ICC: Shortages of Mobile Broadband Spectrum

On 20 October 2011, the International Chamber of Commerce has published a Discussion Paper on "Approaching Shortages of Mobile Broadband Spectrum Threaten to Limit Broadband Deployment and Economic Growth". This Discussion Paper informs governments and regulators about the economic benefits of taking action now to ensure that sufficient spectrum is available to support the increasing demands following current and expected data traffic trends.

The process of allocating and assigning spectrum for mobile service is a time consuming process in most countries and efforts to harmonize spectrum at the international level takes considerable long term planning (e.g., 10 to 12 years). Because of this multi-year process often required to allocate and assign new spectrum resources to operators, the Discussion Paper addresses governments and regulators so that may take action now to ensure that there will also be sufficient spectrum in the future. In the Discussion Paper, the ICC recognizes the importance of ensuring that mobile broadband will co-exist in conjunction with other essential technologies such as broadcast services. With this in mind ICC supports ensuring that the essential quality of broadcast service is preserved and that broadcasters are granted substantially the same service area.In fact, no particular technology (whether broadcast, mobile broadband, or others) should be granted greater importance to the use of spectrum.

ICC Discussion Paper "Approaching Shortages of Mobile Broadband Spectrum Threaten to Limit Broadband Deployment and Economic Growth", 20 October 2011