Spectrum Reallocation in the 700 MHz Digital Dividend Band
Submission by Taggle Systems Pty Ltd
Contact: Richard Keaney
Suite 206, National Innovation Centre,
Australian Technology Park,
4 Cornwallis Street, Eveleigh NSW 2015
Phone: (02) 8999 1919 Mobile: 0418 296 953
Email:
Executive Summary
This submission advocates reallocatingat least 9MHz of the 700MHz digital dividend band for use as a 'public park' for class licensed low interference potential devices (LIPD). Three optionsin descending order of preference include:
- 14 MHz from 806MHz - 820MHz. This is the most suitable band as it does not fall within the harmonized international dividend spectrum of 698-806MHz, and provides the widest amount of spectrum.
- 10MHz from 748MHz -758MHz. This band would be available if a mid-bandgap for FDD operation of the harmonized spectrum is defined.
- 9 MHz from 694MHz to 803MHz. This includes 4MHz below the harmonized digital dividend band and the 5MHz guard band proposed for FDD operation of the harmonized band.
Taggle Systems further advocates that the selected band be exclusively reserved for a new class of low power, wide band, and low duty cycle devices, primarily aimed at wireless telemetry and location services.
About Taggle Systems
Taggle Systems is a privately held AustralianR&D startup company developing proprietary wireless technology for low power, long range location and telemetry services.The company was founded in 2008 by a group of leading wireless technologists and is funded by Australian venture capital firms and private investors.
The company is currently engaged in small scale commercial trials of its technology for rural location services and water utility automatic meter reading (AMR).
System Overview
The Taggle system consists of a network of terrestrial receivers which deploy advanced digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to communicate with very low cost battery powered tags, known as Taggles. The Taggle has a simple sensor interface which can be configured for AMR, or monitoring of physical parameters such as temperature, soil moisture content, tamper alerts, etc. In areas where the Taggle is in range of at least three receivers the location of the Taggle can be calculated using Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) techniques.
The current version of the Taggle system has been deployed using the 900MHz ISM band (915-928MHz)and has been focused on two primary application areas:
- Livestock tracking
- Water Utility AMR
Livestock Tracking
In Australia the livestock market is around 26 million cattle and 100 million sheep, with annual turnover of about 7 million cattle and 30 million sheep.
Our market studies for beef cattle tracking revealed the following constraints:
- tags must have a long range, of more than 10km, otherwise construction cost of the receivers per tag becomes excessive
- tags must have a battery life of at least three years
- each receiver cell area must be able to handle thousands of tags to allow amortisation of the receiver deployment.
For an outlay of a few dollars per tag per annum farmers will receive these benefits:
- eliminate stock losses through theft and wandering
- reduced finance cost because animals used as collateral are tracked
- many productivity improvements from location tracking
- whole of life monitoring for disease vector tracking and marketing
- monitoring of animal welfare on the farm and during live export.
Once developed for the primary livestock tracking market other applications would follow, such as:
- rural safety tracking
- reducing theft in urban fringe areas
- monitoring personal items such as sporting goods in open space areas
- shopping trolley tracking
- monitoring equipment on construction sites
- environmental sensors.
Automated meter reading
AMR is a key area of focus for water utilities globally. The rapidly increasing cost and scarcity of water in highly populated areas calls for significant improvements in network management and consumption optimisation. As a result, a number of AMR technologies are being trialled around the world.
However, the current technologies have not been deployed on a widespread basis in the industry as the cost of doing so is prohibitive – many times the cost of manual quarterly meter reading.
Taggle has developed an AMR solution that solves this problem, opening up a very large market, both in Australia (no major water AMR installations have been attempted by utilities in Australia) and internationally.Taggle’s proprietary wireless technology is capable of delivering an AMR solution at a cost comparable to quarterly manual reading.The Taggle technology has now been tested and proven in laboratory and small field trials and is currently in the early stages of commercialisation.
The need for more Class Licenced Spectrum
Whilst the results from the company’s trials of both livestock tracking and AMR have been encouraging, limitations around the 900MHz ISM band have already begun to appear. In urban environments the large number of devices such as cordless phones, RFID readers, RF welding equipment, and licence free frequency hopping (FH) spread spectrum radio links, that are using this band, cause on average of 15dB to 20dB signal to noise ratio (SNR) degradation over what is achievable in RF quiet rural areas or dedicated licenced spectrum. This severely limits the utility of the Taggle solution in urban and urban fringe areas for both location services (reduced range and accuracy) and telemetry services (reduced range).
Taggle Systems therefor advocates that at least 9MHz, and preferably 14MHz, of the digital dividend band be allocated for class licenced LIPDs, primarily aimed at the burgeoning markets for utility metering and location based services. These markets are characterised by devices which are low power (typically battery operated) and very low duty cycle (i.e. the devices are on air for very small amounts of time). Taggle systems advocates that the new class licence conditions be defined along similar lines to the existing class licence conditions for digital spread spectrum devices operating in the 900MHz ISM band, with an additional clause restricting transmit duty cycle to less than 1% measured in a 1,000 second interval.
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