Latin America. Although the 700 MHz band is strategic for developing mobile broadband networks in open spaces and areas that require indoor signal, it is used for mobile services in less than half of the countries of Latin America and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.
5G Americas published the report "Allocation of radio spectrum in 600 MHz, 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz in Latin America 2018", which shows cases of administrations that reorganized or rescued spectrum from the 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands and then assigned it to telecommunications operators that developed LTE and LTE-Advanced networks, marketed as 4G, 4.5G or 4G+.
This edition includes the status of the 600 MHz band in the region. The band has already been licensed in the United States and although several Latin American administrations show interest in this frequency even as spectrum for 5G, not all have taken actions to clear it. For this it is necessary to transition to digital terrestrial television (DTT) and reorganize the television spectrum under the 600 and 700 MHz bands so that they can be used to deploy mobile telecommunications networks without risk of interference.
Regulators in Colombia and Mexico are cases in which progress has been made in this process and the 600 MHz band could be tendered by 2020 in these two markets.
The report notes that at the end of the third quarter of 2018 (3Q18) there were 25 LTE networks operating in the 700 MHz band in 9 of 19 markets in the region, only three networks more than those reported in the same quarter of the previous year. Administrations must accelerate the processes for the use of this band, which include the allocation of spectrum blocks and advance in the transition to DTT that allows the release of the 700 MHz band, but also the 600 MHz as a capacity for the future.
For its part, the 2.5 GHz band was in use for mobile services in only 8 countries of the 19 analyzed in the report. This band is useful for delivering high speeds in mobile service and serving high-density environments. In addition, it can be complemented by the 700 MHz band (which offers greater signal propagation and indoor penetration) through carrier aggregation, a feature of LTE-Advanced networks that reach theoretical speeds of hundreds of Mbps.
The occupancy of the 2.5 GHz band varies between markets and in some it is used to provide restricted television services or wireless access. For this reason, this band has seen rescue, reorganization and "refarming" processes in countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico in order to develop mobile broadband networks.
The document concludes that the 600 MHz, 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz bands represent an opportunity to massify access to mobile broadband and contribute to reducing the digital divide, but it is necessary to guarantee their use without risk of interference by completing the clearing of the bands. In addition, administrations should avoid designing tenders for new spectrum bands for purely collection purposes.
The 700 MHz band already has an ecosystem of mobile equipment compatible (such as smartphones and fixed-wireless routers) with the APT (Asia Pacific Telecommunity) and FCC (Federal Communications Commission) pipelines that would allow its almost immediate use. Meanwhile, by the third quarter of 2018, the technological ecosystem of the 600 MHz band had already begun to form with at least 14 compatible smartphones. The 2.5 GHz band is a "global band" and features one of the widest compatible equipment environments today.
For the report "Allocation of radio spectrum in 600 MHz, 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz in Latin America 2018" click here.
