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Is 3.7-3.98 GHz range somehow particularly useful for mobile operators?
by ugjka 5y ago
Is 3.7-3.98 GHz range somehow particularly useful for mobile operators?
- mdasen 5y agoIt's not that it's particularly useful so much as it's available. The FCC has been clearing spectrum because more spectrum means that carriers can offer faster 5G services. Mid-band spectrum (in the 2.5-6GHz range) is particularly useful because it offers a good combination of range (measured in miles) while still having a decent amount of spectrum available and the possibility of things light higher-order MIMO to offer capacity gains. Millimeter-wave spectrum (in the 20-50GHz range) has lots of spectrum available, but its range is often in the 50-300 foot range. It's also important to realize that because we're talking about a radius, when we turn that into a circle the difference gets magnified. A 1 mile range means covering 88M square feet. A 100 foot range means covering 31,000 square feet. 53x more range turns into 2,800x more area covered. Initial 5G networks in the US often used 5-20MHz of low-band spectrum (below 1GHz). This does have some utility as 5G NR is marginally more efficient, even in low-band spectrum. However, deploying with 100-200MHz of mid-band spectrum offers the kind of huge gains that offer 10x (or even more) data speeds. https://assets.weforum.org/editor/SPPQ747R8Fd63ilAo4xvfjMNFUCJQ5-jI9T_YyLQ4OU.jpg https://assets.weforum.org/editor/SPPQ747R8Fd63ilAo4xvfjMNFU... There isn't really a lot of spectrum that hasn't been allocated so it's often a game of figuring out who you can move for the least cost and most benefit. They chose to move C-Band satellite operators (at a cost of billions). Previously, the FCC freed up spectrum in the 600MHz range by having TV broadcasters relocate from UHF channels above 37 to lower channels.