Tag Archives: WiFi

Unpacking Our Mobile Broadband Future ITU Y U NO LIKE WIFI?

The future is mobile. We all know that. We read it everywhere. In the UN Broadband Commission‘s recently published report entitled, The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion For All, ITU analysts boldly announce their belief that:

“mobile broadband could prove the platform for achieving the boost needed to get progress back on track – at end 2011, there were already almost twice as many mobile broadband subscriptions as fixed broadband connections.”

But what does it actually mean and is it really true? When talking about our mobile broadband future, it is essential to distinguish between devices and networks. The two things are not necessarily the same thing.

The Future is Mobile Devices

This future I believe in. Small, low-power wireless devices whether phones or tablets are taking over the way we interact with each other and with content. New markets and services are being created every day for mobile devices. The world of app and apps stores are creating new opportunities for innovation and adding value.

The Future is Mobile Networks

This is the future mobile operators would like you to believe in but the evidence is increasingly not in their favour. Here are some statistics that may change your perspective of our mobile broadband future.

Global Smartphone-originated Data Traffic
January 2012 – Source: Mobidia

A recent study by Mobidia revealed that about 70% of smartphone data traffic travelled via WiFi and not mobile networks. Keep in mind that this research was not done in Africa, it was done in the industrialised world. What we are seeing overwhelmingly is WiFi become the default form of data access and cellular access being relegated to those times when WiFi is not available, an increasingly rare phenomenon in the rich world.

The figures are even higher for tablet traffic. And while we’re at it, since when are tablets “mobile” devices? Of the fifty million tablets sold in the United States, only 8% have mobile capacity. The tablet is not a mobile device, it is a WiFi device. Google’s Nexus7 tablet is WiFi-only. Both Microsoft’s new Surface tablet and Apple’s new iPad Mini are likely to launch as WiFi-only devices. Why would Apple and Microsoft do that? Well, one reason might be to avoid the painful process of negotiating mobile carrier agreements. Imagine if computer manufacturers had to negotiate ISP agreements to connect a computer to the net. The latest tablet is also a whole lot cheaper than a smartphone. Compare a $200 Nexus7 tablet with an $800 Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone.

So what’s my point here? My point is that the UN Broadband Commission’s recently published report on Achieving Digital Inclusion mentions WiFi exactly twice, both times parenthetically. Mobile operators would like you to believe that the future of mobile broadband lies in the LTE networks that they are building. And certainly that is partly true but only partly. If the Mobidia stats are to be believed, about 30% true.

Mobile operators have no interest in WiFi because they currently have no control over WiFi networks although that is beginning to change in the U.S. And we get reports like the one from the UN Broadband Commission because the dialogue at the ITU is dominated by operators. The Broadband Commission itself is chaired by Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world. The irony of putting the richest man in the world in charge of a commission to connect the poor appears to be lost on the UN.

In any discussion about the mobile broadband future of Africa, WiFi is simply not part of the discussion. Yet the evidence is before our eyes of the strategic importance of WiFi to our “mobile” devices. It’s cheap and fast and grew to solve the problem of affordable access by chance not by design. It happened because WiFi is an open space for technology developers to innovate. No carrier agreements required.

Also not mentioned in the UN Broadband Commission’s report is the potential of Television White Spaces spectrum, a space for with the potential for massive innovation in rural access. Another area not controlled by mobile operators.

The benefits of WiFi go beyond just cheaper access. They also create the opportunity to eliminate the weakness of a single point of failure that mobile networks create. WiFi infrastructure can make it harder to wilfully shutdown communication in a given geographic region. The key to resilient networks is plurality of access and WiFi is already embedded in every smart device you can think of.

It would be nice to see WiFi recognised for the powerful role that it is already playing in mobile broadband and to see it figure in national strategic broadband plans for the future.

