Template Tools
Spectrum for LTE Advanced: Crucial for Rural Broadband
Written by Dave Burstein   
Saturday, 25 June 2011 23:58
The current average U.S. home draws about 20 gigabytes/month, already 2 to 10 times what carriers with LTE offer. So raising the wireless capacity is a high priority for wireless to be a real alternative. In rural areas, there are typically 10cow0's of MHz unused, enough spectrum to offer far more robust wireless service. Today's best technology, LTE, can only use 20 MHz; the 2013 version, LTE Advanced, can use 40 or even 100 MHz. That will be great, iff the politicians find a way to make it practical. Today's licensing rules get in the way and it's time to change them. 
    There's massive unused spectrum in most low density areas, far more than LTE knows how to handle. LTE is designed for up to 20 MHz, which limits the total capacity to 30-70 megabits per second. (More right by the transmitter, less if many are on the outskirts.) 
     Germany's leading the way to near 100% coverage with LTE, with Vodafone already covering 1,000 small towns. The speeds go "up to 50 megabits" although few homes get that speed. The problem is the capacity. Even the 70 euro (~$100) service is capped at 30 gigabytes, not enough for families that want to watch much video.
      Chris Neisinger of Verizon intends to actively deploy LTE Advanced in 2013. We are not talking science fiction here but a near term product. The standard is complete and leading manufacturers are promising the base stations today they are shipping today will only require a software upgrade. 
      Unfortunately, there's no easy way for a private company or local government to aggregate that bandwidth. AT&T, for example, has 5 ten megahertz carriers in New York City, using 50 megahertz. In most of upstate New York, they need only one or two carriers, leaving 30 megahertz totally unused.  The last thing they want to do is lease at a fair rate their unused spectrum to an LTE Advanced network to anyone else who might in any way compete.
      My choice is "use it or lose it" spectrum licensing. As analyst Robin Bienenstock notes "In Europe, the spectrum auctions of last decade came with 'use it or lose it clauses'" There are many other ways to make the rules work for rural areas. One professor recommends declaring unserved areas and adjacencies "enterprise zones" with special regulations.
       Time to find a way.
For the record: DSL Reports picked this up (thank you) and I replied to some comments there
Thanks for the intelligent comments. Yes, some spectrum allocations have minimum buildout rules, but they don't cover the areas that need service and are very weak.
While the corporations with spectrum might hate this and will surely sue, I've looked at some actual agreements. The FCC can change the rules on renewal, although they have to give public notice and go through the process carefully. In fact it was an FCC Commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein, who first acquainted me with the term "use it or lose it."
Contrary to a comment here, regulators in other countries also are being taken to court. I've recently read articles about the problem in Britain and France.