The report follows on from earlier data released by GSA in January that identified 23 countries that have auctioned or allocated C-Band spectrum for mobile broadband. The 3300–4200 MHz frequency band offers a unique opportunity for ‘mid-band’ spectrum availability. The amount of spectrum that can be made available in this frequency range will be exploited by the 5G New Radio (5G-NR) air interface to deliver increased capacity and a better experience to end users.
The 3300–4200 MHz range strokes a balance between coverage and capacity, which support a broad range of 5G applications, including: eMBB (including AR/VR and UHD), fixed wireless access, as well as many applications that will drive the digital transformation (including Industry 4.0, health care, smart cities and drones applications).
5G-NR network equipment, smartphones, customer premises equipment and other types of end- user equipment are now available in various markets, adding support for 3GPP bands n77 (3300–4200 MHz) and n78 (3300–3800 MHz) on top of the already available bands.
“The commercial availability of devices has arrived at an unprecedented speed – only one year after the availability of the first 3GPP 5G-NR standard release – and over one third of them support for the n77 and n78 bands. Compare this to LTE, which took at least three years to hit similar commercial maturity,” commented Joe Barrett, President, GSA. “However, if governments and regulators are to take advantage of this momentum and reap the societal benefits of increased coverage and capacity of mobile broadband then mid-band spectrum has a vital role to play.
"National administrations seeking to secure the many and varied benefits of 5G for their policies must also provide wide and contiguous channel assignments to operators while simultaneously considering investment-friendly provisions and connectivity requirements of industry verticals.”
GSA recommendations to national spectrum policy and regulatory authorities include:
- Spectrum availability – National administrations should make appropriate amounts of contiguous spectrum available to mobile operators in a timely manner to facilitate the cost- effective deployment of 5G networks. The spectrum must be made available across low-, medium- and high-band frequency ranges, to address both coverage and capacity issues.
- Spectrum sharing vs. spectrum clearing – GSA advocates clearing the bands to be used by 5G, to enable maximum efficiency and coverage of 5G deployments. Possibilities of sharing between 5G and other services should be taken into consideration if clearing the band is not possible in the shorter term.
- Wide and contiguous channel assignments – GSA suggests that the largest possible contiguous frequency blocks be made available for IMT within the 3300–4200 MHz range at the national level. This is because the assignment of contiguous blocks to mobile operators will lead to significant benefits in terms of spectrum efficiency, signalling overhead, physical layer flexibility, latency performance, base station radio unit implementation and UE implementation.
- Spectrum caps should be avoided in competitive market – An administration’s approach to spectrum caps should be based on the level of market competition desired. Spectrum caps should not be imposed in markets with a healthy level of competition.
- Addressing industry verticals connectivity requirements – Adequate spectrum with appropriate regulatory conditions should be made available to enable integration of industry verticals in 5G, both through public mobile networks and through locally operated private networks.
- National synchronisation frameworks – To avoid interference between adjacent spectrum owners, GSA recommends synchronising operations between operators (adopting a common clock reference and a common frame structure) within one country and, as much as possible, between countries.
- Smooth cross-border coordination – GSA strongly recommends that administrations arrange effective cross- border coordination agreements between and among neighbouring countries aimed at cross-country synchronised operations as much as possible.
- Investment-friendly provisions – National administrations should not sacrifice the long-term potential of the technology for short-term revenue gain from the assignment procedures. The administrations should advise local and state authorities in the country to facilitate the installation of network equipment (macro cells and small cells) with agile procedures.