Different Band Plans for Harmonized Wireless Spectrum Will Affect Global Interoperability, Roaming

BRUSSELS -- The 700 MHz band will likely be harmonized globally for mobile broadband services at the World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 but under three different band plans, speakers said Wednesday at a Forum Europe spectrum management conference. The goal of WRC-15 is to coordinate use of the 700 MHz and other bands, but the Radio Regulations don’t deal with band plans, Joaquin Restrepo, ITU Radiocommunication Bureau head of outreach and publication services division, said. If the 700 MHz band is coordinated for wireless uses, but there are separate band plans for the U.S./Canada, China and the rest of the world under the Asia-Pacific band plan, then economies of scale, roaming and interoperability will suffer, he said.

Several countries in and outside Europe are considering how to allocate the 700 MHz band, said Lee Sanders of Aetha Consulting. Key issues include what to do with incumbent users such as broadcasters and wireless microphone operators who will lose spectrum, how to create a global device ecosystem, and whether a harmonized band plan is doable, he said. The U.S. and Asia-Pacific area have adopted band plans, the latter of which has been widely accepted in Latin America, he said. A potential solution for Europe would be to align with the Asia-Pacific plan in the lower duplex of the band, he said. It’s a neat solution but imperfect because it uses only 2 x 30 MHz of the 94 MHz of spectrum, he said. It also leaves an uplink next to digital terrestrial TV (DTT) spectrum that could spark more problems than DTT interference from mobile services in the 800 MHz band, he said. Europe must decide about the 700 MHz band before WRC-15, he said. There are huge benefits to agreeing on a joint European approach but in this case, there may also be an opportunity for a global approach, he said.

Mobile operators in the GSM Association agreed on a 2 x 30 MHz arrangement for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, said Alcatel-Lucent European Spectrum Policy Director Cengiz Evci. That allows alignment with a portion of the Asian band plan, he said. GSMA’s position is backed by DigitalEurope, the high tech sector, and by the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Forum, he said.

Mexico is pressing for near-universal adoption of the Asia-Pacific plan (CD June 26 p5). The country also decided to “go exotic” by allocating the entire 700 MHz band to a single project, said Luis Lucatero, Cofetel Mexico chief of regulatory policy. When, as expected, smartphones hit a low price of around $30, the lowest purchasing-power segment of society will adopt them and other devices, he said. With so many devices, lots of data capacity will be needed, he said. The smaller the sections the band is split into, the less the capacity, he said.

Mexico will allocate all 700 MHz spectrum to a wholesaler with stringent coverage obligations, Lucatero said. It will be a new, “flat” Internet protocol, wireless bitstream factory, a nondiscriminatory wholesaler that can’t offer services in the retail market, he said. That raises many risks but the wholesaler will absorb many of the network-related risks and the Mexican government will help mitigate others, he said. The project has now been approved by Mexico’s Legislature and will either go bankrupt or work, he said.

As the cost of smartphones erodes, handset subsidies will likely disappear, Lucatero said. Future handset makers won’t be precluded by network operators from putting TV chips in their devices and will have more incentive to put digital TV receivers in them, he said. This could change the way spectrum management is handled, he said. Mexico is considering mandating TV receivers in smartphones but will eliminate handset subsidies, he said. There are signals that TV will change, which opens up new, complicated business models, he said, but those are considerations for the second digital dividend, which for Mexico is the 600 MHz band.

The Russian Federation is working on a new spectrum management strategy, said Dimitry Tur, deputy head of spectrum regulation division, Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. The government is considering potential International Mobile Telecommunications systems deployment in the 694-790 MHz band, he said. But the band is actively used by aeronavigational systems, and Russia’s many neighbors present challenges around cross-border coordination, he said.

It’s possible that Russia will adopt a modified band plan for 700 MHz based on the Asia-Pacific approach, but the final decision will depend on the results of WRC-15, Tur said. So there could be three different band plans around the world, he said -- the U.S./Canada approach, China, which will use time division duplex, and then the rest of the world, which will have some version of the Asia-Pacific plan. That will make global mobile roaming less than perfect, he said.

Having three different band plans also means there are fewer economies of scale, the ITU’s Restrepo told us. It will affect interoperability among different networks and to some extent will prevent services and handsets from being as cheap as they could be, he said.