Advanced Television

Spectrum

No decision on C-band at ITU conclave

Reports from the important ITU WRC 2015 conclave in Geneva say that regulators have not reached a decision on how – or whether – a portion of the C-band wireless spectrum should be used in the future. The frequencies are currently used by satellite operators around the world, and a proposal from the cellular industry […]

November 23, 2015By Chris Forrester

French 700MHz auction raises €2.796bn

France’s auction of spectrum in the 700MHz band has closed after two days and 11 rounds of bidding. Proceeds totalled €466 million for each block of 5MHz duplex, for a total of €2.796 billion euros. The results are as follows: Bouygues Telecom was awarded 1 block; Free Mobile was awarded 2 blocks; Orange was awarded […]

November 18, 2015

French 700 MHz auction set to start

France’s auction for the allocation of 700 MHz band spectrum will begin on November 16th, with four candidates taking part: Bouygues Telecom, Free Mobile, Orange and SFR. Telecoms regulator ARCEP will issue an update on the status of the auction at the end of each day, up until the end of the procedure which could […]

November 13, 2015

ITU ‘save satellite spectrum for emergency services’

Major inter-governmental and private-sector organisations responsible for providing safety-of-life communications to millions of people have requested the national administrations of every region to preserve satellite spectrum for use in delivering mission-critical satellite services worldwide. The unprecedented demonstration of support for satellite spectrum was made during a series of briefings held at the International Telecommunication Union’s […]

November 13, 2015

EBU welcomes WRC-15 support for terrestrial TV

The first week of the ITU World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) has given national and regional authorities the opportunity to present their positions on the future allocation of radio spectrum among broadcasting and mobile services. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is encouraged to note that the overwhelming majority of proposals support a ‘No change’ position for […]

November 10, 2015

Ericsson, Telstra claim 1 Gbps LTE first

Communications technology specialist Ericsson and Australian telco Telstra have announced the world’s first demonstration of 1 Gbps capability with five carrier LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation integrated on a live end-to-end mobile network. Download speeds of up to 1 Gbps will deliver more reliable performance and user experience across a wide range of applications and media streaming. […]

November 9, 2015

Study: C-band transfer benefits ‘grossly exaggerated’

As national administrations from across the world prepare to make critical decisions this month regarding global communications spectrum allocations, a report shows that studies suggesting enormous benefits of satellite spectrum for terrestrial wireless contain major flaws in logic, calculation and methodology. The findings of a study done by economic consultants VVA show that in highlighting […]

November 6, 2015By Colin Mann

EU urged to protect future of free TV

Digital UK Chief Executive Jonathan Thompson joined other senior representatives from the broadcasting sector across Europe as they called on the EU to protect the future of free-to-air TV. At a meeting in Brussels, Digital UK and fellow members of the Wider Spectrum Group urged policy makers to secure airwaves used by Freeview and European […]

October 23, 2015

NGMN calls for new spectrum to deliver IMT vision

ITU Member States have been urged to initiate studies and adopt an agenda item for the World Radiocommunication Conference 2019 to identify additional spectrum bands for IMT to realise the benefits of 5G mobile telephony. According to Bruno Jacobfeuerborn, Chairman of the Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance (NGMN), 5G mobile systems will require access to […]

October 21, 2015By Colin Mann

Ergen settles spectrum battle

Charlie Ergen’s Dish Network won a large slice of new bandwidth in the FCC’s AWS-3 spectrum auction earlier this year. Dish paid a total of $13.3 billion for the rights. Now he is handing some of it back. Some of the allocated bandwidth was paid for through two Dish subsidiaries, Northstar Wireless and SNR Wireless […]

October 2, 2015