JOHANNESBURG, South Africa-Nextel Communications Inc. is eyeing the African continent as an ideal market for iDEN, the technology it uses in the United States. So much so that a consortium, AfricaSpeaks, included iDEN, in partnership with Nextel, in its business plan for its recent cellular license bid in South Africa. However, AfricaSpeaks kept the technology, which could be used in combination with GSM and CDMA, rather low-key during the public-hearing process, as the frequencies it uses in the 800 MHz band are not yet available and are occupied by television broadcasting.
Based on the understanding that the potential does exist to open this band for cellular communications, AfricaSpeaks submitted to the South African Regulatory Authority a preliminary but substantive document on iDEN to support its license application. The submission provided an overview of the vision and preliminary plans to implement an iDEN platform in partnership with Motorola Inc. and Nextel. One of the considerations for AfricaSpeaks to include iDEN was SATRA’s information document, released a month before the closing date for the bids, listing the iDEN operating frequency band as a possible alternative.
In its submission, AfricaSpeaks also provided a proposal for a study to address the issue of spectrum availability working in unison with SATRA and the broadcasting community.
The lack of spectrum at 800 MHz for mobile radio services in Africa is, to some extent, artificial. It is a European phenomenon that has spun off to Africa through the frequency allocations of International Telecommunication Union Region 1.
Ronnie Seeber, Motorola Inc.’s Southern African government relations and standards manager, explained that historically Western Europe has been the driving force behind the frequency allocations for Region 1 in the ITU radio regulations. The frequency range 790-862 MHz, within which most of the iDEN frequencies fall, is allocated to the broadcasting and fixed services. Broadcasters in Africa have partly based their regional frequency plans on this band, to the extent that in South Africa, broadcast transmitters occupy the band up to 854 MHz.
Fortunately for African countries, however, the ITU does not prescribe how a country uses its spectrum, provided it does not cause harmful interference to other countries. To that extent, many Region 1 countries, including even some Western European countries, have been deviating from the nominal ITU Region 1 allocation. For instance, as a result of footnotes added in the radio regulations at the ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference of 1997, the band 790-862 MHz is also allocated to land mobile service, on a secondary basis, in Austria, Italy, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom and Swaziland. In Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Israel, Kenya, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, the Netherlands, Portugal, Syria, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia, the band 790-862 MHz is allocated to the mobile (except aeronautical mobile) service on a co-primary basis with broadcasting and fixed services. In addition, the band 830-862 MHz is similarly allocated to the mobile service in Spain, France, Gabon, Malta and Syria.
In essence, these countries have taken the first steps toward deploying land mobile radio systems, such as iDEN, in what was formerly considered to be a band almost exclusive to broadcasting.
Says Peter Bell of Motorola, business development manager for iDEN in Africa, Europe and the Middle East: “Some countries have already taken the initiative to deploy mobile systems in part of the 800 MHz band and it has proven not to be detrimental to the broadcasting community.”
Region 1 countries that either have deployed 800 MHz mobile radio systems or that are contemplating to do so include Azerbaijan, Georgia, Hungary, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Moldova, Morocco, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
In Africa, a number of countries, including Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ghana and Zambia either already have deployed mobile systems in this band or are planning to do so. Fortunately for many of these countries, TV has not been implemented in the 800 MHz band.
“Even where TV is actually operating at 800 MHz, iDEN can be rolled out by sharing the band. The fact that the iDEN 25-kilohertz carriers do not have to be contiguous and can be placed at arbitrary positions, for instance straddling a TV channel, is a major advantage in a band-sharing environment,” added Bell.
Furthermore, the fact that the iDEN band is clear of the GSM band is an advantage as it enables the use of a competitive cellular technology, using relatively few base stations, in a country where all GSM spectrum may be occupied by incumbent operators. In South Africa, where Vodacom and MTN occupy virtually all the GSM spectrum, this is a major consideration. In addition, because iDEN is a spectrally efficient technology, it has the potential to serve the same number of subscribers using less spectrum.
The little spectrum it needs also makes for much easier sharing, until such time as the TV transmissions can relocate to other parts of the band. Seeber maintains that despite viewpoints to the contrary, there is unused broadcasting spectrum for TV to relocate to in South Africa.
Interestingly, while there seems to be a strong lobby coming from the broadcasting fraternity in South Africa to prevent broadcasting spectrum being used for mobile services, initiatives are under way in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to reallocate a portion of the broadcasting band at 800 MHz for mobile and wireless local loop services.
This spectrum, about 5 percent of the historically used broadcasting spectrum, will further pave the way for iDEN deployment in Africa.
The Nextel-supported iDEN network in the AfricaSpeaks plan is to be rolled out for serving the urban niche commercial markets, which would find iDEN’s group-calling and other features attractive. However, the network also would provide coverage in some selected rural areas.
In its application, the consortium said that the system “has successfully served secondary and rural markets typically through the practice of remoting sites from a centrally located switch. In addition, equipment supplier Motorola has leveraged its iDEN development into a small switch capable of performing digital wireless dispatch and telephone interconnection, specifically designed to address rural market opportunities. This new system will allow the operator to offer the core communications capabilities available from the standard iDEN system. The unique iDEN/GSM dual-mode handsets will support roaming between the GSM systems of the incumbent operators and the AfricaSpeaks iDEN network.”
The consortium cited its support of the technology through the usage of fewer base stations for a specified geographic coverage, potentially lower cost than GSM-based networks, faster rollout, service differentiation through integration of voice and data services, including telephony, high-speed data, instant group broadcasting and Internet access.
Quoting an example, Bell said that a supervisor could communicate simultaneously on the same channel with two, three or more employees, using one time slot for a voice conversation, while receiving a fax document and a paged alphanumeric message on another two time slots.
The introduction of iDEN in South Africa-seen as the successful pioneer country for new systems-could catapult the technology into the rest of Africa.
“Although iDEN is relatively new, it is very well tested in some of the toughest markets in the world,” said Bell.
