DUBLIN, Ireland-The challenges faced by radio-access network providers have been underlined by the experiences of Ionica, a company established in June 1996 to provide a new wireless telephone service to households and small businesses in the United Kingdom.
While its coverage now extends to more than 2 million homes, Ionica has signed up just more than over 35,000 customers. The company currently is working to resolve network-capacity and software problems.
Ionica, based in Cambridge, England, is the most broadly based wireless service provider in the United Kingdom and firmly has pitched itself as a direct competitor to former monopoly telephony operator British Telecommunications plc of London. Scottish Telecom is licensed to use Ionica technology in Scotland. Ionica works closely with its technology partner and equipment manufacturer, Northern Telecom Ltd., which has the license to sell its fixed radio access system internationally.
“This is probably the hardest testing ground for the technology,” claimed Adrian Smith of Ionica’s external affairs department. “The U.K. is one of the most competitive markets in the world.”
Ionica has faced higher-than-expected base-station acquisition costs and capacity constraints following the delay of software upgrades (AR4), which delayed its network rollout. The company also admits that demand has varied more than expected between areas.
Smith explained that the company was partly a victim of its own success in signing up more new customers than its network could handle. Yet at the same time, customer numbers are below expectations for this stage of the company’s buildout.
“These problems relate to one small aspect of a sizable software development project, which will allow us to increase our base-station capacity,” he said. “It was good to see that demand was outstripping supply, and although this created problems, we are looking to implement this upgrade (which will approximately double its base-station capacity) over the next few months.” The company also plans to make greater use of third-party contractors this year.
Despite the problems, one of the attractions of the company’s digital radio-based service was that it offered features as part of standard service that either were charged for or not offered by other operators. These include Who’s It For?, which provides each home with three different numbers-each with a distinctive ringing tone; and call forwarding. Customers also can keep their existing phone numbers when they switch to Ionica, or change to more memorable numbers.
In terms of forthcoming services, many options are open. “Our systems were developed at a time when ISDN (integrated services digital network) was a proven technology, but the company’s priority was to offer a service to all those users who previously had no choice but to use British Telecom,” said Smith. “We may introduce ISDN at some point, although we are already offering many of the features of basic-rate ISDN.”
Ultimately, Ionica aims to have complete coverage of England and Wales. “We have a license with Oftel (Office of Telecommunications, the telecommunications industry regulator) that requires us to cover 75 percent of the population by 2000,” he explained. “Obviously, the issues mentioned above will delay this process, but we have a national license and have pitched ourselves as a national service provider.”
Where possible, the company looks to share infrastructure. Building its own base stations is the least-favored option, Smith said, explaining Ionica would rather share base stations with mobile phone network operators or put its equipment onto existing structures such as water towers or churches.
Looking further ahead, convergence of mobile and fixed networks appears inevitable across Europe. Third-generation mobile technology based on UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) is expected to be available early in the next decade with standards, including service definitions and service quality, equal to that of cable. This will provide a unified platform of radio infrastructure for services using up to 2 Megabits per second bandwidth.
The satellite component of UMTS will enhance the universality of access, irrespective of location. In addition, there will be other competing radio technologies-particularly satellite technologies-offering broadband access.
