Partner Article

Broadband boost for rural Scotland; Zinwave CEO comments

It has been revealed that part of the wireless spectrum freed up after the digital TV switchover is being used to provide broadband services to residents in rural Scotland, who have so far struggled with poor broadband speeds. This news follows the European Union proposing that TV broadcasters auction off their spectrum earlier this year, and has left one CEO, Scott Willis at Zinwave – a global provider of wideband distributed network solutions for in-building wireless and IP coverage – concerned about the scarcity of spectrum for critical services such as mobile broadband and the impending 5G rollout.

“While it is great that spectrum from the digital TV switchover is being reused for broadband in rural parts of the UK, it is critical that the freed-up spectrum is also used to accommodate the growing data demand for mobile services – especially as we get nearer to the 5G rollout,” comments Willis. “If we are going to successfully roll out next generation services such as 5G in the UK, operators need to fully equip themselves to provide the significant amount of spectrum and bandwidth that these mobile services require. To put it simply, there is a huge shortage of spectrum and in addition to ‘spectrum farming’ – where spectrum is taken from one place and given to operators for broadband use – which is helping to combat its scarcity, operators must ensure that they are using spectrum sparingly.

“To do this, operators should embrace small cell architecture, such as distributed antenna systems (DAS), which has the ability to facilitate the refarming of different frequencies. For example, a wideband DAS uses any combination of services and frequencies, and therefore enables operators to provide multi-service coverage. This means that operators are able to provide multi-service coverage without worrying about expensive re-cabling fit-outs or installing multiple coverage solutions, which will each have limited spectrum of application capabilities. Ultimately, 5G will provide the UK with an opportunity to drive both economical and societal growth, therefore operators need to make the most out of their radio waves and ensure that there’s enough spectrum available for its rollout in 2020,” concluded Willis.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Zinwave .