We’re running out of wireless spectrum … so what can we do?

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Wireless

This article is by Ian Oppermann, Director, CSIRO Digital Productivity and Services Flagship at CSIRO. It originally appeared on The Conversation.

analysis While discussions around closing oil refineries in Australia bring talk of future economic security, our economic future also depends on a less visible, but finite resource.

We can now foreshadow a time of “peak data”, when the radio spectrum is so crowded, we will reach a limit on how much data can be used for wireless services – at least in urban environments. Today we released a report World Without Wires on the threat of “peak data” and what that could mean for the way we connect and access essential services in the future. The report points out that wireless communication relies on the availability of radiofrequency spectrum, inherently a finite resource.

In a recent article in The Conversation, I explained how we in Australia expect more and better digital services to be delivered to our smart devices anytime, anywhere and how this burgeoning data demand is putting stress on the networks that deliver those services wirelessly. Future increases in demand, both in terms of speed and volume, for wireless data and services over coming decades will severely test technologies and infrastructure.

Based on our current body of research and the trajectories of technological innovation across the world, we expect wireless technology to underpin a massive range of socio-economic developments that will significantly impact the modern world. We envision a future in which consumers and other stakeholders will expect high-speed wireless connectivity to enable a range of future applications and social developments. This will include:

  • Internet-based personalised streaming services to replace TV and phones
  • Minute-by-minute updates from widespread sensing technologies embedded in our environment
  • Driverless cars and “virtual concierges” made possible by wireless location services
  • A whole new world of government and business teleservices being delivered to us via private digital networks and beyond.

In many global cities, including in Australia, we’re rapidly approaching the point of “peak data”, where user demand for wireless internet, telephony and other services can no longer be fully accommodated by the available radiofrequency spectrum. Currently bands of frequencies (measured in megahertz: MHz) are allocated for a wide range of uses such as TV/radio broadcast, emergency services and mobile phone communications.

While we continue researching new ways to make spectrum use more efficient, and future allocation of spectrum blocks may change over time, the fundamental situation is that spectrum is an increasingly rare resource. Our estimates are that spectrum demand will almost triple by 2020, implying that existing infrastructure will need to rapidly expand available capacity to meet this demand.

With more and more essential services delivered digitally and on mobile devices, finding a global solution to “peak data” will become ever more important. The solution could start here.

Australia is strongly positioned to be leader in the wireless world. We have a small population but our research and development community has consistently punched above its weight in wireless innovation. We’ve drawn on our traditional expertise in radioastronomy as well as the fields where technology is applied, such as agriculture, services and mining.

Since CSIRO’s development of high-speed wireless local area network (WLAN) in the early 1990s, our wireless labs have continued to push the boundaries in areas such as wireless positioning and antenna design, complementing equally exciting developments emerging from Australia’s top universities and research institutions.

This appetite for technological change and innovation is not limited to the labs. Australians, as a whole, are early technology adopters. There are more mobile phones today in Australia than there are Australians, and, according to the OECD’s latest figures, Australia now has more wireless broadband subscriptions per capita than any other country in the world.

In June 2013, around 7.5 million Australians were using the internet via their mobile phone – a staggering 510% more than did just five years ago.

To continue on this trajectory, however, wireless communications must become:

  1. Scalable, to overcome the threat of spectrum crunch posed by breakneck adoption and growth in demand
  2. Ubiquitous, to ensure that access to wireless-enhanced digital services that improve – and sometimes save – lives is available to all regardless of geography or demography.

Australia is in a prime position to address these challenges and develop world-leading applications for ubiquitous wireless connectivity. The pedigree of our wireless laboratories and researchers in all parts of the country is second to none.

To maintain momentum, though, Australia’s scientists and researchers must partner with industry leaders – not just in telecommunications, but health, mining and any other sector which can apply wireless connectivity to improve its performance and reliability. They must also ensure they develop technologies which directly boost the capabilities and applications of personal mobile devices, which increasingly constitute the single most accessible and relevant digital platform for everyday people.

Australia’s geography, our scattered population, and the nature of some of our major industries provide challenges which are uniquely suited for harnessing ubiquitous wireless connectivity. Any new technology which can take root here, and bring long-term benefit for both economies and people, is likely to flourish the world over.

Ian Oppermann is Director of the Digital Productivity and Services Flagship and contributed to the World Without Wires report. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

28 COMMENTS

  1. This is a rather strange article, it describes the problem but doesn’t propose a solution.

    To anybody who has worked in Radio Frequency Management, the answers are obvious; As well as improving the technology, we should restrict our precious radio spectrum to mobile devices only. This means that radio allocations should be progressively de-allocated from those fixed services which have no real need for mobile spectrum.

