AS A CONCERNED CITIZEN, I WOULD LIKE TO URGE ALL THOSE WHO HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ICT SECTOR TO DO WHATEVER THEY CAN, TO PUSH AND EXPEDITE INTRODUCTION OF MOBILE BROADBAND (3G OR WHATEVER).  I say this because yet another delay (albeit short and for good reasons) has appeared.

Irrespective of the on-going, completely unnecessary, “controversy” surrounding auction of 3G in Pakistan, allotting 3G frequencies to telecom operators is extremely urgent and essential for Pakistan. We have already been left behind by others who used to be our followers in 2G. Mobile broadband – or 3G – should have been introduced here already four years ago. The delay has made us lose huge opportunities relating to job creation, international trade, economic growth and Foreign Direct Investment (Telecom FDI 2007: US$1,824 mil and 2011: US$ 79 mil). Not to mention letting the technology gap between the advanced countries and us widen even more, despite the fact that more than 70% of our population is below 35 – normally considered early adopters of modern technology.

According to ITU’s World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database, a total of 159 economies worldwide have launched 3G services commercially and the number of active mobile-broadband subscriptions has surpassed one billion.  Countries from New Zealand to USA are allocating huge amounts of national resources to deploy infrastructure, like Optic Fiber Cables, to facilitate delivery of broadband to the citizens. Whereas we are taking ages even to allocate the God-given resource of frequency-spectrum which will facilitate provision of broadband.

Some skeptics ask what we will do with 3G? Mostly they are only thinking in terms of mobile phones – and not mobile broadband. Although a lot could be done with 3G smart phones too (present estimate 15 mil smart phones in Pakistan, expected to increase to 50 mil by 2016), it is 3G mobile broadband, mainly using USB dongles, complementing fixed broadband, that is of bigger value and main attraction for countries like ours. While people in developed countries usually use mobile-broadband in addition to the fixed, mobile-broadband is often the only access method available to people in developing countries.

Broadband has tremendous commercial usages but one of it’s main benefits lies in it’s capability as a deliverer of basic services to hundreds of millions of citizens, especially those living in the hinterlands of the country. Education, Health, Governance, Commerce, Agriculture, Women Empowerment,… all can find their way. Greater access to broadband services has been found to help accelerate achievement of development targets like the internationally-agreed Millennium Development Goals. It is only using broadband that we can serve our exploding population (CAGR: 2.5%) at their doorsteps, not only to bring prosperity to them but also prevent mass migration to urban centers and save our bursting mega-cities from crumbling under their own weight.

Right now in Pakistan broadband is available in less than 300, small and big, towns and cities. All the present two million connections being of fixed broadband category (50% wireless). But then there is only so much fixed technologies can do. Fortunately, thanks to the ubiquitous 2G GSM network, 3G can take broadband to every nook and corner of the country, becoming accessible to more than 90% population, with relatively small effort. I have deliberately used the word “effort” and not investment because investment will come from private sector telecom operators. Here is a sector where the government doesn’t need to bother about development budget allocations and resource constraints. Just like 2G was such an effective engine of growth for our economy, 3G too could contribute significantly. Admittedly the private sector operators would like to invest and deploy 3G mainly in large cities, but for the rest there is USF!

As for the controversy, firstly, on a per-megahertz-per-year basis, the announced base price is equal to the peak price achieved last time around. Secondly it is likely to go higher during bidding, despite worse political/economic/security situation than in 2004. And thirdly the licenses are going to be technology-neutral, therefore it is the operators who would decide whether they deploy 3G or something else (incidentally 4G – the so-called LTE Advanced — is not even there yet). Yes, the only thing that all of us need to be vigilant about and jealously guard is the process being followed. The process must be fair and transparent. Period.

The author is the formar CEO of USF (Universal Service Fund) Pakistan. He joined the newly formed USF in May 2007 as it’s first employee. Within weeks he built the organisation and successfully started executing projects to bridge the digital divide in the country thru private sector telecom service providers. USF Pakistan is globally recognized as a success-story in it’s domain. Parvez receives frequent invitations to deliver talks at international forums on Universal Service Obligation issues (mainly sponsored by World Bank, ITU and USAID) as well as conduct workshops and provide consultancy services to various countries. Presently Parvez is working as an Independent Telecom Consultant. Before USF he was the country-head of Siemens Telecom in Pakistan. Has been to great learning institutions like Carnegie Mellon and Oxford Universities and has been extensively trained by Siemens in Germany.

This post first appeared on Parvez Iftikhar’s personal blog.

The post Point of View: 3G in Pakistan appeared first on TelecomPK.

The recommendations put forward are:

1. Auction one technology license i.e. 3G licenses only. The terms 4G/LTE and technology neutral should not be used
2. 4G/LTE should be licensed later
3. Increase the base price – US $ 210m to US $ 291m
4. Defaulters not be allowed to participate

Before we discuss on these recommendations it is worthy to note that these come in after the policy have been approved following a long process chain during last few years. It had gone from the MoITT to Federal Cabines, revised and only then approved by the PM before finally passing it on to PTA for implementation and calling in for the License Auctions.

Now as the investors have geared up for the show and the investment oppurtunities are all set to come in, the Senate Comittee have its reservations. Late, isn’t it?

Coming back to the recommendations, we shall try to make it easy for all to understand.

Number 1. It should be clear for all that it is not the technology being auctioned. The auction have clearly been called in for wireless specturm of 10Mhz band. Succesful bidders can opt to introduce any technology (3G/4G/LTE) they can in this spectrum band. Did we have license auctions for GPRS or for a fact for EDGE services introduction? No, because they were offered in the same spectrum being used for 2G. If I am not wrong, we also did not have a separate auction for WiMax services. Thus, arguing on calling it a 3G only license is baseless.

