PCS eyes cable TV’s line
Competitive times call for innovation.
During the energy crunch of the mid-1980s, The Williams Cos. of Tulsa, Okla., wanted to take advantage of its unused gas pipelines. The company ran fiber optic cable through its pipes and marketed it to telecommunications companies that wanted to compete with AT&T Corp.’s long-distance service.
It became one of the nation’s largest fiber optic systems; Williams later sold the business for $2.5 billion in cash.
Now, the nation’s 11,200 cable TV operators are looking at their cable networks, hoping to see opportunities down the pike, such as two-way local telephone service and data transport.
Meanwhile, new entrants into the personal communications services business are looking for ways to build transmission paths quickly. Equipment manufacturers that have devised PCS-via-cable systems are hoping the cable companies and PCS licensees find each other.
Cox going commercial
Cox Communications Inc. has led the way in PCS via cable. Cox first began work on it in 1989, has tried numerous equipment vendors and explored RF propagation at the 1900 MHz PCS frequency at length. Cox was awarded a pioneer’s preference license by the federal government to build a PCS cable system in Southern California.
After years of testing, an equipment contract was recently announced. Cox expects to launch a commercial PCS-via-cable system during the second half of this year. It will be the nation’s first such system and will be marketed under the Sprint brand name.
Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Co. subsidiary, received the Cox order valued at $19 million from Lucent Technologies Inc. Lucent is building the nationwide PCS network for the alliance to which Cox belongs, Sprint Spectrum L.P.
Sprint Spectrum says it plans to launch PCS service in 15 to 20 major markets by the winter holidays, but it is building those initial networks the traditional way with towers. That doesn’t mean PCS-via-cable won’t be used later during further buildout or to meet additional growth, the company said. Sprint’s primary interest in the cable companies, however, is their ability to compete with wireline local phone service.
Sanders will provide Cox with its PCS-Over-Cable system using Code Division Multiple Access technology. The product is designed to be compatible with all CDMA PCS base station systems and consists of three devices: the Cable Microcell Integrator (CMI), Headend Interface Connector (HIC) and Headend Controller Units (HECU).
The Cox network will be the first PCS-Over-Cable system Sanders has ever deployed. Nashua, N.H.-based Sanders develops and builds advanced electronics systems.
The same product is provided by PCS Solutions and called CablePATH. PCS Solutions is a joint venture between ADC Telecommunications of Minneapolis and PCS Wireless Inc., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. PCS Solutions designs the system and subcontracts the manufacturing. The company is negotiating for contracts at this time, and is hoping to attract the attention of new PCS licensees.
“Putting a CMI on the plant goes against the traditional way of deploying a wireless network, namely the power and tower,” said Guyalin Roy of PCS Solutions. “New licensees will be faced with greater challenges and have to be very creative.”
The PCS-via-cable system is fundamentally technology neutral, and Cox, Sanders and PCS Solutions have tested it using CDMA, Time Division Multiple Access and Global System for Mobile communications standards.
It’s in the air
Here’s how Sanders’ PCS-Over-Cable works: The CMI transceiver receives the telephony signal from the PCS handset and transmits it upstream through TV coaxial cable. At the headend, the signal is converted and handed off to a PCS CDMA base station. The system handles the downstream signal from the base station via the TV cable, to the CMI and then through the air to the user’s handset.
The PCS cable devices are strung along aerial cable, hence, PCS operators can avoid putting up monopole antennas in areas where they can hang the equipment from cable.
But to use the cable system to transport wireless, three strategic things must be in place:
The cable system must have been upgraded to accommodate two-way traffic, and researchers say less than 5 percent of U.S. systems have reached that point.
“There is a universal interest across the board in doing this,” said Glenn Hatmaker, spokesman for the National Cable Television Association. “Some cable operators can do two-way now, like home shopping. But two-way for telephony, data and PCS involves using fiber and adding telephone switches. It’s being done in larger, urban areas with the population density and consumption.”
Only aerial cable is used. In areas where cable is buried, PCS operators may have to put up monopoles or use other antenna solutions.
PCS operators must lease excess capacity from the cable operator. Reaching agreements with the 17 major cable operators in southern California and Nevada to lease space on their lines wasn’t a large problem, said Bruce Crair, vice president and general manager of Cox California PCS Inc.
“Some were not interested, but by and large, the cable operators are entrepreneurs and are willing to cooperate,” Crair said.
Where Cox doesn’t have cable contracts, or where the cable is buried and not accessible, Cox is installing macrocells. The Cox system will be a combination of macrocells and PCS-Over-Cable equipment.
Despite paying for cable capacity, a PCS via cable system still provides a less expensive buildout, Crair said.
“Because the antennas of the system are hung on aerial cable, if the location is not exactly right, they can be moved up and down the cable to accommodate,” Crair said.
Base stations are located at a central point instead of at an antenna site. “This reduces maintenance problems, windshield time and the cost of real estate. Additionally, radio channels can be easily assigned and reassigned to different CMIs as necessary, and will eventually be dynamically assigned as usage and capacity demand.
This is a major advantage, especially since zoning for major towers and base stations is often the gating factor in getting a new tower site erected and on line,” Crair said.
Cable’s challenge.
In the mid-1980s, satellite-delivered services gave cable operators content that TV broadcasters didn’t have, said David Abraham, president of David Abraham & Co. of Westport, Conn., a consulting firm.
“This added value, and the packaging of many such services into a user-friendly basic service for a fair price is what led to the present penetration levels,” he said.
Today’s challenge for cable operators goes beyond merely upgrading their networks. Both the cable and wireless industries face the task of explaining the advantages of enhanced and special services to subscribers, most of whom are satisfied with their current basic service, Abraham explained.
“Cable’s pipe is well-suited for data transfer; cable modems will allow the flow of data more efficiently. Cable’s challenge is gaining customer confidence,” Abraham said.
