Professional Documents
Culture Documents
5G Radio Spectrum and WRC-19
5G Radio Spectrum and WRC-19
mpirical.com/blog/5g-radio-spectrum-and-wrc-19
27 March 2020
It’s worth noting that the defined operating bands for FR1 and FR2 don’t occupy all the
frequencies defined within the ranges, i.e. there are gaps. In addition, some of the
operating bands are not globally harmonized.
During my many deliveries of 5G Air Interface related courses, the focus has been on 5G
NSA (Non Standalone) deployments, typically utilizing Band N78 (3.3GHz to 3.8GHz).
However, whilst this provides a “boost” to 4G data services it does not facilitate the very
high bit rates which 5G can provide. In most networks I’ve worked with, this “bolting on”
of 5G provides up to ~300Mbps on top of the typical 4G data service. This effectively
1/3
offloads the data from 4G to 5G (for 5G enabled users) and thus improves the 4G
experience for 4G only devices. To get 5G ultra-high data rates, service providers need
more spectrum.
WRC-19 for 5G
A key requirement for the success of 5G is the availability of radio spectrum, which
includes both new spectrum in addition to the global harmonization of existing spectrum.
Prior to WRC-19 several 5G candidate bands were submitted for inclusion. Unfortunately,
not all candidate bands were successful, however the conference was still seen as a great
success for 5G – since a total of 17.25GHz of spectrum was agreed upon, of which
14.75GHz is globally harmonized.
The most common reason for not allocating all of the proposed 5G candidate bands
relates to WRC-19’s responsibly for protecting existing radio systems such as Earth
Exploration Satellite Services which are primarily used by the world’s meteorological
organizations.
The newly identified radio spectrum (66GHz to 71GHz) will necessitate changes to the
3GPP’s specification for the FR2, since it falls outside the current FR2 limits (24.25GHz to
52.6GHz). As such this will be seen in later releases of the specifications.
We are all looking forward to service providers gaining access to more mmWave
allocations. Granted, there will be many challenges related to cell sites, small cells,
backhaul and transmission, propagation characteristics etc. As a comparison, in some of
the trials I’ve been working on, a 100MHz channel of FR2 can provide data rates of up to
~1Gbps, which I suspect may be challenging for the backhaul designers!
Global Harmonization
Many countries still do not have access to specific FR1 and FR2 bands since they may not
be globally harmonized for them. As such, WRC-19 focused on the global harmonization
of mmWave bands and during the conference, it managed to achieve this for a number of
bands as illustrated in Figure 3. However, the newly identified 5G radio frequency bands
of 45.4GHz to 47GHz and 47.2GHz to 48.2GHz were unfortunately not globally
harmonized as part of WRC-19.
2/3
Figure 3 –WRC-19 Global Harmonization
WRC-23
As the dust begins to settle on WRC-19, numerous organizations are already looking
forward to WRC-23 where the focus looks to be related to providing high coverage for 5G.
That is below 1GHz, as well as additional higher frequencies and a greater emphasis on
global harmonization. For more information on the future of 5G spectrum, it is worth
visiting the GSMA (GSM Association).
3/3