The Death of Fixed Lines in Africa

11 Replies

It's ironic that the telephone wire used in these baskets is not commercially available for sale anywhere. You'd think that might be a value-add wholesale offering from Telkom. :-)

Zulu telephone wire basket image courtesy of Ethekwinigirl

Today I want to push back a little (just a little) against the conventional wisdom that mobiles are the only communications infrastructure future for Africa. There is an implicit understanding in ICT4D work in Africa that mobiles are the future and fixed lines are an archaic hangover from an inefficient, monopolistic, state-run, colonial past. Perhaps I exaggerate for the sake of effect but it is hard to argue with when development agencies are racing to jump on the “mobile for development” train.

So let’s look at the evidence. Mobile infrastructure continues to grow beyond all expectation in Africa while fixed line infrastructure has mostly remained static or even declined in some cases. On the face of it, this appears to support the case for Africa’s “mobile” future. The implicit understanding in this is that mobiles are just better on so many levels that natural selection will cause fixed lines to atrophy like some vestigial evolutionary accident. I don’t want to challenge the remarkable value of mobile phones but I do want to challenge the notion that they are a complete replacement for fixed lines. Fixed lines are a complementary technology that have a role to play in any communications ecology.

What is a Fixed Line?

Before I go into detail why, it is worth unpacking what is a fixed line. Fixed lines in Africa are generally understood to mean the legacy copper infrastructure held by the former incumbent monopoly telco. So fixed lines already start off with a bad rap, being associated with bureaucracy, inefficiency, and incompetence. It gets worse though because the value of copper as a commodity has made existing phone lines a popular target for theft. This has the dual effect of making copper phone lines seem even more unreliable than when they were simply being poorly maintained and also disincentivising the fixed-line operator from continuing to invest in copper infrastructure. The final nail in the coffin is that telcos don’t offer copper phone lines on a pay-as-you-go basis. Pay-as-you-go is well-known as one of the key enablers of the mobile revolution but copper fixed lines are just too expensive too offer on a pay-as-you-go basis. Arguably things don’t look good for the fixed line.

But copper wires are just one kind of fixed line. A fixed line is just communication connection that doesn’t move about. Fixed wireless, such as the CDMA-based service being offered by Neotel and others on the continent is another kind of fixed line. One particular benefit of this technology is that it typically operates in a different spectrum range from mobile services which means that operators can deploy fixed wireless solutions without having to have or compete for expensive and scarce GSM spectrum licenses. WiFi also has the potential to offer fixed line services. The increasing availability of WiFi on mobile phones point to interesting possibilities in terms of mixing communication infrastructures.

So Why Fixed Line?

But still, why would you bother? The mobile phone so personal, so ubiquitous that it trumps the fixed line in every way… or does it? Here are a few reasons why I think the fixed line, if it overcomes currrent technological challenges, may be around for a while.

1) Sometimes you don’t want to call an individual. For any institution, be it school, police station, hospital or corner shop, when you call them you are generally more interested in being connected with services associated with the institution rather than a particular person. This is not limited to institutions. When I call home, I am happy to talk to whoever is home. There is almost a happy serendipity to whoever answers the phone. Your brother that you don’t always get on with perhaps… a connection made that maintains social ties.

2) Fixed wireless can be cheaper than mobile. Not having to deploy ubiquitous mobile coverage means that fixed wireless can be rolled out at a much lower cost that mobile infrastructure as it can be done in a more boot-strapped fashion than mobile services. The fact that fixed wireless is currently mostly deployed by existing telcos using relatively expensive CDMA gear means that the full benefit of this option has yet to be realised. Full disclosure: I am betting that the Village Telco can offer fixed WiFi voice and data services in a manner which is both affordable and complementary to mobile services.

3) A full-size handset can be a beautiful thing. A handset that comfortably isolates the ear are not necessary in a fixed line solution. I note with interest companies like Native Union and SparkFun that connect a traditional handset with your mobile technology of choice.

Summing Up

This post was triggered by reading that Rwandatel recently reported a seven percent increase in fixed line subscribers. When you think about it, it’s obvious. Both fixed and mobile solutions are useful. The challenge for fixed line provision is to be as cheap and payment-flexible as a mobile solution. As I have said before, the future is not mobile but rather a seamless experience over an ecology of heterogeneous networks. Emerging IEEE standards such as 802.21 and 802.11u offer the promise of interoperability across WiFi and mobile networks. See recent blog posts by David Isenberg, Bill St. Arnaud, and Brough Turner that point in this direction.

