Digiweb offered national mobile data license

damien

Looks like Digiweb got a license, from their PR:

* National license for the provision of mobile data and VoIP
* Cell sizes of up to 70km can address rural broadband issue
* Digiweb will provide an "076 mobile" VoIP number
* National rollout begins in 2006

The award follows an application and subsequent auction process
conducted by Comreg and values paid by operators will be released by
Comreg in the coming weeks.

This new license opens up the entire mobile market to new technologies
based on next generation, high speed mobile data communications
equipment and Digiweb hugely supports this innovative move by Comreg.

Digiweb will be able to offer Customers a small "personal" broadband
router which can be used on the move (trains, buses) or in the home or
office. Customers will also have the choice of a PCMCIA card which will
slot into a laptop and can be used "on the move" at speeds of up to 240
kmph. It will also allow fleet vehicles, trains, buses, taxis etc to be
fitted with mobile high speed data units for logistics and time table
planning for a fixed fee.

paulm17781

If they are getting mobile 076 will the Mobile telcos not go crazy?

Sponge Bob

That statement above sounds awfully like a conversation I had with one of them once , thats a 3g killer if ever I saw one .

paulm17781

If I could do similar with my Blueface account I would probably no longer use my mobile.

Sponge Bob

not a huge amount of spectrum though so clever reuse will be vital. It is also conceivable that a Nextel handset may be usable with some firmware mods such as the Motorola i315

Interesting .

bealtine

Sponge Bob wrote:

thats a 3g killer if ever I saw one .

of course that all depends on how digiweb decide to gouge the irish consumers...Hopefully it wont be anything like voodo and Opoo

cgarvey

The day this on-the-move stuff works, I'll be a happy man. Generally, I'm not a happy man, and I don't intend to be for a while yet.

Screw o2/Voda, they've blatently thrown away their chance to be innovative in data, in favour of profit, so that's there problem.

Congrats to Digiweb, I hope they can make something of this.. Hopefully the press release implication of being able to move anywhere in the country at 240KMh and make a VoIP call type BS can be minimised, and get on with the work!

.cg

crawler

cgarvey wrote:

The day this on-the-move stuff works, I'll be a happy man. Generally, I'm not a happy man, and I don't intend to be for a while yet.

Screw o2/Voda, they've blatently thrown away their chance to be innovative in data, in favour of profit, so that's there problem.

Congrats to Digiweb, I hope they can make something of this.. Hopefully the press release implication of being able to move anywhere in the country at 240KMh and make a VoIP call type BS can be minimised, and get on with the work!

.cg

As usual you talk a pile of sense.

jwt

cgarvey wrote:

Generally, I'm not a happy man, and I don't intend to be for a while yet.

Really? never have guessed

cgarvey wrote:

Screw o2/Voda, they've blatently thrown away their chance to be innovative in data, in favour of profit, so that's there problem.

Absolutely, and now vodafone are trying to have 3G classed as broadband so that Dempsey can say we've got loads of broadband!

cgarvey wrote:

Congrats to Digiweb, I hope they can make something of this.. Hopefully the press release implication of being able to move anywhere in the country at 240KMh and make a VoIP call type BS can be minimised, and get on with the work!

.cg

Agreed, and Digiweb are a company that does data/bb first telecoms second so hopefuly they'll concentrate on data first. Plus they won't be worrying about loosing revenue streams from dial-up

They do seem to be expanding at a rate of knots though, which may be a cause for concern from a business pov?

John

cgarvey

jwt wrote:

Plus they won't be worrying about loosing revenue streams from dial-up

Key Point of the Thread award.

I resent the implication that I talk sense!!!

It'll take someone like Digiweb to come in and do something new. It took Smart for LLU, it took Magnet for real LLU, it took Digiweb for real BB, etc. etc.

Digiweb are growing rapidly alright, which shouldn't be a problem (maybe for CS and support.. but noone has got that right yet anyway, so how do we measure that!).. key is to get this out there and working .. I presume rollout will be like most things dublin, C/L/G, and then the national routes.. maybe a deal with Bus Éireann or Iarnród Éireann "BB while you travel on this route" for the key commuter routes. It's unrealistic to expect x% population in a short time, but this is certainly to be welcomed, there's no doubt. I'll happily be a beta tester (dublin, ennis, N7)

.cg

Cryos

jwt wrote:

Really? never have guessed



Absolutely, and now vodafone are trying to have 3G classed as broadband so that Dempsey can say we've got loads of broadband!



