Dynamic spectrum models necessary for 5G
Chile's future process to award 5G spectrum may vary greatly from its previous auctions, with frequency being granted to non-telecoms operators for specific use cases as well as to large operators.
Rodrigo Ramírez, head of Chile's telecoms regulator Subtel, told BNamericas that the watchdog could potentially award small blocks of spectrum to companies in sectors such as mining, energy and salmon farming.
"We need to ask the question of whether the model of awarding large blocks of spectrum works or doesn't work. 5G and IoT will mean that new players get involved. If a university wants better communication for its lecture halls it could request spectrum," he said on the sidelines of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
(Ramírez will step down along with the rest of President Michelle Bachelet's administration on March 11, when incoming president Sebastián Piñera begins his second term, after governing in 2006-10. He has named Pamela Gidi to head Subtel.)
There is no legal impediment in Chile for a non-telecoms company to become a mobile telecoms operator. State oil company ENAP, for example, has a concession for a block of spectrum in the 380/400MHz band, which it uses for automation and other internal uses. "When it needs to, ENAP will come for more spectrum in the same band," Ramírez said.
At MWC, Ramírez said he has been impressed by the CloudAir 2.0 technology of Huawei, which permits cloudification of spectrum for more efficient spectrum use. Different radio access technologies, for example 3G, 4G and 5G, could be used on the same spectrum block.
VERTICAL DESEGREGATION
One of the questions that has arisen consistently from operators regarding 5G during MWC is how long will it take to see a return on investment on the considerable upgrades to mobile infrastructure that will be required. Likewise, the operators wonder whether they should wait for the "killer app" before deploying 5G or will such apps appear once the infrastructure is in place.
According to Ramírez, that sort of thinking is wrong.
"We need to promote vertical desegregation in Latin Americas. Today, the owner of the infrastructure also owns the networks and offers the services and is dependent on ROI on services to finance the infrastructure. This is no longer viable. They are different businesses.
"We need to separate these roles and have different players competing to offer infrastructure, networks and services. That is a challenge or 5G," he added.
"We need to understand there is a now a digital system, which means many players co-existing in an ecosystem where before there were only three or four players."
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