Should SA telcoms operators build an open access radio network?

SteveO said:
@Jannie

What about the financial aspect of it?

How do operators pay for capacity upgrades to site when one operator starts to congest? This is where MORAN (Multi-Operator RAN) tends to bring problems from what I have heard
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Its early days, so I'm pretty sure no-one's thrashed this out yet. A LOT of discussions will be held, trust me. First steps would be to get consensus amongst the industry players, government, the regulator, etc.

Once that's out of the way, we can focus on the easy stuff, like world peace and jobs for everyone in SA. :)
 
Jannie

Very good idea, must applaud it.

However - since CellC uses a different spectrum than the rest, how will you guys do it? Have CellC use the same frequency as you, or will you have two frequencies - one for the older 3g devices, and another for devices like the Huawei E1820?

This will make more sense economically as there is only one BS to maintain and finance - therefore less overhead, especially if two (or more) providers share the same BS. However, this is a weak link as the failure of a single BS will render a lot of people without telephony/internet.
 
evilstebunny said:
Yeah, I was also wondering why now all of a sudden they wanna cooperate with each other?
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Everyone's running out of capacity and resources. Together with the downwards pressure on pricing and margins, it starts making sense. Also, the technology is beginning to work on which this will be based. As with most things, there comes a time where it starts making practical sense.

I don't think this will happen in the next while (think how long before we get the digital dividend sorted), but at least we can start getting the wheels rolling on this.
 
The_Librarian said:
Jannie

Very good idea, must applaud it.

However - since CellC uses a different spectrum than the rest, how will you guys do it? Have CellC use the same frequency as you, or will you have two frequencies - one for the older 3g devices, and another for devices like the Huawei E1820?

This will make more sense economically as there is only one BS to maintain and finance - therefore less overhead, especially if two (or more) providers share the same BS. However, this is a weak link as the failure of a single BS will render a lot of people without telephony/internet.
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As I said, early days. Practically I see this as a new network in 800MHz that'll co-exist with all the current networks on 900, 1800 and 2100. It has to be new otherwise we don't get any new capacity. And today LTE on 800Mhz makes the most sense.

Price/performance is always a tradeoff. As you mentioned, one basestation will be less expensive but could be a single point of failure.
 
evilstebunny said:
Yeah, I was also wondering why now all of a sudden they wanna cooperate with each other?
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jannievanzyl said:
Everyone's running out of capacity and resources. Together with the downwards pressure on pricing and margins, it starts making sense. Also, the technology is beginning to work on which this will be based. As with most things, there comes a time where it starts making practical sense.

I don't think this will happen in the next while (think how long before we get the digital dividend sorted), but at least we can start getting the wheels rolling on this.
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jannievanzyl said:
As I said, early days. Practically I see this as a new network in 800MHz that'll co-exist with all the current networks on 900, 1800 and 2100. It has to be new otherwise we don't get any new capacity. And today LTE on 800Mhz makes the most sense.

Price/performance is always a tradeoff. As you mentioned, one basestation will be less expensive but could be a single point of failure.
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TBH I don't give a hoot about speed. All I care is a stable connection, even if it's running at 1024Mb, and which will allow me to do my daily business (email, twitter, remote administration etc) without serious interruptions.

But I really do hope the other players decide to [-]collude[/-]work together on this as this will also save them on overheads etc.

Will have to wait and see what happens.
 
As a start they could release the Billions of rand lying in the USAF fund at ICASA/USAASA that the network operators have paid in over the years and use it to start the network rollout.

Would such a open access network then absolve the network operators from paying into the fund and make the USAF redundant?
 
MickeyD said:
As a start they could release the Billions of rand lying in the USAF fund at ICASA/USAASA that the network operators have paid in over the years and use it to start the network rollout.

Would such a open access network then absolve the network operators from paying into the fund and make the USAF redundant?
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What is a USAF????
 
Seems like one of them articles which we would look at in 5 years time and just lol @ it.
 
Tweak said:
Seems like one of them articles which we would look at in 5 years time and just lol @ it.
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Maybe, but the concept is sound. The rural folks (and farmers) are really suffering for telecommunication services as it is just too expensive to provide services there. Satellite solutions are an option but they don't come cheap. Any service provided via copper is an an invitation for cable theft.

No single operator can afford to roll out services to the rural areas.
 
MickeyD said:
Maybe, but the concept is sound. The rural folks (and farmers) are really suffering for telecommunication services as it is just too expensive to provide services there. Satellite solutions are an option but they don't come cheap. Any service provided via copper is an an invitation for cable theft.

No single operator can afford to roll out services to the rural areas.
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Except for the small-time wisps doing it?
 
zamicro said:
Except for the small-time wisps doing it?
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Well, not really. The WISPs are doing what they can within their (mostly financial) constraints and all together serve a small number of customers, a few tens of thousand at best. And most of these are not rural.

In South Africa, we need to reach tens of millions in a moer-of-a-big country.

But this will be extremely expensive. Think the wrong side of R50B. With not a lot of return on such an investment. Average ARPU will be very low, tens of rand if you're lucky.

See the challenge?
 
Open Access = all licensed operators

Netguy said:
A great idea.
Some caveats may include the risks of enormous collusion as well as corruption. Ideally some kind of transparent 'overseer' should run with it, a body not 'cadred' by government nor owned / run by a singular business enterprise.
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To start with Open Access by definition would need to include all licensed operators for the areas. Can someone explain to me how this could actually work (with over 300 licensed operators)?
 
To achieve this, Vodacom will need to significantly extend their 3G network, and this is exactly what is being planned. Uys said that they will spend R6.6 billion in the next twelve months to grow and upgrade their mobile broadband network.
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Mr Uys, PM me, you can start building your rural network here ... Seriously, I hope to see something happen out here in the sticks.

Meanwhile the Vodacom Edge service has seriously degraded. We are getting 50% of the speed we were getting 6 weeks ago. For this reason I am using MTN. Which brings up another concern, if there is a single rural network, when it goes down, all the providers go down, so whats the backup? Dialup?
 
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