Agreed, and Digiweb are a company that does data/bb first telecoms second so hopefuly they'll concentrate on data first. Plus they won't be worrying about loosing revenue streams from dial-up

They do seem to be expanding at a rate of knots though, which may be a cause for concern from a business pov?

John

vodafone are apparently trying to get alot better 3g service so that they can literally provide proper broadband services through pcimcia datacards / phones.

digiweb are certainly starting to grow rapidly; but with all these services will they have the money to put in the very redundant infrastructure that needs to be put in; which would have to be a hell of alot more than vodafone/eircell has invested in infrastructure ?

Sure if they get it off the ground half the country will probably move to digiweb :P

Blaster99

If this stuff happens and it works, it will be the MNO's worst nightmare come true. Never mind 3G, they are scared ****less of VoIP as the main money spinner is voice.

lucernarian

With this license Digiweb have yet another medium through which they can sell products to consumers. Apart from this, they have FWA, DSL, Metro and Satellite.

I'm beginning to question the sheer logistics of providing services over at least 5 platforms. Will Digiweb focus developing around their newly-acquired license which could turn out to be an Eircom killer, let alone a 3G killer, everywhere outside the cities? What will happen to Metro?

They won't worry about losing revenue streams from dialup but they might worry about the revenue from their other products. I can only guess that this national data license must promise even better returns then their existing products. Still, they would need to invest in this license bigtime to make it work IMO.

watty

3G is nearly killed by a) expensive licences and b) GPRS.

In reality 3G can't even do decent video hence "real mobile video" phones actually now have a DVB-h standard broadcast receiver for TV. NMuch cheaper, more resiliant and better video.

In data you can do 28K with GPRS. 3G is not even close to broadband and per kilobyte more expense than GPRS!

3G was too late and too low a spec for what was hyped.

Wait till version 2 of WiMax is out and no-one will be using 3G or GPRS for PDA / Laptop web access on the move.


I hope Digiweb gets the phone stuff sorted. We need some real competion!

As soon as my Metro phone connection is enabled the Eircom line gets the chop.

damien

Flatrate pricing please!

cgarvey

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I'm beginning to question the sheer logistics of providing services over at least 5 platforms.

In fairness, the Satellite and DSL are just resold .. so basic tech & billing, and anything complicated goes to supplier/vendor .. outsource the installations, and you should be able to make a few bob.

FWA and metro are similar in shape .. again, basic techs, and a few trained techs for each platform, and away you go. Outsource the same installs some or all of the time.

It'll take a long time, and a very fast & successful roll out (is that possible for any new tech, or any new nationwide rollout?), before it could kill eircom.. but a threat it will be, no doubt.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

everywhere outside the cities?

.. all in it's own good time. That sort of rollout isn't going to happen in any short term.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

What will happen to Metro?

It'll stay where it is .. it's higher speed / less distributed cells will always mean it'll be a vastly superior product.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Still, they would need to invest in this license bigtime to make it work IMO.

Very true, but I'm sure they've done their homework, and that sort of license has to be encouraging for sourcing funding, in any case. You're right though, it'll need to happen quick and well, if it's to happen at all. Otherwise it'll be a Meteor story (half arsed network in the urban areas only), and no matter how cheap or expanded they go, they'll have that stigma.

.cg

eircomtribunal

Broadband provider Digiweb has been offered a licence to provide mobile data services in Ireland in the 900Mhz spectrum band known as Wideband Digital Mobile Data services, or WDMDS. The licence, awarded by telecoms regulator ComReg, will allow Digiweb to add mobile data and mobile Voice over IP services to its product range.

(from ENN)

What are the technical possibilities, limitations in that spectrum?

P.

Sponge Bob

long range , huge cells, less cells, small chunk of spectrum though.

crawler

Easy non line of sight, efficient propogation, low to no interference ( need to be careful on unwanted to and from adjacent GSM bands), n+x reuse pattern for spectrum - FDD as opposed to TDD so 2 chunks of spectrum ( one for transmit one for receive), no install of CPE (whoop!). low rain fade. Distances up to 70km (less in practice though)

Bads - need to protect the adjacent bands carefully, only fair. Other bads.....none that I really know of

edit - other bads - ya have to build the thing first!

Blaster99

Is there an IMS/FMC angle to this, eg devices that can do both 3G and this new lark?

bminish

Sponge Bob wrote:

long range , huge cells, less cells, small chunk of spectrum though.

