From a technical point of view, a single network makes sense
Guy, Ray
Thanks for all the strong reporting on Africa.
From 12,000 miles away, I'd be a fool to interpret the politics here. But I do know the technology and would like to make two points. Since Stanford Professor Paulraj told me in 2014 that Massive MIMO would be the right way to deliver capacity where there are few landlines, I've been looking at the issues.
Most African wireless plans have caps of 2-10 gigabytes, nothing like the video Internet in the U.S. or Europe. Fortunately, wireless technology is improving at a phenomenal rate; Verizon estimates costs are coming down 40% per year. The result is that wireless offerings can and should be much better.
Here in the U.S., the average landline Internet user draws almost 200 gigabytes/month. Wireless is mostly going "unlimited" with a soft cap, so offers 30-100 gigabytes. In France, $24 buys 100 gigabytes of 4G LTE. That's the kind of offering Africans deserve.
So how do you raise capacity in a given amount of spectrum? Two key technologies are large blocks of contiguous spectrum and MIMO up to 64 antennas. Both are practical today.
1) An LTE block of say 60-100 MHz of contiguous spectrum delivers 30-75% more capacity than the same spectrum broken into 20 MHz blocks. Of course, it reduces the need for guard bands.
Even more important is the statistical likelihood that if one of the 20 MHz blocks approaches congestion, there will likely be capacity at the other carriers. But there is no common method to share the spectrum. Unless each company has precisely the same traffic demand at the same time, there's a major increase in what the network can deliver. (Alcatel did pioneering work here.)
Which doesn't mean it's always right; sometimes splitting the spectrum can be important for competition. But it does offer much greater capacity.
2) Across the world, networks are going to 4, 8, and 64 antennas. (MIMO and Massive MIMO.) More antennas aren't free, but the cost is generally far less than densification. I believe most of South African towers are still single or dual antenna. From True in Thailand to Verizon in the U.S. to Telus in Canada, nearly every telco is going to 4x4 MIMO or higher. Going from 2 to antennas doesn't quite double capacity, but in most terrains the improvement is very large.
Japan & China have thousands of 64 antenna Massive MIMO cells, which are rapidly being adopted across India and the United States. (Vodafone is an early European advocate.) Huawei tells me Massive MIMO is now reliable and inexpensive enough to deploy in Africa. It typically increases capacity 3-10X.
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Unless MTN & Voda are already 4x4, with Massive MIMO in peak areas, I would disagree "They need 4G spectrum -- and urgently." More spectrum would bring their costs down, of course. But where spectrum is short, it shouldn't be wasted. Before demanding more, operators should upgrade to efficient technology where the costs are reasonable. (4x4 and even 8x8 at 1800 is very affordable.)
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None of which asserts that the shared wholesale network will work for political reasons, although British Telecom is not doing that badly. In a country like South Africa, the best technical solution may not be right for other reasons.
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I haven't been to Kenya or Russia, but I wouldn't say their experience should rule out WOANs. In both cases, the plans looked good from the technical point of view, were supported by the Minister, and interested outside experts. They didn't happen because the incumbents raised political barriers.
I don't know about pricing in Rwanda, but the news just came across they have reached 95% LTE coverage, better than Deutsche Telekom.
Mexico is far behind schedule and has scaled back coverage plans, which is discouraging. Francois Rancy remains optimistic.
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Again - much of this is political and I don't know the politics. Delighted to exchange ideas.
Dave Burstein