Date and time:

Thursday 26th September 2013 at 5.15pm (followed by drinks reception)

Speaker:

Professor H Nwana, Ex-Group Director Spectrum Policy, Ofcom

Venue:

Pugsley Lecture Theatre, Queen's Building, University Walk

Abstract:

Most would have heard about the relative recent (February 2013) and very successful UK 4G spectrum auction which raised £2.34 Billion, or perhaps all you heard about is that the auction did the not raise what the Government expected. The speaker will explain why and what made this auction a triumph of good economic regulation and how UK consumers and citizens are already benefiting from it so soon after the auction. The lecture will briefly introduce good economic spectrum regulation, and how a regulator interprets its duties to regulate for it.

However, this lecture goes beyond this. What is rarely covered publicly is the solid engineering that underpins a critical spectrum auction like the 4G one:

• the fact that spectrum underpins much innovation and why license-exemption is key here (so why did we not just license-exempt all the 4G spectrum instead of auctioning it?);
• the fact that spectrum managers have to worry daily about a key externality called ‘interference’ which involves much complex modelling;
• the fact all of the 800MHz spectrum that was auctioned had to be ‘cleared’ of extant uses (and users) which required much engineering via the digital switchover and clearance projects;
• the fact that different spectrum bands have different technical characteristics impacting coverage and capacity constraints, which underpinned why the 4G auction was a combinatorial one;
• the fact the neighbourly ‘co-existence’ of many services like broadcast and mobile, mobile and aeronautical radars, broadcast, PMSE and Whitespace devices, etc. more is now becoming more of the norm – predicting and mitigating harmful interference into each service is truly rich and complex engineering;
• the fact that a deep understanding of the combination of coverage, capacity and data rates possible through air interface radio access mechanisms (FDMA, TDMA, CDMA, OFDMA, etc.) and more is absolutely vital to design ex ante into the auction rules in order to achieve good competition outcomes for consumers and citizens;
• the fact coverage obligations imposed on any licensee needs to be measured after the auction, and enforced – and this requires proportionate engineering yet again;
• the fact that a complex web-based, highly secure, redundant and resilient software system had to be developed to run the auction.

The speaker could go on, but suffice to state that the UK 4G auction was also a triumph for the fusion of solid telecommunications and software engineering along with good economics and economic regulation. It is not a question of which is more important – both equally are. This lecture argues and concludes unequivocally that multi-disciplinary training is vital to engage such real world and complex projects like designing and running a complex auction in particular or running good spectrum policy for the UK in general. The lecture neither assumes much technical background nor economic expertise.

Speaker:

Professor H Nwana, FBCS, FIET, CEng, CITP became Group Director of Spectrum policy at Ofcom in 2009 where he has recently been responsible for overall leading of the recent 4G spectrum auction in the UK that raised £2.34 Billion. He has also led significantly on spectrum clearances including the Analogue to Digital Switchover (DSO) in the United Kingdom, particularly the switchovers of Channels 61, 62 and 69 from TV to mobile use. He led Ofcom's Spectrum Policy Group, which oversees all UK airwaves for broadcast, mobile and other communications services. Before that, he worked at transmissions firm Arqiva, as managing director, mobile media solutions. He was also an executive director at Quadriga Worldwide and a senior manager at BT Laboratories at Adastral Park, which is now known as BT Innovate. Dr Nwana holds an MA from Queens' College Cambridge, a first degree in Computer Science & Electronic Engineering from the University of Birmingham, an MSc in Computer Science, and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence/Computer Science from Aston University, Birmingham. He also holds an MBA with distinction from the London Business School, University of London. He holds professorial appointments at The University of Bristol (Electrical Engineering) and at Brunel University (Computer Science) in West London. He has published several scientific tomes, and is well cited; he is one of the most cited non-academic computer scientists. He has been an academic, a Principal Research Scientist and manager, a venture capitalist, held several industry executive roles and been a senior regulator. He is currently writing a book on Telecommunications, Media and Technology (TMT) for Emerging Economies. He recently resigned from Ofcom to return to the private sector.