2 Comments are requested on items raised in the text and repeated in abbreviated form in the list below:

- how will the spectrum for private applications in practice be used (see paragraph 4)?

- what should and should not be counted as private applications (see paragraph 4)?

- how potentially effective will be the self coordinated approach in the wide variety of situations that are likely to arise in practice (see paragraph 5)?

- will we get the best from the spectrum for private applications by a licence exempt regime, a licensing regime or a mixture of the two eg exemption for small systems but licensing for larger systems (see paragraph 7)?

- should Third Generation (3G) national public network operators who have won a licence in the intended auction be permitted access to the spectrum for private applications (on the same technical conditions as other users), on a shared basis with each other and private users, to provide for example "overflow" capacity (see paragraph 8)?

- it is proposed that the same technical conditions (eg transmit power etc) should apply to use of all the spectrum for private applications, and views are sought on this proposal (see paragraph 9)

Comments should be received by noon on Friday 5 March by:

Mike Shute

Radiocommunications Agency Auction Team

8S/7.2

New King’s Beam House

22 Upper Ground

London

SE1 9SA

Tel 0171 211 0597

Fax 0171 211 0123

Email shutem@ra.gtnet.gov.uk

3 The amount of spectrum available for private applications depends on final spectrum packaging decisions but in the context of UMTS (the European candidate for the IMT2000 family of standards) is likely to be 10 or 15 MHz of unpaired spectrum corresponding to 2 or 3 radio frequency carriers (ie spectrum blocks). A final decision on the location of this spectrum will be taken in ERC TG1 since it is seen as desirable for this spectrum to be harmonised across Europe. The Agency therefore expects to develop UK use of this spectrum in a manner that is compatible with European developments in spectrum use and technical standards and consistent with the EU UMTS Decision. In relation to the question of Third Generation standards we are examining carefully the recent exchange of letters between Commissioner Bangemann and the US Government and intend fully to comply with obligations under EU legislation and the WTO agreements.

4 Private use, and potential for interworking, roaming and handover between many different private and public networks, are integral parts of UMTS as envisaged by the UMTS Forum, an association of telecommunications operators, manufacturers and regulators active in Europe and other parts of the world. The Forum stated in a recent report "Business users are expected to be early adopters of UMTS. They will want availability of private UMTS networks and public UMTS networks. Seamless interworking between public and private networks is an important requirement in this respect" and"Timely availability of private UMTS communication capabilities will stimulate market development and contribute significantly to the market volume. It will spur a more rapid introduction of UMTS coverage, equipment and services and allow niche applications". More information on envisaged private applications is given in the annexed UKTAG document 65/98 "Requirements for UMTS TDD and Private Systems". UKTAG is an association of UK based operators, service providers, manufacturers, academics, researchers and others in which the Agency actively participates. Comments are requested on these envisaged private applications and other views are sought on how the spectrum for private applications may in practice be used. Views are also invited on what should and should not be counted as private applications.

5 The UKTAG document mentioned in the previous paragraph indicates a range of different sizes of private application. If private use includes for example provision by businesses of telecommunications to staff, customers and visitors this could encompass large private systems ( including those with sites interlinked by the user’s own core network) with possible spectrum capacity consequences for other users (eg domestic systems) of the spectrum for private applications. UMTS is being developed to support uncoordinated systems (ie to self coordinate, like for example DECT) in unpaired spectrum, although detailed proposals and simulations have not yet been worked through. Views are sought as to how potentially effective the self coordinated approach may be in the wide variety of situations that are likely to arise in practice.

6 Further information on the tools for licence exemption is given in paragraph 10. Consequences of licence exemption from the users’ point of view are that the Agency will only investigate interference complaints if they are believed to arise from an illegal source, and that there is no scope for coordinating users (apart from self coordination built into the equipment), not least because users do not identify themselves to the Agency. In contrast a licensing regime does identify users to the Agency and can provide scope for coordinating users and Agency involvement in interference problems. For small systems the licence exempt regime may be thought most appropriate but for the larger scale business systems that are envisaged the limited certainty of spectrum availability provided by a licence exempt regime (set against the cost of a large radio system) raises questions about its suitability.