Finally, it is slightly ironic that from an ICT development policy perspective, we urge regulators and policy-makers to adopt a technology neutral stance so as to accommodate the always unpredictable evolution of technology. A more technology neutral stance on the part of development agencies themselves might not be a bad thing.

WiFi on Steroids Approved in U.S.

1 Reply

November 4th was truly a good news day in the United States. Not only did the American people elect a leader who will hopefully begin to heal the damage done by 8 years of the Bush regime but, on the same day, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the use of new wireless devices that will operate in the television broadcast spectrum utilising open so-called white spaces in that spectrum.

The decision has been bitterly opposed by broadcast companies who claim that the devices will degrade television signals. However, the FCC has carried out extensive testing and has determined that the devices can operate without affecting television broadcast services. The FCC’s decision to approve this spectrum use was unanimous.

All “white space” devices will be subject to approval by the FCC. This new generation of wireless devices will use a combination of technologies to operate within the television spectrum. Most devices will have geo-location technology and will access a database of the incumbent services via the Internet, which will let them know what spectrum is available for use. The devices will also have spectrum-sensing technology which will alert them to spectrum in use. Some devices will be approved without the geo-location technology i.e. with just spectrum-sensing but they will be subject to a more rigorous approval process.

To date only prototype devices have been tested. It is estimated that commercial products are about 18 months away from market. How remarkable would it be if South Africa (and developing countries in general) were to approve the use of “white space” spectrum in time for those products to come to market?

So what makes these devices so much more amazing than WiFi? It is more the spectrum than the technology itself that will allow “white space” devices to offer dramatically improved performance over WiFi. Television spectrum has much better propagation characteristics than the 2.4GHz and 5MHz bands that WiFi uses. This means that radio signals can travel further and move through obstacles more easily, making it both easier and less expensive to set up wireless networks.

This was an important decision in terms of delivering broadband access to underserviced areas in the United States but think how much more impact this technology might have in developing countries where underserviced and overpriced is the norm for access.

Opening Spectrum in South Africa

1 Reply

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.

Transparency

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.

Readiness for a Different World

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.

Open Spectrum and Innovation

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.Â 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.Â 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.

Village Telco Workshop

10 Replies

At the Shuttleworth Foundation, the geek factor runs pretty high for a charitable foundation. However, my colleague Jason and I felt like lightweights at the the Village Telco workshop that we hosted here at the Foundation two weeks ago.

You can see the full list of participants here or click here to put a face to all the names but topping out the geek factor at the workshop were David Rowe, Open Hardware pioneer and developer of the Free Telephony Project; Elektra, author of the B.A.T.M.A.N. mesh networking protocol; Jeff Wishnie, Chief Technology Officer for Inveneo; and, Alberto Escudero-Pascual of IT46.

The intent of the workshop was to bring together the right people to be able to prototype a Village Telco, with the intention of getting some configurations and code up on to the website so that interested parties would have something to hack on. As you can see from the picture at left, we had no shortage of wireless hardware to experiment with and four servers lined up to start assembling Village Telco software on. Well, as they say in the U.S. Army, “no plan ever survives contact with the enemy”. We never did build a prototype but we did something better, we brainstormed a new, low-cost startup model for a Village Telco.

Low-cost wireless networking a powerful concept with a thousand potential applications. Unfortunatley, this strength is also its weakness in helping people get started with low-cost WiFi and VoIP. Because you can do just about anything, the endless configurability is an intimidating prospect for even the above-average geek. Our challenge was to create something simple enough to use that an entrepreneur with only modest technical skills could see how to implement and scale up a village telco.

In order to keep the discussion honest, we agreed to use Dabba as the use case against which we would design a solution. Right now Dabba is operating in South African townships which are typically low-income, high-density and most of which have existing, but arguably expensive or inconvenient, telecoms services from the mobile operators and the incumbent, Telkom. But even this was not enough to ground the discussion. We needed to constrain the discussion to something as specific as possible. At first we talked about what would be required to cover a fixed area, say nine square kilometres, but after some time that seemed too ambitious for a bootstrapping startup. In the end, we decided to ask the question, “What could be achieved with USD 5000?” and given that investment “Could you break even within six months?”

