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Consultancy Calls Upon Europe to Harmonise 1.4GHz Band for Mobile Broadband

Posted: 15th Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ
mobile broadband logoeuropean union flagA new study from UK consultancy firm Plum Consulting has called upon Europe to harmonise its rules around the 1.4GHz (1452-1492MHz) wireless radio spectrum band. Specifically, it wants the band to be used for Mobile Broadband services, which it claims could "drastically ease" the growing capacity burden (congestion) of mobile data traffic, improve service coverage, boost download speeds and rake in an extra £47.5bn (€54 billion) over a 10 year period.

The Director of Plum Consulting, Phillipa Marks, said:

"The economic benefits may well be in excess of €50 billion for the European economy when using the 1.4 GHz band for a supplemental downlink for the delivery of enhanced mobile multimedia services.

It is increasingly important that we find a solution to ease the spectrum crunch, as around three-quarters of mobile broadband traffic last year was estimated to be multimedia - and this will only grow.

The 1.4GHz band is the ideal solution, not just to help address the spectrum crunch but as an important step forward in achieving the EU’s Digital Agenda target of providing 30Mbps access to 100% of European citizens by 2020."

The Senior Director of Government Affairs at Qualcomm, Wassim Chourbaji, added:

"While it might seem obvious to use the 1.4 GHz band as supplemental downlink, this has only become technologically possible with the development of HSPA+ and LTE-Advanced [ 4G ] standards. The technology exists, the spectrum exists and the political will exists. However, the substantial social and economic benefits derived from this use of 1.4 GHz can only materialize if the band is harmonised in Europe and offers the economies of scale identified in the Plum Consulting study."

Plum's idea for 1.4GHz, which is confusingly called 1.5GHz by the European Parliament or the L-band by the CEPT, sounds almost too good to be true and indeed there are a few problems that would first need to be overcome.

One issue is that most EU countries currently use 1.4GHz for their Digital Radio (DAB) and some Satellite transmission services; although Plum claims that none of the related services have actually developed.

As for the UK, Ofcom auctioned off 1.4GHz to Qualcomm over three years ago, which currently uses the spectrum for Research and Development (R&D). However, Qualcomm's comments above serve as a clear indicator of their intended direction to support harmonisation.

The good news is that the European Parliament (EP) has already adopted a resolution that calls for the harmonisation of related spectrum for wireless broadband services. A project team (FM PT 50) has already been setup to look into the proposals and determine the best course of action.
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