Analysys Mason says there are important decisions ahead to secure the future of Irelands wireless

Analysys Mason, the premier adviser in telecoms, IT and digital media have said that the most important aspect of Irelands broadband in the future will be wireless, although to gain the most public benefit it must first resolve key issue with regards to spectrum.

Any decision regarding the wireless spectrum will impact Ireland far more than many other countries due to its much higher rate of wireless broadband usage.

The future could see both the telecommunications industry and the regulator ComReg facing a number of landmark issue including: The ‘digital dividend’ from the Digital Terrestrial Television switchover, uncertainty over the future use of 2.6GHz spectrum that is used in Ireland for MMDS, but is pivotal for future LTE and WiMAX services, and use of the 2G spectrum for 3G services.

To ensure that any doubts in the marketplace as to how these three key areas will be allocated spectrum are resolved quickly and effectively both regulatory and policy decisions must be made, according to the Senior Manager of Analysys Mason Ireland, Patrick Kidney.

Kidney explained “The 2G spectrum at 900MHz is ideally suited to rural broadband, as is the extra spectrum from the digital dividend – though technical standards in the latter are currently less well defined. 2.6 GHz spectrum is currently used for TV distribution, and will continue to do so until at least 2012-14, however, this could hinder the future deployment of high capacity wireless broadband via LTE and WiMAX unless alternative bands can be made available.”

There are a mixture of situation in Ireland for telecommunications providers to deal with, ranging from the large populations in its urban areas down to the low population densities in its more rural areas. Each of these scenarios is suited to a particular area of the wireless spectrum. Small amounts of data can be carried over wide areas with the lower frequency ranges, which would be highly suitable for the rural demographics. For urban scenarios the most appropriate frequency would be the higher range with much larger data capacity but over a shorter distance.

Janette Dobson, a manager at Analsys Mason explained “The role of wireless networks is more important in Ireland than in other leading EU economies. More than 14% of broadband connections in Ireland are wireless, compared with less than 1% in the UK, France and Spain. There is no sign of a fall-off in the near future – the rapid growth of 3G mobile broadband is one clear example that wireless in Ireland is increasing from this already high base.”

She added “It is predominantly Ireland’s rural demographics, combined with other factors, that are the root cause of the strength of wireless, and these underlying drivers are unlikely to significantly change. Put simply, the UK has five times the population density of Ireland, which means the population would need to increase to 20 million before reaching parity with the UK.”