US C-Band Approach Not Expected to Become Global Norm
Don't expect the U.S. approach to C-band clearing for 5G to become the norm worldwide, with use of the spectrum here often being vastly different from how it's employed internationally, spectrum executives said Thursday in a Global VSAT Forum virtual panel. There's a push in many regions of the world to open the band to mobile, but alternatives for incumbent services are often a stumbling block, they said.
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U.S. use of the 3.7-4.2 GHz band has been largely business-to-business, with a set number of known earth stations, while other countries often use it for direct-to-home (DTH) services, said Hazem Moakkit, Intelsat vice president-spectrum strategy. Japan and South Korea use the C band for mobile service, but it's heavily employed for fixed satellite service in Indonesia and will remain that way for the foreseeable future, Moakkit said. "It's not like keeping up with the Joneses."
In some cases internationally, other midband spectrum, such as 3.3-3.7 GHz, might be more available for 5G, Moakkit said. Parts of the U.S. approach, such as use of guard bands to protect fixed satellite service earth stations and the incentive framework the FCC is employing, could be of value to other countries, he said.
Many parts of the world are looking at opening up more midband spectrum to 5G, if not exactly the same frequency ranges as the U.S., said Ana Eliza Faria e Silva, head of technical regulatory affairs for Brazilian media firm TV Globo, noting a 5G frequency auction there in 2021 that will include midband spectrum. She said different uses of the C band around the world mean there will be different approaches to preserving incumbent services in the band. She said the band still is the heart of professional media distribution worldwide, and in Brazil 20 million primarily remote households, where terrestrial broadcasting doesn't reach, rely on free DTH C-band distribution.
Hispasat Senior Spectrum Engineer Adrian Herbera Gonzalez said the 2023 World Radiocommunication Conference's agenda item regarding identification of some midband spectrum bands to 5G in regions 1 and 2 wouldn't be very significant for Europe, where the spectrum in question is allocated and used for mobile. He said it could be a bigger deal for region 2, the Americas. He said more harmonization of the bands would help both satellite and mobile operators. 5G's promise of vast connected networks remains years off, he said.
Intelsat's Moakkit said the business case for 5G is unclear in much of the developing world, with most of sub-Saharan Africa still to be on 2G and 3G and most of Latin America on 4G in 2025. He said the push for big blocks of spectrum everywhere for 5G is driven in large part by the mobile industry "shoot[ing] high" to get as much spectrum as it can.