The 5G Opportunity For A Unitary Paradigm

Adopt high-speed wireless subnetworks of small cells, and a commons approach.

Shyam Ponappa   |   October 6, 2022

An explanatory note on the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill touches on how spectrum is similar to atma, the soul. If this idea is pursued through a unitary approach to regulation, emphasising functionality and avoiding fragmentation, services would proliferate because of lower costs and easier installation. The truth, however, is that the regulatory environment in the last decade has not been coherent and integrated.

With 5G, India has the opportunity — once again — of adopting a resource-sharing approach, as is the case in some other forms of infrastructure. Airlines, for instance, share flight paths and airports, while vehicles and transporters share highways and transport facilities, and ships and shipping companies share routes and ports. In the same way, shared telecom infrastructure and spectrum will maximise efficient use of capital for 5G. The need is for integrated networks with many small cells, which are also effective for 4G. Both users and service providers benefit from capital-intensive infrastructure that permits open access to authorised operators paying for usage. Telecommunications has evolved in a more fragmented way than airlines and transport by land and sea. The latter systems are organised around the principle of a unitary approach to resource-sharing for efficient use.

One reason telecommunications evolved in this way was because of technology limitations, particularly wireless interference. Another was the approach in developed markets, particularly the US, the UK, and Europe. From the 1990s, these markets experienced waves of deregulation, privatisation, and a worshipful attitude to competition.¹  Meanwhile, the dissolution of the Soviet Union encouraged indiscriminate acceptance of free-market ideas. The strongest impetus driving governments, however, may have been the windfall revenues from spectrum auctions. This was amplified by the incongruous phenomenon of people equating government collections with public benefit, paradoxically as capitalism was in the ascendance. Auctions were idolised even after the collapse of telecom in the 2000s. The sector recovered gradually after many years, although services were seen as being deficient globally, resulting in broadband policy interventions even in the US, as in many countries.

However, barring notable exceptions, the concept of property rights continues to dominate spectrum assignment, as does homage to unfettered competition. Consequently, alternative approaches are scarce, although the technological and economic rationale for sharing integrated infrastructure, as in roads, rail, air and waterway routes and facilities, is self-evident, and is unquestioned. Quite simply, it is the logic of sharing high fixed and operating costs to maximise capacity utilisation, whether for communities or for nations. There are similar compelling reasons for sharing wireless technology and equipment, with developments in reduced interference, reuse in smaller areas with wider spectrum bands, and technological innovation far beyond earlier benchmarks. But this is not yet widely accepted, and much less so in India.

Some countries with a propensity for cooperation, as in Scandinavia, have successfully implemented a consortium approach, but this may be restricted to places with a collaborative culture. Others have tried government control of common access networks or spectrum, such as Mexico’s 700 MHz network, Australia’s Next Generation Network, or Africa’s open access network, none with success. The opposite, private control of networks and spectrum, prevails, as espoused by the US and followed by many, including India. The US, however, is moving rapidly to shared secondary use of spectrum as well as more open access, both of which are promising when it comes to effectiveness and efficiency.

Yet another way is the commons approach, with common carrier sectoral access to a public resource, spectrum, for the public good, with a fair sharing of costs for usage, as for airlines and other infrastructure. The example below shows how this could be done.

New Paradigm For Low-Cost Networks 

This outline is for 5G services in cities with fibre optic connections, which is extendable to rural areas without fibre. A recent press report mentions a government plan for Patna as a model for 5G rollout in cities. The city map is apparently divided into grids of 200 square metres to estimate the number of towers required, with the finding that the towers have to be doubled to over 3,000 for quality coverage. Whether this is really under consideration or not, the government surely needs to evaluate a wireless approach that is less expensive and more feasible than towers and fibre.

A conceptual plan by an equipment manufacturer for 5G serving a million users in 400 sq km is shown in the chart. Hexagonal cells with sides of 3 km and area of about 23 sq km cover this service area with 60 radios and 50 node switches. These can be installed on existing towers, buildings, and street furniture.

Source: https://elva-1.com/data/files/docs/ELVA-1_Dual-band_Urban-Scale_Wireless_Networking_Concept.pdf

This calls for a true paradigm shift in India’s policies, applicable for both 4G and 5G networks. The following administrative changes in regulations are required:

1. Permit authorised operators wide bandwidth use of V-band (60 GHz) and E-band (70-80 GHz) for multi-gigabit transport, with operators paying for actual usage. Permit channel width of 2.16 GHz (currently only 250 MHz for E-band) and channel aggregation for multi-gigabit throughput.

2. Permit Wi-Fi in the 6 GHz and 60 GHz bands for end user access.

3. Adapt US regulations for these bands to India’s needs, as has been done for 5 GHz in October 2018.

4. Implement these changes urgently. The need for speedy clearances and action cannot be overemphasised, given the inordinate delays.

To recap, our requirement is regulations for high-speed wireless in V-band and E-band, in wide bandwidths allowing for multi-gigabit transport for authorised operators paying for usage, together with end-user access through Wi-Fi in the 6 and 60 GHz bands. The costs, difficulty in installation, and completion time will reduce considerably, with far less towers and fibre because of the use of buildings and street furniture for wireless equipment. Radios will connect through wireless links in a mesh for coverage. Within cells, towers will connect to sub-cells for user access through Wi-Fi in the existing 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, or faster through 6 and 60 GHz.

This is an opportunity the government must not lose.

---

Shyam (no space) Ponappa at gmail dot com

1: Paul Starr: "The Great Telecom Implosion," The American Prospect (September 9, 2002), 20-24.

