Charley Lewis ICT

13/02/2025

Interesting report from OpenSignal, comparing FWA and LEO (principally our friends at StarLink) as solutions to the broadband digital divide.
It comes to some unsurprising conclusions: FTTH is best, FWA is the second best long-term solution in urban areas, but LEO is key to reaching remote rural communities - although given Canada's looming trade war with the US, StarLink is a dubious way to go.
Of course, given that this was Canada, the affordability challenges of LEO solutions don't feature.

The internet has become an indispensable resource, with reliable high-speed networks crucial for enabling participation in the digital economy and accessing essential services. Bridging the digital divide between urban and rural populations is vital to ensure that rural and remote communities can un...

13/02/2025

Ofcom is moving on the 6 GHz band, paving the way for shared access between indoor Wi-Fi (expected this year) and IMT (somewhat down the road). In a market where IMT uptake is closing in on saturation and where Wi-Fi offload accounts for a substantial portion of traffic, this is a no-brainer, and hedges Ofcom't bets on the future...

In this consultation we set out our proposed approach to authorising Wi-Fi and mobile services in the 6 GHz band. This includes a proposal to authorise standard power Wi-Fi in Lower 6 GHz under the control of an AFC database (subject to industry demand), and a proposal to authorise low power indoor....

21/01/2025

Trump just with drew from the OECD's laboriously and carefully brokered tax deal, making US-based OTTs (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Spotify, WhatsApp, X) exempt from its provisions! And making the accession Act recently signed by Ramphosa pretty much toothless....

President Donald Trump on Monday declared that a global corporate minimum tax deal "has no force or effect" in the U.S., effectively pulling America out of the landmark 2021 arrangement negotiated by the Biden administration with nearly 140 countries.

21/01/2025

An interesting and insightful analysis of some to the challenges LEO NTNs face before they can make terrestrialk mobile obsolete....

THE POST-TOWER ERA – A FAIRYTAIL. From the bustling streets of New York to the remote highlands of Mongolia, the skyline had visibly changed. Where steel towers and antennas once dominated no…

17/01/2025

While an impact assessment would be a key and important step for the sector as a whole, at the end of the day this needs to be an operator-led process. I assume such an assessment would include the feasibility of folding legacy 2G devices (both phones and IoT devices) into a shared network to optimise the freeing up of spectrum. It will presumably also look at operators' plans to shut down 3G ahead of 2G, which I would suggest is a more feasible sequence.

A question to the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, asked on 03 January 2025 by Mr K P Sithole

16/01/2025

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/charley-lewis-49954113_excited-to-announce-that-the-observatorys-activity-7285678779115446272-naf5?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

Worrying trends as social media steps into a right-wing hall of mirrors and closes the doors on evidence-based critical engagement...

07/01/2025

Kenya is engaging in some interesting public consultations:

1) Review of its unified licensing framework, nominally technology neutral, but still highly complex with multiple categories and sub-categories - https://www.ca.go.ke/sites/default/files/CA/Public%20Consultation%20Documents/Public%20Consultation%20Document%20-%20Telecommunications%20Market%20Structure.pdf;

2) Review of its type approval requirements for DTT receivers -
- https://www.ca.go.ke/sites/default/files/CA/Public%20Consultation%20Documents/Consultation%20Document%20Technical%20Minimum%20Requirements%20for%20DVB-T2%20Receivers%20for%20Kenya.pdf; and

3) Consultation on its draft framework for digital sound broadcasting - https://www.ca.go.ke/sites/default/files/2024-11/Draft%20Digital%20Sound%20Broadcasting%20License%20template..pdf....

07/01/2025

SA's now-promulgated Global Minimum Tax Act, Act 2024 (https://businesstech.co.za/news/government/805792/ramaphosa-signs-off-massive-new-law-for-south-africa/) looks to have important implications for OTTs, long accused of being able to avoid paying tax in SA...

19/12/2024

Ofcom lays the groundwork for imposing must-carry obligations on non-linear (ie streaming) broadcast services.

07/12/2024

Aaaugh!

The cabinet has accepted that the communications minister’s unilateral withdrawal of the Bill was not malicious

30/11/2024

I agree that it's likely to be an S-curve, but SA is a fair bit behind the steep part of the curve...

It is nearly six months since I published my book “The End of Telecoms History” which made two big claims: 1. The growth in data usage on both fixed and mobile networks was slowing and would plateau by around 2027 “on average” across the world.

28/11/2024

As always, Andile provokes SA to think outside the box. Not much to argue with there, albeit some areas to be added...