Ofcom today published a consultation on technical licence conditions for 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz UK spectrum auctions, due to take place in 2012. This follows their earlier general consultation on the auctions. Responses are due by 28 July.
Ofcom is consulting in parallel on specific additional technical restrictions that may be needed for co-existence of new services in the 800 MHz band with adjacent DTT use in bands below 790 MHz.
The diagram below (taken from the Ofcom document) shows the harmonised frequency arrangement for the 800 MHz band (per Commission Decision 2010/267/EU) of 2 x 30 MHz with a duplex gap of 11 MHz, based on a block size of 5 MHz, paired and with a guard band at 790-791 MHz. The Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) downlink starts at 791 MHz and FDD uplink starts at 832 MHz.
In relation to the 2.6 GHz band,the UK band plan is shown below, consistent with the CEPT band-plan in ECC Decision (05)05 which designates 2500 to 2570 MHz paired with 2620 to 2690 MHz for FDD use and 2570 to 2620 MHz for Time Division Duplex (TDD) use.
In relation to each of these bands, Ofcom sets out proposed technical conditions. I refer interested readers directly to the Ofcom document.
At the end of the consultation document these is a (not well flagged) interesting section in which Ofcom consults on the possibility of making available, whether through competition in the auction or explicit reservation, a block of paired 2.6 GHz spectrum for low-power shared access, in which each licensee would have ’shared’ (non-exclusive) access to the spectrum. This can be used for applications including pico and femtocells, and it will be intriguing to see what response this section gets from industry.