US : Representatives of Poland’s mobile industry heard the views of the UMTS Forum on securing sufficient spectrum for future mobile broadband services.

The audience of Polish mobile operators, equipment manufacturers and administrations was addressed at a UMTSF workshop hosted by PTK Centertel to coincide with the Forum’s 41st General Assembly meeting.

Titled “WRC-07 Challenges for the Mobile Industry: the UMTS/HSPA experience and its Long Term Evolution”, the workshop’s agenda covered current status of 3G/UMTS and HSPA deployments worldwide as well as future developments including LTE. UMTS Forum speakers at the session focused on the importance of forthcoming World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-07). Hosted by ITU-R in Geneva from October-November 2007, decisions made at this landmark event will significantly influence the direction of the mobile industry over the next decade and beyond.

In previous studies, the UMTS Forum’s Spectrum Aspects Group has already determined that existing frequency bands are not enough to satisfy spectrum demands for tomorrow’s IMT-Advanced systems. These systems will support a rich ecosystem of high data-rate mobile services, from video collaboration and mobile entertainment to e-learning and telematics.

The UMTS Forum forecasts suggest that the spectral efficiency of tomorrow’s mobile systems will improve significantly compared with today’s networks. “However, this will not support growth in wireless traffic that is expected to jump by a factor of 23x between 2012 and 2020”, stated UMTS Forum 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.

The Forum is also 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 added 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 3.4-4.2 GHz band to cater for IMT-Advanced and capacity handling. These two bands are the main candidate bands in CEPT.