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Friday, 22 June 2007 |
UMTS Forum warns of spectrum shortage threat to mobile broadband. But
UK survey finds service cost already a killer…
Addressing a mobile workshop held in
Poland this week, the UMTS Forum (UMTSF) warned that, without additional allocations, existing frequency bands will be insufficient to support the next generation of broadband mobile services. But maybe the spectrum is not the only missing ingredient here: a
UK survey, also published this week, finds a dearth of affordable services even in today’s mobile broadband market.
The Polish event, a UMTSF workshop hosted by PTK Centertel to coincide with the Forum’s 41st General Assembly meeting, covered current status of 3G/UMTS and HSPA deployments worldwide as well as future developments, including LTE. UMTSF speakers at the session focused on the importance of forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07), to be hosted by ITU-R in
Geneva from October to November 2007.
In previous studies, the UMTS Forum’s Spectrum Aspects Group had determined that existing frequency bands are not enough to satisfy spectrum demands for tomorrow’s IMT-Advanced systems. These systems are intended to support a rich ecosystem of high data-rate mobile services, from video collaboration and mobile entertainment to e-learning and telematics. While the UMTSF Forum allows that the spectral efficiency of tomorrow’s mobile systems may improve significantly compared with today’s networks, this will still not cut the mustard.”However, this will not support growth in wireless traffic that is expected to jump by a factor of 23x between 2012 and 2020”, opines UMTSF chairman Jean-Pierre Bienaimé. Based on this analysis, UMTSF spectrum experts calculate that total demand for mobile spectrum will be in the order of 1.6 GHz by the year 2020, including the spectrum already identified for UMTS/IMT-2000.
As part of its proposed remedy, the UMTSF is supporting the identification of a new Coverage Extension Band in lower frequency bands for IMT-2000, to address part of WRC-07 Agenda Item 1.4. These new frequencies, urges the Forum, should be allocated on a co-primary basis for mobile services in all three ITU Regions and identified for terrestrial IMT-2000. Bienaimé adds that the UMTS Forum will be underlining at WRC-07 the need to identify spectrum in UHF bands to improve coverage. It will also be highlighting the suitability of frequencies in the 3.4 to 4.2 GHz band to cater for IMT-Advanced and capacity handling. These two bands are the main candidate bands in CEPT.
But, always supposing spectrum relief is at hand, won’t industry also have to get its business and commercial acts together to make mobile broadband fly? This would seem to be the takeaway from a
UK survey conducted by specialist broadband research house Point Topic in conjunction with YouGov. This analysis notes that in a market such as the
UK there aren’t actually that many ‘virgin’ users left to sell handsets and basic service contracts to. It also notes that increasing numbers want to have broadband connectivity equivalent to online with them wherever they are, and that many already have the necessary mobile kit to get that. So why, so far, the market whimper not the bang? Pricing it seems. Almost four out of ten (37%) of the Point Topic/YouGov respondents cited the cost of sending and receiving data as the biggest disadvantage of mobile broadband today, three out of ten said it was the cost of the devices, and 28% said it was the cost of accessing useful data.
So, plenty of room for improvement on the mobile broadband business model front.
John Williamson |
