UHF, C Bands Must Remain for Broadcast-Only Services, Say Broadcast Unions
Keeping the C band and UHF band for broadcast operations continues to be the top priority for the broadcast industry at the 2015 World Radiocommunication Conference, some broadcast groups said. Due to the many critical services provided by broadcasters in those bands, that spectrum should not be reallocated to support future international mobile telecommunications (IMT) services, they said. WRC-15 will be in November 2015.
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Broadcasters don’t want change to the radio regulations at the ITU for those bands, said Bob Plummer, World Broadcasting Unions (WBU) vice chair-technical committee and consultant for Fox. North American Broadcasters Association, which includes U.S. entities, is a member of WBU. All the worldwide and nationwide distribution of broadcast programming is almost exclusively in the C band, he said. In Europe, digital terrestrial television is the most popular way that people access programming, said Peter MacAvock, head of delivery and services at European Broadcasters Union technology and development. So it’s critical to keep other services out of that spectrum, he said.
WBU has done studies on the impact on broadcast services if other services were introduced into the bands, Plummer said. “Sharing in those bands is very difficult.” It would require wide exclusion zones, making it inefficient for the wireless community to operate, he said. Introducing other services would cause the bands to become “gridlocked,” he said, so broadcasters won’t be able to build new facilities.
Broadcast groups have aligned their spectrum position with the satellite industry, which also is urging against sharing in the C band, Plummer said. The two industries are lobbying together (see 1408250023). Executives in the mobile industry said there are frequencies, including in the C band, that can be shared, and that IMT will need about 1960 MHz by 2020 (see 1410220046).
The EBU and the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union backed a worldwide effort to protect spectrum and guarantee the future of broadcasting. “We cannot allow the mobile industry’s insatiable appetite for spectrum resources to highjack this precious resource,” EBU said in a news release.
EBU is drafting technical conditions under which mobile services may operate in the 700 MHz band, said MacAvock. While EBU plans to identify bands that could potentially serve future mobile operations, it may not be necessary for IMT entities to use those bands, he said. EBU analyzed the estimates of future spectrum needs claimed by the IMT industry, he said: The figures they give “are not representative of the real demands.”
A plurality of wireless access networks is inevitable, MacAvock said. Technologies, like high-speed access to on-demand services, and 3G and 4G networks to complement broadband access, will increase spectral efficiency and functionalities over time, he said. It’s also important to ensure that broadcast requirements are taken into account there, he added.
WBU will participate in the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meeting in February to continue the discourse, Plummer said.