    The Elephant in the Room is of course TV Broadcasting. TV takes up most of the prime space in the radio spectrum. Almost no viewer needs mobile TV, and those few who do can be more efficiently serviced by mobile data. It is vastly better to stream compressed video to a small screen via mobile data, rather than broadcasting all channels, in real-time, everywhere.

    If we had Fiber Optics wired to every home and business we could easily switch off Broadcast TV.

    However once again we see progress in Australia being blocked by entrenched media barons who fear they will loose their carefully crafted delivery monopoly.

    • Quote “If we had Fiber Optics wired” – now there’s a contradiction in terms. Optic fibre has no wire, so a very strange way of putting it.

      • You’re a clever man Frank. Perhaps you should patent “Wireless Fiber Optics” before someone else gets in.

      • The term “Wire” has more than one meaning in English.

        From an article on Fiber Optics from Cornell University,

        “Optical fibers were invented in 1970. They are extremely thin,
        wire-like threads made of glass. These wires are about the same
        diameter as a strand of your hair”.

        When Cliff Richard sang “I’m Wired for Sound”, I’m sure that he would have accepted Glass as a substitute for Copper!

      • Trying to work out if you’re being serious or not……”almost everyone” in the games knows what he meant, yet you are saying this …… hmmmm

        As for the story, it’s been understood for quite some time that you can only stuff so much into the ether, distance helps, but there you go……and the LNP spruik the fact that wireless will work better that FTTP? hmmmmmm!

    • I agree. This article describes the problem but leaves out the solution. Probably because there is no easy solution.

      Wireless is a shared resource distributed amongst various stakeholders. Currently almost all of it is in use. That means that only way to use wireless more effectively is to reallocate the spectrum. This involves switching off older less spectrum-efficient wireless standards and replacing them with newer spectrum-efficient standards.

      This is a painful process as it essentially disenfranchises minority groups in favour of the public good. For instance, analogue TV was switched off in favour of mobile networks and digital TV – ‘digital dividend’. This rendered many old TVs inoperable without a set top box. I met many a elderly gentlemen perfectly happy with the previous status quo. Likewise, PA transmission systems are being reshuffled meaning that some will have to buy new wireless microphones.

      Ultimately allocation of spectrum is a delicate balancing act. On one hand you’ve got data networks serving millions of Australians screaming out for more spectrum due to congestion. On the other hand you’ve got entrenched legacy applications with significant capital invested providing important services for smaller groups of people.

      • You’re right of course, while the community benefits as a whole, it’s the Government’s role to compensate the disadvantaged who are adversely effected.

        In the case of Digital TV change-over, your “elderly gentleman” was most likely offered a free set-top-box.

    • “This is a rather strange article, it describes the problem but doesn’t propose a solution.”

      Why does this make it a strange article? I don’t think that articles which articulate problems without proposing solutions are strange at all.

      There is benefit in raising awareness of problems even before any particular solutions are found; it can drive people to find those solutions and can also help them look to address problems in other ways (such as mitigating how much they contribute to that problem). Or they can just be educational and interesting.

      With that being said, the article does propose a way towards a solution; by engaging with the right sectors to collaborate in developing those solutions.
      The article even names the sectors and the directions they should be looking in.

      I am reasonably sure that Ian Oppermann could provide a wealth of potential technological solutions, whether it is some kind of femtocell arrangement, or killing off the current broadcasting of television or whatever.

      Perhaps he is working on a secret new tech, where a new cellular network can triangulate the location of devices within that network, and use directional information transfer (via maser tech of course!) to minimise contention. Who knows? (BTW Ian, if you like that idea, the CSIRO can have it for free).

      The point being, he may know of solutions that he can’t even talk about yet.

      My real suspicion is that Ian doesn’t see any silver-bullet single solution or technology, but rather a broad approach which involves multiple layers of technology, social and policy development.

  2. For those who think there is a long term solution to this problem wthout a nation wide fiber optic network you would be wrong the laws of physics can not be changed it can only be solved by a cellular network with a large number of small cells which will mean only one network not Telsra, Optus, Vodaphone ……… using the avaliable spectrum (which has a fixed limit) efficently so just like the NBN we will need the same for the wireless spectrum as it is a limited resource. Unless star trek is not fiction and the laws of physics can be broken.

  3. (We’re running out of wireless spectrum … so what can we do?)

    Well Renai, what does our Minister for Science have to say about this dilemma ?

      • @ GongGav ( He has nothing to say about it….) who Renai or the Minister of Science, we don’t have a dedicated Minister of Science, it was a joke.

