August 27, 2006 at 10:05AM Half-formed thoughts: MMDS for broadband provision
Liberty Global (in the guise of NTL/Chorus/UPC) own most if not all of the country’s MMDS spectrum and network. Clearwire are rolling wireless internet (Wi-Fi rather than WiMAX, unfortunately) using unlicenced spectrum.
Now consider the amount of competition that Digital MMDS is going to get from Digital Terrestrial Television. My guess is that DTT is going to come out on top. That’d leave NTL/Chorus with an awful lot of rather tasty spectrum just waiting to be used for something else...
...like WiMAX.
The question, however, is whether NTL/Chorus would have the courage to take the chance and provide decent (roughly 10Mb), reasonably-priced (similar to those in the UK for similar packages) broadband using WiMAX on that newly freed-up spectrum. I have my doubts.
What I do think will happen is that NTL/Chorus will start selling their franchises off bit by bit. If somebody (Clearwire, I’m looking at you...) out there was smart enough to buy up the franchises and reuse the cheap spectrum they picked up to provide WiMAX (not Wi-Fi! We need reach!), they’d have a licence to print money.
Alternatively, somebody could set up WiMAX equipment in or near eircom’s existing exchanges. Of course, there’s still the problem of LLU, but at least this way you’ve direct access to eircom’s fibre network, which, unlike the local loop itself, isn’t a godawful mess.
And never mind the spectrum currently used by MMDS: surely there’s other parts of the spectrum the government could licence out to groups and companies willing to provide broadband using WiMAX? WiMAX equipment is relatively inexpensive. The only real problem I can see is getting your hands on a sufficient amount of spectrum to run the service, which is why MMDS popped into my head.
Thoughts?
1 On August 28, 2006 at 15:21, Conor wrote:
You’d be better off using the MANs for connectivity and then reach out to those distant high sights using wireless. You’ll pay a small fortune to use eircom’s network.
2 On August 29, 2006 at 0:01, Keith wrote:
That’s a good point, and a good chunk of the country could be covered that way, though there’d be a good number of blind spots that’d need to be covered some other way. For example, the village I’m from couldn’t be covered by it because it’s too far from where any of the existing or proposed MANs are situated to give a decent signal.
This is the kind of thing that makes me wish eircom had been split in two when it was privatised.
3 On August 29, 2006 at 8:07, Bernie Goldbach wrote:
I’m always surprised at what the Irish WAN community can do when asked. You might be surprised to discover that your village has a coverage option if you raise the point on the IrishWAN.ie boards. They seem to know every farmer with a hill in Ireland.
4 On August 29, 2006 at 20:00, Keith wrote:
Well, for me it’s not so bad because, after an awful lot of arm-twisting, we managed to get the exchange upgraded by eircom at the beginning of the year. I was just using my own area as an example of somewhere that couldn’t be covered, though I was more thinking of areas further north and west in the Ox Mountains that are pretty much cut off from anything but dial-up. Still, it’d be great not to have to be beholden to eircom.