Ofcom Open 100GHz+ Bands for Short Range Wireless Links

The UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, has announced that they’re making 18.2GHz worth of spectrum available in the 100-200GHz bands (116-122GHz, 174.8-182GHz and 185-190GHz), which they hope will help to foster the development of extremely fast high capacity data links over short distances, among other things.

At present much of the Extremely High Frequency (EHF) spectrum in the 100-200GHz bands is being harnessed for Earth Exploration-Satellite Services (EESS), which are used to collect important weather and climate data. But Ofcom sees an opportunity to release some of this to support the development of new services, such as health screening (e.g. detecting skin cancer), quality assurance (checking for defects in manufactured pharmaceuticals) and “very high speed, high capacity data links over short distances.”

Admittedly a low powered wireless network communication in this band would be no good for broadband, at least not over any kind of viable outdoor distance, but it could play a role in helping devices to communicate over a very short-range indoor network and at extremely fast data speeds.

On the other hand, it could be argued that the 60GHz band in WiFi (starting with 802.11ad) already has a similar role, although so far that hasn’t been as widely harnessed as some would have liked, but things are starting to change (here). Part of this may be because most indoor devices can already do what they need to over the normal WiFi bands (2.4GHz, 5GHz and 6GHz), which have better range and are well supported.

Instead Ofcom envisages a variety of different use cases (as mentioned earlier) and their ideas on data connectivity are more centred around high-speed wireless connections at extremely short ranges, such as between microchips and circuit boards or Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

Ofcom Statement

We recognise that there is uncertainty on future demand for services using this spectrum, and what the services and applications developed will be. We will review developments in 2024 and will consider whether to propose changes to our approach.

We will not introduce provisions to authorise devices to operate on a licence-exempt basis in these bands at this stage, as we had proposed in the consultation. We may review the case for enabling licence-exempt use of these bands in future as part of the 2024 review.

Suffice to say that it might be awhile before we see any data connectivity applications for Ofcom’s new ‘Spectrum Access: EHF‘ licence.