World Radiocommunication Conference 2000
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Experts from the key players of the mobile industry taking part in the work of the IMT-2000 group recommended the bands 1 to 3 GHz as the most suitable for IMT-2000. This conclusion was endorsed by the World Radiocommunication Conference of 1997 in its Resolution on the implementation of IMT-2000 (Resolution 212). The same Resolution also called upon administrations which implement third generation IMT-2000 systems to use those frequency bands 1 885-2 025 MHz and 2 110-2 200 MHz.

The estimation of a minimum requirement of about 230 MHz was the basis for the WARC-92 decision to identify spectrum in the bands (1 885-2 025 MHz and 2 110-2 200 MHz). At the time, voice services were considered to be the major source of traffic, and only low data rate services were additionally considered. Usage of the mobile services has increased substantially since 1992 and, along with the growing demand for megabit data rates, have overtaken the estimations of that time.

Worldwide frequency plans for IMT-2000 bands already identified
prior to the Fortaleza meeting and their current use.

WRC-2000 will consider proposals for satisfying a forecast need for an additional 160MHz beyond the spectrum identified in 1992 and beyond the spectrum used in the three Regions for first and second-generation mobile systems. While a global, harmonized additional allocation is generally supported, it has been very difficult to find bands that would draw consensus because of their current use by other services. A lack of consensus would not prevent countries from making mobile spectrum available for IMT-2000 on a national basis, but this would result in higher handset prices for third generation systems because of the need to incorporate more complex circuitry to support international roaming across different frequency bands.

Moreover, it has become clear that further spectrum is needed as third generation services become more and more sophisticated to incorporate future multimedia applications and as the number of users increases.

Because it is preferable from an operational and performance viewpoint to target frequency bands that are contiguous to those already identified for IMT-2000, and since these bands are heavily used by a wide range of terrestrial services, spectrum experts have to ensure that all services can co-exist without causing harmful interference to one another. A number of options exist from co-sharing to adopting incentives to moving to other frequency bands those users who have reserved, but not used, large portions of the spectrum. From a purely business angle, mobile services probably bring the highest revenue per kHz. From a regulatory viewpoint, a unanimous agreement on candidate bands for the additional spectrum for IMT-2000 was reached in Fortaleza in March 1999, taking into account that some of the required bandwidth will almost certainly be re-farmed and reused spectrum made available as second generation systems are gradually taken out of service.

The licensing process for third generation mobile communication systems, know in ITU as International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) is picking up strong momentum this year and as many as 100 licenses is anticipated over the next 18 months. This has been stimulated by the substantial progress made in ITU on systems standard and frequency spectrum availability.

Following the early start made by Finland in 1999, Europe is now leading the licensing process with Spain and the UK having already awarded licenses to IMT-2000 operators, and many countries having called for bids or initiated the consultation phase.

Finland and Spain chose the method of comparative selection often referred to as "beauty contest" for granting 4 licenses each. Thailand, the second country in the world to have issued IMT-2000 licenses, awarded a total of 2. The UK, on the other hand, opted for auctioning the available spectrum in the 2 GHz IMT-2000 band and recently granted 5 licenses to the winners of the auction.

While other European countries like Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland have also announced that they will auction IMT-2000 spectrum, others like Denmark, France, Portugal and Sweden are considering the comparative selection approach.

In South Korea, bidders have been announced and licensing is scheduled to begin from the end of 2000 and service to begin on time for the World Cup football games in June 2002. Japan is likely to begin accepting applications shortly for 11 regional licences during summer 2000.

In the Americas, the spectrum identified for IMT-2000 back in 1992, was used for other purposes including second generation mobile phone systems. Discussions are now ongoing in countries of the region concerning the ways to align spectrum usage to that adopted by most countries in the rest of the world. In Brazil, a consultation process is currently underway to consider the use of the 2 GHz band that could be assigned to IMT-2000 use in accordance with the ITU guidelines of Resolution 212 of WRC-97 on the implementation of IMT-2000. As a result of this consultation, Brazil could be the first country in the Americas region to provide spectrum for the global deployment and integration of IMT-2000 on a worldwide basis.

Spectrum for IMT-2000 will be one of the main topics of ITU’s World Radiocommunication Conference, starting next Monday in Istanbul. The stakes are very high as the speed, affordability and performance of third generation services will essentially depend on the availability of sufficient spectrum and the licensing process hinges on those decisions. More information on the Conference can be found here.