Number 2. As explained above this is technically not possible and is also against globally accepted norms. If its about a democratic revenge, it can only be made possible politically.

Number 3. We have discussed it technically in our earlier post. Putting it again; the standard and fair measure to compute the base price is ‘per-megaherts-per-year‘ and 3G being auctioned as a 10Mhz band license and not 13.xMhz band (2G), the base price comes to the same. Simple maths!

Number 4. Considering the dues PTCL owes to the government of Pakistan that are being delayed time and again, we find this as the only reasonable recommendation.

In Pakistan, it’s already late for upgradation of any spectrum dependant wireless technology. We now must not leave confusions in the air and try to push it backwards. For all the bright side ProPakistani has highlighted in its post on the same subject, let us act sensible and voice our opinion at all platforms to let these opposing elements know that we have every rights for better communication services for ourselves.

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From 1G to 4G we have seen changes in the modulation schemes, duplexing methods, multiple access technologies, data rate, speech coding, antenna systems and other aspects which have played a role to make communication efficient over the period of time.

But the question remains, do we need them? So much of an advancement of technology, has it really given us benefit in terms of both services and economics (cost) ?

Let’s take a look at each generation.

1^st Generation (1G) had the famous AMPS standard. It offered basic voice services with cost being high initially but went down with time.

2^nd Generation (2G) is well known for the GSM technology. It started off with offering digital voice services and then we had the short message service (SMS). The 2G changed the lives of many, it became impossible to live without a cell phone. Initially these services came with costs not in the range of average consumer but still gained popularity and the cost went down with time. Earlier a call received was charged, but today we have SMS packages, Friends and Family offer, One Free number offer and many more.

Then came the evolutions of 2G, we saw high speed data links on GPRS or EDGE. This laid the foundation of mobile internet. Once again the initial costs were high and it offered limited services. This evolution raised many questions on its actual need. Why need mobile internet with limited services when we have broadband or dial-ups at offices and homes? Although, these services are not as popular as SMS, but with time they have captured a small proportion of the population. Businesses today rely heavily on GPRS/EDGE to get online to check emails and act upon them immediately. Social networks are fast expanding on GPRS/EDGE, examples include facebook and twitter. With all this happening the cost again has gone down.

I would leave this post here for discussions and continue it later.

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As we had discussed earlier in the Evolution towards HSDPA, the migration strategy along the road to the 3G and beyond should be “soft” network evolution that does not render existing installations superfluous. The solutions to this comes as NSN unveils plans for Flexi Multiradio base stations.

As reported in a press release,

Nokia Siemens Networks has today made the evolution path from 2G and 3G to LTE faster, greener and more cost-effective than ever with the launch of Flexi Multiradio Base Station. Building on the company’s market leading Flexi Base Station platform, the new Multiradio Flexi expands its supported technologies to cover GSM/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA and LTE – all running concurrently in a single unit.

Flexi Multiradio Base Station meets the needs of new and existing 2G and 3G operators who can use their existing infrastructure to deploy new network-wide technologies via simple software upgrade to 3G or LTE. The flexibility of a true multiradio base station removes the risk from balancing investments made in 2G, 3G and LTE, providing operators with future-proof options. The new Multiradio Flexi is also backward compatible with current Flexi Base Station, enabling capacity upgrades to existing Base Station sites.The product also fits CDMA operators who intend to migrate to WCDMA/HSPA or LTE.

For operators coping with cost challenges, running multiple radio technologies in a single Base Station means reduced OPEX from fewer site visits, simplified logistics, reduced maintenance and a smaller requirement for trained staff. The possibility to reuse GSM sites for WCDMA and HSPA also delivers savings from reduced rental costs and maximized reuse of existing infrastructure.

“Flexi Multiradio Base Station makes network evolution faster, greener and more cost-efficient than ever, and this launch makes Nokia Siemens Networks the only vendor which enables future technology evolution steps exactly with the same hardware without radio technology specific boards. Thanks to the industry’s highest degree of integration, Flexi Multiradio Base Station is able to provide three technologies in one compact 3 sector Base Station of less than 75 liters”, said Marc Rouanne, head of the company’s Radio Access business.

Superior energy efficiency – a key feature of Flexi Base Stations – is further improved in Flexi Multiradio. The new Base Station has the lowest energy consumption in the market. An average 3 sector Base Station site running simultaneously GSM/EDGE and WCDMA/HSPA consumes as little as 790W, whilst pushing an impressive 60W output per sector for maximum capacity and coverage. The small and lightweight product is also rugged enough for outdoor use without shelters or air conditioning, further minimising their environmental impact.

“We are very pleased to see Nokia Siemens Networks take concrete steps towards fulfilment of the targets agreed in the context of WWF’s Climate Savers programme” said Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, Director of Corporate Relations at WWF International. “This is a good example of how technological innovation can contribute to improved energy efficiency and profitability, while reducing a company’s ecological footprint. The fight against climate change requires all the ingenuity and commitment that the corporate sector has to offer”.

Flexi Multiradio Base Station features built-in IP/Ethernet connectivity for a unified transport network for the Single RAN. Operators can also benefit from using the common NetAct network management system for planning, optimising and operating the Single RAN. For example, NetAct Optimizer enables easy and high quality refarming of WCDMA or LTE in current GSM 900 MHz frequency band.

Deployments of this new Flexi Multiradio Base Station will start from the beginning of 2010 onwards.

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