Trio of alliances focus on rural wireless broadband

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Trio of alliances focus on rural wireless broadband

Runcom-LocaLoop cloud services join Ericsson and LightSquared in changing rural 4G economics

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 27 March, 2011

READ MORE: Spectrum | US | Runcom Technologies Ltd. | LTE

All the headlines may focus on the 4G plans of the big four US cellcos, but about 60m US citizens live in areas underserved by broadband, and many of these get their mobile services from local rural players rather than the big names. With LTE and WiMAX expected to be used heavily to fill some of those broadband gaps, the local operators have a new opportunity, but they also need to find better economics for 4G build-out to reflect their relatively small revenues. Three new alliances are addressing the issue - LightSquared has teamed with rural access start-up OpenRange; Ericsson is working with the NetAmerica Alliance to supply LTE kit to small players; and now LocaLoop and Runcom have formed a partnership geared to rural 4G.

Ericsson announced its own initiative last week. The NetAmerica Alliance contains various small regional cellcos and spectrum holders, which will join forces to build an LTE network with IMS. NetAmerica acts as a group buyer for the operators and Ericsson will be its primary supplier. Such buying clubs improve negotiating power for the local operators and make it more worthwhile for tier one vendors like Ericsson to focus on the business.

LocaLoop and Runcom are taking a different approach, based on the former's cloud networking platform for LTE or WiMAX carriers, and Runcom's equipment, which is optimized for sparsely populated regions and rural carriers. The combination will provide a

cloud-based network operations center, offering many core functions on an SaaS (software as a service) basis. The ability to outsource network operations and back end applications, combined with low cost equipment, could "totally change the economic formula" for rural broadband, LocaLoop founder Carl-Johan Torarp told ConnectedPlanet.

They will target small rural cellcos, wireless ISPs and even divisions of larger telcos and broadband providers, looking for a different cost base for their activities in more remote areas or their wireless businesses.

Municipal network operator Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services has already signed up for the LocaLoop offering, to support a WiMAX network that will rely on a fiber ring, the latter being built with broadband stimulus funds.