Mr. Roberto Ercole

Senior Director of Long-Term Spectrum, GSMA

LTE Service Development and future spectrum considerations

- LTE Status Update

• 335 live networks across 118 countries, and the number will reach to 600 in 156 countries in next 3 years

• the LTE Connections are expected to be 2,500,000,000 by 2020

- TD-LTE is playing an increasing important role, 1% of LTE connections in 2012, 18% in 2014, and 22% in 2020

- LTE is important but won’t meet demand alone

• Mobile data traffic is growing exponentially

- More data=more spectrum

• A total 1340-1960 MHz is required for mobile service by 2020 according to ITU

• Further 600-800 MHz spectrum should be made by 2020 according GSMA research

• Target bands for WRC 15: UHF 470MHz-694MHz, L-Band 1350MHz-1518MHz, 2.7GHz-2.9GHz and C-Band 3.4GHz-4.2GHz

- C-Bands 3.4GHz-4.2GHz TDD considerations

• Higher frequency bands, providing larger channel bandwidths, are increasingly attractive for delivering 

• TDD is CEPT preferred channel arrangement for 3.4-3.6 GHz & only option for 3.6-3.8 GHz

• CEPT has useful conclusions regarding using TDD in the C-band 

       • Beneficial to synchronise TDD networks of different operators to avoid restricted blocks / guard bands 

       • Synchronization of TDD networks of different operators can be managed at national level

- Mobile delver major and growing social economic benefits will be restricted without additional spectrum: 15.4 million jobs by 2020 and 5.1% GDP contribution from mobile industry by 2020