7 Views are invited on getting the best from the spectrum for private applications by a licence exempt regime, a licensing regime or a mixture of the two eg exemption for small systems but licensing for larger systems. Possibilities for a mixed scheme would need to take into account the self coordinating characteristics of the radio equipment and perhaps consider different spectrum blocks for licensed and licence exempt use. Possibilities for a licensing regime could be a scheme of limited scope that collects from users little more than their identification details (a so called light licensing regime), or a more comprehensive scheme collecting some details of radio systems and facilitating coordination between users. Current Agency practice for all sectors of radio use is that if (otherwise) licence exempt equipment is used for provision of services to third parties, then a licence is required.

8 Comments are sought on whether 3G national public network operators who have won a licence in the intended auction should be permitted access to the spectrum for private applications (this would be on the same technical conditions as other users), on a shared basis with each other and private users, to provide for example "overflow" capacity. Views on whether this would be attractive to public operators would be welcomed. At the same time the Agency would be concerned if public operator use of the spectrum for private applications were to be seriously detrimental to private users, for example if it resulted in the available spectrum becoming overloaded.

9 Whatever the scenario adopted it is proposed that the same technical conditions (eg transmit power etc) should apply to use of all the spectrum for private applications. Views are sought on this proposal. In order to maximise the potential for systems sharing the spectrum for private applications in an efficient way, the Agency’s view is the radio frequency carriers should be subject to a substantially lower power limit (of the order of milliwatts) than the higher power limit anticipated for the 3G national public network operators.

10 A variety of regulatory tools are available for managing use of the licence exempt spectrum, for example defining permitted classes of users, implementing technical standards and setting transmit power levels. Under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949 all installation and use of radio equipment/apparatus needs to be covered by a licence or a licence-exemption Regulation. Exemption Regulations specify the parameters within which radio use is permitted and contribute towards making the best use of the spectrum. Under the Telecommunications Act all telecommunications systems need to be individually licensed or covered by a T Act Class Licence (Class Licence). Hence for use of licence-exempt 3G equipment there need to be in place both an Exemption Regulation and a Class Licence. Exemption Regulations and Class Licences are not issued to individual users, but users do need to comply with their requirements. For Exemption Regulations these requirements could include compliance with a technical standard, frequency limits and other technical matters eg transmit power.

11 This paper does not cover the arrangements that will need to be put in place to exempt the terminals of individual subscribers to public 3G networks from the need for WT Act and T Act licences. These arrangements will be made separately but it is not anticipated that they will vary significantly from the arrangements for Second Generation subscriber exemptions.

The annex begins on the next page

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Annex

UK TAG doc 65/98

Introduction

The radio spectrum that has been designated by CEPT/ERC for UMTS includes 35 MHz of unpaired bands. It is also expected that any additional radio spectrum, that may be allocated to UMTS in the future, will include further unpaired bands. Therefore, public operators typically will use both the paired and unpaired spectrum. In addition, a significant application of the unpaired bands will be for private systems operating in licence exempt spectrum. Indeed, private systems are an integral part of the UMTS vision to provide universal personalised mobile communications. Any consideration of the unpaired spectrum must therefore take into account access to both public and private systems.

The utilisation of the unpaired bands, and the UTRA TDD mode selected by ETSI for use in these bands, are therefore very important to the overall development of UMTS. The intent of this report, prepared by the UK Third Generation Advisory Group (UK TAG), is to stimulate further debate and work on public and private applications of the UTRA TDD mode. To this end, the report considers the ways in which the unpaired spectrum is most likely to be used, and identifies some of the key requirements that will have to be met to ensure that this spectrum is exploited to its full potential. It is recognised that much further work will be necessary to identify the full compliment of requirements and to elaborate on related commercial, standardisation and regulatory issues.

General Considerations

Before considering the requirements that arise from individual scenarios, it is worth reviewing some general features of UMTS relevant to both public and private networks.

The UMTS Vision is to offer personalised mobile communications to the mass market regardless of location, network or terminal used. As the scenarios considered later in this paper make clear, this will be achieved through a multiplicity of UMTS networks. These will differ in their service and coverage capabilities, and will range from public networks with national coverage to local private networks providing, for example, coverage in a hotel or conference centre for use by visitors and staff.

The provision of services through multiple inter-connected networks leads to three general requirements:

Wherever practical and appropriate, the end user should have access to a consistent and coherent set of services and features across the different networks. To this end it should be possible for a user to have a single set of identities with which to access the same services from different networks.

