White space in action

Over the years that I have been in tech PR – more years than I care to remember – I have been genuinely excited about many new technologies. But I have to say that white space is up there with best and I believe it will have a major impact on communications in the next 10 years.

The Cambridge White Space Consortium (Adaptrum Inc., Alcatel-Lucent, Arqiva, BBC, BSkyB, BT, Cambridge Consultants, CRFS, CSR plc., Digital TV Group (DTG), Microsoft Corp, Neul, Nokia, Samsung, Spectrum Bridge Inc., The Technology Partnership plc. (TTP) and Virgin Media) trials came to an end last week. As PR for TTP and Cambridge Wireless, who hosted the event, I was lucky enough to attend the review at Duxford Air Museum where the results of ten month’s of white space tests in rural and urban areas were presented to regulators, legislators and industry executives from around the world.

It was clear that the trials had been a success in proving that television white spaces can work in multiple use cases and achieve wide area coverage, delivering affordable rural broadband and a new generation of M2M applications from smart metering to traffic control.

The presentation by Richard Walker from TTP emphasised the low cost of deployment in rural areas and highlighted the impressive economic potential for white space technology. The biggest hurdle is to make sure regulators around the world recognise the potential of white space that could change our lives in much the same way as wifi has.

TTP believes that white space technology could help drive the UK economy forward by providing high performance rural broadband for up to 2million ‘un-served’ premises across the country. With research suggesting that every 10 percent increase in broadband penetration could increase GDP by 1 percent, this could mean well over £10billion per year for the UK economy.

As UK Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said of the consortium trials: “I find the idea of using white space devices to deliver broadband to rural communities, or to expand the range and quality of urban Wi-Fi hotspots, exciting. This can form a significant contribution to our thinking as we consider how to maximise the value of the spectrum below 1GHz.”

Who knows what the future holds: Let’s just say ‘watch this white space’

The future of Blanco Space!

Enjoying a good holiday break on the South Coast of Spain in the largely unspoiled Costa del la Luz I could not help checking out the news on the trusty BBC World Service. Sadly it prompted me to realise my age when I heard that the World Wide Web was 20 years old. I remember Ray Anderson of our then client IXI (now with Bango) attending the first World Wide Web conference and getting very excited. The rest is history of course – but 20 years of it has just flown past.

I like to think that we at PRPR have played a small part in spreading the world from the early IXI days to the recent work with clients such as Wapple – delivering the power of the web to mobile. But out in the middle of nowhere in the Spanish countryside also highlights the fact that the web still does not reach everyone. Fortunately, the Dutch owners of our villa have installed fixed internet access. It appears that they spend time out here working that certainly has its attractions. But this is unusual.

Far closer to home, broadband in rural areas still has a long way to go. That is why we are delighted to be working with new client TTP in Cambridge that is working on the use of so-called white space for providing rural broadband services. White space is the bits of unused spectrum in the TV and radio bands that are being freed for other uses – if the technology challenges can be solved. With a range of some 10km, white space may well provide a cost effective solution to make the www reach parts other technologies can’t reach (at least cost effectively).

That reminds me; I must go and get another cold beer.
Back soon.
Pedro @prpr

A look at the Future of Wireless

A guest blog by Laura-Jane Hughes (16)

As part of my week’s work experience at PRPR I attended the second day of the Future of Wireless International Conference organised by Cambridge Wireless. The main topic was Networks under Stress, and there were many companies who had a great deal to say about it.

Personally, my favourite speaker was Dr Tapani Ryhänen, who is the laboratory director for the Nokia Research Centre. I found his talk most interesting because it focused on new mobile phone technology that was really astounding, such as a phone that is flexible and can be turned into a bracelet, and how they are working to create a phone battery that you can bend. It felt like something out of a science fiction movie! Other than the many different speakers, there were also stands inside a marquee where you could find out about the many different companies.

Even though the sun was not shining, everyone seemed to enjoy networking and discussing the array of new products and wireless technologies. The overall message seemed to be that with the amount of new wireless devices available the network is becoming clogged up, so we must resort to something new – some called this using ‘good pipes’ not ‘bad pipes’.

What I found made the whole event better was the location – St John’s College in Cambridge. Surrounding the marquee were beautiful university buildings and small rivers complete with students punting, making the atmosphere much brighter despite the rain. I spent the morning listening to speakers from the BBC and Nokia. The BBC speaker was talking about a ‘dual screen experience’ where you can watch television with another screen such as a smartphone or tablet.

After the first speakers the audience gathered in the marquee for refreshments and to browse the stands. Some of the displays were remarkable, like one that included a robot that could draw graphs of the temperature on a large sheet of paper. This shows that in the future technology is going to be very amazing; even more than it is now. After the break everyone rushed back into the next talk that sparked more conversations between the largely male-dominated audiences.

