Sentech to roll out combination of WiMAX and LTE

State-owned signal distributor Sentech is planning the roll-out of a wireless data network they call the National Wireless Broadband Network (NWBN). Sentech has indicated they have both longer-term five-year plans and medium-term three-years plans in motion to achieve the roll-out of the NWBN.

During a press conference held to discuss their medium-term plans with the media, Sentech explained that the intention behind the network is to improve broadband penetration in the rural and other under-serviced areas of South Africa. This is in-line with Sentech’s new vision of “enabling government intervention in the communications sector.”

Sentech first announced its plans to return to the South African wireless broadband space in 2010, after the spectacular failure of its MyWireless offering in 2009. This was after Sentech’s previous CEO, Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, announced in 2007 that the company would be building a mobile WirelessMAN (802.16e) WiMAX network to replace the IPWireless technology used in their MyWireless offering.

Setumo Mohapi, the current CEO of Sentech, assured that Sentech have learnt from their past failures and will work on restoring their reputation in the eyes of the South African telecommunications and broadcasting market.

According to Mohapi, the mistakes Sentech made with their MyWireless service won’t be repeated. A key difference between the NWBN and their previous attempt is that Sentech will not be re-entering the retail space this time around, Mohapi said.

Sentech have also been criticised for not adequately maintaining their networks. Mohapi conceded this point, promising that this would be addressed.

Technical details: Spectrum and technology plans

Sentech has a 50MHz allotment of spectrum in the 2.6GHz band which they plan to use to roll out their NWBN.

This spectrum occupies a very desireable part of the band which if left as-is would make it impossible for other mobile network operators to offer Long Term Evolution (LTE) services in its most popular configuration (FDD – Frequency Division Duplex).

Mohapi affirmed that Sentech is open to migrating their 50MHz inside the 2.6GHz band, but said that they are not willing to relinquish any of it.

Questioned about how effectively Sentech will make use of their spectrum considering that it has gone mostly unused for so long, Mohapi promised that Sentech would make full use of their allocation.

He further explained that there are a number of options in which their spectrum can be migrated. One such option involves splitting their chunk of bandwidth into smaller pieces and migrating it in such a fashion that enables Sentech to offer FDD LTE services in addition to Time Division Duplex (TDD) services.

WiMAX is often deployed in TDD configurations and Mohapi said that one option is for Sentech to continue rolling out WiMAX to rural areas with a roadmap to LTE.

Mohapi said that the benefits are that the cost of WiMAX handsets are low right now, but that the world is moving to an LTE-like environment.

On the other hand, while there are chipsets and handsets out there that support TDD LTE for when the WiMAX network is upgraded, Mohapi said that the cost of such equipment is “on the wrong side.”

The decision around which technology to use for Sentech’s NWBN hasn’t been made yet and according to Mohapi the challenge is addressing current needs against future trends. “We need to make sure that whatever we provide in those [under-serviced] areas doesn’t further disadvantage them in the future,” Mohapi said.

He said that he understands that wider coverage from a single base station can be achieved with the lower frequencies offered by the digital dividend, spectrum set to become available when South Africa completes its migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting.

However, Mohapi said that he also understands that in the three years it’s scheduled to take to complete the digital TV migration we’re “going to release three more classes of students into the economy without any broadband. “The issues of propagation versus deprivation is on the side of the young ones,” Mohapi said.

Pricing

Asked whether the NWBN will be able to offer broadband rural users can afford, Sentech chairperson Logan Naidoo said that they have a tariff committee working on it. Naidoo explained that the plan is to reflect no recovery on the capital costs, but to only cover the maintenance costs.

“[Pricing] has to be minimum, otherwise it will be another barrier to entry,” Naidoo said.

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