North Rock Communications has signalled its intention to be a major player as long-awaited reform of Bermuda’s telecoms industry is rolled out.The company is seeking to launch a new Island-wide cellphone network, which it says will significantly improve service in Bermuda.It has made a formal request to the new Regulatory Authority for allocation of radio spectrum to provide the new “mobile cellular service in Bermuda”.“North Rock is waiting for a response from the RA regarding our application for LTE spectrum,” North Rock general manager Vicki Coelho told The Royal Gazette yesterday. “We believe there is a need for additional competition in Bermuda for cellular service and high speed data.”The request from North Rock stated: “Bermuda is badly in need of additional competition. The market is not particularly price sensitive today but the lack of competition is most noticeable in the lack of innovative services, customer service levels and availability of high quality mobile data services.”Ms Coelho said in the request that a substantial upfront investment was required, which “reflects our ambitious plans to provide a high quality network both in terms of coverage and capacity/data rates.”North Rock is seeking to make use of what is known as the Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) band in North America, which it says has been allocated for mobile cellular services since being auctioned in the US in 2006 and Canada in 2008.“In 2012, it has also started to be used in Chile,” North Rock said. “It is currently being used for 3G/High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) and HSPA+ services in these markets and is now being re-farmed for 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) services by a number of major American operators. We do not believe this spectrum is currently used/allocated in Bermuda.”Ms Coelho continued: “North Rock wishes to deploy a state of the art 4G network using LTE technology. LTE is a new radio access solution based on OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access). This is able to reach much higher data rates and data volumes than 3G, at multiple times current capabilities. To achieve this, OFDMA uses spread spectrum techniques, which are at their most efficient when used across larger bandwidth blocks. Using high order modulation (up to 64QAM) and large bandwidth (up to 20 MHz) much higher data rates than 3G/HSPA/HSPA+ can be achieved.“This represents a paradigm shift in mobile broadband capability and quality and constancy of service offerings to customers.”She said North Rock also wishes to deploy the 3G/HSPA capability “enabling us to provide a full, high quality cellular service in Bermuda based on compelling and innovative service offerings both technically and commercially.”North Rock said the new service will be designed to serve both the residential and business markets.“We will also support a full inbound and outbound roaming service which will ensure visitors to Bermuda can get access to world class mobile voice and data services,” Ms Coelho said.North Rock will continue to use other technologies, such as unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi and its existing fibre and microwave networks, to “compliment and embellish the new LTE platform to provide state-of-the-art telecommunication services to all segments of the market in Bermuda”.North Rock noted: “The HHIindex (Herfindahi-Hirschman Index) for Bermuda is just over 5000. The US Department of Justice considers a market with a result of less than 1,000 to be a competitive marketplace; a result of 1,000-1,800 to be a moderately concentrated marketplace; and a result of 1,800 or greater to be a highly concentrated marketplace. This demonstrates that Bermuda is badly in need of additional competition. The market is not particularly price sensitive today but the lack of competition is most noticeable in the lack of innovative services, customer service levels and availability of high quality mobile data services.“The allocation of new spectrum and investment from new, innovative service providers, coupled with such measures as number portability, will create the necessary competitive landscape that is currently lacking in Bermuda.”North Rock said the network will require new infrastructure build and “North Rock would like to work closely with all involved parties to ensure the most sensitive approach to this is achieved. North Rock believes that the current mobile services provided in Bermuda can be improved both in terms of the network quality and variety of services provided. New technology, in particular 4G (LTE) provides the opportunity to stimulate business development, offering world-class mobile services to Bermudian residents and visitors alike.”The company further said: “We have an aggressive customer acquisition strategy that we believe will enable us to achieve our target of market share within five years.“North Rock is prepared to invest in the next generation of technology to bring world-class mobile voice and data services to Bermuda. Our request for spectrum still constitutes considerably less than that already allocated to Mobile Networks in Bermuda. The advent of the AWS band does give Bermuda a unique opportunity to increase competition in the market place ahead of any reallocation of existing bands. We urge you to take this opportunity today.”