Inter-system roaming will be required to allow the users of terminals to use the services of different public and private systems without the need to have a separate subscription with each network. For roaming to take place between the different systems, features required include the availability of appropriate FDD and/or TDD mode terminals and secure location registration, authentication, encryption and charging mechanisms. For calls in progress intra-system, and possibly inter-system, handover will be required.

The means of network selection, and the presentation of options to the user, will need careful consideration and design. Whilst automatic selection may be appropriate in many situations, adequate and clear information will have to be provided to enable the user to select the network most appropriate to the user’s specific current circumstances.

Multimedia services, particularly IP based services, are expected to be an important feature of UMTS and many of these services are expected to result in asymmetric traffic flows. This asymmetry is expected to be even more pronounced in pico cells where higher bandwidth services will often be in use. The degree of asymmetry and its variation with time or location, however, is not clearly identifiable as yet and the ability to handle it in as flexible a manner as possible will be important.

Scenarios

The UTRA TDD mode is well suited to small cells and is expected to be deployed mainly in the micro and pico cell environments. In addition, it has the potential to handle asymmetric traffic in a flexible and efficient manner. It should be noted that indoor traffic densities are expected to be both very variable with location and to be very high in localised areas.

The following four scenarios have been identified as representative of the range of TDD applications for the purposes of this document.

Public Access Systems in licensed UMTS spectrum,

Public Access Systems in licence exempt UMTS spectrum,

Private Access Systems in licence exempt UMTS spectrum,

Private Networks in licence exempt UMTS spectrum.

Public Access Systems in licensed UMTS spectrum

This scenario involves the use of TDD in an operator’s licensed spectrum in the unpaired bands, as a complement to FDD in the paired bands. It will be used to increase radio coverage and/or capacity in public places. TDD systems will also be deployed in private indoor/on-site locations to provide improved radio coverage or to support particular business services. In all cases, the operator maintains ownership and responsibility for all parts of the network.

Public Access Systems in licence exempt UMTS spectrum

Public UMTS access may also be provided by any telecommunications operator using a UMTS radio access network operating in licence exempt spectrum. Such an operator would use the wireless network to offer services to users in both public places and private business premises but would be unlikely to offer contiguous wide area coverage.

Private Access Systems in licence exempt UMTS spectrum

This scenario involves customers owning and operating their own UMTS radio access network within their premises. These systems will operate in licence exempt spectrum and will be connected to a public UMTS core network. Functions of the core network include authentication, support of service profiles, network interconnect and traffic routing. Applications will range from residential use to private organisations such as universities and conference centres.

Private Networks in licence exempt UMTS spectrum

This is a variant of the Private Access Systems scenario (clause 3.3) in which the customer additionally owns and operates their own UMTS core network. These self-contained systems (i.e. complete systems in their own right) will interwork with other private and public UMTS core networks, and will operate in licence exempt spectrum. These systems should provide a home network capability for internal users across multiple, possibly isolated, sites to enable users to access the same services when roaming within the private network. Such networks will be used typically by organisations with large industrial sites or office complexes.

Key requirements

The key requirements resulting from the four scenarios are summarised below. Those which are common to all scenarios are listed immediately below. Those that relate to a subset of the scenarios are given in the following table.

Within the limitations of the physical air interface, all features supported by the FDD mode should be supported by the TDD mode.

Handover between TDD and TDD within the same UTRAN should be supported.

The TDD mode will need to be capable of supporting high traffic densities. It will need to handle asymmetric traffic in an efficient and flexible manner whilst minimising any constraints on the use of adjacent carriers.

There should be no technical restriction on the ability of a terminal to roam between both public and private networks (subject to suitable commercial arrangements and any regulatory constraints).

Conclusion

The four scenarios make it clear that the UMTS Vision to offer personalised mobile communications to the mass market regardless of location, network or terminal used will be achieved through multiple inter-connected public and private UMTS systems. Furthermore, the UTRA TDD mode will be integral to this vision and will need to support essentially the same features and capabilities as the FDD mode.

In particular, the key requirements for the UTRA TDD mode are:

The TDD mode will need to be capable of supporting high traffic densities. It will need to handle asymmetric traffic in an efficient and flexible manner whilst minimising any constraints on the use of adjacent carriers.

The TDD mode must be capable of efficient operation in high density traffic situations without co-ordination between different overlapping systems using the same carriers.

In addition, the scenarios show the importance of private UMTS systems to the overall UMTS vision and lead to the following key UMTS requirements: