Spectrum sharing can take a number of forms, with greater or lesser degrees of impact on access markets, the fortunes of service providers and end users.
Wi-Fi has been the classic case of shared access, as well as the classic case of unlicensed access. Until recently, Wi-Fi offered a limited business case for some hotspot aggregators focusing on business travelers, but lots of value for consumer Internet access inside their own homes, and business users at their workplaces.
More recently, Wi-Fi hotspots have provided value for mobile end users and service providers by enabling offloading of Internet access operations, thus saving consumption on data plans.
Now firms such as Comcast are building large networks of consumer-based hotspots, with an eye to eventual branded communications services and wholesale backhaul and commercial hotspot revenues.
More recently, there is new thinking on shared access using TV White Spaces, which essentially are frequencies otherwise allocated for use by TV broadcasters, but which might actually be unused in many markets.
In India, spectrum sharing also takes the form of mobile operators agreeing to allow other carriers access to licensed frequencies, so long as reciprocity is available. In other words, one carrier might agree to share frequencies within a single band (800 MHz, for example).
In the United States, a new form of sharing will be enabled in the 3.5 GHz band, with existing licensed users retaining primary access, but with commercial entities able to obtain licenses for secondary use, while some spectrum will also be available for unlicensed use, on a best effort basis, by devices and users, so long as primary and secondary licensees are not using the spectrum, at any place and at the same time.
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