WiMax.com:  Telabria seems rather unusual for a broadband wireless Internet service provider (ISP) in that you both manufacture mesh radios and deploy networks yourselves, how did this business model come about?

JB: Firstly, we don't really think of ourselves primarily as a WISP. We're more of a regional network operator as we're building a gigabit fiber backbone that will leverage WiMAX in the last mile to wholly replace the copper local loop. However we originally entered the market as a WISP in late 2003, deploying Wi-Fi hotspots and hotzones. We could not find mesh radio equipment that conformed to UK regulatory constraints, and so ended up developing and manufacturing our own. Although today we do source equipment from multiple vendors (including Alvarion, Redline, Skypilot and Dragonwave) we still use our own mesh products for Wi-Fi access backhauling over pre-WiMAX from the vendors I've mentioned. Of course we also have a very active channel for selling our products to systems integrators and carriers as well, and our mesh devices are increasing being chosen for metropolitan Wi-Fi networks.

WiMax.com: Does Telabria anticipate that the WiMAX Forum will define a product profile for mesh systems in the near future? Also, do your mesh systems operate in licensed spectrum range?

JB: The Forum has already expressed an interest in mesh; clearly the efforts of Forum members in this area including Motorola, Nortel and SkyPilot would suggest a very strong interest in the technology.  The IEEE is progressing towards the 802.11s standard for mesh in Wi-Fi and I would expect a similar move in the Forum shortly. We leverage Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol in our proprietary mesh platform, and I think that will play a part in any formalized mesh standard for WiMAX in the future as it's been specifically designed for mobile ad hoc networks that would sit well with 802.16e.

In terms of supported spectrum, the access side of the mesh AP works in any Wi-Fi frequency while the mesh side currently supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands (5.4 and 5.8 primarily). We use dual radios to separate access from the mesh.  However there's no reason why our mesh architecture cannot run in licensed frequencies in the future as it's wholly spectrum agnostic. As long as our drivers support the radio type, the frequency the radio operates at is immaterial.

WiMax.com: Is your UK launch planned to deliver service in the 3.5 GHz range? If so, where and how much of the UK is covered by your licenses?

JB: Today our Skylink wireless broadband service operates in the 5.8GHz spectrum which is lightly licensed in the UK. Like many operators we operate non-WiMAX backhaul in licensed bands such as 18 and 23GHz. The national 3.5GHz band is owned by a single operator who has limited deployments in London, and who is focusing on asymmetric, portable personal broadband delivering up to 2Mbps to the user. We offer business-class, fixed broadband services with symmetric connections to 10Mbps, which is a very different market. We expect additional spectrum to open up over the next year or so, but the prime 2.5GHz band is the subject of heated argument in Europe as UMTS operators see it as a 3G expansion area. If we can afford to participate in spectrum auctions we will, but only on a regional basis rather than a national one.  It's up to the regulator Ofcom to decide how they'll position new spectrum - nationally or regionally.

WiMax.com: What do you believe is the biggest challenge to delivering broadband wireless access in the UK (is bandwidth cost a big factor for example)?

JB: Bandwidth is cheap, it's already highly commoditized. The single biggest challenge is site acquisition; the places you put base stations and, in the case of mesh networks, mesh nodes or 'picocells'. We tend to go for tallish buildings as we can usually negotiate broadband connectivity for roof rights, or we'll pay the going rates for co-location on existing cellular mast infrastructure. We have over 400 picocell sites under contract and we're about to add about another 100 this month. You can't deliver service without excellent wide area coverage and that's 100% down to site identification, negotiation and acquisition. Since we operate in the 5.8GHz band, and we're limited to 2W EIRP, we get a radial coverage of 4-5km from a base station. But because we use mesh, we can extend this over 3-4 hops to 12-20km (depending on terrain and clutter conditions) and still deliver acceptable levels of service for latency-sensitive applications such as VoIP.
 
WiMax.com: How quickly do you plan to deploy and have you selected a technology vendor as of yet? Who is your vendor?

JB: Well it's a land grab so first to market has the advantage. We are deploying very aggressively in terms of coverage and following this up with very proactive marketing. As I mentioned already, we primarily use Alvarion and SkyPilot for the last mile to enterprise and business customers respectively, Redline and Dragonwave for backhaul, and Telabria's own mSystem products for best-effort Wi-Fi access in hotspots and hotzones, and on public transportation.

WiMax.com: Will you launch WiMAX with both rural and metropolitan service simultaneously or focus on high customer density areas first?

JB: Telabria operates in provincial markets where urban and rural areas are often cheek by jowl. As a result, we get very good penetration into outlying rural areas from our urban bases. We certainly need to focus on where the highest accumulation of customers is based, but the beauty of radio is that the range is far greater than copper and thus we can service both markets simultaneously. It's more of a challenge getting to remoter rural areas, but this is the UK not Nebraska so we're talking much shorter distances. One issue is topography; it's always easier to deploy in flat terrain than hilly, tree-covered regions but our targets market, South East England, is not over complicated in that regard. We must be revenue driven; unfortunately rural markets often don't support the kind of income we need to see from a Skylink deployment and so we have to prioritize.

