Spectrum is a resource, period. It’s a
finite resource. You can treat it with
respect and optimize it or you can abuse
it and always be lacking.
— Dr. Ibrahim Gedeon, CTO of TELUS
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APR 2012
VOICES
FROM OPERATORS
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Canada may account for nearly half of the North American continent, but its population is less than
the state of California; profit and ubiquity would seem mutually exclusive for a newcomer to the
national stage. Nevertheless, TELUS’s aggression, savvy and acumen have pushed it into a dead heat
with its incumbent rivals. With an LTE launch imminent, TELUS’s top tech guru shares his insights with
WinWin into what makes TELUS work.
By Jason Patterson
T
ELUS may be a top-three operator in Canada,
but its history has been that of an upstart. It has
been committed to growth since its inception,
with the numbers getting staggering since the
year 2000 (nearly USD20 billion invested in capital and
acquisitions). Recent efforts have included an aggressive
push into IPTV (314,000 customers in 2010, an 85% y/y
increase) and healthcare technology, as well as its announced
reductions (up to 60%) in roaming charges. An LTE (AWS
spectrum) launch is on the horizon, though TELUS also
plans to bid for 700MHz to better compete nationwide,
and compete it will, if only with itself, as TELUS boasts the
far-and-away most efficient spectrum utilization (80 to 90%
better than its primary competitors) in North America.
Dr. Ibrahim Gedeon has a network software and design
background. He has held key roles in the IEEE and twice been
named to Global Telecoms Business magazine’s top-100 list of the
most influential people in the industry. He is currently CTO at
TELUS and recently sat down with WinWin to discuss where
TELUS has been and where it is going.
Learning from the past
WinWin: Since the year 2000, TELUS has grown
from a regional operator to a top-3 telco in Canada.
Courtesy of A-Frame Inc.
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VOICES
FROM OPERATORS
How would you describe this journey?
Gedeon: TELUS is four regional companies coming
together; three in western Canada and one in northern Quebec.
We have a national plate to offer. The acquisition of Clearnet
(a Toronto-based operator) enabled us to offer national
coverage. Really, the positions of No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 are
plus or minus ten percent on any given day. So, I would say
that it is a three-horse race for the top spot in wireless. We are
the incumbent in western Canada and northern Quebec for
wireline. So, I think our growth is matching the Canadian
appetite for bandwidth, value-added service, and in particular
what we call “future-friendly services.”
WinWin: How would you characterize the impact
of wireless on TELUS? Specifically, TELUS’s shift
to UMTS (2008). How has the decision impacted
Canadian consumers?
Gedeon: I believe that, at a high level, it normalized
technology. So, the top 3 carriers, at 95% market share,
now have more or less the same protocols. It’s been a
great thing for us. I believe that we did it at the right time
and the shift has actually seen unparalleled growth in the
access to the global ecosystem of HSPA+. In the old days,
CDMA was very North American and LTE is still in its
infancy. HSPA+ allows us to have a mature ecosystem.
WinWin: Network traffic has changed considerably
during the 3G era. For instance, 80 percent of wireless
traffic is still active at night, how does this affect your
network?
Gedeon: Actually, that’s interesting. In the old days the
paradigm was “mobility is a business service,” “wireless is
a business service.” That’s not the case now. It’s definitely a
consumer service and it’s an always-on service. Dealing with
it at night, per se, does not really impact us as we design for
trends. Whether it’s applied or modeled, it doesn’t really matter;
it’s a design issue. But, there are little things that are emerging.
In the old days, you would design for coverage on the highway,
but now you design for coverage of a residential place. So, I’d
say that the increase in data is helping us reshape our design
parameters, our assumptions, and how we run our networks.
Moving forward
WinWin: TELUS is partnering with Bell for some
of its network infrastructure. How is that partnership
progressing, considering that Bell is also a competitor?
Gedeon: I think it’s working great. It’s a great example
of how people can leverage fixed resources… finite
resources to provide different customer experiences. So,
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competition is alive and well, but we don’t have to compete
at all levels. So, the common infrastructure is working well
and, as you know, Huawei has been one of our partners
that has enabled a network-sharing agreement.
WinWin: How does TELUS plan to avoid a repeat of
Canada’s 2G-3G dropping and interruption when your
LTE network is launched?
Gedeon: As you know, the beauty of LTE… we have
given a lot of thought to NGMN and GSMA on it.
And circuit-switch fallback (CSFB) is one way to make
certain that the call does not fail when switching between
technologies. The session is maintained because it is the
same core, more or less… the data-call packet core… I
think that for users, because the connection times are so
fast, they are not really complaining. People are not really
complaining like they used to do in the old days. And a data
session, unlike a voice session, is kind of a real-time event
but it’s more forgiving. And there are some features that we
have deployed in our core and our access, with our partners,
to ensure seamless interworking between 3G and LTE.
WinWin: Among its many healthcare-related
solutions, TELUS offers an integrated bedside terminal
that combines healthcare, communication, and
entertainment-related features. Does TELUS plan to
offer more home media appliances in the future?
Gedeon: I think that, when we took on IP as a
transformation in 2000, we realized that a screen is a screen.
