INTERNET
Irish wireless broadband permits awarded
11-03-2004
by
ComReg has officially awarded 38 fixed-wireless broadband licences, which will result in the roll out of 3.5GHz services to towns and rural areas in the State.
The telecommunications regulator says that the licences were issued following a competitive process and the move signals the end of the first phase of the licensing scheme. The Fixed Wireless Access Local Area (FWALA) licences were awarded to eight fixed-broadband operators throughout Ireland.
Under the terms of the licences, the licensees must provide broadband services to business and residential customers, services which must be offered within the next 12 months. Licensed operators will not only be offering services to city-based customers, but will also be offering services to customers in regional towns and rural areas. The companies which received licences include Budget Wireless, Digiweb, European Access Providers (Leap), Irish Broadband Internet Services, Last Mile Wireless, Mid West Network Solutions, Net2Cell and Real Broadband.
Fixed-wireless broadband is a system whereby a broadband Internet connection is created between a base-station and a receiver in the customer's premises. These systems have a range of up to 15 kilometres, which greatly exceeds the 4.5 kilometre limit for DSL broadband. However, the receiver must be within line of sight of the hub in order to receive the signal, particularly when the receiver is more than a few kilometres from the hub.
"The awarding of the licence means that we can move into the licensed spectrum," said Charlie Ardagh, director of Leap Broadband, one of the new licensees. "This will give us exclusive access to the frequency, which gives us a tangible asset and is of interest to investors."
In the medium and long-term, the frequency will be a key factor in the implementation of WiMAX, a new wireless standard which Ardagh believes to have huge potential application in the fixed-wireless broadband industry.
WiMAX is a wireless industry coalition, the aim of which is to advance 802.16 wireless standards for fixed-wireless broadband networks. WiMAX 802.16 technology is expected to enable multimedia applications with wireless connection have a range of up to 30 miles. Members of the organization include Fujitsu, Intel, Nokia, OFDM Forum, Proxim, and Wi-LAN.
Ardagh said that orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) is another technology which has the potential to increase the utility and accessibility of fixed-wireless broadband. OFDM could eliminate the line-of-sight requirement of fixed-wireless broadband, so that hubs could be located anywhere within range of the hub.
Using the subject line to get noticed: Denise Cox argues that to get results you have to make every word work in a subject line.
