Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - South Africa’s Wireless Access Providers’ Association (Wapa) has forecast five trends that could impact the country’s wireless technology industry.
Below are the highlighted trends.
Icasa will allocate more spectrum
Wapa said it has been advocating for more spectrum to be allocated and assigned.
Opening up more radio spectrum is key for telecom networks to roll-out faster broadband services such as LTE. Allocating more spectrum is also important for broadening the reach of internet services in South Africa.
And a Strategic Plan for 2015-2019 from the the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) recognises the role of spectrum in facilitating universal access to broadband services at fair retail prices by 2020, according to Wapa.
“This plan sets out road-maps, deliverables, and targets for both International Mobile Telephony (IMT) spectrum, and progress towards opportunistic spectrum management inclusive of such technologies as ‘white spaces’ or ‘TVWS’ (television white spaces) and cognitive radios,” said Wapa in a statement.
“The assignment of more spectrum is fundamentally important to the growth of faster, cheaper broadband and achieving the objectives of South Africa Connect. Icasa must balance these objectives with ensuring that its policies do not cause interference with existing systems in use, or any unintended consequences. In any event, this has long been in the works and in 2015 we will begin to see some of the fruits of this labour,” said Wapa.Wapa said it also welcomes a draft amendment to spectrum licence fees as they pertain to the mmWave spectrum.
Radio waves in this band have wavelengths from ten to one millimetre and they fit into the what is termed extremely high frequency (EHF), according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
mmWave has shorter wavelengths and is best used in flat terrains. These frequencies range from 30 to 300 gigahertz and experts says the band has the potential to be use in high-speed, point-to-point wireless local area networks and even for broadband internet access.
Wapa predicts that the first mmWave spectrum assignments will be made for commercial network deployment before the end of 2015.
More nationwide wireless brands will emerge
Wapa says its members - which include organisations such as Internet Solutions (IS) - are expected to continue to provide the “only option for fixed broadband services in many rural areas because of the high cost of rolling out fixed-line technologies outside of cities and other densely populated areas”.
“Some incumbents and larger WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) will launch or extend existing bids to build strong consumer wireless brands to capitalise on fixed wireless’ ability to deliver broadband in areas that are not economically feasible for fibre or other alternatives,” said Wapa.
“Wapa expects that while some may compete head-on with smaller providers, many of these operators will partner with the local WISPs, many of whom are Wapa members, through some form of reseller or local support arrangement,” added Wapa.
Neutral hosts and open access become more prevalent
Wapa said there is growing talk of open access networks in South Africa by the likes of the department of telecommunications and postal services.
Open access networks are neutral networks that are shared among various service providers.
“It is also being embraced by certain elements of the telecommunications industry, starting on the fibre side, and Wapa expects we will begin to see the beginnings of a move towards open access in wireless and Wi-Fi as well in 2015,” said Wapa.
Value-added services will hit mainstream
Wapa said that last year it predicted that value-added services such as video-on-demand and location-triggered loyalty solutions over Wi-Fi would launche in the market in 2014.
The association added that larger operators are looking to value-added services because over-the-top (OTT) solutions such as Whatsapp - which plans to launch free calling in early 2015 - challenge traditional revenue streams.
Last month, MTN launched a streaming video entertainment service called FrontRow.
“Wapa expects more and more operators to begin to dabble with these sorts of services, in a battle to differentiate for residential consumers. In the Wi-Fi space, larger providers may decide to focus on monetising the network through advertising or location-based services, and smaller providers will differentiate on value-adds from the venue,” said Wapa.
Privacy and security will become top of mind
Globally, the Sony Pictures hack in late 2014 sent shock-waves across the globe.
Closer to home, Wapa has said that the Protection of Personal Information (Popi) Act will begin to affect South African businesses in 2015.
Popi plans to bring SA up-to-date with global data protection laws and boost citizens’ constitutional right to privacy.
Popi further provides guidelines on what data can be obtained from organisations and how that data can be used.
“There is no better time to design and build systems that have security and consumer privacy as core tenets rather than afterthoughts,” said Wapa.
“This is especially relevant to public internet access points such as Wi-Fi hotspots, where a combination of poor security, multiple devices, and consumers on the go could lead to some unfortunate consequences,” added Wapa.
