BCL blames Government in buffer row

By PETER GRIFFIN

State-owned Broadcast Communications is blaming the Government for its escalating legal row with Walker Wireless, claiming measures should have been put in place to prevent the radio-spectrum owners from interfering with each other's radio transmissions.

But other carriers claim such provisions are unnecessary and observers are quietly questioning whether BCL's motives for taking legal action are political rather than technical.

BCL managing director Geoff Lawson said the company had asked the Government to allow for a "guard band" in its radio spectrum management plans as recently as last June, but that the Government had "left it to the market" to sort out interference issues.

"New Zealand has more deregulation in spectrum than any other country in the world. You've got to be careful going into buying licences.

"You could get stuck for 20 years by not getting it right," said Lawson, pointing out that guard bands were put in place by Governments overseas.

Although BCL intends to provide a nationwide wireless broadband service in conjunction with retailers such as Telecom, Lawson feared radio frequency conflicts with Walker Wireless could make it difficult to guarantee a reliable service.

"In theory we can't even sign our first customer," he said.

About $20 million is being spent to ready 28 BCL transmission sites and securing supplies of user terminals as part of stage one of its project, which will reach 80,000 rural sites - around a quarter of a million people.

Lawson said $14 million worth of Airspan equipment was due to arrive in the country in two weeks. A commercial service was likely to be launched towards the end of the year.

BCL and Walker Wireless bought managing rights to adjoining blocks of radio spectrum in the last radio frequency auction. The companies are using different forms of technology that BCL is concerned will interfere with each other. Walker Wireless has plans for a similar national service and has formed a joint venture with Vodafone to build a national network.

BCL is seeking a judicial review of Walker Wireless' radio licences and has named the Ministry of Economic Development and a radio engineer working there as co-defendants as the ministry approved the issue of the licences.

But Walker Wireless' managing director, Bob Smith, said a guard band - reserving spectrum to act as a buffer between frequencies - would eat into the radio capacity available to the carriers.

"Guard bands are only one potential tool to stop interference. It isn't spectrum efficient, filtering is more efficient."

After several technical meetings with BCL, Walker Wireless had been determined to negotiate a way out of the impasse.

"We were looking to go to arbitration over the issue but [BCL] chose to go and issue licences."

Vodafone's carrier relations manager, Francois Zegers, said it was misleading for BCL to compare spectrum management practices in New Zealand with those of other countries.

"It's a completely different regime here. Often spectrum is sold for specific purposes overseas. That wasn't the case in New Zealand."

He said the whole argument was "academic".

"I don't think there is an issue for a guard band in this case. It's using a hammer to crack a very small nut."

There has been much speculation surrounding BCL's true motives for pursuing court action without first seeking arbitration with Walker Wireless.

Some observers suggest it is a response to BCL's failure to win any of the three rural broadband tenders held so far as part of project Probe - a Government initiative aimed at improving high-speed internet access in rural areas.

Lawson rejected such speculation, claiming the action has nothing to do with Probe. He also denied the court action was being driven by his main customer, Telecom.

While radio engineers acknowledge that interference could be a significant issue for BCL and Walker Wireless, most believe it could easily be sorted out through technical negotiations.

"It's double or quits for BCL because it may come back to them to fix the problem, rather than Walker Wireless. But it [also] has the potential to, at the very least, delay Walker's roll out," an industry expert told the Herald.

Telecom said there was an obvious need for a "buffer zone" between the blocks of spectrum owned by Walker Wireless and BCL, but the telco had not seen the need to ask for them before the auction.

"At the time we didn't argue for buffers. Our assumption was that the neighbours would sort out an arrangement between themselves after the auction and that all the bidders had taken into account who their neighbours may be," said Telecom spokeswoman Allanah James.

Lawson said BCL had seen no use in pursuing arbitration with Walker Wireless, a provision allowed for in the Radiocommunications Act.

That, he said cryptically, "presupposes that both sets of licences are valid".