What spectrums do the three major operators use?

What spectrum do the three major domestic operators use for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G, and how much bandwidth are allocated? This directly determines the coverage and capacity of different standards.

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Different color blocks will be used to represent the spectrum of different operators, as shown in the figure below. There are abbreviations on the color blocks, including: NR=5G NR, L=FDD LTE, TL=TDD LTE, U=UMTS, G=GSM, C=CDMA.

Okay, let’s get to the point.

1. 700M

Although the 700 MHz spectrum has a small bandwidth, it has the advantages of low frequency, low propagation loss and good coverage performance, and is known as the "golden frequency band". As part of the bandwidth is occupied by television services, the radio and television industry is currently clearing the frequency band.

At an uplink edge rate of 1 Mbps, the cell radius of 700M 4T4R exceeds 4,500 meters, which is 2.4 times that of 3.5GHz 64TR cell. Only 500,000 stations are needed to form nationwide continuous coverage.

China Mobile has reached a "co-construction and sharing" agreement with radio and television, intending to use the 700MHz frequency band to achieve low-cost continuous 5G coverage in remote areas; radio and television can obtain technical support from China Mobile, while also alleviating the financial pressure of building 5G from scratch.

Currently, the radio and television industry has more than 7,000 TV towers, each of which is more than 100 meters high and has a transmission power of more than 1,000 watts. The coverage range is extremely long and can even interfere with other provinces from the province. The frequency clearing work is long and arduous, so the deployment of 5G in this frequency band will take some time.

2. 850M

The 850M spectrum has a bandwidth of only 11M, which is small but also good at coverage. As a legacy of CDMA in ancient times, this frequency band once carried China Telecom's 2G and 3G coverage. It is currently being recultivated to LTE and transformed into a 4G basic coverage network.

3. 900M

The available bandwidth of the 900M spectrum is also not large, and it is also known for its coverage. As the world's earliest used and busiest wireless spectrum, it is used by China Mobile as the basic coverage of 2G and 4G, and is also the main frequency band for the Internet of Things standard NB-IoT; China Unicom has also packed 2G, 3G and 4G into its narrow 11M bandwidth as the common basic coverage layer for these standards.

Based on the current complex usage of 900M, it can be expected that it will be re-cultivated for 5G very late, and it will be suitable for carrying mMTC and uRLLC services.

4. 1800M

The 1800M band has sufficient bandwidth and is currently used by the three major operators as the main 4G band. As the number of 4G users is booming, it is not possible to re-cultivate it for 5G at this stage. Telecom and Unicom serve as NSA anchors.

5. 2100M

The 2100M frequency band, once the core frequency band of 3G, has now been fully transformed to 4G. China Telecom's 20M bandwidth is all used for 4G, and China Unicom has 25M bandwidth, of which 5M is used for 3G and the remaining 20M is also used for 4G. In addition, there is 15M bandwidth unallocated in this frequency band.

At this stage, China Telecom and China Unicom use 4G 2100M and 1800M for 5G NSA anchor points; in the future, they will apply for another 10M of unallocated bandwidth, totaling 55M of bandwidth, and deploy 50M of 5G in a co-construction and sharing manner as the main coverage force in suburban and rural areas.

6. 1900M

The 1900M frequency band is a TDD spectrum sandwiched between the 1800M uplink and downlink, with 5M isolation on each end adjacent to the 1800M. The remaining 30M bandwidth is all used by China Mobile for TD-LTE.

7. 2000M

The 2000M frequency band is a TDD spectrum sandwiched between the 2100M uplink and downlink, with a total bandwidth of 15M, all of which is used by China Mobile for TD-LTE.

China Mobile has many users and huge spectrum demands, so it is indeed very suitable to use TDD duplex mode to flexibly utilize scattered spectrum.

8. 2300M

The 2300M standard spectrum has a total bandwidth of 100M, of which 70M is currently used by China Mobile for 4G and is only used for indoor coverage.

9. 2600M

2600M is China Mobile's mainstream 5G frequency band, with a bandwidth of 160M. The frequency is not too high, and it can provide high-speed data services without any coverage problems.

Currently, China Mobile uses 60M of the bandwidth exclusively for TD-LTE, and the other 100M for 5G, while 40M is dynamically shared with 4G. In other words, on this 160M bandwidth, 5G and 4G can use up to 100M of the bandwidth!

This shows that China Mobile has a lot of 4G spectrum, enough to support high-speed Internet access for a large number of users.

10. 3500M

n78 can be divided into three segments, 3300~3400MHz, 3400~3500MHz, and 3500~3600MHz. It is the main 5G frequency band of China Telecom and China Unicom.

The 3300~3400MHz band is jointly built and shared by China Telecom, China Unicom and China Broadcasting Corporation for use as 5G indoor coverage.

3400~3500MHz belongs to China Telecom, 3500~3600MHz belongs to China Unicom. The two companies jointly build and share this 200M bandwidth to resist the fierce offensive of China Mobile.

11. 4900M

China Mobile has a 100M bandwidth on the 4900MHz spectrum, which is quite large, but the frequency of this band is high and the propagation loss is large. Therefore, China Mobile did not use it as the main frequency band for 5G. It is mainly planned to be used for the Internet of Things, vertical industry applications, and capacity enhancement in hot spots.

China Radio and Television Corporation has a 60M bandwidth in this frequency band, but this new operator has nothing except the spectrum. It will jointly build and share with China Mobile in the future. It is a very good choice to lean on a big tree for shade.

Judging from the above spectrum usage, the 2G of China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom generally only have low-frequency basic coverage. China Mobile's 3G has been withdrawn from the network. Now is the era of 4G. In the near future, 5G will dominate.