The vision of urban planners in the late 1940’s and 1950’s was that of a suburban population commuting to work in the main city. People flocked to the suburbs and highways were built to connect suburbs with cities; cars were sold and soon enough the model became unsustainable. More highways were needed and existing ones… Read More »
The Irish multi-frequency spectrum auction concluded on November 15th raising a respectable 854€ million ($1.1 billion) from four bidders on licenses for 280 MHz in the 800, 900, and 1800 MHz bands. Earlier this month, on December 14th, the Dutch multi-frequency auction of about 360 MHz netted the regulator over 3.8€ billion ($4.97 billion). Both… Read More »
Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) spectrum is bustling with activity. With so many failed satellite service companies, it is no surprise that spectrum earmarked for such services be converted, or allowed to co-exist with profitable mobile services. Here, I like to summarize some of the developments surrounding MSS spectrum.
Ever wondered how spectrum is allocated to different services? I recently came across the pie chart below showing allocation of spectrum between 108 and 6000 MHz for a “typical” European country. I decided to do a similar exercise for US spectrum allocation. But first I like to give a brief overview of how spectrum is… Read More »
Below is a summary of spectrum auctions completed this year that I did not report on. Some of these auctions are particularly interesting. For example, the 2.3 GHz band auction in Hong Kong follows a failed attempt to auction this band in early 2009. At that time, the hype around WiMAX was subsiding as interest in LTE… Read More »
The FCC adopted the rules for the 3.65 – 3.7 GHz band in May 2007, a good nine years after it first proposed to allocate the band to non-Government fixed services on a primary basis. This timeline coincided with parallel development of WiMAX where equipment based on the fixed version of the standard (IEEE 802.16d)… Read More »
There are several problems to overcome in making spectrum sharing a reality. Some are technical but more often than not, it is easier to overcome those hurdles than commercial ones. So what are those challenges? And when can we expect to resolve them to make spectrum sharing a reality?
In a bold move, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recommended for federal spectrum to be shared between federal and private sector. This radical departure from “business as usual” when it comes to spectrum management holds much promise for accelerating innovation in the wireless industry.
In the most recent deal, AT&T filed to acquire Nextwave’s WCS (Wireless Communication Services) and AWS (Advanced Wireless Services) assets for $650 million. The bulk of this deal is about the WCS band, so what is this deal about and what does AT&T get for the money?
When the WCS band was first auctioned off in 1997, 30 MHz of spectrum in 2.3 GHz was sold for $14.8 million. At the time, it seems reasonable to pay that much for spectrum with stringent regulatory requirements on RF out of band emissions to protect the adjacent satellite DARS band (Digital Audio Radio Service).… Read More »
The success of personal wireless communications may have been inevitable: communications is an essential tenant of human social structure. Coupled with the proliferation of wireless communication has been a drive to open up new bands of frequency spectrum. The most recent example is the millimeter wave band around 60 GHz which was assigned for unlicensed… Read More »
The 2.5 GHz LTE auction in Brazil came to an end last week with total proceedings of 2.96 Billion Real ($1.42 Billion). The spectrum included a sliver of 450 MHz spectrum for rural access which regulator Anatel was not able to auction independently and was later included with the 2.5 GHz licenses.
I want to quickly summarize here the rules for the Canadian 700 auction which were recently released by Industry Canada (IC).
Should operators deploy a macro or micro cellular architecture in 2.5 GHz band? This is not a trivial question particularly for an incumbent wireless operator that already holds spectrum in lower spectrum bands. The same can be said of Greenfields looking to capitalize on the exponential demand for wireless data services.
The rules for the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum auction are set to be announced soon after parliament returns from its two months winter recess on January 30th. In the lead up, we’ve had an amazing debate raging between the incumbents (Rogers, Bell and Telus) who back an open auction and the new entrants (Wind, Mobilicity,… Read More »