WiMax.com: Do you have plans to expand beyond the UK?
 
JB: Not at the current time, although somewhere tropical with white beaches would make an excellent satellite office.

WiMax.com: How do you anticipate WiMAX affecting the use of your mesh wireless systems?

JB: WiMAX certified equipment will help drive down the price of CPE while offering interoperability between vendors of CPE and base stations. In terms of the third party mesh products we use in our last-mile services, SkyPilot have demonstrated a roadmap that includes migration from a proprietary 802.11a-based architecture to WiMAX which is good news. In terms of our own mSystem product, we're radio agnostic and could support any Mini-PCI based radio, Wi-Fi or WiMAX. I think 802.16e will play a major role in the migration of primarily Wi-Fi networks to a hybrid structure but it's just too early to say when or how this will unfold. We certainly have support for WiMAX on our product roadmap and it would not surprise me if we announced something to that effect with more detail before the end of the year.

WiMax.com: Would your company possibly deploy Fixed broadband wireless access in rural markets (perhaps using your existing mesh products with proprietary standards) and Mobile WiMAX in cities? Since the two technology standards appear to be incompatible, would that preclude such plans?

JB: I don't think that this is a correct description of how fixed and mobile will co-exist. I see fixed wireless broadband networks delivering high-speed symmetric connections to business customers with SLAs and committed data rates. I see mobile WiMAX delivering portable personal broadband at speeds comparable to DSL. I think the two fit together incredibly well in fact. In regards to equipment compatibility, many have speculated that 802.16e will ultimately drive all types of WiMAX services, fixed or mobile. The truth is that regulatory constraints will determine how much bandwidth in terms of MHz is available to the licensed operators in each country, and thus what kinds of services can be offered to customers. I think the best positioned operators will be the ones who can offer mobile and fixed services in a whole range of spectrums; 2.5, 3.5, 3.6, 5.8 and even 10.5GHz, the latter being very suitable for high capacity services with line of sight and stringent SLAs.

WiMax.com: Does your business model hinge on a largely residential customer base, a business-to-business model or some kind of mix? In which direction is it likely to lean and do you anticipate it changing over time?
 
JB: While we area predominantly a business-oriented provider filling the symmetric niche between SDSL and leased lines (T1-equivalents), we do have residential offerings for both data and voice. So yes it's a mix. With the advent of ADSL2+ promising speeds up to 20Mbps+, the market may appear less clear cut, although WiMAX still has the edge in terms of distance and symmetric capability. Remember we operate in provincial markets where copper infrastructure is poor and ADSL2+ will be challenged. Overall I do expect our business class services to be the most compelling in terms of performance and competitiveness.

WiMax.com: How quickly do you anticipate growing your customer base? What are your first year subscriber projections hinting at?

JB:  It's all about building a customer base as fast as possible, and that's what we're focused on foremost. I'd be very happy with 10,000 customers within the first 18 months of Skylink's launch.
 
WiMax.com: What price and speed ranges have your market research revealed as being most desired in the UK? and other likely early markets?

JB: We've found that a) UK residential customers want broadband in excess of 1Mbps which is often not available in provincial markets where the telephone exchanges are in the center of towns and the residential new build is on the outskirts and thus less well served by wireline services. And we've found that a 2Mbps+ symmetric offering at ADSL prices with VoIP is very attractive for businesses as they can save significant amounts of money. Ultimately it does all come down to price which is why we've pitched our symmetric offerings at up to 75% less than SDSL from BT, a service which our customer often cannot get as only 16% of exchanges in our market area are enabled for SDSL.

WiMax.com: Is the relatively high cost of main bandwidth in Europe a big factor in your business plan?

JB:  No, frankly it's the least of our worries. Our margins on bandwidth are fine now and they'll only get better over time as we scale our capacity and purchasing power.
 
WiMax.com: Telabria appears to have quite strong content plays already. Which of these do you anticipate that WiMAX networks could most readily support?

JB: While I love the idea of the residential triple play, you have to remember the UK is small and we have Sky satellite here, as well a free digital TV with 30+ channels. Selling an IP-TV service to the home will be tough without major content tie-in and a bundle of data+voice+TV that can beat the incumbent competition in price; difficult unless you're NTL. I favor more the idea of fast broadband with business-class VoIP telephony and video conferencing, and integrated web-based presentation capability such as WebEx. WiMAX supports the speeds needed to deliver such services. There's no point having fast broadband without the value added services to leverage it. The successful provider will be the one to package up the various technologies into an easy-to-understand service that businesses can't be without. I'd like to see Telabria achieve that with Skylink; watch this space!

Jim Baker, CEO, Telabria

Jim Baker is the founder and CEO of Telabria, the UK-based award-winning regional wireless network operator and product manufacturer. Prior to founding Telabria in 2003, Jim spent ten years in California where as CEO he led two successive streaming media companies from start-up to acquisition. Jim is a voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, a member of the IEEE and IEE, and an active member of the WiMAX Forum Service Provider Working Group. Jim is a regular speaker on WiMAX at international conferences and has been profiled in Forbes Magazine.