LTE Spectrum Strategies

Make better business decisions

www.informatm.com 7/22/2011 1
©Confidential

Click to edit Master title
LTE Spectrum
style
Strategies and
Forecasts to 2016

Webinar Master subtitle style
Click to edit
presentation
July 21, 2011

Julian Bright
Senior Analyst, Networks

11/09/2009

Introduction
• Near universal commitment to LTE network launch forecasts, 2009 to 2014 and beyond
LTE

• Over 360 LTE network launches
forecast to 2014 and beyond

• BUT...widespread uncertainty
about spectrum availability and
band adoption

• 20 FDD bands and 11 TDD
already defined by 3GPP as
suitable for LTE – more in the
pipeline
“Spectrum variety and the risk of fragmentation is the greatest challenge of all.
Speed of availability of relevant spectrum is all important,” Deutsche Telekom

www.informatm.com 22/07/2011
©Confidential
3

What’s at stake?
• Lack of consensus throughout the
value chain on the question of
Manufacturers await
market demand for LTE by commitments from operators
frequency band Operators look to regulators and
manufacturers to be able to move
• Impact will slow the decision- ahead with deployments
making process in the operator
community and reduce the flow of
investment into LTE rollouts (cycle
of uncertainty)
Regulators seek guidance
• For scale economics to be from efforts in other markets
achieved, chipset manufacturers
and OEMs need to understand
operator demand for LTE
deployments by band With some operators choosing not to wait for
others, the specter of fragmentation looms as a
very real threat to hopes for major economies of
scale.
©Confidential

Initial findings
• The 2600MHz band remains the most popular globally for initial launches of LTE,
favored by almost half of operators surveyed by Informa Telecoms & Media

• The bands around 700MHz to 800MHz are expected to be the next-most-widely
used for initial launches,

• Up to eleven bands are expected to be used in any single region (the region with
the largest number of bands is Asia-Pacific).

• Band pairings will be a feature of many markets, with a lower band for coverage
in rural and less populated areas, and a higher band for capacity in dense urban
and urban areas, and in hotspots

• There is evidence of growing support among operators for the 1800MHz band,
which is regarded as providing an ideal combination of coverage and capacity.

• Support for TD-LTE is growing outside major markets such as China

All regions will see deployments in multiple bands.
©Confidential

Adoption of spectrum bands in European
LTE network deployments

www.informatm.com 6
©Confidential

Adoption of spectrum bands in North and Latin
American LTE network deployments

©Confidential

Adoption of spectrum bands in Asia-Pacific LTE
network deployments

©Confidential

Adoption of spectrum bands in South-East Asian
LTE network deployments

©Confidential

Adoption of spectrum bands in Middle-East and
African LTE network deployments

©Confidential

Asia-Pacific, spectrum band adoption for
LTE deployments

700MHz

800MHz

900MHz

1500MHz

1700MHz

1800MHz

1900MHz (TDD)

2100MHz

2300MHz (TDD)

2600MHz (FDD)

2600MHz (TDD)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
No. of operators deploying

Source: Informa Telecoms & Media

www.informatm.com 11
©Confidential

Japan, LTE penetration by band as a percentage
of total addressable subscriptions, 2011-2016
25.0%

20.0%

1700 FDD

15.0% 2600 TDD

800 FDD

2100 FDD
10.0%
1500 FDD

900 FDD
5.0%
700 FDD

0.0%
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016


©Confidential

Popular LTE band combinations by region
Spectrum band North Latin Asia Western Eastern Africa Middle
(MHz) America America Pacific Europe Europe East

700+1800

700+2100

700+2600

800+1800

800+2600

800+1800+2600

900+1800

1800+2600

2100+2600

2300+2600

©Confidential

LTE core bands

Band FDD/TDD
700MHz FDD
800MHz FDD
900MHz FDD
1800MHz FDD
2100MHz FDD
2600MHz FDD
2300MHz TDD
2600MHz TDD


©Confidential

Band complexities
US 700MHz band plan

The division of spectrum within the core bands may have implications for product planning
both on the infrastructure and the device side. For example, the US 700MHz band is sub-
divided into lower and upper bands with distinct uplink/downlink band combinations

