The benefits of broadband – and specifically mobile broadband – are now becoming widely understood. It is a major contributor to economic growth, reducing global carbon-dioxide emissions, facilitating remote learning and telemedicine and ultimately helping to bridge the digital divide between rural and urban areas.
Tom Lindström, Director of Government & Industry Relations at Ericsson, says governments and regulators play an important role in facilitating the rollout of telecom services. But to ensure that mobile broadband reaches the whole population and all geographical areas, adequate and harmonized radio spectrum needs to be in place. Industry must agree internationally on standards to create interoperability and reach economies of scale.
“The allocation by regulators of spectrum below 1GHz is especially important since it can support the spread of broadband to wider areas and thereby address the digital divide cost-effectively,” he says.
Lindström says that freeing up frequencies previously used for analog TV is critical for future mobile-broadband services and the associated enhancements in the area of mobile technology.
New spectrum can help pave the way for a truly global, mobile digital society and enable the next generation of mobile networks and services to be introduced to everyone. This will allow greater network capacity and the introduction of new technologies such as LTE, he says.
On the fixed-broadband side, investment in high-capacity next-generation access infrastructure is justified by the demand for services that require the new capabilities these networks provide – such as high quality, non-linear on-demand video services. In addition to these services, which are mostly entertainment-related, the capabilities of these access networks will also facilitate e-health, e-learning and e-government services that are of great benefit to society.
The single most important measure that a government can take to boost investment by commercial players is to liberalize its telecoms market and create a level regulatory playing field for all. “Clear regulatory frameworks reduce investor uncertainty,” Lindström says. “Through regulations, governments should encourage competition among operators of all delivery platforms providing similar services. This creates pressure for innovation and cost reduction.
He says that non-communications players such as municipalities, utilities and property owners may have different reasons for investing in broadband access than the commercial telecom player. Their main justification may be the promotion of an attractive business or living environment. Access to passive civil-works infrastructure is important for all communications-network investors because it constitutes the majority of the costs involved in deploying a next-generation access network. Local, regional and national governments have an important coordinating role here.
