MTN wants to share spectrum in the so-called “digital dividend” band with television broadcasters so it can begin rolling out a wireless broadband network across the country using next-generation long-term evolution (LTE) technology.

“I would deploy LTE across the country right now if I had more spectrum,” says MTN SA MD Karel Pienaar.

LTE is sometimes marketed as a fourth-generation mobile broadband technology, particularly by US operators, though the use of the term 4G has proved contentious. It’s the successor to the third-generation high-speed packet access networks currently in use.

Telecommunications operators are waiting for broadcasters to migrate from analogue to digital terrestrial television, a move that will free up spectrum in the 800MHz band. Mobile broadband providers want to use the spectrum outside the cities to build high-speed data networks.

But Pienaar says the industry can’t afford to wait for the migration process to run its course and says a way needs to be found for mobile operators to share the broadcasting spectrum in the interim.

MTN is already running a pilot LTE network in parts of Johannesburg and Pretoria, but to do so it has reallocated a portion of its 1,8GHz frequency allocation — used mainly for legacy voice services — for the purpose. The company would prefer to build its network at 800MHz and 2,6GHz, says Pienaar, but neither of these bands has been allocated yet by the industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa).

Icasa is meant to auction off access to 2,6GHz later this year — or possibly early next year — but operators may have to wait longer to get access to the arguably more coveted 800MHz frequency band.

The 800MHz band is better suited to delivering broadband outside the dense urban areas because one base station can serve a much larger area than one using 1,8GHz or 2,6GHz.

Pienaar says LTE modems are already available and he’s keen to start expanding MTN’s deployment of the technology across the country. He says originally MTN didn’t expect to build LTE networks so soon and so aggressively. But, he says, the “timing has moved up”.

He expects there will be strong demand from small and medium-sized companies and high-end consumers for the higher capacities offered by LTE. Over time, LTE promises to deliver real-world download speeds of well over 100Mbit/s, far outstripping the speeds possible on copper-based fixed-line networks.

“The time is up for this spectrum to be lying fallow with consumers not benefiting from it,” Pienaar says. “We need to unlock it. I can’t put it more strongly than that.”

He says he is encouraged that there finally appears to be movement on a spectrum auction and says there has been talk that Icasa could tie the sale of access to 2,6GHz to the 800MHz band.

“We won’t be able to access 800MHz from day one, but we can work with the broadcasters to transition across,” he says. “To move all 10m television households to digital TV is going to take five years, so there’s going to have to be active ‘refarming’ of the 800MHz spectrum at the same time.”

Pienaar believes MTN and other operators could get early access to the digital dividend spectrum if they work closely with the country’s broadcasters to achieve this. Already, Neotel uses a portion of the 800MHz band for its code division multiple access voice network using something known as “geographic interleaved spectrum”. — Duncan McLeod, TechCentral