Telecom Lead India: GSMA on Wednesday welcomed TRAI’s decision to recommend the full 2x45MHz APT band plan for allocation of the 700MHz spectrum band to deliver mobile broadband services in the country.
Tom Phillips, chief government and regulatory affairs officer, GSMA, said: “TRAI’s decision decision follows the earlier adoption or active consideration of the APT band plan by many Asia Pacific countries including Australia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Singapore and Taiwan, as well as by a number of markets in Latin America.”
TRAI on Tuesday said Indian telecom operators should adopt APT700 band plan with FDD based 2×45 MHz frequency arrangement. The telecom regulator recommended that APT700 band plan should be adopted for the 700 MHz spectrum band (698-806 MHz) with FDD based 2×45 MHz frequency arrangement.
The decision to allocate the 700MHz spectrum band, referred to as the Digital Dividend in many parts of the world, will be crucial for the delivery of universal mobile broadband access.
As more countries in the Asia Pacific region follow India’s lead, greater regional harmonisation will drive economies of scale in the mobile handset market, reduce end user costs and enable Asian consumers to roam seamlessly throughout the region.
TRAI said that many African Telecommunication Union (ATU) members are also keen to adopt it once this band is allocated to mobile in region. It is expected that the APT band plan ecosystem shall develop rapidly as more and more countries in ITU Region 2 and Region 3 identify and auction spectrum with this frequency arrangement. Clearly, there is more inclination towards adopting FDD based APT 700 band plan.
Commitment to adopt the FDD based APT700 band plan by many countries has also started the development of Eco system for the equipments and the devices and its rapid adoption and alignment with international band plan will potentially generate even larger cost efficiencies in the network and huge device ecosystems.
According to TRAI, there are three major digital dividend band plans viz. the European, US and APT band plans. European digital dividend band is 790-882 MHz which is in almost entirely different frequency range to India (698-806 MHz). The US digital dividend band (698-806 MHz) is same as India. Therefore, only alternative to APT700 band plan is US700 band plan.
However, the plan implemented in the US is not an efficient use of spectrum because it is highly fragmented and offers far less spectrum for mobile broadband use. It contains interleaved small blocks of spectrum, requiring more guard bands than a single contiguous block.
