Wireless Spectrum Scarcity | Myth or Reality?
Radio spectrum (Wireless Spectrum) refers to the part of the electromagnetic spectrum corresponding to a typical frequency range of around 3kHz – 300 GHz (or, equivalently, wavelengths longer than 1 mm) which may be used for Wireless Communication. Wireless Spectrum is highly regulated by state/federal authorities in most countries. With the phenomenal increase in the demand for technologies such as Mobile Telephony, Wireless Broadband, 3G and 4G services, the Wireless Spectrum is generally oversubscribed or licensed to operators with semiprivate wireless radio equipment.
Wireless Connections are used by a variety of applications including Voice, Video, Music, Data etc. in most consumer electronic devices, computers and business critical systems. These devices exchange huge amounts of data wirelessly and typically do not require infinite bandwidth for their operations.
Fig 1: National Frequency Spectrum Allocation Chart, India, 2002
With the advent of new technologies, the Wireless Spectrum is being utilized more efficiently, which helps significantly in overcoming the spectrum shortage. One of the top priorities of all major Wireless Standards Organizations like IEEE, 3GPP etc is to provide capacity improvements to enable the accommodation of more users/subscribers. The spectrum allocation was traditionally dependent on the technology or service provided. This allocation scheme did not take into account the capacity improvement mechanisms available today.
Smart antennas have the ability to transmit signals directionally to an user instead of transmitting power equally in all directions. Better and efficient coding schemes like OFDM and SC-FDMA also help improve data rates. Software Defined Radios (SDRs) also aid in capacity improvements and also in reducing the amount of wireless interference as the radio signal are processed in software and hence are more adaptable than traditional systems. Advances in Wireless Mesh Networks also add to capacity improvements and interference reduction.
The efficient utilization of existing spectrum portfolios of service providers is dependent on their adoption of the new and upcoming technologies to aid capacity improvements. It just remains to be seen how much flexibility the regulatory authorities will incorporate in spectrum reallocation and spectrum leases by existing licensees so that services are driven by content and not by access to the Wireless Spectrum.
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I would like to leave a comment here about the scenario in India. With the presence of new technologies like smart antennas, SDR’s, Wireless Mesh Networks etc the chances that they are being deployed in India within next 5 to 10 years is low because of the costs involved.(not to forget about the scams) Also the number of users in India are increasing at a very rapid rate which clearly contradicts the efficient utilization of the spectrum with present available technologies.
Just a slight deviation from the topic, If the allocation of spectrum involved organizations like 3GPP and IEEE why was there a thing such as 2G scam?
The spectrum is actually managed by Government Authorities and the corruption involved is the cause for the 2G scam. IEEE and 3GPP only set standards in technologies like IEEE80.16 (WiMax), LTE Releases, WiFi, GSM, EDGE, WCDMA etc. and have nothing to do with spectrum allocation. Radio frequency spectrum forms an important national property and allocations are made by national authorities.
Fair enough, I didn’t quite catch the point before. I can imagine there’s a lot of competition in India for the spectrum and the technologies used but is it possible that any time sooner we get to browse at actual 20 Mbps speed through our cell phones like in other countries?
Just some curious questions.. Why are service providers talking about 3G only in the wireless or mobile use? I don’t hear any reference of next gen in broadband usage which i think is still not upgraded! Is it true? Because I still use BSNL Broadband at around 500kbps!
1) Service providers are talking about 3G because that is where the wireless spectrum allocation comes into picture. With the broadband networks, we are looking at wired network infrastructures, and ideally speaking, wired networks have infinite bandwidth.
2) We do have the next-gen in broadband as well, but the cost of upgrading entire networks is significant as India is a very large country. Therefore we catch up with technology slower that most other countries.
….One of the major reasons for the choice of CDMA for the 3G cellular services as well as a number of other communications systems was the fact that it gave a significant improvement in capacity…In fact CDMA capacity has been the subject of many papers and much discussion. It is dependent upon many factors and as a result the exact determination of the improvements in CDMA capacity have been largely down to practical experience……. ..One of the chief claims for CDMA is that it gives significant improvements in network capacity.
The network enhancement adds new layers of frequency also known as carriers to eight cell sites throughout Carmel and five cell sites along I-465 to more efficiently manage available spectrum and increase mobile broadband capacity.
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