After lunch, everybody flocked back to the auditorium where the last three speakers enlightened us with their views on the conference topic, ‘Networks under Stress’ in their individual, inspiring ways, summarizing the conference brilliantly. At the end of the day I’m sure that everyone who attended left feeling much more knowledgeable and happy to have met many other technical companies as they shared their views on what is going on in the wireless world. None of it could have been done without Soraya Jones who is the CEO of Cambridge Wireless, and her team, who made the conference excellent for everyone.

Wireless networks under stress

The phenomenal growth in smartphones, tablets and other data-rich devices is driving up demand for mobile broadband services and putting our wireless networks under increasing stress and posing challenges for everyone in the wireless value chain. So the PRPR breakfast briefing hosted by Cambridge Wireless and Qualcomm with additional panel members from Alcatel, Neul/Ofcom and Bango was always going to be interesting. And it didn’t disappoint. I have always liked the round table format and it was clear that the journalists and all the participants enjoyed a fascinating, interactive debate on the challenges and the solutions.

One interesting point of discussion was that unlike most supply and demand scenarios, there is no willingness by users to fund their mobile data habits and it appears operators are in no rush to be the first to significantly increase data pricing. William Webb, from the Ofcom Spectrum Advisory Board and CTO of Neul suggested, that while new technologies are emerging such as LTE and Femtocells, it is not a given that all demand has to be met. And I totally agree. He was quick to point out that: “Congestion happens in many other areas – on our roads for example – and either congestion or price rationing is likely to be necessary otherwise demand for a ‘free’ resource will become unbounded.”

So what about the Big ‘Wireless’ Society?

It was agreed that the only way that the forecast demand for wireless broadband can be met is to bring independent cells into a consolidated network; effectively a way of selling capacity ‘micro-generation’ into a large telecoms network. As consumers, we simply want seamless broadband connectivity – but who will deliver this? Will it be the current operators or will companies like Facebook and Google provide the front end to ubiquitous mobile broadband.

The breakfast briefing was a pre-cursor to the third Future of Wireless International Conference from 27 – 28 June organised by Cambridge Wireless with speakers from major industry players including Qualcomm, BBC, Broadcom, Deutsche Telekom, Huawei, Iridium, Nokia, Microsoft, Ofcom, Reliance and Three.

It’s good to talk. 60,000 visitors hit Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2011

The GSMA reports that over 60,000 visitors from 200 countries attended this week’s GSMA – 10,000 more than last year. So good news for the industry and having just returned from a couple of days with the great and good of the mobile world, I can confirm that Barcelona was certainly buzzing.

And there was plenty to see and hear. The general opinion seemed to be that Android was everywhere but some of the other highlights included the first 3D phone, a clutch of new tablets to line up against the iPad and the prospect of Nokia and Microsoft working together.

Another hot topic was in-car mobile and our client RealVNC attracted a lot of attention for its VNC Mobile Solution for Automotive. And 15 minutes walk away in the App Planet , despite the domination of a large Blackberry presence, our client Adfonic also had a busy and successful week, reflecting the growing interest in mobile advertising.

With meetings and networking happening all around, hats off to the organisers for making sure you could always get a mobile connection. But of course there was one company missing. Despite winning the GSMA Best Mobile Device being awarded to the iPhone – an Apple stand was nowhere to be seen.

Fair deal for Forces

Its unreasonable that our armed forces get a raw deal from mobile phone companies when they are abroad fighting for their country. Many are still made to pay their monthly contract tariffs even when they are in Afghanistan and Iraq and can not use their phones.

But PRPR client Anvil Mobile is now offering service men and women a mobile phone contract that is a fairer and cheaper way to stay in contact with friends and family. Along with local landline rate calls in the UK, payments for line rental are reduced to just £2 per month for up to 11 months a year while on duty overseas. The number is held and simply reactivated on their return to the UK. Callers to Anvil mobiles from other UK landlines pay only landline rates; while outbound calls to geographic numbers or other Anvil phones are charged at just 3.8p per minute. Texts cost just 5p and data downloads in the UK are 5p per megabyte.

Mobiles are better than sex?

According to our client Adfonic, it turns out that many of us appear to prefer browsing our mobile devices in bed to reading a good book or enjoying other late night activities. In fact,  the number of click-throughs on mobile ads increases steadily over the evening as we get bored with ad breaks and dumbed down TV; and instead turn to our attention to the small screen. And the very peak of activity happens at midnight. So it looks like many brands and ad agencies are still missing a trick at a time in the day when conventional online activity goes down.