Brazil’s regulator receive plaudits

The GSMA congratulated ANATEL, the Brazilian telecommunications regulator, for taking a leadership role on spectrum re-farming.

ANATEL's decision to re-allocate spectrum in the technology neutral 2.6 GHz band to support the nationwide deployment of next-generation Mobile Broadband services will provide mobile operators in Brazil with a clear future investment path for the country's mobile network infrastructure.

The decision is also consistent with the ITU's Option 1(i) for international 2.6GHz spectrum harmonization, which is being followed by the majority of mobile operators worldwide. This ensures that Brazil will follow a standardized approach to global Mobile Broadband deployment, safeguarding technology compatibility and network handover capabilities.

Spectrum harmonization in this band means that Brazilian operators will benefit from the vast economies of scale that the GSM ecosystem offers, driving down equipment and device costs, which can be passed on to customers.

Brazil's 2.6GHz spectrum band previously had been allocated to MMDS operators to support pay-per-view TV services. This ruling will not impact these operators, who will keep 70MHz(ii) of spectrum (50 MHz of TDD and 2 X 10 MHz of FDD). ANATEL's decision does mean that the country's mobile operators will benefit from the majority of this spectrum, stating that 120MHz should be auctioned off by mid-2013(iii). Mobile operators in Brazil also have the option of deploying LTE immediately, should they acquire an MMDS operator currently holding spectrum licenses.

Ensuring the necessary spectrum is available will pave the way for Brazilian operators to follow the clear upgrade path from existing HSPA technology, which continues to enjoy impressive growth across Brazil, to LTE. Both HSPA and LTE are members of the GSM family of technologies and provide impressive Mobile Broadband service delivery and performance. By combining the two technologies and leveraging the vast global GSM ecosystem, Brazil will have at its disposal a cost-effective broadband network capable of supporting the expected increase in traffic that will result from hosting major global events such as the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.