Economic benefits of C-band spectrum for mobile broadband

The use of additional C-band spectrum for mobile broadband could generate an additional US$440 million (AU$617 million) of economic benefit while protecting the continued operation of incumbent services, according to a new report from the GSMA.

The study entitled ‘Use of C-Band Spectrum for Mobile Broadband in Cities: London and Shenzhen’* focuses on the impact of mobile operations in the C-band in London and Shenzhen, China. The report findings were presented at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum in Hong Kong, which coincided with the start of the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) on 2 December. WRC-15 is considered to be pivotal in determining future spectrum allocations for mobile broadband and C-band spectrum, which the GSMA said will be key to meeting future data demand.

“C-band spectrum will better enable operators to provide consumers with high-speed mobile broadband in city centres,” said Alasdair Grant, head of Asia, GSMA.

“We urge governments to seize the opportunity at WRC-15 and allocate this critical spectrum to safeguard the future of the mobile internet and deliver its undoubted benefits to citizens worldwide.”

The report highlights an urgent need for regulators across the globe to address the allocation of spectrum required to meet the huge growth in mobile data traffic, especially in densely populated urban areas. C-band spectrum can provide large contiguous channels that support the delivery of high data rate services such as video.

Mobile data traffic continues to grow rapidly around the world. According to UK communications regulator Ofcom, monthly usage per active connection in the UK has risen by 50% every year for the past three years and was over 0.5 gigabytes by June 2014. This puts a conservative estimate of total data traffic in London at 7 petabytes per month. Over the next 15 years, analyst firm Plum Consulting expects the average annual growth in mobile data traffic in London to be 35%. It is also expected to grow at a similar rate in Shenzhen until 2030.

“Administrations around the world should make available larger amounts of contiguous spectrum to meet the demand for high-speed connectivity in more densely populated environments,” said David Wang, president, Huawei Wireless Networks.

The report shows that use of C-band spectrum for mobile broadband can be achieved through the development of sharing techniques to allow mobile services to co-exist with other users of the band, such as satellite and fixed link services. Plum’s study and other independent studies** show that C-band small cells can successfully co-exist with satellite services, provided that an exclusion zone of a 5-kilometre radius is established around the satellite installations. Similar provisions can be made to ensure the protection of continued operation of fixed link and point-to-multipoint services that use the band.

“This joint report highlights the substantial social and economic benefits associated with mobile broadband use of the C-Band on a shared basis with existing services,” added Wang.

The GSMA said the economic benefits are based on the avoided infrastructure costs achieved by the availability of additional spectrum to support mobile broadband services. These are derived by considering the infrastructure requirements necessary to support traffic demand without the C-band spectrum and the difference in infrastructure costs when C-band spectrum is available.

To view the report, go to www.gsma.com/spectrum/use-of-c-band-spectrum-for-mobile-broadband-in-cities-london-and-shenzhen.

*Developed by Plum Consulting with analysis from the GSMA and Huawei, which was a knowledge partner for this report, contributing direct access to its global market analysis, its research and developments and engineering teams and aggregated network data from its customer services.

**Transfinite has produced a number of reports for the GSMA that show that outdoor small cell and FSS receivers should be able to operate with a separation distance that is terrain dependent but of the order of 5 kilometres.

Image courtesy of GSMA

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