LS telcom also found that the proposed defragmentation would impose a considerable cost burden on mobile network operators, who would need to upgrade every base station in their network, for a fractional increase in capacity.
The report said that: “The cost to an operator to upgrade its whole network (£1bn) for defragmentation is almost comparable to the value of the whole 800 MHz band (2 x 30 MHz – estimated at £1.6bn from the outcome of the 4G spectrum auction) to gain an additional two per cent (approximately) capacity relative to total licensed bandwidth per operator.”
It also concluded that: “By 2030 operators are likely to have other, probably lower cost, methods of improving capacity that will not suffer the potential practical constraints of sub 1GHz TDD (time division duplex) or require re-engineering every site in the network. We believe that network operators should be consulted to assess if they believe the potential benefits outweigh the costs.”
Project manager, Saul Friedner, associate director of spectrum services at LS telcom said, "This was a challenging project due to the future looking nature and the requirement to determine what a mobile network might look like in 2030. Whichever way we looked at the problem we could see no significant justification to undertake such a defragmentation exercise.”
The SPF acts as a sounding board to both the UK government and Ofcom on on future spectrum management and regulatory policy with a view to maximizing the benefits of spectrum for the UK.