        • I know, I was putting in the punch line. Easily missed, it’s not really funny to have no science minister :(

  4. I think theres a rather simple solution myself. Have more towers covering a smaller area. The problem with the spectrum is in the contention, so to reduce contention you need to reduce the number of users.

    So have smaller towers in more locations.

    I’ve linked an idea before called v-pole, a modular light pole from Canada, where you can basically do that very thing quite easily. So why not something similar here? Major city centres, main transport routes, things like that all have power poles or something similar, so utilise those.

    Or there are modems out there that double up as public wifi hotspots. Enough of those you have a universal wireless network.

    Simplicity is in making the coverage area smaller and smaller. People might have an issue with it potentially being ugly, but if you incorporate the technology into existing necessary infrastructure, then its hidden out of sight.

    Obviously there would be things to work through, but the basic idea is sound – smaller coverage areas servicing smaller groups of people and reducing contention.

    • In Australia, as soon as the public gets a hint that a Telco is proposing to build a mobile tower within 500km of their house they hit the streets in protest. This is why we can’t have nice things.

      • True. But they are generally complaining for incorrect reasons (the radio transmissions are cooking their cats is the best I’ve heard), or because the towers are ugly.

        What I’m suggesting makes the transmitters smaller, and incorporates them into public infrastructure.

        I think its v-pole.com that I mentioned, where you basically have multiple fixed wireless nodes (1 per ISP) in a lightpole. No reason it has to be (just) fixed wireless, you could use a small form mobile wireless transmitter instead, and because light/power poles are everywhere, it doesnt need to cover a 500m radius area, but can cover a much smaller distance.

        If it cant be seen, a lot of NIMBY problems seem to go away, so deal with the issue by making the coverage smaller. It means more tranmitters, but the counter argument is that its weaker strength, so theres less cat cooking going on…

        • At CES one of the vendors demonstrated a small 3 cell panel antenna that was concealed inside a power pole. This sought of innovation will start to come to light and will provide a huge amount of addition capacity. The femtocell size are also making huge leaps as the price looks like they could drop to Wi-Fi router pricing, as most incorporate Wi-Fi as well there price will be about 1.5X Wi-Fi router.

          GPON is the obvious solution to provide back-haul to such sites so FTTH would be a huge benefit unless we feed our small cells with copper but that’s silly talk.

    • Sure, smaller antennas in more places is the answer. But that implies more optical fibre, not less. Because all of those picocells need backhaul. When you get down to the size of a few houses the difference between 4G and WLAN is really a difference about who pays the bill.

    • This is exactly correct, and it is why I find it odd when people say we are running out of spectrum as if this is the only factor. Subdivide cells, problem solved.

  5. Telstra and Optus purchased blocks of 2.6GHz spectrum. This will be a MASSIVE boost to LTE as it has a very short range and very high capacity (Same as WIFI). If there are shortfalls in bandwidth in very busy areas (for example Pitt Street Mall in Sydney) they just need to install a couple of 2.6GHz cells and it will take everyone in that area off the main frequencies and put them on the 2.6GHz cell. In fact, in a busy city they could install 2.6GHz cells on every street corner.

    If 2.6GHz is too busy they can release some higher frequencies again, like 3.5GHz. I find it hard to believe we will run out of bandwidth in the near future.

    Besides 2.6GHz, Telstra, for example owns bandwidth in;
    850MHz
    900MHz
    1800MHz
    2100MHz

    HEAPS!

    Most people tether to WIFI when they get home so they are taken off the main networks.

    • “Telstra and Optus purchased blocks of 2.6GHz spectrum. This will be a MASSIVE boost to LTE as it has a very short range and very high capacity (Same as WIFI).”

      Only if using the same antenna and power output as Wi-Fi. The range should be similar to the 2.1GHz band, they will have EIRP over 1KW.

  6. The NBN should have been planned to include mobile communications, not to compete with it. As it is we have a situation where to make sure the fibre NBN got enough customers Conroy made sure the minimum price in the digital dividend auction of bandwidth was so high that the mobile companies couldn’t afford to buy some of what was available. That “unused” (ie, overpriced) bandwidth limiting what is available, plus the high price the mobile companies had to pay for what they did buy has pushed up the price of mobile, and pushed down the size of monthly quotas. And now they are going to waste it by giving it to emergency services who’ll only use it when emergencies happen. There’s got to be a way of letting the public use the bandwidth, and just giving emergency services priority access when they need it. Its just software.

