{"id":42997,"date":"2012-03-21T10:50:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T08:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=42997"},"modified":"2012-03-21T10:51:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T08:51:41","slug":"lte-spectrum-plan-in-sa-advice-from-qualcomm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/42997-lte-spectrum-plan-in-sa-advice-from-qualcomm.html","title":{"rendered":"LTE spectrum plan in SA: advice from Qualcomm"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a recent interview with MyBroadband,\u00a0senior vice-president of government affairs at Qualcomm<\/a>,\u00a0Bill Bold<\/a>, gave his views on ICASA\u2019s<\/a> proposed model for licensing spectrum sought-after for rolling out high speed mobile broadband services such as LTE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Qualcomm is a wireless technology and services company headquartered in San Diego in the United States best known for its work on chips used in many of today\u2019s smartphones.<\/p>\n

Bold manages Qualcomm\u2019s public policy agenda and its relationships with government entities. He manages a global group covering consultants in the United States, Brazil, China, Belgium, India, France, Korea and South Africa.<\/p>\n

Given the credentials of both Qualcomm and Bold, we asked him to give perspective on whether the spectrum assignment model proposed by the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (ICASA) would work.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of last year (December 2011), ICASA presented its plan for South Africa\u2019s high demand 800MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum, which proposed a wholesale-centric model to address our spectrum needs.<\/p>\n

Under this plan, ICASA would license two wholesalers with blocks of 800MHz and 2.6GHz bandwidth that aren\u2019t allowed to operate at retail level, and three other operators in the 2.6GHz band.<\/p>\n

One of the wholesalers will be state-owned signal distributor, Sentech<\/a>, while the other will be a private company.<\/p>\n

WBS (iBurst) <\/a>is one of the operators with just 2.6GHz spectrum, and ICASA proposed licensing two brand new operators that will also receive only 2.6GHz bandwidth.<\/p>\n

\"LTE<\/a>

2.6GHz spectrum assignment plan: ICASA<\/p><\/div>\n

\"800MHz

800MHz spectrum assignment plan: ICASA<\/p><\/div>\n

Asked whether this is a sensible model, Bold said that although he couldn\u2019t comment on the details, they have seen \u201ccombinational licensing approaches\u201d being used in spectrum auctions in several European countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cQualcomm applauds\u00a0both the Ministry of Communications and ICASA for initiating consultations on the licensing of additional spectrum for mobile broadband in South Africa,\u201d Bold said. \u201cOverall, enabling access to new spectrum allows licensees to address both coverage and capacity needs, and thus play a vital role in provision of mobile broadband in both urban and rural areas of the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bold said that they encourage government stakeholders to focus on topics such as:<\/p>\n