Ira Keltz, deputy chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology at the FCC, noted that spectrum still represents the key ingredient for wireless systems
Countries around the world are releasing more spectrum bands, but the lack of harmonization and availability is posing problems. Devices and IoT manufacturers must work with the other stakeholders to ensure steady progress. In a session of RCR Wireless News’s Private Networks Forum 2023, a number of experts discussed the role of spectrum in deploying a 5G network. They also addressed the hurdles of spectrum harmonization, the opportunities and limitations for licensed and unlicensed spectrum and what bands address each use case.
Ira Keltz, deputy chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), noted that spectrum still represents the key ingredient for wireless systems. “It’s absolutely essential. I think the trick, of course, is making sure we use that spectrum, both efficiently and effectively. Also, we need to make sure we’re able to match the technical rules, the operational rules that we are putting out there as a regulator, to ensure that the users can best meet their business cases and their needs in order to fulfill whatever it is they’re trying to do. That’s why we do look across low-band, mid-band and high-band to provide all the opportunities that we can to mix and match to meet business cases and individual needs,” he said.
“Spectrum is still the key ingredient. For us, one of our duties is to ensure the optimal use of spectrum and part of that is also removing barriers for any user that wants to access the spectrum,” said Cristina Data, director of spectrum policy and analysis at U.K. telecommunications regulator Ofcom.
When asked about the scenario where different stakeholders are demanding spectrum, Data said that the key word is sharing. “We need to try and make the most of the resources that we’ve got available. When we made the decision to make the 3.4-3.8 GHz band in Europe as the key band for 5G, we thought this is a band that will need to be made available nationwide so that you can deliver the benefit of 5G across the U.K. There are other use cases that don’t necessarily need a nationwide license, and hence the harmonization, but it’s almost leading to where a national authorization may not be the best solution for the future where actually different countries may need to deal with slightly different type of demand. So how can we have that level of flexibility to actually make sure that we generate the greatest benefit?,” Data said.
Meanwhile, Asimakis Kokkos, technical specification group chair at MFA, said that the key issue is to know the use case and what users or companies want to achieve with the spectrum so spectrum can be utilized in the right manner. “Where you have mission critical use cases, a private network with local licensed spectrum is much better than a public network. And then if you go to the unlicensed case, still, you could have cases where you don’t have demand for mission critical cases, you have like it type of applications that you need to use your tablet, you need to go around the factory or around your farm and then you could use more like unlicensed spectrum,” Kokkos said.
Kokkos also said that in the case a specific industry requires a private network, then the sharing scheme is much better, because the spectrum can be reused over and over again. “But if you have a network for railways for example, I think it might be a little bit risky, or it might have some interference if you reuse it somehow with other verticals. So in that case, specific spectrum for specific applications may be limited,” he said.