    The fibre part of the NBN should have built with the number one task not to be to give the few the highest speed possible, but to get everyone onto it as it was installed in each suburb. Rather than being designed technically and marketed for speed, everyone should have been offered a deal they couldn’t refuse so that none of the increasingly scarce mobile bandwidth was wasted on people who didn’t need a mobile service. Instead of only competing for high end customers it should have been signing up everyone, even if that required offering them really cheap, and maybe even free for the first year, deals to get people onto the service. Getting everyone onto the fibre as the workers went through the first time would have lowered costs and prices and generated maximum revenue quickly. Labor’s fibre NBN is a marketing disaster.

    • The NBN should have been planned to include mobile communications, not to compete with it.

      It was. The laid fibre was over provisioned to not only have multiple lines per lot to allow for future sub divisions, it was built with extra cores for NALs (Non Addressable Locations) of which WWAN AP would qualify.

      As it is we have a situation where to make sure the fibre NBN got enough customers Conroy made sure the minimum price in the digital dividend auction of bandwidth was so high that the mobile companies couldn’t afford to buy some of what was available.

      Okay, first of all, when something is in high demand with limited supply, the price goes up. This is simple economics.

      Second do you have any evidence that this was a deliberate move to make the increasely criticised NBN project look better? Because if not, by Occam’s Razor, see my first point.

      …plus the high price the mobile companies had to pay for what they did buy has pushed up the price of mobile, and pushed down the size of monthly quotas.

      Traffic control on mobiles by way of small monthly quotas was not only well established by the time the spectrum auction it also readily applied, more aggressively, globally.

      There’s got to be a way of letting the public use the bandwidth, and just giving emergency services priority access when they need it. Its just software.

      Technically yes, however if we were that desperate for bandwidth don’t you think mobile providers would have bid for more spectrum, even when we allow for your assumption that it was over priced?

      The fibre part of the NBN should have built with the number one task not to be to give the few the highest speed possible, but to get everyone onto it as it was installed in each suburb.

      It was. There are already commercially available technologies that can achieve higher performance than the stated design goal by a factor of 100 and the settled implementation technology by a factor of
      of 10. These technologies however require more
      extensive works.

      Not only that but migration to fibre was mandated in order to further reduce the works requirements by allowing the usage of underspeced conduits that were at or exceeding capacity with the existing CAN.

      Labor’s fibre NBN is a marketing disaster.

      Based upon the fact that the misconceptions you have demonstrated are shared by a lot of the population, this I think we can at least agree on.

    • So .. your problem with the Labor NBN; is that it didn’t force people onto the NBN…

      Or that it didn’t charge low enough money to *attempt* to force people onto the NBN (offer too good to refuse)…

      I swear in the past you have claimed that Labors NBN was too expensive. Am I wrong (this is a serious non-rhetorical question, and I genuinely apologise if I am confusing your comments with others).

      I personally think that we should have been forcing fibre installation and changeover the first time the trucks rolled through (I am hesitant to say ‘also’ here as I am genuinely confused by your position now), to minimise cut-over times and maximise take-up (it was cheaper than copper based anything after-all – since the price of line-rental was rolled into internet rental).

      But; by the same token I can 100% understand the political argument that we shouldn’t *force* anyone to do anything. (I disagree with it; but I can understand where it comes from). This is the Opt-in vs Opt-out debate, we know where labor stood, but the states and liberal party were pretty clearly opposed, and it was pretty easy for them to wage a campaign of “NBN Contractors stomping on your garden without your permission”.

      Sigh.

      And wireless. Double sigh. DIDO-like technologies will become feasible in the next 50 years, which will mitigate some of the problems. But when I say 50 years I think (probably regret saying this) it will be closer to the top end, and still be insufficient for our bandwidth requirements to replace fixed line.

    • ” And now they are going to waste it by giving it to emergency services who’ll only use it when emergencies happen.”

      Seriously?? People like you should be forced to live outside of society…

  7. @Gordon Drennan: “And now they are going to waste it by giving it to emergency services who’ll only use it when emergencies happen. There’s got to be a way of letting the public use the bandwidth, and just giving emergency services priority access when they need it. Its just software.”

    Ummmm. No. I use a CB handset as part of my required PPE in my job. These now run at 80 channels, using “Narrow-band”, up from 40 on “Wide-band”. Two (count them: 5 and 35) are reserved for emergency use. Ch35 is a repeater… 6 other channels are reserved, 4 of which have voice transmission inhibited by Federal Law.

    Do you know how many people use CB (including the idiots with no lives)? I think that if you had practical experience in Comms of any type, you would be spruiking the exact opposite of what you have written.

    Gordon.

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