Possible Bands for Mobile Service Allocations Sought in Preparations for 2015 World Conference
GENEVA -- Time is limited and study schedules tight to prepare for additional mobile service allocations at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) that would spur broadband applications, speakers said at an ITU-R workshop Wednesday. Meeting participants were from several of the ITU-R working parties that deal with terrestrial services. Conference preparatory schedules are “tighter” than in the past, said Akira Hashimoto, chairman of the ITU-R study group on terrestrial services. A webcast of the workshop was available without the usual need for ITU credentials; but no archive has been posted on the organization’s website.
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Preparatory work under one of the two WRC-15 agenda items for mobile will consider additional mobile service allocations, and identification of additional frequency bands for International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), the international standard for wireless communications. Work under a second agenda item addresses 694 and 790 MHz for mobile, including some refinement of the lower band edge, in ITU region 1, namely Africa, Europe, former-USSR countries and parts of the Middle East.
There may be a certain causal relationship between the two issues, said Thomas Ewers, chairman of an ITU-R joint task group (JTG) who is preparing draft text that the conference could use to address the agenda items. He didn’t say what that relationship was. The JTG will be made up of ITU-R participants dealing with satellite, terrestrial, broadcasting and science services.
It is “very difficult to predict” which bands have to be studied to meet spectrum demands for the mobile service, said Ewers, who works in the German Federal Network Agency. Ewers asked ITU-R groups charged with preparing lists of possible candidate bands to submit them, along with already available technical and operational characteristics, and protection criteria, as soon as possible.
Consumer demand must be considered when evaluating the candidate bands, said Roberto Ercole, the GSM Association’s senior director of future spectrum. People expect it to offer penetration, capacity and prices, he said. Those factors have a bearing on possible bands, he said, referring to achieving economies of scale through inter-regional harmonization. Blocks of up to 100 or 200 MHz for new technologies are being talked about to spur multiple operators in a given market, he said.
Broadband attributes include data rates, penetration and pricing, Ercole said, citing an ITU report. All the points are important for IMT for mobile broadband, he said. Broadband attributes were heavily discussed in the run-up to the 2012 conference, he said. Tablets and smartphones have driven data demand beyond ITU estimates made in 2004, he said. Governments view broadband as a vital tool for economic growth and development, he said.
Fixed broadband really won’t be available for wide areas in Africa, Ercole said. All mobile cellular subscribers are expected to be using smartphones or be able to use mobile broadband by the time period 2020 to 2025 when spectrum identified at the 2015 conference might come online, he said.
Spectrum requirements for IMT “and other mobile broadband technologies, if they're considered,” are important for the JTG to use in its decision-making, Ercole said. The candidate bands are important in deciding where the effort should go, he said, referring to interference studies. Previous data points to a roughly 700 MHz spectrum shortfall in ITU region 1, and 800 MHz each in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific regions, he said. Femtocells and Wi-Fi offload will be much more ubiquitous by the 2020 to 2025 time frame, he said.
No particular frequencies have been identified to address the agenda item on more mobile spectrum for broadband, said Naser Al Rashedi, manager of ITU affairs in the national regulatory authority of the United Arab Emirates. The agenda item is relevant to all ITU regions, he said. Certain studies may be a good starting point for setting priorities, at least for the 2015 conference preparations, he said in an assessment of Arab Spectrum Management Group (ASMG) views. His presentation referred to 450 to 470 MHz, 2700 to 2900 MHz, 3400 to 4200 MHz and 4500 to 4800 MHz.
The ASMG thinks some bands need to be identified, Al Rashedi said. Three frequency ranges look interesting, he said. He referred to spectrum below 1 GHz, spectrum between 1 GHz and 6 GHz, and spectrum above 6 GHz. ASMG’s key motives are to spur global harmonization, allocate more spectrum for IMT, and higher data rates, he said.
The JTG is solely responsible for drafting approaches the conference could use to address the agenda item, Ercole said. Efforts may have to rely on existing study group working party structures as much as possible to boost efficiency, he said. ITU-R working parties could provide guidance, he said. The ITU-R working party on IMT could provide guidance on spectrum requirements and suitable frequency ranges, he said. The JTG will have to consider to what extent it will “take onboard” information like that, he said. “That will have implications for how quickly the work advances,” and how much effort they put into the working party if work in the JTG starts from scratch, he said.
There isn’t much time, Ercole said. The schedule for JTG meetings subsequent to the first in July isn’t yet fixed, Ewers said. There’s some question about meeting overlap and finding a space that is sufficiently large, he said. If money can be found, there may be an invitation to hold the meeting outside Geneva, he said.