Third Meeting of the Broadband Fixed Wireless Access Technical Sub-Group Held at Wyndham House on 27 April 2000

Those present:

	Barry Lewis Chairman RA
	Nichola Watts Secretary RA
	List of all those present at Annex A
	Apologies were received from Jim Nixon (RA), Graham McDonald (Nortel Network), David Palmer (Oftel), David Pearson (HighwayOne Corp), Mike Snalam (ITV), Chris Cheeseman (BT), David Mckone (Norweb Telecom).

I Agenda

Mr Lewis added document BFWAtg (00)26 to Item 5 Any Other Business. The Agenda was agreed.

1 Minutes of the last meeting were agreed.

Matters arising

2. Mr Lewis said that the action point under item 3, Matters arising from the last meeting was still outstanding as he had not produced a paper on the Impact of FS/FSS sharing in 40GHz band. He provided the following verbal update in order to clarify the position and therefore clear the action point;

A WRC agenda item looks at FSS in region 1. Regions 2 and 3 already have an allocation to share FS with FSS. Some work has been carried out already to address potential sharing issues within the ITU-R SG4-9S. For FSS the band is a downlink band so there is a possibility of interference from geo-stationery and non geo-stationery satellites. Power flux density limits imposed on the FSS satellite have been studied within the ITU-R and CEPT. Currently the existing Radio Regulation limits on non-geostationary satellite systems have been found acceptable by the ITU-R SG’s to protect the FS but agreement within ITU-R could not be reached on interference from geostationary systems. In the mean time SE19 has developed proposals that are now agreed within CEPT but global acceptance is pending the outcome of WRC. ERC supports terrestrial services in the 40GHz band with the Decision on use for MWS (Dec (99)015).

3. Under item 6, Guard bands for the 28GHz band, Mr Lewis had not received any comments from members on this issue. Mr Lewis told the group that assignments which include guard bands between operators are favoured. Doc. 23 will address this issue further. Action: Mr Lewis to locate document on 3G approach to guard bands for mobile operators and circulate it to members.

4. Under item 6, 40GHz Draft Framework issues, Mr Lewis highlighted that an update is included in document 14rev1 further down the agenda.

5. Under item 10, Mr Lewis circulated the TM4 draft as document BFWAtg(00)22.

6. Mr Lewis added that he was still awaiting comments from ETSI and CEPT regarding posting draft documents on the website that would be password protected.

III 28GHz Band

7. Guard Band Issues BFWATG(00)23

The group reviewed document 23 and the case for including guard bands within the operator assignments . Generally the group agreed with the points made and were happy with the proposal not to define "hard" guard bands at the assignment extremes. This would be communicated to the BFWA consultation Group.

8. However, Mr Lewis then informed the group that an extra 56MHz paired channel might become available depending on the approval of the ERC decision relating to FS/FSS use of the band. The group discussed how this channel may be put to use and a number of options were developed. These would be put forward to the BFWA Consultative Group for a final decision. Action: Mr Lewis to develop inputs to the BFWA Consultative Group reflecting these discussions.

The group agreed that for operator co-ordination to take place some minimum set of parameters will need to be exchanged. Action: Members to look at process and list an appropriate set of characteristics, parameters for co-ordination for the next meeting.

A BFWAtg Member gave a presentation on adjacent frequency block interference which will be available on the website. The main points were: This type of interference should not cause a major problem to operators as it will only occur in small, predictable areas. However no reasonable guard band can prevent it. Co-ordination can be done as part of the regular cell planning process. ISOP( as defined in the SE19 preliminary report on FWA deployment in the 26/28GHz bands) is not a reasonable measure because it strongly depends on how many different terminals are deployed in a sector. Action: Mr Lewis should look at adding something to the licence process to identify the need for operators to co-ordinate with each other.

IV
8. CEPT PT SE19 Update
8.1 26/28GHz Interim Meeting BFWATG(00)25

A BFWAtg Member presented slides to the group covering problems with the draft technical report and draft 26GHz FWA recommendation discussed at the last SE19 meeting. The BFWAtg Member`s presentation proposes that the guard band ISOP analysis is incorrect as it assumes the wrong geometry, and is an inappropriate measure as it depends on the operator market strategy and gives an average and not the worse case probability. An interim SE19 meeting is scheduled for 15^th and 16^th May. The objective is to agree a new version of the report on the co-existence of FWA systems in the 26/28GHz frequency bands to be input to the next WG-SE meeting. Action: Interested members should provide contributions to the interim SE19 meeting.

8.2 40GHz Issues BFWATG(00)14 rev1

This working SE19 document was reviewed which contains a number of Annexes:

Annex 1 is a basis for a simple frequency plan based on slots. The slots are an administrative measure, which can be aggregated into a block frequency allocation. The size of the slots remains an open issue. Action: Members to give Mr Lewis their views on the size of slots.

Further draft Annexes attempt to examine how best to make assignments in the band, interoperator co-operation and review the technologies expected for MWS (Multimedia Wireless Systems) Annex 2 and 3 are equal sized assignments, which Mr Lewis pointed out was the best way forward with wide duplex spacing and it was agreed within the SE19 group. One key area of difficulty involves asymmetric assignments (between uplink and downlink) and how they can be fitted in the band with symmetric assignments. Action: Mr Lewis asked the members to look more closely at the issues and welcomed members’ views for input into the SE19 40GHz Correspondence Group. Mr Lewis/BFWAtg Member to circulate some correspondence on the 2 possibilities for block edge masks in Annex 3.

V
9. Any Other Business

BFWAtg(00)26 Adjacent Region Co-channel Co-ordination Tool Compliance Statement

The group reviewed this list of certain essential/non-essential items for a tool to help with the adjacent area co-channel co-ordination issues. 1.3 and 1.4 does not mention bandwidth. A BFWAtg Member wanted to know density building profile data input. A BFWAtg Member said that it would be useful to put XPD in 1.2. A BFWAtg Member referring to point 1.9 asked if any tool developed could be made available to users outside RA. A BFWAtg Member said that it would be a useful planning tool for operators as they might want to offset terminal stations.Action: Members to look at document produced by Mr Nixon and give him feedback.

A BFWAtg Member gave a perspective on the IEEE 802.16.1 and .2 projects which are tackling broadband wireless standards and co-existence issues. He added that the co-existence document was nearly complete, although the analysis of interference is missing. An interim meeting has been called to address the simulation results that need to be added to the document. A document addressing the co-existence issues between MP systems and traditional P-MP systems has been contributed to the 802.16 work and the group agreed that this would be of interest to the BFWAtg. He told the group there was a IEEE 802.16 meeting next week together with an ETSI BRAN HIPERACCESS interim meeting.

VI Date of Next Meeting

The next meeting will be held on 23^rd May at Wyndham House.

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Annex A

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