In the beginner’s mind there are…
I’ve now moved the African Undersea Cables map to a permanent page that I will update as new information emerges. The latest revision includes updates of:
As I am getting my head around spectrum issues, I have found Michael Marcus’s blog, Spectrum Talk, tremendously useful. On the weekend he posted a link to a consultation that Ofcom (the UK communications regulator) have launched consultation on the possibility of of making license-exempt the bandwidth between 275GHz and 3000GH.
Excerpted from Ofcom doc - click on image to download full PDF
The rationale for declaring this range of bandwidth a “commons” is that the propagation characteristics of this range of bandwidth are such that any device would have fairly limited line-of-sight range. This range of bandwidth is prone to atmospheric loss and does not travel well through solid objects. Thus, the chances of interference among devices is minimised. Also, the large range of bandwidth that Ofcom are proposing to open up would also reduce the chances of interference.
The motivation for this proposal are two-fold. On the one hand, opening this range of spectrum to the commons reduces the regulatory management overhead for Ofcom. On the other hand, and for me more interestingly, Ofcom have explicitly recognised the potential for innovation in unlicensed spectrum. Specifically, they say:
“By removing regulatory overheads, the release of the spectrum in the 275-3000 GHz may encourage innovation and the emergence of new applications of value to citizens and consumers. Potential new applications for this band include short range anti-collision radar devices, detection of skin cancer and other non destructive evaluation methods used in industrial processes. However, given that it is unclear at this stage which applications will be successful and when this will happen, it is difficult to estimate the economic benefits to citizens and consumers.”
(text bolding added by me)
Recognising a spectrum commons as a source of innovation, in my opinion, is a very important step for any regulator. These are the kinds of discussions that need to start happening now in South Africa but equally in emerging markets in general. Spectrum is a complex area that demands as much technical as economic expertise to understand how it may be most effectively used.
It’s time to get down to business and start developing a civil society position on spectrum management in South Africa. The key purpose of spectrum management is to maximise the value that society gains from the radio spectrum. That has traditionally been done in a command-and-control manner treating spectrum as a completely finite, scarce resource. But things are changing.
The recent ruling in South Africa which effectively opened up the telecoms market to full competition, now sadly being appealed by the Department of Communications (DoC), got me thinking about “what next”. Suppose that the DoC come to its senses and abandons the appeal or perhaps a sensible judge throws the appeal out, what next? The regulator (ICASA) have a huge number of issues to address ranging from interconnection to local loop unbundling. But for me, one issue stands out after the Altech ruling and that is spectrum management. For many service providers, having an i-ECNS license will not be very meaningful if they are unable to get access to spectrum.
Given that ICASA seem unlikely to address spectrum management for at least another year, thanks to other pressing priorities, now seems like the perfect time to mobilise debate within civil society on what principles we would like to see enshrined in spectrum regulation. Certainly, there are a few issues that come to mind.
Given the level of cronyism that has characterised the SA telecoms market in the last 15 years, embedding transparency mechanisms into spectrum regulation is a highly attractive proposition but not one that is by any means a given. Building on Paul Collier’s premise that Open Standards might lead to better practice, it would be worth exploring what sorts of standards might be proposed to ICASA to ensure a fully transparent process in the allocation of spectrum.
As radio and computing technology continue to rapidly evolve, our ability to make more and more efficient use of spectrum increases. Policy and regulation need to be developed so as to allow as many of the highest value users access as possible. As technology will continually move this goalpost, regulation needs reflect this shifting environment.
Unlicensed spectrum, in particular the 2.4 and 5Mhz bands have proven to be magnets for innovation. Initially declared unlicensed because they were ‘garbage’ spectrum unsuitable for broadcast, they have been instrumental in enabling powerful and most importantly unpredictable innovations. The ubiquity of WiFi in computing devices could not have happened were in not for the fact that everyone is permitted to experiment in this bandwidth. Creating more open spectrum can only stimulate further innovation. The Wireless Innovation Alliance championed by Google and Microsoft in the United States is an attempt to have more bandwidth set aside as open. The debate in this area has been heated. Now is the time to start looking at such issues in South Africa before they get captured by vested interests.
For those of you new to the “White Spaces” debate, here is a link that I picked up from Sascha Meinrath’s blog to a video produced by the People Production House in New York. It’s a lovely introduction to the pro side of the white spaces debate.
If you’re interested in getting involved in such a debate in South Africa, I’d love to hear from you.
The undersea cable environment around the African continent continues to evolve. Proposed cables appear, disappear, merge. A testament to the competitive environment. In this latest update, I have added the MaIN OnE cable which appears to be making progress. Thanks to Abi Jagun for finding their real website.
In the meantime Infraco AWCC, SAT4, and UhuruNet have all morphed into the West Africa Cable System (WACS). Thus WACS is now a “cartel” consisting of Telkom, Vodacom, MTN, Neotel, and Infraco, with UhuruNet squeezed in there as well, if only so that the South African Department of Communications should not look like complete idiots. As if that would save them.
As before, you can download a version in SVG format so that you can edit the map yourself. Right click on the link and choose Save As otherwise your clever browser may try to render the image.
Next I may try to do an investment map to look at who will own all this bandwidth.
Note: the most up-to-date version of this map can be found at http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables.
Work has finally begun on the Mesh Potato. The Shuttleworth Foundation has completed agreements with David Rowe and Elektra and they are now hard at work on the production of a Mesh Potato proof-of-concept. David has just posted a fairly detailed kick-off post on his blog. A rough time-frame for the Mesh Potato is to produce a proof-of-concept by November, hand-made prototypes by early 2009 and hopefully production Mesh Potatos by mid-2009. All software developed for the Mesh Potato will be stored in an SVN repository on Sourceforge.
The Foundation has also now provided support to Dabba to work on a simplified interface to A2Billing aimed at Village Telco operation. Early results of this work should be available on the Village Telco website by the end of October.
My first step in trying to make the Village Telco site more useful to people has been to write an FAQ for the Village Telco. I’ll do another one shortly for the Mesh Potato. If you have any suggestions for additions or clarifications to the FAQ, please don’t hesitate to post them.
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