Over time, new bands may emerge and existing bands be re-configured or even dropped.
For example, outside the US, the 700MHz band may be a newly-defined band being worked
on by 3GPP with a single 2 x 45 MHz FDD allocation

©Confidential

Licensing and early deployment trends
2600MHz license awards to end-1Q11
Region/Country Award Date • Spectrum in the 2600MHz band has been licensed in
Asia Pacific only a handful of countries, mainly in Europe and
Hong Kong Jan-09 Asia Pacific
Eastern Europe
Armenia Nov-10
• In many cases, licensing of the digital-dividend
Estonia Dec-10
bands will be subject to uncertain timescales due to
Poland Sep-09
the problems of freeing up spectrum.
Uzbekistan Oct-09/July-10
Latin America
• Early deployments in the lower frequency bands
have been concentrated in the US, where the low
Colombia Jun-10
cost of using the premium 700MHz band relative to
Western Europe
the higher bands has suited the aggressive rollout
Austria Sep-10
plans of operators such as Verizon.
Denmark May-10
Finland Nov-09
• Interest in the low-to-midrange frequency bands was
Germany May-10
apparent in Germany’s spectrum auctions, where
Netherlands Apr-10
some operators placed a higher value on the
Norway Nov-07
spectrum bands around 800MHz than on those
Sweden May-08
around 2600MHz

©Confidential

Growing support for TD-LTE
• Major markets China and India. Interest from TD-LTE networks launching in
Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan 17 countries by end-2014
among others.
Region Country TDD band Launch date
Africa Uganda 2300 Dec-12
• Widely available and cheaper than FDD Asia Pacific Japan 2600 Dec-12
South Korea 2300 Dec-13
• Better meets the asymmetric demands of data Taiwan 2600 Dec-13
traffic such as Internet and video China 1900 Dec-12
2300 Dec-12
• Provides LTE migration path for WiMAX 2600 Dec-12
operators India 2300 Sep-12
2600 Mar-13
Eastern Europe Czech Republic 2600 Jun-12
• Has vendor support including:
Estonia 2600 Dec-10
• Ericsson, Huawei, NSN, ZTE, Alcatel-Lucent Poland 2600 Dec-12
(infrastructure) Latin America Brazil 2600 Dec-14
• Qualcomm, ST-Ericsson, Altair, Sequans, Middle East Saudi Arabia 2600 Dec-11
ZTE (chipsets) North America US 2600 Dec-13
• Nokia, Quanta, ZTE, Huawei , Coolpad. Western Europe France 2600 Mar-13
(devices) Greece 2600 Mar-14
Italy 2600 Dec-12
• China Mobile/Apple developing a TD-LTE Portugal 2600 Jun-12
iPhone Spain 2600 Dec-12

Growing industry support for converged TDD/FDD LTE ecosystem
©Confidential

Forecasts
• Subscription forecasts and LTE
addressable market band

• Forecast network launch dates
by band

• LTE penetration by population
and total subscription, by region,
country and band

• Forecast network launch dates
by country and operator

• LTE footprint maps by band

©Confidential

Global LTE launch dates by band

©Confidential

Operator-level LTE launch dates by band

©Confidential

Global, forecast LTE subscription growth,
2011-2016

©Confidential

Core band market share as a proportion of
global addressable market, 2011 and 2016

©Confidential

Global addressable market for 2600MHz FDD
band, 2011-2016

©Confidential

Global addressable market for 700MHz FDD
band, 2011-2016

©Confidential

Spectrum re-farming

©Confidential

Candidate bands for re-farming
Europe/Asia Pacific: 900MHz; 1800MHz; 2100MHz Americas: 800MHz; 850MHz; 1900MHz

