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Addressing frequency fragmentationin the industry
LTE World Summit, Amsterdam - May 20102010
Dan Warren, Director of TechnologyGSM Association
100 operator commitments to LTEGSM family of technologies creating ecosystems worldwide
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Mobile Broadband growth
Great take up but to sustain growth, capacity demands need to be met – requires technical advancement and more spectrum.
© GSM Association 2008
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LTE deployment plans
2010 2011 2012 >20132013
© GSM Association 2010
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Worldwide spectrum availability
There are multiple bands for LTE as defined by ITU - both paired and unpaired
US/Canada700, 850 MHz
1.7/2.1, 1.9, 2.5 GHz
Europe800, 900 MHz
1.8, 1.9/2.1, 2.3, 2.5 GHz
Asia-Pacific450, 700, 850, 900 MHz
© GSM Association 2010
. , . , . . , . , .
Africa & Middle E.450, 800, 850, 900 MHz
1.8, 1.9/2.1, 2.5 GHz
Latin America450, 700, 850, 900 MHz1.7/2.1, 1.8, 1.9, 2.5 GHz
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What is the issue ?
Fragmentation of spectrum allocations is bad for industry as a whole
Devices need to support multiple bands for single markets
Devices need to support further bands to allow for international roaming
Benefits that consumers have gained so far in affordable devices will belost
© GSM Association 2010
RF component costs increase with number of bands – impacts device,network and spectrum acquisition
Leads to multiple chipsets in the industry
some expensive but supporting all bands – generate scale but cost is high
some cheap but supporting limited bands – implies smaller addressablemarket and inability to roam to some regions
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Mobile handset market size
© GSM Association 2010
M i l l i o n s
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Scale Matters.......
700
600
500
400
f o r H a n d s e
t s U S $
© GSM Association 2010
300
200
100
0
A v e r a g e S e l l i n g P r i c
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GSMA supporting the harmonisation of spectrum
This in practice means regional harmonisation
Devices can handle a limited number of frequency bands
GSM, UMTS/HSPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, LTE in the near future
Support for Roaming
Each technology normally has a capacity and coverage band(900/1800 or 850/1900)
© GSM Association 2010
Inclusion of multiple bands may affect filter design (duplexer)leading to loss on link budgets (hence reducing coverage and ormax through-put)
Without addressing the band aggregation issue, the developmentof mobile broadband might be hindered due to problems withdevice design
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Current global status of UHF at a glance
Region 1Europe:790-862 MHz
Possibly extend down to698 MHz?
© GSM Association 2010
Region 2USA:698-806 MHz
Region 3Focus in Asia on698-806 MHz
Population 3.7 billion
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Conclusions
Fragmentation of spectrum allocations and band plans across theindustry damages the mobile telecoms ecosystem
There is a need to promote frequency harmonisation to ensure thatuser devices are affordable and work efficiently especially whenconsidering roaming
© GSM Association 2010
The GSMA works with regional bodies like CITEL and APT/AWF aswell as ITU to promote this in an effort to minimise the number ofband plans
Alignment across as wide a geographic area as possible promotesscale and consumer choice by lowering costs per unit and allowing agenuine ecosystem to develop