RRAC Open Forum, London, November 2003.   Although it was not compulsory to have wild and unkempt hair, delegates would not have felt out of place if the hairbrush had gone missing on the morning of the third annual Open Forum of the Radio Research Advisory Committee.  Maybe it was the static, or perhaps too much time spent in the company of emitters.  Or maybe the assembled experts just made a shocking contrast with the establishment ambience of Church House, Westminster.

Church House was a last minute but inspired choice for the RRAC meeting.  On that very day its original sponsor the Radiocommunications Agency (RA) was in the throes of relocating to Ofcom’s new HQ, there to be joined with their regulatory brethren from the broadcasting and media chapels and their sterner, some would say stricter, friends from Oftel.  This was a good moment to reflect that although the RRAC was formed to provide independent technical insights and inputs for the RA, the committee’s remit and their wireless expertise are now highly relevant for all of Ofcom’s united and reformed denominations.

The Radio Research Advisory Committee is unusual in the world of backroom think tanks – it does exactly what it says on the tin.  It has only been going for three years and, under the watchful eye of its chairman Peter Kiddle, it has strengthened its influence by not over-extending its remit or drifting off course.

The RRAC does however have much in common with the wider but largely unreported world of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and subversive societies that make a real difference to the way we do things around here.  It is one of those places where ideas for action are formed and nurtured until they are undeniably ready to be taken on board, to be legitimised and accepted as a sensible way to organise things – and in this particular case, the way we can make best use of radio frequencies.  Make plain the unvarnished scientifically-researched truth clearly, precisely and often enough and the echoes will reverberate for ages.

Given that the natural order of regulatory governance lacks proactive impetus – largely born of knowing all too well the risks and challenges of changing ‘the system’ - the RRAC could reasonably be described as an antidote to both regulatory lethargy and excessive commercial hype.  It might not qualify in many minds as a hot-bed of revolution but they certainly know how to make waves.

Like other backroom SIGs, they pursue the difficult and often uncomfortable topics that many in the communications industry would choose to ignore.  Whether we like it or not, physics is physics and there’s no escaping the natural order of things – including the way signals behave at different frequencies.  It is the wider research and development  community represented in part by the RRAC that helps to bring rational analysis to the fore. So what?  What worries would keep these wireless wizards awake at night?  What bearing does any of this have on everyday life?

The capacity limitations of wired networks are now becoming better understood.  As wired ADSL networks become more fully loaded (the strain of 10% take-up) and the big brands lower their definitions of broadband to match their under-performance, is it any surprise that the desperately disconnected turn in hope (or hype) to other technologies?

Take, for example, Power-Line Technology (PLT) – perennially the hope for broadband on the electric mains.  Never mind that all houses might get the emissions whether they subscribe or not.  Never mind that this interference could render useless mains-powered radio sets that have a sticky-up aerial.  Surely this is easily solved if you plug in an external aerial from the bottom of the garden – say 30 metres away from the mains power supply.?  No problem, no doubt, for the broadband desperados but not so brilliant perhaps for everyone else.  A RRAC research project measures and maps PLT emissions and will continue to monitor the technology as electricity companies explore what they hope will be a potential gold mine.

And, whilst we are thinking about listening to the radio, getting to the bottom of complaints about the quality of DAB (digital audio broadcasting) has revealed that the planners assumed that it would work well with roof-top aerials – and somewhat overlooked the predictable popularity of compact portable kit designed to rest comfortably about the person and rarely more than 1.5 metres above ground.  Poor reception quality may impact on market economics.  It may delay widespread DAB acceptance and the future promise of being able to reuse the old analogue frequencies.  The RRAC project produced some sensible recommendations for broadcasters and a reminder to product designers not to push their electronic luck.  RRAC projects, deal specifically with the scientific facts.  They leave it to others and market forces to look after consumer Interests, but that is not to say that researchers are uninformed about the commercial pressures and the search for sustainable business models.

Meanwhile, the broadband hungry world is looking to the wonders of WiFi hotspots to make up for deficiencies elsewhere.  ‘Hotspot’ is really quite apt.  The licence exempt 2.4Ghz band is shared by lap-tops and the emissions from medical equipment, baggage handling systems at Heathrow, umpteen other odd bits of kit and interference from microwave ovens. Most of us are familiar with the discordant distress of mobile phones next to PC’s.  We mostly put up with it.  Hotspot lap-top users perhaps might do well not to sit themselves in cafes where microwave ovens are within sight.  The RRAC’s research project was focused on whether the 2.4GHz band might suffer congestion.  The answer, so far, is that there isn’t sufficient use of WiFi to make any difference – but if it does happen it will probably be during winter when the office microwave oven is having a working lunch.  And, despite the salesman’s patter, no-one should really expect anything remotely resembling a resilient service when these ‘free’ airwaves get overcrowded.

Everyone should know by now that the spectrum is a finite resource.  Some companies have paid vast amounts to get their hands chunks of it.  When they bought it they clearly assumed it would be useful –  and indeed some of it is, particularly if they use it efficiently.  Unfortunately their licence rules, being tied to very specific legacy technologies, prevent this and so its not surprising that, while much of the really useful spectrum has been put out of action for a few years, the search is on for other available and unused frequencies.  Most of these are very high – close to visible light – and at that level they become increasingly direct – point-to-point - and affected by rain and fog.  Its still worth looking in case some technology can be devised to overcome the problems – like, for example, mesh systems that bounce the signals around and increase the chances that they might sometimes appear where you really want them.  At these higher frequencies a great deal of interest has been shown in Ultra-Wide Broadband (UWB) with a very large data transmission capability.  It is beginning to look as if UWB might become useful within the confines of a room for distances of up to 10 metres.

Meanwhile, in the wider world of rational and competitive economics, the primary practical focus is on spectral efficiency.  How can we make better use of the limited bandwidth available?  Really efficient wireless broadband systems needing only small amounts of spectrum have a huge economic advantage.  They offer the possibility of competitive and resilient services that already out-perform the lower end of wired ADSL with the added bonus of portability and national coverage.  At the cutting edge of wireless broadband, less is definitely delivering more.

For sure, Spectral Efficiency is undeniably a good thing.  For years, encouraging it has been said to be highly desirable.  But can anyone define what we really mean by Spectral Efficiency?  Can we all agree a definition and measure it accurately enough to make it a worthwhile policy target or, even better, a licence condition?  Getting some fundamental research sorted in this area has been one of RRAC’s major themes.

Enough said.  I leave it to the readers’ fully packetised and next-generation all-IP imaginations to work out the relevance of RRAC inputs for all the regulatory legs now united under Ofcom.  Hopefully the work of the RRAC will continue to prosper under new sponsorship – and, like all good, necessary and sensible, subversive societies, they’ll continue, no doubt, to make waves and propagate really useful ideas.