©Confidential

Re-farming challenges

Ensuring regulatory barriers are removed
Regulatory
Resolving inter-operator disputes

Identifying candidate bands

Developing a strategy for migrating
GSM/EDGE/UMTS Strategic
Protecting existing revenue-generating
services

Moving to single RAN
Ensuring co-existence of technologies through Technical
implementation of guard bands
©Confidential

LTE Devices – size of the challenge
• Device vendors will have to offer LTE multiband devices In order to achieve
global economies

• Mobile devices already support existing modes (e.g., four GSM/GPRS bands,
one UMTS band, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth band and GPS). Adding more antennas is
challenging in terms of industrial design.

• Operators want to ensure that users can take advantage of LTE’s high
bandwidth when the service is available to them and switch to legacy services in
regions where there is no LTE coverage.

• Device vendors will have to rationalize the number of LTE bands they want to
support, in order to meet conditions of cost, power consumption and device size

©Confidential

The integration conundrum
• Mobile devices
are already
required to
support different
modes including
GSM/GPRS/EDG
E/HSPA, Wi-Fi,
GPS and/or
CDMA access
technologies.

• Adding another
mode without
compromising
the form factor,
cost or power
consumption is
challenging

©Confidential

LTE device status as of 1H11
• Majority of the services are accessible via portable routers, USB dongles, Wi-Fi routers
and connected netbooks; only two are using smartphones and tablet devices.

• 71 mobile device models announced so far:
52% support the 700MHz band
11% support AWS
4% support the 900MHz band.

• 57% of current LTE mobile devices are single LTE band, 17% are dual LTE band and only
26% are LTE tri-bands or more.

• 130 LTE-compliant CE devices in the market, of which 45% are home and portable
modems targeting fixed-wireless applications

©Confidential

LTE spectrum – key concerns

• The availability of spectrum is a major concern for operators as they formulate
their LTE-deployment plans. There is widespread uncertainty among regulators,
operators and vendors as to which bands will become available and when

• Operators that are eager to deploy LTE are having to make choices based on
currently available spectrum. Those planning to deploy in the future have to
formulate their plans against a background of uncertainty about spectrum
availability and timelines.

• Spectrum fragmentation poses a real threat that could slow the deployment
of LTE and so delay realizing the full benefits of the technology, not least in
terms of efforts to create economies of scale for devices.

©Confidential

The research
• Using primary research coupled with extensive industry data, Informa’s regional
research and forecasting teams have identified the addressable market for
LTE by frequency band out to end-2016, building a year-by-year growth profile
for each of the LTE bands, and showing among other aspects:

• When and where new bands will be deployed on a region-by-region, and
operator-by-operator basis

• Which will be the commercially important core bands over the next five
years and where the distinct regional focus will be in terms of which bands
and band pairs are adopted globally

• How the relative market shares among the core bands will change as the
global addressable market expands, new spectrum is licensed, and more
operators re-farm legacy services to free up existing spectrum for LTE

©Confidential

Key findings
• All regions will see LTE deployed in multiple bands

• The high-end bands at 2300MHz and 2600MHz will address the largest market
by subscriptions over the forecast period

• There is growing support for TD-LTE, although China will account for 88% of the
total addressable market for 2300MHz TD-LTE by 2016

• The 1800MHz band is attracting widespread interest for its combination of
coverage and capacity, and will likely see a high level of adoption in Western
Europe and Asia-Pacific

• The 3GPP LTE band plan is continuing to evolve, with new bands being defined
and existing bands being re-configured

• Devices will continue to be a major challenge, with vendors forced to rationalize
the number of bands they support

©Confidential

Thank you.

Julian Bright
Senior Analyst, Networks

julian.bright@informa.com

22/07/2011

Make better business decisions

LTE Spectrum Strategies

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (18)

Similar to LTE Spectrum Strategies (20)

Recently uploaded (20)

LTE Spectrum Strategies