LTE spectrum research reveals significant regional mismatch in band adoption

The emergence of distinct regional and even national bands and band combinations will pose difficult choices for equipment and device vendors in terms of which bands they choose to support, according to Informa.

"Given the design and integration constraints associated with providing multiband support for LTE, device vendors and chipset providers in particular will want to consider the size of the global addressable market for each band, as well as regional band adoption patterns and band pairings, before configuring their products to support specific band combinations," comments Malik Saadi, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media.

In the lower-spectrum range, the 700MHz band, which is proving popular in the US, will only be adopted by a handful of operators outside the Americas, whereas the 800MHz digital dividend band will be widely used in Western and Eastern Europe, according to Informa's research. The 900MHz band, which is being used in early deployments in Sweden, will extend to only a small number of regionally diverse markets by 2016, although likely adopters include KDDI and NTT DoCoMo.

At the higher end, the 2600MHz FDD band will be widely adopted in Western and Eastern Europe and will see some take up in the North and Latin American markets, but will be employed in only a few of Asia Pacific's markets. The 2300MHz TDD band will dominate in China, while in Japan, deployments above 2100MHz will be limited to Softbank's expected adoption of the 2600MHz TDD band.

Even within similar band ranges, regional differences will have implications for product planners.

The paired 1700/2100 AWS spectrum (3GPP Band IV) extensively used in North America, will see no uptake outside the Americas, although the 2100MHz UMTS expansion band favoured by NTT DoCoMo is also likely to be adopted in some markets in Latin America and Africa, as well as in India and Pakistan.

Other bands will see little or no take-up outside a single country. The 1900MHz band is most likely to be confined to the US and Argentina, while Japan's 1500MHz band will be limited to that market alone.

Distinct regional band pairings and groupings, often designed to provide a combination of capacity and coverage, have also been identified by Informa (see fig.).

Popular LTE band combinations by region

click to enlarge

Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

"Even before international roaming between LTE networks becomes an issue, the need to support intra-regional and even within-country roaming will govern band selection as part of the necessary rationalisation of bands supported by LTE devices," said, Julian Bright, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media and author of the LTE Spectrum Strategies and Forecasts to 2016 report.

Notes:

Informa's research covers more than 150 operators and 50 national regulators in the world's major markets, and aims to establish the size of the expected addressable market for LTE, by band and major region. The research also examines the attractiveness of different bands for LTE, both in terms of technology and also in terms of policy and regulation.