Letters - Letter to the Editor

CommunicationsWeek International, July 17, 2000

WRC did achieve its goals for IMT-2000

From Robert Jones,

Director of the Radiocommunication Bureau of the 1TU

The article "Spectrum disharmony mars mobile broadband summit" (CWI, 5 June, p.1) was interesting--but missed the point. Contrary to what the title suggested, the 1TU's World Radiocommunication Conference achieved all it set out to achieve for IMT-2000-to identify the capacity needed for IMT-2000 systems to grow beyond 2010.

The objective was to find a minimum of 160 MHz of common new global spectrum in the 1- to 3-GHz range. To believe that this amount of spectrum could be identified in a single contiguous band would have been unrealistic given the heavy and varied use of this range of the spectrum around the world. Nor was it necessary. Already today, countries are adopting different channel arrangements when licensing 3G and handsets will have to deal with the channel differences in the same way as they will for non-contiguous frequency bands. Manufacturers plan to bridge these national differences largely using software-defined radio, not built-in circuitry--so the handsets will not need to be noticeably heavier, more powerful or more expensive.

Because spectrum was identified within existing mobile allocations, there is no need for any special timetable, giving national regulators the flexibility to decide how and when to license IMT-2000 according to domestic demand and national regulatory considerations.

What is now critical to the successful implementation of IMT-2000 systems is the role of regulators in making sure that the nascent 3G industry meets no significant hurdles--financial, regulatory or technical--that would hinder its ability to successfully build a market. Operators must therefore be able to offer 3G services at attractive prices to their customers. That will be largely influenced by the level of investments operators will have to make to build the RF infrastructure and acquire the necessary licenses.

It is also important that national regulators indicate early on which band or bands they intend to select for 3G, to give a clear signal to manufacturers of RF infrastructure or base-station systems on how the market for such equipment will shape up. While the handsets could roam globally without major difficulty because they can be manufactured for the entire 1- to 3-GHz spectrum range, the base-station system will be built for each frequency band. Therefore, the more countries that opt for a same band, the greater the economies of scale for the manufacturers and the lower the price for operators that will buy the equipment.