LTE spectrum and Deployment Choices for Operators

Global spectrum availability for LTE

The initial deployment in LTE is expected in 700 MHz for the US, 2.1 GHz for Japan and 2.6 GHz in Europe. The 2.3/2.5 GHz TDD band for deployment is available in China, India. The new LTE systems will support existing bands of GSM/W-CDMA/HSPA, as most of the devices will support multiband operation, and it will allow operators to smoothly introduce LTE services in dense markets and gradually proliferate for a national coverage. A brief update of spectrum availability for LTE is presented below.

United States: Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in April 2008 auctioned 62 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band for LTE services. The band is highly prized because the low frequency, as it allows signals to travel farther and provide better in-building coverage than higher frequencies such as 1900 MHz. As a result, operators need fewer base stations to cover an area, which translates into lower overhead costs—a major asset for any operator looking to be aggressive on the pricing front.

Verizon Wireless was the biggest winner in the 700 MHz auction. The other big winner of the spectrum was AT&T. AT&T bid for fewer licenses than Verizon, having won much of the spectrum it wanted in FCC auctions held in 2002 and 2003.

Europe: Norway, Finland and Sweden auctioned their spectrum in 2007, 2008 and 2009 respectively. This year the Netherlands and Denmark have concluded their 2.6GHz auctions, the auction in Germany is completed and some point during 2010 (France, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Switzerland and Belgium are all expected to hold auctions this year).

Germany: A total of 41 spectrum blocks was sold in the auction, in the 800MHz, 1.8GHz, 2GHz and 2.6GHz bands. The three largest mobile operators, O2, Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile, each won two paired 5MHz chunks of spectrum in the 800MHz band, considered key for rural coverage of mobile broadband.

China and India: 2.3 GHz TDD frequency is recently allocated to 3 operators in India. In china 2.3/2.5 GHz spectrum is available for LTE deployments. Both the spectrum in India and China is TDD type.

Japan: In Japan, 2.1 GHz and 1.5 GHz spectrum is available for LTE Deployments.

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