Spectrum shortage in U.S. opens up key market for wireless network planning firm

Northwood Technologies Inc of Nepean ON is hoping to tap into North America’s unquenchable thirst for more spectrum with software that squeezes more services into a limited amount of bandwidth. The technology, dubbed Northwood deciBel Planner, enables carriers to design a network or an expansion in a way that optimizes its efficiency. "It’s all part of an ongoing process to build, plan, optimize, and to maintain wireless networks," says Northwood president and CEO Johannes Hill. "How much coverage can I get (and) how many customers can I serve, that’s what it really boils down to." The modeling software is able to tell the carrier what impact an expansion would have on existing cell sites, how many more subscribers can be served from a particular base station and even the amount of revenue generated. Last month Northwood signed a deal with U.S.-based Leap Wireless subsidiary Cricket Communications which will use the deciBel Planner to solve some tricky CDMA RF planning problems. Cricket executives say due to the advanced planning capabilities of the software, it made for a cost-effective system for the design of its growing network. In addition to counting Telus and Bell Mobility as customers here in Canada, other larger U.S. players have anted up to purchase the software. Hill says that Metricom was one of the company’s first customers to use deciBel Planner exclusively to build out its Riccochet network. Nextel is another major customer. Four of the world’s top seven equipment manufacturers, including Nortel Networks Corp and Motorola Inc, use Northwood’s software to build out networks for their carrier customers. "And it gets bigger," Hill told Report on Wireless. "Unfortunately I can’t talk about one of the biggest. We’re talking about a selection of tier-one players in addition to a large stable of tier-two players in the U.S." Last July, Northwood opened a European office to capitalize on the 3G networks builds of European carriers. It recently unveiled a beta version of its UMTS (3G) network design software, which Hill says is "generating a fair bit of excitement because of the incredible amounts of money that has been spent by carriers in the UK and Germany." There has been some response from Asia for the software, but it has mostly come from Motorola in the Asia-Pacific which purchased the deciBel Planner to build a network for a carrier customer. Europe is another strategic market, and Hill says he expects to announce some major accounts there in the next few months. While the office in London will serve as a beachhead in Europe, Hill anticipates being able to expand into other parts of Europe and Asia in the near future. He says good candidate countries for offices are Germany, somewhere in Iberia to serve Spain and Portugal, France and Scandinavia. Asia-Pacific is also on the list for expansion. For the time being though, the company will rely on a long-list of resellers to distribute and sell into that market. For the near term, however, Northwood’s greatest opportunities will come from the United States, where the mobile spectrum will continue to be in short supply until Washington releases additional frequencies to accommodate third generation networks. Some of the spectrum that was supposed to be auctioned off this September may not become available for another three years. U.S. president George W. Bush was supposed to have tabled his administration’s 2002 budget on Monday which was to include a proposal that the Federal Communications Commission have until 2004 to auction off spectrum in the 700 MHz band. That bandwidth, which is used to carry channels 60 to 69, is currently used by TV broadcasters. Access to the 700 MHz band was supposed to be a stop gap measure to tide carriers over until the release of so-called third generation spectrum in 2002. But it appears even that may yet be delayed as the U.S. military has indicated it unwillingness to share or move from the desired 1700 MHz band for years to come (RoW, Nov. 13/00).

Spectrum shortage in U.S. opens up key market for wireless network planning firm

News | 04/17/2001 4:00 am EDT

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