.
He didn’t explain how such risk would be present in remote and rural areas that are unlikely to have 5G coverage any time soon, due to the expense and difficulty in deploying the next-gen wireless tech.
The problems with the 3.3 GHz spectrum configuration that Brewer and WISPs point out do seem quite fundamental, but it doesn’t appear that MBIE ran a transparent consultation process.
“The March 2023 consultation process on WISP access to the band was not public, and no responses from the consultation have been released,” Brewer said.
Small cell sizes like the 9km cell radius chosen “turns it [3.3 GHz] into a band you can only use alongside other spectrum for range. It’s a solution for urban or urban fringe, not rural,” Lachlan Chapman of Hawke’s Bay provider AONet said.
Managing director of Primo Broadband which covers Taranaki, Matthew Harrison, agreed with Chapman that needing to keep customers within 9km of cell towers isn’t going to work well.
“The average long distance connection for us is 15 to 20km,” Harrison said.
Mike Smith is the chairman of the WISP Association of New Zealand,
“WISPA NZ has been engaged in a positive and supportive manner with the RSM on the 3.3-3.4GHz spectrum allocation for over four years, engaging in working groups, regular consultative meetings and discussions with each of the Ministers in charge of the digital economy portfolio.”
“We have represented the views of our 36 members and WISPS in general throughout the process,” Smith said.
Smith isn’t hiding his disappointment with how MBIE configured the spectrum.
“Our view however is that the outcome of the lengthy process has led to a situation where the entire band has been structured in a way that works for the MNOs targeting urban rollouts but drastically reduces its viability in rural/regional areas, Smith said.
He added that 5G was picked as the preferred technology path. This by itself isn’t an issue, but mandating rules, at what seems to be on the bequest of MNOs, that reduce the maximum cell size to just 9km “effectively makes rural connectivity gains null and void.”
WISPA and other parties proposed a 14km cell size option, but that was not taken up whereas the smaller MNO one was.
Smith also expressed concern that while regional operators were forced into an auction process, telcos and spectrum access wholesaler Dense Air were given spectrum for free, effectively, in return for a “perceived investment requirement”.
“This doesn’t follow a fair play line,” Smith said.
Over the past few years, around half of all licences in a similar shared spectrum band at 2.6 GHz were issued to parties who never used them.
The way that the auctions allocate spectrum hasn’t gone down well with WISPs, who are already under pressure from low Earth orbit satellite operators, along with the three large telcos.
Harrison said: “I can’t understand how one branch of the government (Crown Infrastructure Partners) can be so helpful and supportive in making sure rural broadband is rolled out to every inch of New Zealand, and yet another part of the government (Radio Spectrum Management) doesn’t want to see that happen.”
It’s difficult to see how undermining an already tough position will benefit competition for the delivery of rural broadband.
As Smith puts it: “If Elon Musk can deliver internet from space with very little if any cost to use our spectrum in NZ, having a managed access to a band already technically available is a great way of showing support to New Zealand-owned small businesses who live and work in our regions, providers who have proven time and time again their value.”
Craig Young, the chief executive of TUANZ said the organisation supports WISPs in this situation.
“It seems very much that this band has been limited in its use by the requirements that have been placed on its use,” Young said.
“While it’s tricky to get the balance right, it does seem to be that the voices of the smaller regional players have not been fully understood.”
“My concern is over a diminished service being available for users,” Young added.
Why does it matter that we get it right? As Dan O’Grady said: “... we have planned this band looking beyond the present, and through to the next 20 years.”
Also, management rights for the 3.3 GHz band run for 10 years.
That’s a long time to wait to see if things were set up correctly in 2023.
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