Ganley firm’s patent ‘could revolutionise’ mobile phone sector

A new patent secured by Rivada Networks, the company headed up by Libertas founder Declan Ganley, has the potential to revolutionise the mobile phone industry, and generate millions in revenue.

Rivada Networks announced three patents secured in the US that they describe as “market-changing technologies with enormous potential to improve cellular communication networks and public safety communications capabilities”.

The new patent allows governments, companies or whoever owns the mobile phone spectrum to prioritise users and to auction off priority access.

Mobile phone spectrum is the pipe through which operators pass the calls and data that users send on to their networks. The new patents mean that operators will be able to assign channels through the pipe to users based on levels of priority or how much they pay.

Mr Ganley described the new patents as allowing network operators to bring competition into the mobile spectrum market.

“We have unleashed the forces of competition on the spectrum market,” said Mr Ganley.

The two patents that will allow this to happen dovetail to give Rivada Networks, not only a the ability to prioritise access to data networks but also a method to auction off that access.

Tiered priority access was developed by Rivada as a method to provide public safety personnel absolute priority access to cellular networks during emergencies when increased communication traffic stresses and often overwhelms networks.

This will enable any spectrum owners to dynamically “auction” available surplus radio frequency spectrum to commercial entities.

“Dynamic Spectrum Arbitrage technology unlocks the potential for supply and demand economics to bolster the quality, quantity and coverage of wireless broadband services. Regulators in the US and Europe have recently been anticipating possible changes to the regulatory environment with respect to ensuring the provision of broadband,” said Mr Ganley.

Mr Ganley described the existing business model for broadband spectrum as the equivalent of a royal charter in the era of the British East India Company. He said it made sense when companies were only using 20% of the available spectrum but once that moves above 100% a system of prioritisation is required.

The new technologies have been initially developed for use on a dedicated section of bandwidth in the US that has been set aside for the emergency services.

The patents not only insure access but will also provide an additional revenue stream to emergency services.

A third patent is for a technology that provides safety personnel with on-phone directories so that they can reach on-scene and remote leaders.