Long range, yes. However multi-path will eat into throughput on non-los paths
Huge Cells, making spectrum reuse problematic to say the least
It's a small chunk of spectrum, combine this with large cell sizes and the spectrum reuse issues that this causes. I don't think that this can support broadband for very many simultaneous users

Some rough calculations

1/ Comreg split this 50 / 50 between up-link and down-link, handy for voip type applications, not necessary ideal for broadband.
On 420 MHz you have 2 separate blocks consisting of 2 MHz up & 2 MHz down
On 900 MHz you have 1 Block of 4 MHz up 4 MHz down


2/ take the 900 MHz block for starters, I assume this is what Digiweb have gone for?

to create a cellular system you need to break this block into a number of separate channels. Let's consider the use of OFDM modulation since it's capable of getting to within a few % of the Shannon limit (OFDM about as good as it gets folks..) Flarion's Flash OFDM system might be a good choice. Looking at their flexiband product which can use 1.25 MHz channels
we get 3 usable channels out of a 4 MHz allocation. It might just be possible to build a cellular system out of 3 usable channels, providing you can live with the minimum cell density. Flairtron's documents discuss using a 5 MHz block broken into 3 channels to provide sufficient guard bands between channels. with reduced guard bands expect somewhat lower throughput

Now for the bad news! Flairtron claim the following throughputs for 1.25 MHz channels.
1.4 Mbs for good clean strong signals and 200 Kbs at the network edge. That is PER channel folks. These are realistic claims.

This could be an interesting VoIP / Mobile VoIP solution but broadband for the masses (rural or otherwise ) it isn't since the capacity simply isn't there

Now if comreg were to give out 20 MHz of spectrum we could be looking at a much more viable broadband delivery product

How about giving away a block of, say 3 UHF analog tv Channels that are now free for reuse now that they have migrated the entire country to digital telly.
Ohh hang on a sec they haven't even started moving us towards digital telly ...

.brendan

oscarBravo

Blitz wrote:

vodafone are apparently trying to get alot better 3g service so that they can literally provide proper broadband services through pcimcia datacards / phones.

It would be more in their line sorting out their 2G coverage. I was on a hill overlooking Limerick today, with an apparently rock-solid signal, and couldn't hear anyone on the phone - constantly breaking up.

At home in Mayo, there are indentations on the floor from the precise (and I mean - without exaggeration - within centimetres) locations where I can get a useful signal.

lucernarian

cgarvey wrote:

.. all in it's own good time. That sort of rollout isn't going to happen in any short term.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clearer. I was asking if Digiweb will now expand and develop around this license. I also made the point that this product could kill off eircom outside of the cities (UPC will take care of eircom in the cities), though it would be difficult to provide broadband to the masses with 4 Mhz of spectrum if what bminish said is true.

Digiweb would not have bought the license unless they expect good returns on the investment and I guess they preferred to invest in this new technology rather than invest more money in their existing products. This investment might distract from FWA and especially Metro and that is not something I want to happen.

cgarvey

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Sorry, I didn't make myself clearer.

No problem, but you're banned for 2 weeks because of it!

To_be_confirmed wrote:

I was asking if Digiweb will now expand and develop around this license.

I could be wrong but, as you even suggest, this isn't going to be BB for the masses, or even BB for large amounts of people. I see this as being connectivity for those on the road (target audience being sales reps?), and not a solution to provide BB to communities. It simply doesn't have the bandwidth/spectrum to do that. I see it, therefore, as a 3G/GPRS killer rather than a DSL/Metro killer. 3G isn't about speed, it's about content (that the telco want to sell you, not just generic content).. GPRS/WAP in the same way. This mobile data is about connectivity whereever you go, and not being tied to a content provider (I hope!). Does your average Diageo sales rep give a crap about what Kate Moss is doing now? Probably not, he's more interested in a solid connection to push the Guinness order through.

It might well be a last resort for some people to get BB, but I don't see it as a eircom/FWA/DSL killer by any means.

To_be_confirmed wrote:

Digiweb would not have bought the license unless they expect good returns on the investment and I guess they preferred to invest in this new technology rather than invest more money in their existing products. This investment might distract from FWA and especially Metro and that is not something I want to happen.

It might distract from Metro a small bit, but now that that's up and running, it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to add to the customer base, or expand slightly. It might affect expansion to other towns, but then those other towns would be nowhere near as profitable as the cities would be (common sense), so I'm not sure they'd be pushed to go into those towns anyway (mobile data license or not).

.cg