Karen Wrege on Spectrum Auctions
October 23rd, 2009 by steve
Spectrum auctions expert, Karen Wrege, was in South Africa last week to speak on behalf of the Open Spectrum Alliance at the ICASA hearings on the planned auction of 2.6GHz and 3.5MHz spectrum. You can download the text of her submission of behalf of OSA. Later that day, Karen gave a talk at the CellC auditorium in Sandton on Lessons Learned from Around the World in Spectrum Auctions. The OSA submission was picked up in the press by ITWeb in the misleadingly- titled article Don’t Auction Spectrum.
Tags: auctions, spectrum, WiMax
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
5850-6100 for ptp lite licensing
June 21st, 2009 by admin
It’s been a week of investigating the best option to demonstrate a model of industry self-regulation through a lite-licensing approach.
So far 5850-6100 Mhz (250Mhz) looks like the best option:
- Most 802.11a radios and antenna equipment can use the 4.92-6.1Ghz range.
- Both the 5850-5925 and 5925-6700 (C-band) ranges seem to be allocated to point-to-point link usage by ICASA already.
- The primary use of these bands is for Earth to satellite uplinks, c-band, vsat.
- An 802.11a channel is 20Mhz and we need at least 4 channels to start, 250Mhz should work.
- We did a scan of the 5850-6100 Mhz range from two of the more popular highsites in Cape Town and there seems to be very little activity, mostly open spectrum.
- We confirmed that the SA Weather service is using 5600 to 5650 MHz (50Mhz) for their C-band weather radar and they are currently experiencing interference from wireless networks. This translates to the following channels: 5600, 5620 and 5640.
- We leaned about SNG / ENG applications is this band.
- We learned about “teleports” and how it makes sense to group/cluster high power C-band transmitters together to avoid interference.
- We learned that the SKA project will be using spectrum around 6670Mhz and we want to avoid that.
- Telkom seems to be using the “6Ghz band” for terrestrial point-to-point. This needs more investigation.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Slides from the first meeting
June 12th, 2009 by admin
Slides from Steve Song
Slides from Dominic Cull
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Feedback from the first OSA meeting
June 11th, 2009 by admin
Yesterday was the founding meeting of the Open Spectrum Alliance at Asara wine estate, just outside Stellenbosch. There was a good turnout (about 45+ people) and plenty of healthy discussion and debate.
A few notes for the press:
Preface
=======
As broadband around the world is changing from a luxury to a key social and economic enabler, the need for affordable and universal access in South Africa becomes ever more critical.
The Open Spectrum Alliance seeks to engage policy makers, regulators, industry and civil society in a dialogue on wireless spectrum and how the rapidly changing nature of wireless technologies opens up new possibilities for access for all.
At the inaugural meeting today, participants agreed that:
- Transparency in the management and assignment of spectrum was essential to equitable and efficient strategic use of spectrum
- Expanded access to unlicensed spectrum and “lite” licensed spectrum opens up the potential for entrepreneurship and innovation in access delivery
In particular the Open Spectrum Alliance in South Africa will:
- promote public awareness of the potential of open spectrum policies for expanding affordable access in South Africa
- engage policy makers, regulators, industry, and civil society in a dialogue on the opportunity that technical and administrative innovations in spectrum management represents for South Africa
- promote the existing unlicensed use of the 5.8 GHz band but with expanded EIRP limits of 200W for point-to-point links and 4W for point-to-multipoint links
- seek to demonstrate a model of industry self-regulation through an application for licensed spectrum which might be shared among Open Spectrum Alliance partners
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (4)
Two Interesting Links
June 10th, 2009 by admin
* Panel Discussion : Spectrum 2.0 – What’s really happening?
* Open Spectrum – Physics, Engineering, Commerce and Politics
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Founding Meeting
May 30th, 2009 by admin
The first OSA meeting will be on the 10th of June 2009, just outside Stellenbosch.
This OSA workshop will include guest speaker Steve Song, from the Shuttleworth Foundation, an overview of the current status of RF spectrum regulation in SA by WAPA Regulatory Advisor Dominic Cull, and an overview of Spectrum challenges in South Africa by Ronnie Seeber from Motorola.
Please get in touch with WAPA if your organisation would be interested in supporting the OSA initiative.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (3)