China 3: Build Comprehensive Ecosystems

Failures in electricity, transport and broadband have common strands. China's approach offers a possible alternative

Shyam Ponappa / Apr 05, 2012

India’s inability to address infrastructure is legendary, barring historical exceptions. It shows in electricity shortages, inadequate sanitation, broadband, railway services, airlines and roads. This explores the common strands of such failures, and a possible alternative drawing on China’s approach to development.

Electricity shortages are attributed to a tangle of factors: difficulties with fuel supply – for instance, for coal, there are problems in mining, and unrelated problems in transport, including the limitations of the railways – or the difficulties with nuclear and hydroelectric power development faced with overzealous activism, aggravated by the government’s poor record of compensation to affected people; unsustainable populist pricing; a lack of integrated planning (for example, generation capacity without linkages to fuel); and poor execution.

In transportation, there’s another tangle in the railways, with populism and deteriorating finances, yet making plans for super-fast trains. Airlines are treated as either a milch cow for government revenues or a sacred cow when it comes to providing endless, unviable subsidies.

Consider, also, spectrum and broadband. After mobile telephony’s meteoric rise, prospects of growth with pervasive broadband are receding, with little indication of supportive policies from the erstwhile New Telecom Policy, or NTP-2011, now NTP-2012-if-we’re-lucky. The episodic pronouncements and actions have been retrograde, such as the “tax attack” on Vodafone after the Supreme Court dismissed earlier tax claims, or the withholding of Qualcomm’s spectrum until recently. Worse, there’s an apparent pincer movement undercutting 3G by prohibiting roaming, while announcing spectrum auctions with hardly any spectrum available. Defence spectrum release has stalled, as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has not built the alternative fibre optic network. Consequently, the department of telecommunications has only 150 megahertz of spectrum for commercial use, of which only 5 MHz remain for 3G. Combined with the prohibition on roaming, this effectively stymies 3G.

There’s more pressure on GSM operators coming up to “refarm” the 900 MHz spectrum when licences are renewed from 2014 to 2016. The best solution for incumbents as well as others without bandwidth below 1 gigahertz is to share networks. This would seem an obvious solution for 3G as well, and might even trigger or revive other technologies because spectrum is available, just as the dearth of spectrum may contribute to the untimely exit of WiMAX (802.16) or iBurst (802.20).

However, restrictions on roaming and insistence on spectrum auctions will ensure that spectrum sharing is either impractical or legally infeasible. This means India will deny itself the benefits of developments in spectrum sharing in TV white spaces in the US and in the UK, including its possible extension to other bands.

Comprehensive Ecosystems

Systematic plans to cripple our electricity, airlines, or telecommunications sectors could not do worse. Is there a way to break out of this downward vortex?  There could be, if the government took a problem-solving rather than a revenue-seeking approach, and sought to develop comprehensive, integrated ecosystems over a reasonable period.

Consider China’s approach to information and communications technology, epitomised by Huawei’s iconic position today. It is comprehensive, thorough and integrated, with the goal of significant scale and dominance. It covers the complete ecosystem, starting with education and training. Technology is a thrust area for economic growth, with many large universities, encouragement for graduate studies abroad, incentives for the diaspora to return, opportunities and support for faculty entrepreneurship, and encouragement for publications and patents. Infrastructure needs are well addressed. Manufacturing covers everything from wafer fabrication to chip design and production with vertical integration, a full range of products from supercomputers to gadgets, software development, telecommunications, the gamut of services including management, design and development, software products, and systems integration and support. There are sustained, long-term policies including restricted international entry in several domains, intellectual property laws, and incentives such as subsidised finance and purchasing support over decades. Together, they provide conditions for building immense scale.

What shows is thorough process planning, with follow-through in execution. Beginning with a comprehensive process flow design, they have filled the boxes in the flow chart with the constituent items in phases, each element resulting from its own process flow chain, with interim support for unconnected elements and activities. It shows multi-domain expertise and co-ordination across the board, aligned to achieve all the steps from initial goal setting to desired end results.

By contrast, India’s approach seems episodic. There is lack of clarity or agreement even on goals. The wrangling on spectrum is a case in point. The clamour for short-term government revenues is diametrically opposed to achieving ubiquitous, reasonably priced access, which from a logical perspective seems an unexceptionable goal for communications infrastructure. But opinionated views are expressed with scant regard for expertise or the lack of it, with little knowledge or understanding of the technology, finance, systems, or commercial logic.

To embark on a process as in China, there is a need for co-ordination of expertise from multiple domains, and aligned goals. For this, we must understand our limitations, and accept that reality may extend beyond any individual’s subjective grasp and limited frames of reference. The parable of the blind men and the elephant is apt. The following example illustrates this with reference to the optical spectrum.

What do we mean when we say something is “red”? It means there is light with a frequency of 400 terahertz to 480 THz depending on the shade of red, corresponding to a wavelength of 740 to 620 nanometres. That is the reality. Many of us see red as it is, and as others see it, but people with certain kinds of colour-blindness may see a shade of grey. Some of them may be unaware that what they see is different from what others see. This is illustrated in the different perceptions of a red Himalayan balsam (see diagram below). 

Source: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/compositor/em.html


Therefore, to understand how different stakeholders are affected, it is necessary to understand their perceptions and how reality affects them. It is imperative to seek inputs from multiple domains and stakeholders on the facts as we think we know them, and to co-ordinate these inputs in planning a process and its implementation. The more comprehensively we do this, the better.

                                                             shyamponappa at gmail dot com