PARTNER FEATURE: Broadband technologies are crucial to connecting people to the resources needed to improve people’s livelihoods and a key accelerator towards achievement of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), says a report released by the UN. Wireless broadband (WBB), as the essential way of broadband connection, has been reinvigorated by 4G mobile. On September 17th 2017, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) released a report, “The State of Broadband 2017”, stating “Wireless Broadband, an Important Ingredient of National Broadband”.

WBB has proven itself as an essential component in national broadband in developed countries as well as in developing countries. Governments in Australia, Germany, and Norway endorse WBB and hope to provide universal broadband service and improve broadband experience using wireless networks.

Unfortunately, there still exists a digital divide, as 1.3 billion households out of 2.1 billion in the world don’t have any broadband connection. With more bandwidth-hungry services coming into reality, a new digital divide is taking shape that more than 300 million households out of 800 million only have connections with rate of less than 10Mb/s. WBB with its unique values in connecting the un-connected and boosting the connected, can bridge these two digital divides.

Huawei, as an active advocate of WBB, has launched its WBB solution called WTTx (wireless-to-the-x) 2.0 at the 2016 Global MBB Forum. WTTx is a 4G & 4.5G based broadband access solution, which uses wireless to provide fiber-like broadband experience. Operators can reuse the existing mobile broadband (MBB) LTE infrastructures and offer customer premise equipment (CPE) to provide broadband service to households and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). Compared with fixed broadband (FBB), WTTx is of low cost, rapid deployment and quick return on investment (ROI). Compared with other WBB service like WiMAX, WTTx has robust and mature ecosystem and it is regarded as one of the most promising use cases for 5G. WTTx is the essential way of broadband connection other than fiber, cable and copper, and it is suitable for areas from densely populated urban centers to sparsely populated rural areas.

WTTx, has already been verified in various networks all over the world and is reshaping home broadband. To date, over 200 operators have deployed WTTx, providing broadband access service to around 50 million households. Voice from worldwide operators can be categorised into three types:

1. Integrated operators use wireless as an alternative or to upgrade traditional DSL: “Vodafone Germany: Vodafone GigaCube Giga is where You Are”

On April 27th of 2017, Vodafone launched GigaCube in Germany which provides “quick and instant Internet access” with DL speed of up to 150Mbps to the regions with only slow connection or even without a DSL cable at all. GigaCube Flex allows users to pay by month only when they use GigaCube, which is a new kind of nomadic service perfectly matching family holiday cabin, caravan or yacht.

2. Mobile operators provide FMC (Fixed Mobile Convergence)

“T-Mobile Czech: A New Path to Home”

Since 2016, T-Mobile Czech has launched full service convergence to enter the  Fixed Internet market: IPTV (under the name of T-Mobile TV), together with three new Internet bez drátu (“Wireless Internet“) plans ranging from 20Mbps to 100Mbps, which enabled creation of a home Wi-Fi network by means of wireless signals, among other propositions. “Globe Philippines: WTTx Helps Achieve the Business Success of HBB” 

“Globe Philippines: WTTx Helps Achieve the Business Success of HBB”

With aggressive competition in the mobile broadband (MBB) penetration, home broadband (HBB) penetration in the Philippines is less than 10%. “As far as the footprint for the DSL is very limited and we saw this opportunity to partner with HUAWEI to rollout the TDD network”, said by Bandette Medina, Globe’s Director. Since the launch of WTTx in July of 2013, Globe’s WTTx users have increased by 22% and up to more than 599,000 subscribers by now, which changes Globe’s market share in the HBB market.

3. Independent ISP provides rural & suburban broadband

“Unitel Mongolia: Ger Internet, Opens Opportunities Before Unimaginable”

Enkhbat.D Dorjpalam, CEO of Unitel Mongolia, pointed out that “we focus on improving Mongolian’s happiness through telecommunications and setting up the ‘Ger Internet’ plan. Together with our partners and with new solutions including WTTx, we are more confident to realise this target in the near future.” Since Ger internet Launch in January 2017 with 1198 base stations covering 94% of the country, over 50k households, 200k individuals and 1200 businesses are enjoying Ger internet.

In conclusion, WTTx is an ideal solution, not only for the supplementary of FBB, but also for National Broadband Networks. In the coming future, WTTx will expand business territory from home (WTTH) to camera (WTTC), enterprise (WTTE), site (WTTS) and connect more with broadband connections.