Paving the way for 5G commercial use, the three major operators made major frequency adjustments

Recently, a piece of news circulated on the Internet...

Some netizens revealed that the regulatory authorities are convening a frequency coordination meeting among the three major operators to reach a consensus on the frequency adjustment plan for the currently used 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2600MHz bands, and require the three operators to strictly follow the requirements of the meeting minutes and carry out the relevant frequency adjustment work as planned.

China Mobile will vacate part of the 900MHz and 1800MHz spectrum and give them to China Unicom and China Telecom respectively; while China Unicom and China Telecom will vacate the original 2600MHz frequency band and give it to China Mobile.

What is happening?

1

Let’s start with the fact that the three major operators obtained nationwide 5G mid- and low-frequency band trial frequency use licenses in December last year.

▲ Frequency allocation for 5G mid- and low-band trials of the three major operators

• China Mobile: Obtained 5G test frequency resources in the 2515MHz-2675MHz and 4800MHz-4900MHz bands, of which the 2515-2575MHz, 2635-2675MHz and 4800-4900MHz bands are newly added bands, and the 2575-2635MHz band is a re-cultivation of China Mobile's existing TD-LTE (4G) band
• China Telecom: Obtained 5G test frequency resources with a total bandwidth of 100MHz at 3400MHz-3500MHz
• China Unicom: Obtained 5G test frequency resources with a total bandwidth of 100MHz from 3500MHz to 3600MHz

Spectrum is the blood of 5G, and the allocation of frequency bands for this 5G trial has opened the curtain for large-scale 5G trials.

2

But if you compare the frequency resource allocation of operators in the 4G era, you will find that in the 160MHz band of 2515MHz-2675MHz obtained by China Mobile, 2555MHz-2575MHz is occupied by China Unicom and 2635MHz-2655MHz is occupied by China Telecom.

▲Frequency allocation of the three major operators in the 4G era

Therefore, China Unicom and China Telecom need to vacate these two frequency bands to make way for China Mobile 5G.

For China Mobile, after China Unicom and China Telecom vacated these two frequency bands, it has a continuous 160MHz 5G bandwidth on the 2.6GHz band. This paves the way for China Mobile's large-scale construction and commercial 5G. It also means that China Mobile's 5G construction will be more flexible. For example, by building on the 160MHz bandwidth of the 2.6GHz band with 4G/5G dynamic spectrum allocation, it can quickly achieve large-scale 5G coverage and gradually realize smooth migration from 4G to 5G.

3

For China Unicom, after China Mobile vacated the 904-909MHz/949-954 frequency bands, it filled the gap in 900MHz low-frequency resources, which is more conducive to achieving its long-term evolution goal of 5G networks for the "4G+5G" dual networks.

According to China Unicom's 5G network long-term evolution plan, its goal is to build two "4G+5G" networks:

• The 5G target network uses the 3.5GHz band as the main frequency band for continuous coverage in urban areas. The 2.1GHz band can be used to improve 5G coverage and supplement capacity. The newly applied millimeter wave bands 26GHz+40GHz will be used as important supplements for urban data hotspots.
• The 4G target network uses 900MHz and 1800MHz as the main frequency bands. 900MHz is mainly used for wide coverage (taking into account IoT services such as NB-IoT and eMTC), and 1800MHz is the LTE network capacity layer (in the long term, it will be gradually re-cultivated for 5G based on the 4G business volume);
• 2G and 3G networks will be gradually phased out, and frequencies will be refarmed for 4G and 5G.

In other words, 900MHz is the key coverage layer of China Unicom's future 4G network, but Unicom's 900MHz frequency band only has 6MHz bandwidth (909-915MHz/954-960MHz). This is obviously not enough to deploy 4G LTE while also taking into account NB-IoT, eMTC and other IoT services.

Therefore, now that China Mobile has vacated the 904-909MHz/949-954 frequency bands, China Unicom will have 10MHz of 900M bandwidth, unlocking the long-term evolution path of its 5G networks for the "4G+5G" dual networks.

4

The fact that China Mobile vacated the 1880-1885MHz frequency band to China Telecom probably dates back to the 4G FDD construction era. At that time, the plan for adjusting the 1.8GHz frequency was:

• Target plan: China Unicom is allocated 1755-1765MHz/1850-1860MHz, China Telecom is allocated 1765-1785MHz/1860-1880MHz, and China Mobile is allocated 1900-1920MHz.
• Transition plan: China Telecom and China Unicom will select cities where PHS frequency withdrawal has been completed to conduct FDD LTE trials. China Telecom will use 1765-1780MHz/1860-1875MHz frequencies to build its network.

Considering that the original PHS frequency band is 1900MHz-1920MHz, the original China Mobile TD uses 1880MHz-1900MHz, and China Telecom FDD uses 1860-1875MHz, due to interference between TD and FDD, 5MHz between 1875-1880MHz needs to be reserved as an isolation band. After the 1900MHz-1920MHz band occupied by PHS is cleared and returned to China Mobile, China Mobile will have a complete 40MHz band from 1880-1920MHz, but the isolation band is 5MHz between 1880-1885MHz from China Mobile. In this way, China Telecom can use 1860-1880MHz as a complete 20M carrier.

This frequency adjustment not only paves the way for 5G commercial use, but also enables all three parties to get what they need. It is basically a win-win scenario.