So, why should the doctor’s screen be different from the person
viewing the TV’s screen or different from the nurse looking for
the medication’s screen? So, our plan is to leverage integrated
solutions that align with our technology and services strategy.
In a connected home or future-friendly home, all the devices
will see each other and leverage common data space; or they
could be on the cloud… on the TELUS cloud. So yes, we are
planning to roll out some things, not just in the health space
but in the health & entertainment space.
WinWin: What progress is being made in the SME
space and what plans do you have for the future?
Gedeon: The SME space is tricky because everyone has
different definitions. Some people go by number; some go
by revenue per employee; some go by number of employees
in general. What we’ve realized is that we’ve done a good
job segmenting small & medium business and we realize
that traditional business services are actually needed, as are
consumer services. Small businesses now have TVs, which is
not something that was there before… now with the news
and the always-on. Everybody has a TV in the reception
area, so our plans are very simply directed-focused – touch,
APR 2012
directed-touch, and definitely leveraging our network
infrastructure partners who enable our cloud, and we are also
working on cost-effective CPE because what is happening is
that a small business with three people is now trying to get
the same look and feel as a bank with a thousand employees.
WinWin: With smartphone and tablet usage
booming, can you comment on what your users will
experience in the future?
Gedeon: One thing that’s happening with wireless and
wired bandwidth being so readily available and affordable,
people like having a mobile broadband experience. So, it’s via
Wi-Fi, via HSPA+, via LTE, via DSL, via GPON; and I think
that you have a lot of smartphones and tablets which are very
different in their own spaces. You are getting a lot of crosssubstitution in terms of devices, between the TV, the tablet, the
PC, and the smartphone. But, from our point of view, users
really wish to be connected with their applications, regardless of
where they are. So that puts a lot of pressure on our wired and
wireless networks to ensure their seamless mobility.
Bytes nipping at your heels
WinWin: The data surge that we are currently dealing
with may never end. What are TELUS’s plans to deal with it?
Gedeon: Well, we are buying from Huawei for LTE.
So, that’s one way of dealing with it. I believe there are a
lot of ways that we can have an impact. On the wireless
side, there are only so many bits per Hz that you can push,
at the end of the day. There are some clear data points
on that one. Our plans are very simple... leveraging our
fiberized cell sites and working with our partners on fixing
the signaling and capacity issues.
WinWin: Can you comment on your spectrum
efficiency? Basically, TELUS’s spectrum efficiency is No.
1 in North America; how is it that you are making this
possible?
Gedeon: Spectrum is a resource, period. It’s a finite
resource. You can treat it with respect and optimize it or you
can abuse it and always be lacking. I think a lot of our roots…
there’s a huge chunk of TELUS that started as a competitive
outsider with Clearnet; when TELUS bought Clearnet, we
became the competitive outsider. There’s a lot of efficiencies
and optimization, starting with 5GHz spectrum only; let’s do
a healthy DNA for spectrum efficiency. Today, I would say
that we are probably the best in terms of spectrum efficiency
in North America, if not the world. And there’s nothing
wrong with that; even with the new auctions coming up, the
spectrum in the usable band will always be finite.
How does Huawei fit in?
WinWin: TELUS was instrumental in bringing
Huawei to Canada. How has TELUS’s relationship with
Huawei grown since then?
Gedeon: I believe that our relationship with Huawei
started with the HSPA RAN… with the wideband CDMA
RAN. It has evolved now to broadband. We are now
looking at enterprise and content services. I would say that
the relationship has been fantastic, blossoming in the right
direction. And we have also established joint R&D centers
in Canada, which is something that both our CEOs have
asked for. So, we’re on the right track on both sides, I
would say.
WinWin: How has Huawei been able to help TELUS
and what are your expectations for the future?
Gedeon: Huawei has actually been very responsive,
from a TELUS point of view. They have applied their
innovation and R&D to solve our challenges. I would see
that as our relationship continues to grow, Huawei will
increase their level of investment in Canada for TELUS,
particularly on the hard-core R&D side, to alleviate some
of the problems such as small sites, antennas and whatnot.
WinWin: Tell us more about the joint R&D centers.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish with them?
Gedeon: There are some unique characteristics about
the traffic in Canada with the advent of smartphones…
wireless in particular. It’s very important for us to look
at the applicability for the Canadian space; in particular,
on the enterprise side, once you throw in words like
cloud services and whatnot. So, that being the case, it was
important to show our commitment to Huawei and vice
versa to the Canadian marketplace and academia and the
government by establishing these joint R&D centers.
WinWin: How does the Joint Innovation Center fit
into your plans for NextGen Wireless?
Gedeon: It’s very important when you look at NextGen
Wireless to approach it as NextGen Wireless. A lot of our
peers and competitors still go with “coverage, optimize,
capacity.” What TELUS does is realize that actually you
have to do all three at once. So as you roll out a network,
you think of coverage, you think of capacity, and you
optimize the RF. And when you do all three at the same
time, you realize that actually you are in a much better
spot than when you are doing the three in series. This is
traditionally what most telcos do.
Editor: Gao Xianrui [email protected]
APR 2012
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