Mobile Industry Promotes APT700 Spectrum Band for 4G Networks

Australia’s Telstra, along with GSMA and GSA, launched a major promotion of the APT700 spectrum band for 4G networks on September 23, 2013. The APT700 band is also referred to as the Digital Dividend. It reuses spectrum which was made available when TV and radio channels completely converted to digital.

Telstra is an Australian telecommunications and media company. It builds and operates telecommunications networks and markets voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services.

The APT700 band is already identified for use in markets that cover more than two billion people. This new campaign is designed to feature even more of the socio-economic benefits that can be achieved by greater global alignment around the Digital Dividend.

The ability for network and device manufacturers to support one band for a wider range of markets makes the use of APT700 a key part for adoption of LTE across the world. When you add the benefits and widespread adoption you can see that this will have an impact in markets across Asia, Latin America and Europe.

Telstra, the GSMA and the GSA have led the creation of a series of information papers. These are directed towards providing a comprehensive source of up-to-date information about the rapidly emerging APT700 ecosystem to operators, industry suppliers and regulators alike. It is their attempt to put the scale and take-up of this new band on the fast-track.

According to a recent report from the GSMA, the release of the Digital Dividend band in the Asia Pacific region could potentially result in an increase of $1 trillion in additional GDP by 2020. An additional tax revenue growth of $215 billion could also be seen, as well as the creation of 1.4 million new businesses and 2.7 million new jobs.

Latin America is also set to adopt the same band plan as Asia Pacific and the GSMA is encouraging Africa to increase adoption of the 700MHz band as well. The APT700 band plan could be the biggest harmonized ecosystem the world has known. This comes from the GSMA report entitled "Mobile Economy Asia Pacific 2013."

In addition, Telstra, the GSMA and the GSA will conduct a series of forums. They will be designed to increase international recognition of the APT700 band for 4G use. Next year there will be a session scheduled to take place in February at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2014.

Mike Wright, who is the executive director of networks at Telstra, said "Providing a source of reliable and comprehensive information is important for operators to be able to understand the capabilities, scale and timing of emerging technologies such as APT700 for 4G. Based on information about these bands, operators can build technology and investment roadmaps with increasing certainty, this in turn leads to certainty for network and device vendors, which collectively grows and accelerates the new ecosystem."

Alan Hadden, president, GSA said "Forums such as the GSA are important to help drive alignment across industry in choosing how to allocate spectrum. Having globally aligned spectrum bands is a great result for end consumers, as these make international roaming easier, and help drive early device availability."

The chief technology officer for GSMA also added his comments. Alex Sinclair said "The GSMA has lobbied at national, regional and global levels for a number of years for alignment in Digital Dividend spectrum band allocations, on the basis of the economic benefits of 4G networks to a country and the greater economy of scale that an aligned band plan can offer to the industry as a whole. The characteristics of APT700 band enable individual operators to achieve high geographic and population coverage levels at much lower cost, whilst a global band strategy based on APT700 will also catalyse international roaming business, enabling customers to cross international boundaries and still receive 4G service."