Tero,
<< The message Unicom has been sending >>
Maybe wise to let this play out (like DDI).
Meanwhile, re IMT-2000 Spectrum Stuff
>> CEPT SETS WRC AGENDA WITH BACKROOM DEALING
By Vineeta Shetty
Communications International
10 May 2000
European representatives at the World Radiocommunications Conference 2000 in Istanbul, Turkey have ensured that enlarging the IMT-2000 spectrum allocation is firmly on the agenda through a series of backroom deals. In addition, they have ensured support for a harmonized frequency range.
The European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT), an association of 23 European administrations, struck a bargain in principle last weekend with their counterparts in six Arab countries and seven west African nations to agree on the need for 160 MHz of new global spectrum for IMT-2000, the universally-agreed third generation cellular service.
CEPT generally favours regional allocation of resources. However, quid pro quo, it has agreed to back the Arab and African states on a move to reshuffle the broadcast spectrum to provide ten to 12 additional channels to each country for their in-country digital services.
However, Europe has taken care to protect existing systems like Luxembourg-based Astra and those currently in the ITU coordination process, for the next 30 years.
CEPT is host to the biggest terrestrial mobile players - both manufacturers and operators - and is pushing for adoption of contiguous spectrum in the 2500-2690 MHz band to enable them to provide seamless wireless Internet and mobile data services in the future.
The stakes are high for a globally harmonized frequency. "Increasingly, a global market creates a scenario where manufacturing to one spectrum allocation makes more sense, otherwise it raises costs," says Michael Kennedy, corporate vice president and director of global spectrum and telecom policy at Motorola.
But not every member of CEPT is enthused about the prospect of using those frequency ranges. Sensitive to its military interest in those bands, Russia, for example, has stepped away from this common stance.
Outside CEPT, radio administrators, led by the U.S., are already either inclined or resigned toward a tri-band world. The U.S. originally was wary of allocating so much spectrum to the private sector in what it deemed to be a sensitive band for national security.
However, now it is adamant that specific technologies should not be tied to specific frequency bands. It has proposed the following bands: 698-960 MHz, 1710-1885 MHz and 2500-2690 MHz for extended IMT-2000 and the Asian countries are proposing three roughly equivalent bands.
"Ideally, we would like to have a globally harmonized spectrum, but realistically, we expect that more than one band will be identified, countries having the flexibility to return to both bands, or parts of different bands," said Kennedy.
According to him, the 2.5 GHz favoured by CEPT and the 1.7 GHz proposed by Canada and Citel, comprising the telecommunications administrations associated with the Organization of American States, have the best chance for harmonization.
While the 2.5 GHz band makes eminent sense to many countries, the problem with agreeing on a single band is that while this is virgin spectrum in Europe and Japan, elsewhere, those frequencies may have been allocated or are in use. In the U.S., it is already occupied, for instance, by digital PCS operators. Administrators there say that it could take five to six years to move the existing occupants off the spectrum, at great cost, to accommodate full-blown IMT-2000.
Numerically, if the issue reaches the stage of voting, the CEPT proposal stands to win, if, as it seems to have demonstrated through its weekend deal, the Europeans can carry the Arab states and the African nations along with them.
Kennedy points out that the assumption that software radio will solve the interoperability problems between various bands is misplaced. "There is no way software radio will be a viable consumer solution by 2003," he says. "Radio, by its nature, still uses analogue devices in the front end, and it will be difficult in software."
Terrestrial mobile interests, meanwhile, are also preparing to fend off any unreasonable requests from mobile satellite systems (MSS) who have overlapping frequency interests.
Globalstar, for instance, would like a finger in the pie of the high-speed data band, if and when it is ready to move on from narrowband voice services.
However, the long drawn-out bankruptcy of Iridium and the pending merger of ICO with Teledesic could make it harder for the needs of mobile satellite interests to be heard, especially as previous WRCs have been dominated by their requirements.
As Dr. A. Sathyendran, technology analyst at Vodafone New Zealand, says, "terrestrial mobile operators have demonstrated success and now we need more room to expand and deliver services." <<
- Eric - |
