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Industry group calls on governments, regulators to free up plenty of harmonised 5G spectrum.
There are still three years to go until the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 (WRC-19), but that didn’t stop the GSMA from kicking off a 5G lobbying campaign targeted at the event this week.
In a 5G spectrum position paper published on Monday, the industry body emphasised the importance for governments and regulators to agree a common set of 5G spectrum bands at WRC-19, warning that fragmented spectrum could drive up device costs, raising a barrier to widespread, affordable services.
"Governments are central to the WRC-19 process to identify harmonised spectrum for 5G and incentivise the necessary network investment," said John Giusti, the GSMA’s chief regulatory officer, in a statement.
The powers that be need to free up as much spectrum as possible for 5G services, the GSMA said, and should focus on three frequency ranges:
Sub-1 GHz, which is useful for widespread coverage and IoT services
The 1 GHz-6 GHz range, which offers a good mix of coverage and capacity. The GSMA said frequencies in the 3.3 Ghz-3.8 GHz range are expected to underpin many initial 5G services.
Above 6 GHz, which will be needed to support ultrafast broadband and bandwidth-hungry 5G services. A focus will be on bands above 24 GHz, the GSMA said.
"Although the mobile industry, academic institutions and international standards-making bodies are developing the technologies central to 5G, success will depend heavily on affordable access to the necessary amount of spectrum," Giusti said.
As well as making plenty of 5G spectrum available, governments must also adopt policies that encourage long-term, heavy investment in network infrastructure, the GSMA said, noting that 5G networks will necessitate the deployment of large numbers of small cells.
The GSMA’s 5G spectrum position paper can be downloaded here.
