Satellite Companies Appeal Against Allocation of 28 GHz Spectrum Band for 5G Services

Allocation of 28 GHz Spectrum Band

In the new development of events, the space broadband service providers have appealed to the government to prohibit earmarking any airwaves in the 27.5-28.5 GHz frequency range. The airwaves in the 27.5-28.5 GHz frequency range make a huge part of the coveted 28 GHz spectrum band for the 5G mobile services. The service providers have argued that the allotment of these airwaves could kill the country’s budding satellite industry. Let’s find out more.

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The Current Scenario

According to a report from ET Telecom, the Indian Space Association (ISpA) has written a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) secretary K Rajaraman. In the said letter, the association has requested him to dismiss the sector regulator’s call for the co-existence of satellite and 5G mobile services in the 28 GHz band. The letter stated that such a move is not going to be good for the space industry as a number of already launched or planned satellites make use of this crucial mmWave band or parts of it and already have licensed antennae in operation on these airwaves.

The association for space and satellite companies stated that TRAI’s move would result in an oversupply of the spectrum to the terrestrial telecom (operators) at the cost of the satellite industry and hence ISpA strongly urges DoT against identifying the 27.5-28.5 GHz band for 5G. On the other hand, TRAI has called for auctioning the mmWave spectrum in the 24.25-28.5 GHz range for 5G services and set a base price of Rs 7 crore a unit.