No reason 5G spectrum can’t be allocated now: Vodacom

Vodacom said on Thursday that there is no reason to delay the licensing of 5G spectrum in South Africa, arguing that its urgent allocation is needed if South Africa is going to take advantage of the so-called fourth Industrial Revolution.

The operator’s group managing executive for technology strategy, architecture and innovation, Nicholas Naidu, said at a media conference in Sandton that there are vast chunks of spectrum between 3.3GHz and 3.8GHz that can be assigned to operators in the near term to ensure the rapid roll-out of 5G technology in South Africa.

Last month, communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said the assignment of spectrum suitable for next-generation 5G networks would be held in abeyance until after International Telecommunication Union’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) taking place at the end of the year.

She directed communications regulator Icasa to investigate and report to her on spectrum requirements for 5G. This report should be completed within six months of the conclusion of WRC-19, after which the minister would issue a policy direction to Icasa — likely by mid-2020 at the earliest.

“The investigation should cover the affected bands (both those below 6GHz and the so-called millimetre-wave bands) and the implications of the licensing of these bands on competition and the current structure of the mobile market,” Ndabeni-Abrahams said.

However, Naidu said there is no technical reason why spectrum between 3.3GHz and 3.8GHz should not be assigned earlier as these bands have already been set aside for 5G by the ITU. Some countries, including Italy, have already earmarked all of this spectrum for 5G applications, he said. WRC-19 will deal specifically with allocations in the millimetre-wave bands, which could be assigned later.

Vacant spectrum

Currently, only Telkom and Liquid Telecom have assignments around 3.5GHz and Icasa is already in the process of considering how those assignments should be amended to ensure they are suited for 5G roll-out — using more efficient time-division duplexing, or TDD, technology. Even with these two company’s assignments, large chunks are the spectrum are fallow and can be assigned, Naidu said.

And, he said, operators should be given large tracts of spectrum as this is needed to provide optimal 5G access speeds. “You need a decent amount of spectrum… There is a huge amount of spectrum in that band right now that can be used for 5G. The spectrum is vacant.

“5G is going to be key for the connectivity component for the fourth Industrial Revolution. From an international competitiveness and innovation perspective, it’s important that we do it sooner rather than later.”

Vodacom Group chief technology officer Andries Delport said that, at the very least, it’s important for operators to know what spectrum bands they will get access to so they can plan today to be ready to deploy 5G networks.

“In 4G, as a country, we missed the boat completely. I would not want that to happen with 5G,” Delport said. South Africa has still not officially assigned spectrum for 4G/LTE networks, with operators like Vodacom forced to reassign — or “refarm” — their 2G and 3G spectrum assignments to roll out 4G. The problem is that the bands used to do this — 900MHz, 1.8GHz and 2.6GHz — are not yet supported by 5G technology, so refarming is not an option.

“The possibility of refarming with 4G is not there with 5G,” he said. “If we miss the 5G spectrum boat, the country will miss out on 5G.”  — © 2019 NewsCentral Media