Over the previous week, West Australian ISP Pentanet secured a 15-year licence for 200MHz of 5G mmWave spectrum in the 26GHz auction covering the Greater Perth area in Western Australia. The area of coverage also includes Perth, Mandurah, Bunbury, and Margaret River. The provider then revealed how its internal gaming smarts helped it win mmWave spectrum

According to Pentanet managing director Stephen Cornish, “[The spectrum win means] our success to be a market leader in Perth is guaranteed, it's just a matter of time.”

“If you look at our runway and our growth, there’s nothing that the larger telcos can offer in Perth that we can’t”, he added.

Since the provider was founded by gamers, the company is backed by a unique perspective and approach to the recent 5G mmWave auction.

“We all play computer games. The auction system seemed like the way it was structured was so intricate. The details and so many variations that could generate an outcome,” Cornish said. “This was a perfect ground for a group of people that play Civilization VI daily.”

“Over the course of a week, we were able to kind of move our demand and that around the auction so that towards the end of the auction the team could kind of shift that demand to where we actually wanted us to be, which kind of had its price locked, throughout the week,” he then added. “We were able to get two lots, which is 200MHz, and we're able to do it at half the price the other carriers were buying spectrum in Perth.”

Pentanet is currently rolling out Cambium’s 60GHz cnWave solution. This is certified for Terragraph technology from Facebook Connectivity. However, even with a very high speed, this technology proves to have a limited range.

With the 26GHz licences though, Pentanet can already utilise the band to boost the service footprint of its towers from 250m to 5km. Thus, it will be able to Terragraph much more rapidly, with deeper coverage and what’s more, at a greatly reduced cost.

“It’s the end-game for a wireless operator,” he said. “Having a licensed band makes life easier. We're in the mmWave and fixed wireless space, it would have been irresponsible of us not to even participate in the auction. We're on all the best sites, on all the water towers, all of the high locations and we have dark fibre at all those locations so capacity is not an issue for us,” he further added.