Image 1: Above is a view of streets in the Sydney suburb of Paddington from SKM’s AusImage database.
Recently, a company called Unwired Australia began testing a new communications network. The test network, in Sydney’s eastern and northern suburbs, is trialling a way of delivering broadband services to residences in those areas more cheaply and quickly than the wireline telcos (such as Telstra and Optus). Spatial technology is critical to the success of the plan.
The company will begin building its network during the second half of 2002. It plans to commence with coverage of key capital cities by the start of 2003 and regional areas by 2004.
Unwired’s proposition is simplicity itself. The company bought 100 MHz of spectrum space (at 3.4 GHz) from the government in 2000. It plans to use it to develop a network of base stations, each of which can service about 2000 customers at the same time. Each customer will receive a broadband connection and up to eight telephone lines.
Unwired’s Fixed Wireless Access Network in Australia is being developed by Airspan, a US-based provider of wireless networks. The system works by providing a connection from the subscriber’s premises to the base station. The base station is then connected to a wireline network, from where the call can be directed to another subscriber or an Internet Service Provider.
Image 2: The same area as Image 1 only with a signal strength indicated over a single property boundary.
The design of the network requires software that can identify where people live, and match their address to a building. Then it requires some way of predicting the attenuation of the radio signal on its path from the base station to the address.
Airspan has put together a development team to undertake the work. Sinclair Knight Merz in Sydney is supplying its AusImage aerial data. Laurie Edwards’ Map Data Sciences is supplying road and cadastral data. Airspan is supplying RF prediction using a product called DB Planner from Marconi. Xmarc AsiaPacific is then using its Grid and WIISE engines to glue the whole thing together in an Oracle 9I database.
Airspan will then put this together in such a way that it will be possible to predict signal strength at any address in the coverage
area. This will require a propagation model developed by Airspan, which requires details of the terrain morphology – and of the ground cover – between the sender and the receiver.
This data will be used to design the network, specifically for the location of transmission towers. Unwired is backed by a combination of Australian private investors and major US institutions, including Credit Suisse First Boston, The Invus Group and Bruckmann Rosser Sherrill. The founding directors are Steve Cosser (chairman), Chris North, David Harris (chief executive officer), Peter Shore (deputy chairman), two representatives of The Invus Group and a representative from Credit Suisse First Boston and Bruckmann Rosser Sherrill.
Image 3: The same image as image 1 only this one shows the behaviour of radiation from an antenna in the same area.
There are a number of different parts to the business. On the one hand, the company plans to make money by wholesaling its communications channels to providers of retail communications services, such as Telstra or Optus.
Carriers would prefer to service potential customers with their own infrastructure, of course, but they often find it prohibitive, in terms of capital expenditure or the available capacity, to reach some of their customers, especially in areas with low population density. In this economic environment, Unwired expects to be able to offer the major carriers a deal they will not want to refuse.
The other side of the business is retail – servicing customers directly. To do this, Unwired plans a website. Potential customers will be able to enter their address, and the software will then predict the strength of the signal at that address, and determine whether the signal is strong enough to make a communications channel available. If it is, the software will generate a work order and billing arrangements, and the service will be connected within 24 hours.
This will work because, unlike a wired connection, extensive re-work at the exchange or the subscriber’s premises is unnecessary. The subscriber’s equipment is just a black box that needs to be wired into the phone and computer connections in the house.
A spokesman for Unwired said that the company expects this fast reaction time to be very attractive to customers of the major telcos. Subscribers often wait weeks for new connections, especially broadband connections, when they try to do business with the majors. Unwired promises a new business paradigm. Only time will tell whether it is winning one.
Jonathon Powers is a freelance journalist working in Sydney.