One early leap forward in the workshop was to recognise the superiority of the Ubiquiti Nanostation as an external access point. While there is no question that the Linksys WRT54Gx series of wireless routers have played a seminal role in the Open Source movement around wireless networking, there is no getting around the fact that they are designed for indoors and there is a significant cost increase associated with ruggedizing them for outdoors. The Nanostations cost the same as the WRT54GLs but come pre-built in a ruggedized outdoor housing with mounting brackets. The Nanostation is also more powerful than the Linksys routers.

Having established a preference, discussion revolved around how open the Ubiquiti Nanostation is. The Nanostations can run OpenWRT and Inveneo had already had some success compiling the quagga routing protocol to run on it. Unfortunately, some of the tunable antenna functionality is lost with the OpenWRT software but this is not really a significant factor in the context of the Village Telco. The amazing thing about having Jeff and Elektra there was that they were able to test on the spot whether B.A.T.M.A.N. could be compiled for OpenWRT on the Nanostation. A couple of hours of quiet conspiring later and presto, the mesh protocol was running on the Nanostation!

While the idea of a mesh network is to have each node extend the mesh, a good first step for a Village Telco would be to start with a “Super Node” which would help the Village Telco Entrepreneur (VTE). A Super Node might be three Ubiquiti Nanostations mounted on a single pole above the premises of the VTE. This would offer a 2 kilometre radius of coverage to the Village Telco.

However, the Super Node reaching 2 kilometres is not the same as a VoIP handset reaching back that same distance. We had been thinking of typical wireless VoIP handsets such as the one by UT Starcom pictured at right. While this kind of device offers signficant advantages such as mobility and a built-in battery, it is also true that the range of such a phone is only about a 100 metres. Using this kind of phone would mean a dramatic increase in the number of wireless access points required to give service to a particular area. We either needed to think of a way of driving down the cost of an access point or increasing the power of the customer’s equipment.

As an aside, the two key cost factors that emerged in the scale-up of the Village Telco concept were a) the cost of the customer’s phone or Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) as I believe it is called in the trade; and, b) the cost of power supply to the wireless mesh access points. We made the assumption that it was critical for the network to have guaranteed power but that it was a nice-to-have rather than a must-have for the CPE.

As we brainstormed how to drive down the cost of the CPE, we discussed the potential of small mini-APs such as the Accton Mini-router sold by OpenMesh. These tiny APs are capable of running an adapted version of B.A.T.M.A.N. called, yes you guessed it, Robin. The combination of an OpenMesh router and a SIP phone would provide the CPE needed for a Village Telco. However, SIP phones are still not that cheap. We decided that what would be ideal would be a combination of a simple Analogue Telephony Adaptor (ATA) combined with something like an Open Mesh mini-router. There is something to be said for having equipment right in front of you because the idea of actually gaffer-taping an ATA to an Open Mesh router actually struck a chord with the workshop.

With a less amazing group, the conversation might have stopped there but as it turned out we brainstormed the existence of a device which we decided to call a Mesh Potato which would combine the functionality of an ATA and a mesh AP, and would be low-power, Open Source, Open Hardware, pre-ruggedized for outdoors and be easy-to-install and manage. Target cost of such a device would be sub USD 60 per device. In quantity, should we pull this off, the cost should be much lower.

So, with that we came to our 5000 dollar recipe for a Village Telco startup. USD 5000 should get you a server and printer (for pay-as-you-go coupons) running Asterisk and A2billing (modified into simple management framework), an Ubiquiti Nanostation-based Super Node and about 40 Mesh Potatoes or in other words something like this:

In my next post, I’ll talk more about scope of work involved in bringing these ideas to fruition. In the mean time, you can read the raw outputs of the workshop at http://wiki.villagetelco.org. If you are interested in getting involved as a developer, please sign up to the Village Telco development list at http://groups.google.com/group/village-telco-dev.

Many Possibilities

In the beginner's mind there are…