Lack of connectivity isn’t restricted to the developing world – it’s a global problem, as the recent TIP summit in London showed. Speakers had interesting thoughts about how changing ideas about performance and QoS could help reduce deployment barriers.
What does this mean?
We all know that a significant proportion of the global population is beyond the reach of mobile networks, but we tend to think of specific regions in which the problem is more acute. However, visitors to the recent TIP summit in London were left in no doubt that it’s a truly global problem.
Not only did we learn that more than 100 million people lack connectivity in Latin America, we also heard of innovative projects designed to bring connectivity to remote countries that already enjoy coverage for more than 98% of the population.
For example, one presentation highlighted recent deployments bringing connectivity to isolated communities in Scotland, which had previously been beyond the reach of conventional networks.
However, these cases also raise questions about the nature of the coverage that should be deployed. The question is not about whether it should be 2G, 3G or 4G, but, rather, if remote infrastructure needs to be built to the same standards as that in more easily reachable areas. It was suggested by several speakers that deploying equipment with the same resilience and performance goals as that in more central locations could increase costs dramatically. Accepting some performance compromises might be a way to reduce expenses and also to deliver lower OPEX.
It’s an interesting idea. In the Scottish case, we heard that the community is taking responsibility for managing the solution, which helps make it more economically sustainable, because it reduces the need to send engineers to site. The concept of self-management is one that’s central to WTL’s Vivada solution, as it can be deployed as a standalone, self-contained network, with integrated billing capabilities, as well as connectivity via satellite and other links to peers. In other words, communities can easily create and run their own networks, an idea that has grown in popularity as some have grown frustrated with the efforts of conventional operators to deliver the infrastructure citizens need today.
Of course, this is an area in which regulators have a role to play. Will they accept compromises in performance and QoS guarantees in order to provide some degree of coverage? In other words, is some coverage, with slightly variable performance, better than no coverage at all?
There’s no easy answer to this question, but another way of looking at it could be to consider the incremental impact of adding services to a deployment. Perhaps once coverage exists – even if imperfectly – the addition of new complementary capabilities, such as IoT services, local electricity generation and so on can be a driver to enhancing overall performance.
It would be rather like taking a minimum viable product (MVP), launching and, as consumption grows, iterating to ensure that evolves through regular updates and improvements. This is an intriguing avenue to explore and one which could be significant in terms of reducing investment costs and increasing project viability.
Of course, Vivada caters to this approach, as it can be the foundation of a host of services that can be rolled out after the launch of basic voice and data from a simple, lightweight foundation. Could lowering performance thresholds provide a spur to accelerate closure of the coverage gap?
What do you think? Why not get in touch and share your views?
