Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series this week highlighting the Irish Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. Today’s article focuses on spectrum and technology initiatives led by the Irish government targeting wireless companies. Wednesday’s article will focus on an overview of Ireland’s wireless market and Friday’s Spotlight section will feature some of the innovative companies and academics working on next-generation wireless activities.
DUBLIN–The Republic of Ireland is courting the Information and Communications Technology sector with initiatives designed to take advantage of the country’s unique assets, regulatory structure and academic prowess, all in an effort to bring wireless and other sustainable technology businesses to the nation.
The Irish government launched a nationwide program in the late 1970s to try to entice U.S. telecom and computer equipment makers to Ireland to sustain the economy, which at the time was fairly poor and based mostly on agriculture, said Gearoid Mooney, director ICT Commercialization, Research and Innovation Business Unit at Enterprise Ireland. The government-backed effort touted the country’s friendly corporate tax structure, an educated, English-speaking workforce and access to the European market. It worked. Bell Laboratories, Intel Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. and quite a few other companies, including computer equipment makers, all set up businesses on the island. But with the dot-com bust of 2000, a lot of those companies pulled back services. Today, the Irish government is working tightly with the academic community and multinational telecoms companies to continue to spur innovation in next-generation technologies and services.
That government-funded plan today has evolved into an efficient and unique initiative in the country. Ireland’s spectrum regulatory agency, Communications Regulations or ComReg, is promoting the nation as a test bed to companies that want to trial RF projects. Enterprise Ireland is another government agency that acts as an early venture capital investor in startup companies that are Irish-owned, and the Science Foundation Ireland invests in joint research projects between private-sector companies and the nation’s seven universities and 15 technology institutes, driving advances in ICT, biotechnology and sustainable energy technologies.
Test & Trial Ireland
Test & Trial Ireland is a government initiative to target global companies to use Ireland as a test bed for new technology projects. Ireland has some characteristics that make it an ideal testing environment, said Alex Chisholm, a commissioner with ComReg. Ireland has a lot of spectrum available for testing for a number of reasons. The nation doesn’t have large military operations that use spectrum; it has a low population density with a population of 4.5 million. And, because Ireland is an island, it is relatively free of potential frequency interference from other countries.
Test & Trial Ireland can turn around a one-year experimental license in about 10 days, helping researchers get to trial quickly, at a low cost; one-year licenses start at 100 Euros. Also, the nation’s regulatory-friendly atmosphere allows consumers and businesses to participate in trials, so they can validate business models as well as propagation techniques, said Kevin Kennedy, spectrum development manager for Market Framework at ComReg. Telefonica 02 Ireland, for example, trialed mobile TV in Ireland with 500 consumers last year to test the technology as well as business models, he said.
Since it was launched in 2005, 110 experimental licenses have been issued. Areas of interest today include mobile broadband, cognitive radios, smart networks (including a project that looks at harnessing ocean waves as an energy source) as well as green initiatives. Along with the quick turnaround to apply for and receive a license, the agency can aid a company by finding spectrum available in whatever band the company wants to test at, said Jim Connolly, Spectrum Advisor to the Commission.
Enterprise Ireland
Enterprise Ireland’s mission is to promote Irish companies worldwide to increase the nation’s economic prosperity, essentially acting as an early seed venture capital company, said Mooney, who spearheads development in the ICT sector. The agency has strict requirements for entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of the funding and networking opportunities; companies brought into the program must have business plans of 1 million Euros of revenue and 10 employees within three years of launch. Enterprise Ireland also is only a minor investor in the entrepreneur, but able to work with multinational companies like Ericsson and Bell Labs Research to help drive innovation in the market sector and form more Irish-based export companies. It does not require a seat on the company’s board nor does it demand the typical VC-type of return on investment.
TSSG’s IMS test network
Telecommunications Software & Systems Group (TSSG), is an example of the cooperation between the Irish government and the private sector to advance wireless technology. TSSG is a research center focused on next-generation networks and services, working with Enterprise Ireland and multinational companies, including Ericsson, Cisco, Oracle, IBM and Alcatel-Lucent/Bell Labs. The research center recently opened a carrier-grade open access IP Multimedia Subsystem test network, geared to companies and carriers that want to test mobile apps on a carrier-grade private mobile network. “Carriers have been using IMS to reduce their capex and opex, but application services have not taken off as much as they’d like,” said TSSG’s Barry Downes.
Science Foundation Ireland
The Science Foundation Ireland is a sister agency to Enterprise Ireland, focusing on research in partnerships with private-sector companies. This agency works on a variety of project areas that cross sectors and research practices. Some of the more innovative areas of research include a test facility to harness wave energy, smart grids, nanotechnology, RF, sensor technologies and phototonics. The government has committed 1.4 billion Euros to the program through 2013, said Professor Fionn Murtagh, direct of Information, Communications and Emergent Technologies at SFI. SFI is loosely based on the United States’ National Science Foundation.
