Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Spectrum Sharing Might be Essential in India Mobile Market

In some markets, such as India, spectrum sharing might be essential, not simply helpful. The immediate issue is the ability to share frequencies supporting mobile services across 2G, 3G and 4G networks.

Efficiency and cost are the drivers. Larger blocks of spectrum simply are more efficient, able to deliver more volume in any fixed amount of spectrum. Also, by combining spectrum holdings, partners sharing spectrum often can reduce capital investment.

So far, at least two Indian mobile companies are talking about sharing their spectrum. State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is in discussions with MTS, the Indian unit of Russian telecom company Sistema, for fourth generation Long Term Evolution services across the country.

Other forms of spectrum sharing include methods to allow Long Term Evolution networks to share spectrum, ways for LTE networks to use Wi-Fi spectrum, TV white spaces and new proposals to allow commercial users access to spectrum licensed on a primary basis to non-profit government entties.

The shared spectrum apparently also will involve co-branding of some sort, assuming regulators approve the sharing.

Spectrum sharing can take a number of forms. In India, it primarily is an immediate issue with respect to mobile operators pooling spectrum in the 2G, 3G and possibly 4G bands.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) recommended allowing mobile operators to share spectrum, including capacity at 2100 MHz, for the purpose of improving spectral efficiency.

In other words, two or more operators with spectrum in the 800 MHz band, for example, could agree to pool their respective spectrum holdings to create larger or more-contiguous blocks of spectrum.

Sharing is allowed in 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands, so long as all the carriers wishing to share have licenses in the shared bands.

Fragmented spectrum is more inefficient than larger blocks of spectrum. In India’s highly-fragmented mobile market, with more than average number of providers, the problem of spectrum inefficiency arguably is worse than average.

One reason the cable TV high speed access standard, DOCSIS 3.1, supports speeds so much faster than the earlier 3.0 specification is partly attributable to its ability to bond more contiguous blocks of spectrum, for example.

The M Hotel Singapore | 10-11 September 2015

Spectrum sharing is the biggest Internet access innovation since Wi-Fi

Spectrum Futures 2015 will examine spectrum abundance

Licensing use of spectrum impossible to use in the past
Sharing spectrum without clearing existing users
Releasing 10 to 100 times more bandwidth than presently in use

Spectrum Futures 2015 will bring together regulators and service providers from throughout the Asia-Pacific region to allow the exchange of ideas about key policies to help emerging markets like India, the Phillipines, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Myanmar connect to their populations to the Internet within the next decade.

Join the conversation at Spectrum Futures 2015.