Archive for September 2014
700MHz and 2600MHz Spectrum Blocks Sold at Auction
The availability of new 4G spectrum to Telstra and Optus combined with matching carrier aggregation capable chipsets and phones will add a lot of capacity and some spice to the bragging rights in the mobile speed contest.
The new LTE 4G 2600MHz spectrum becomes available from October 2014. Of greater interest however is the Band 28 700 MHz spectrum which, following the completion of the UHF TV “restacking”, will be available for use from 1st January 2015.
Telstra has said that it will have 700 MHz LTE coverage within 3Km of the centre of all capitals and in 50 regional centres on January 1 2015. By this time Telstra says it will have 13 700 MHz capable device models representing one million of the 16 million devices on their network. Telstra says it has plans to spend $1.3Bn to bring 4G coverage to 90% of Australia’s population.
Both Optus and Telstra have gained early access to 700 MHz spectrum in selected areas. ACMA has listed Telstra trials in Griffith and Sydney (NSW), Brisbane (QLD) as well as Perth and Fremantle (WA) here. However other trial locations Esperance (SA), Mildura (NSW) and Mt Isa (Qld) have been mentioned. Telstra has said that 700MHz services will be turned on in Sydney, Adelaide, Darwin, Bundaberg, Yamba (NSW) and Sarina (Qld) in the week beginning 15 September 2014. They say they will expand these commercial trials to 20 additional metropolitan and regional areas by the end of 2014. Optus has trials in Darwin and Perth with permission also for Sydney.
Vodafone which did not participate in the 4G 2600/700 MHz spectrum auctions has been refarming some of its 2X10MHz of 850 MHz spectrum from 3G to 4G. This, albeit small block, of low band spectrum will improve the reach and depth of coverage of its 4G network. The 850 MHz spectrum has the advantage of being available straight away and being supported on the majority of modern smart phones already in service. Vodafone will rely for its 4G service on this 850 MHz spectrum combined with its more extensive holding of 1800MHz spectum.
The GSA has an updated report on the adoption of 700MHz band 28 by mobile operators. The report shows that as at Februay 2015 there were 42 countries either using, committed to, or advocating this band for LTE and 8 operators in 4 countries including Australia having launched LTE service in this band. The GSA report is here.
Using newly licensed and existing spectrum the highest 4G speeds will be achieved by the very latest devices which are LTE Advance LTE Category 6 capable. These devices can achieve peak download speeds of 300 Mbps by carrier aggregation of two 20 MHz carriers. Such devices as the just announced Samsung Galaxy Note 4 use the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 system on a chip SoC in combination with the latest modem family Gobi 9×35. Otherwise customers with Category 4 phones which have LTE Band 28 700MHz capability such as Samsung Galaxy S5 and Desire 610, HTC One M8 and LG G3 (equipped with older Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 and Gobi 9×25 chips) will be able to achieve up to 150 Mbps using a 20 MHz carrier or by aggregating two 10MHz carriers. The newly announced iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are also only Category 4 (150Mbps) capable but they do cover all currently used and planned LTE bands including Optus’ 2300MHz TDD LTE in their 20 LTE band repertoire.
There are grand plans for ever increasing carrier aggregation capability built into, and being developed for, the LTE standard. The Qualcomm diagram below shows the possibilities of combining spectrum from different LTE bands, both FDD and TDD, and both licensed and unlicensed spectrum as well as “Multiflow” combining data streams from multiple base stations to achieve faster speeds and greater capacity.
In December 2013 Optus upped the ante in the aggregation speed stakes demonstrating 520Mbps using 4X20MHz of its 2.3GHz TDD LTE spectrum at St Marys Sydney. Optus was using Huawei network kit. In May 2014 Telstra demonstrated 450Mbps using three LTE channels however in June 2014 Nokia and SKT trumped everyone and announced trials in which they achieved 3.8Gbps by aggregating 10X20MHz channels combining TDD and FDD LTE. This is twice the number of carriers (5X20MHz) which 3GPP foresees being used. No doubt this will change with the relentless desire for increased speed and capacity.
The speed race can only get more interesting (and complex) from here.
Ericsson Mobility Report August 2014 reports that world mobile subscriptions have grown to 6.8 billion by June 2014 and that mobile broadband subscriptions included in this number reached 2.4 billion.
Ericsson say that there are 4.6 billion unique mobile subscribers so clearly dual SIM and multi device customers are common.
Driven by increased smartphone penetration and mobile broadband devices Ericsson say data traffic increased by 60% from June 2013 to June 2014.
Growing at around 6% annually world subscriptions Ericsson predict will grow to 9.2 billion by 2019. By then 28% of subscriptions will be 4G LTE.
In Australia service numbers have been flat for the last year to June 2014 at 30.6 million and declined by 200,000 over the two years to June 2014.
Over the four years to June 2014 Telstra has gained 12% of market share to 52.2%, Optus has lost 2% and VHA has lost 10% to 16.8%.
Strategy Analytics Mobile Revenue Growth Chart
Strategy Analytics have predicted that world mobile service revenue will grow to just over one trillion $US by 2015.
Following that growing 4G revenues will only just offset falling 2G and 3G revenues and that by 2019 growth will have stalled for the first time in mobile history.
All this at a time when it is widely predicted that mobile data traffic is going to explode.
This will set challenges for MNO’s who will need to fund the network capacity and in many places, including Australia, subsidise the cost of the ever more capable devices demanded by their customers.
VHA has announced that it will refarm its valuable low band 850 MHz spectrum from its HSPA+ 3G to its LTE 4G network. It says that by the time the initial refarming is completed at the end of 2014 it will provide LTE coverage to 95% of the Australian metropolitan population. Their press release is here.
VHA through its merger with Hutchison has 2X10 MHz of 850 MHz spectrum in metropolitan areas and 1X5Mhz in regional areas. This spectrum has already been refarmed twice. Originally it was spectrum licensed to Telstra and used until 2000 for 1G AMPS. It was purchased at auction in 1998 and used for Hutchison’s Orange brand CDMA network in Sydney and Melbourne from 2000 until August 2006. Following the merger of Vodafone and Hutchison announced in February 2009 the now spare spectrum was added into the 2100 MHz VHA 3G network from late 2010. It has served since then to improve the depth and breadth of coverage of the VHA 3G network.
Now VHA plans to lift their 4G coverage by moving the 850MHz spectrum across to their 1800MHz LTE network. This it can do in the metropolitan areas by initially moving 2X5MHz, half the holding, to LTE leaving the other half to continue along with the high band 2100 MHz to serve their HSPA+ 3G network. Since they only have 2X5MHz in the regional areas they can’t painlessly refarm the 850 spectrum in these areas. According to their recent press release only 1.5 million of their circa 5 million customers on 4G LTE so there is still a lot of load on the 3G network including, until VoLTE is introduced, all the voice calls. This is why their press release focus is on metropolitan coverage.