The German regulator confirmed plans to awards 5G spectrum in the 2 GHz and 3.6 GHz bands
Germany’s telecommunications services regulator released a draft decision laying out its proposals for the allocation of 5G spectrum for local mobile telephony operators.
The regulator said it is planning to carry out an auction to award two segments of 60 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 2 GHz range and 300 megahertz unpaired from the 3.6 GHz range for nationwide use.
The watchdog said the 5G spectrum will be allocated under certain conditions, such as requirements specifying where and at what time 5G networks should be built up.
In June 2017, Germany announced its national 5G strategy. The country’s 5G plan includes releasing more spectrum, supporting the roll-out of fiber for backhaul and launching a competition to develop smart city applications for the new 5G network. The German government said 5G will be an important foundation for the gigabit economy. According to the authorities, the country will have high-quality 5G networks in place by 2025.
Meanwhile, German telcos are getting ready for the future deployment of 5G infrastructure. Deutsche Telekom recently selected Ericsson for the provision of a 5G-ready network.
Also, in September last year, Deutsche Telekom announced what it claimed to be Europe’s first 5G connection based on the under-development 3GPP standard. The German telco said that the 5G connection reached throughput of more than 2 Gbps and a latency of three milliseconds over a 3.7 GHz spectrum link on a commercial network in Central Berlin. The connection used Huawei user equipment, DT said.
Also, the Qatari Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has detailed plans to allocate 5G spectrum for operator tests in a move to enable commercial launches in late 2018 or early 2019.
The regulator said it will assign the country’s only two mobile operators, Vodafone Qatar and Ooredoo, bandwidth in the 700MHz, 3.5GHz and 26GHz bands for pilots using pre-standard 5G technology. This decision follows a consultation period with service providers, international standards bodies and other stakeholders.
“We are delighted that CRA is one of the first regulatory bodies regionally and internationally to announce the readiness of 5G frequency plans,” CRA president Mohammed Ali Al-Mannai, said.
“This announcement will see a great work by Qatar’s telecom service providers to start the formal testing of pre-standard networks for 5G technology this year, and to deploy standard commercial networks late 2018 and early 2019.”
Authorities also highlighted that 5G technology would support connection speeds of 1Gbps and serve the anticipated increase in demand for M2M and IoT communications in the Arab country.
In December 2016, Ooredoo Qatar, in partnership with Huawei and Nokia, had demonstrated its 5G speed and latency capabilities in laboratory conditions, announcing the completion of trials which achieved speeds of up to 35.46Gbps.
Last December, Ooredoo announced the launch of ‘5G Speed Experiences’ in parts of capital Doha, for a select number of customers. The service offers speeds exceeding 1 Gbps in some cases and very low latency, the telco said. The pre-standards 5G service is currently available to consumers on a live network and using commercial smartphones.
