Author Archives: William Webb

Is cellular encroaching on white space?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by William Webb

The radio spectrum currently being considered for white space usage is the “TV bands” – the spectrum currently used for terrestrial TV broadcasting, increasingly in digital format. In many countries this spectrum previously extended from 470-862MHz – 392MHz of bandwidth. … Continue reading →

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Cloud hosting an entire telecoms network

Posted on January 30, 2012 by William Webb

Telecoms networks are generally thought of as big machines. Although the days of mechanical switches are long gone, cellular networks still tend to consist of large switching centres, often in dedicated buildings with back-up power supplies and high levels of … Continue reading →

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Can white space deliver reliable connections?

Posted on January 22, 2012 by William Webb

The orthodoxy of spectrum usage has been that networks are built using licensed spectrum while local transmissions use unlicensed spectrum. Nobody, it was presumed, would spend billions of dollars to build a network in spectrum that they did not fully … Continue reading →

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Weightless and the Innovator’s Dilemma

Posted on January 13, 2012 by William Webb

Clayton Christensen’s book on the Innovator’s Dilemma has become a classic. It discusses how difficult it is for an established company to react to the rise of a technology that is apparently worse than the one they are currently profiting … Continue reading →

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Can M2M make Wi-Fi better?

Posted on January 6, 2012 by William Webb

Wi-Fi is a great local area networking technology. It’s only real problem is logging on. For those on the move using laptops it often requires going to a website and typing in a password. And even in the home first-time … Continue reading →

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Does your machine need a faster connection?

Posted on January 3, 2012 by William Webb

When we think about being connected one of the key metrics is the speed of connection. We want home broadband to be at least 2Mbits/s, ideally more like 10Mbits/s and we just want mobile connections to be faster because whatever … Continue reading →

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Why a guarantee to protect licensed users needs interpretation

Posted on December 16, 2011 by William Webb

Unlicensed access to white space is typically granted under the proviso that the white space devices will not cause any interference to the licensed users. This seems clear, but in practice the situation is much more complex. Any radio transmission, … Continue reading →

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If rural broadband were simple we would have solved it years ago!

Posted on December 9, 2011 by William Webb

The Countryside Alliance claims the UK government’s plans to deploy broadband to rural communities is ‘stalling’ at the local council level. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised about this. Rural broadband is a seriously difficult problem. By definition it is uneconomic … Continue reading →

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Why another standard?

Posted on December 1, 2011 by William Webb

It has been said in jest that “the nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from”. Of course, the purpose of a standard is that all those who adopt it do not need to make … Continue reading →

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