Brit telcos to clash in high-speed mmWave spectrum showdown next year Britain's mobile telcos will get to bid for mmWave spectrum to provide high-speed wireless services next year, according to Ofcom, which just published the final draft of the regulations governing the auction. The UK telecoms regulator says it plans to release spectrum in the 25.1-27.5 GHz and 40.5-43.5 GHz bands in 2025, and …
I understand the fascination with speed for mobile communications.
Economic operators also understand the cost reality, because cell sizes shrink as the frequency increases (up to perhaps 200m on a good day). There is virtually no penetration of solid objects and you pretty much need line of sight. In order for base stations to deliver the achievable radio throughput, each base station needs fibre backhaul.
The hardware cost, backhaul cost and simple logistics of delivering many additional base stations will mean that, realistically, there won't be blanket mmWave cover except perhaps in top traffic city centre areas and possibly event venues.
So don't get too excited about top speed wireless comms for consumers yet.
Happy to be proven wrong.
The only times I've had mmwave connections has been in stadiums/arenas, and I checked speedtest and it was worse than the speed from my house where I typically get only 2 bars of LTE. I'm sure the venue is limited by backhaul etc. like you say but it is nice to just have connectivity in a place like that. I remember a decade ago going to a football game and once you got within a half mile of the stadium you lost all ability to make/receive calls or texts, and data was a dream.
So later I'm walking out of the stadium after a game and got about a quarter mile away and then my phone went nuts as it delivered like 20 text messages and a missed call. Later when I got further away I got a burst of about 50 iMessages. Obviously the people trying to contact me (who were mostly at the same game) had a carrier with better coverage in that area than mine. When I'd try to message anyone it would fail then try to send it by SMS as a fallback and then that would fail, so I just gave up trying after a few times with this happening.
So I'm happy I've got mmwave, even though the places where it is applicable are very few and far between.
The iPhone 15 had a cutout in the case for it's mmWave antenna, with the iPhone 16 Apple instead used that cutout for the camera shutter button and removed the mmWave antenna. Now the iPhone 16 connected to mmWave using it's normal antenna with worse performance.
I presume Apple will have data to back up the decision to remove the dedicated mmWave antenna (which was only installed on US iPhones anyway).
Reg readers with long memories will no doubt recall the 3G license auction around the turn of the millennium, when the UK's mobile operators almost bankrupted themselves trying to outbid each other for the available spectrum.
Am I supposed to feel sorry for the telcos in this instance, and by implication that the British Government shouldn't have done it?
Personally, I feel pleased that the British Government managed to make that much money out of them. It made a change from all the stories of how they always overpaid public listed companies for services and represented the single biggest payment against the national debt.
But then what happens? We who use mobile devices pay through the nose to have them connected via fresh air. There needed to be a trade off, not a greedy money grab. Big business or not, these operators provide services that pretty much all of use, including government. They've spent money on spectrum where we could have had network investment instead.
Exactly, why not just say "this is the price of the licence to use this portion of the spectrum" You each get a bit, if you pay up. Avoids the operators "nearly bankrupting" themselves and passing such high costs on to users. Wouldn't that also increase inflation, something Government is not keen on doing (or are mobile phone bills not included in the basket of goods used to calculate inflation figures?)
why not just say "this is the price of the licence to use this portion of the spectrum"
Because it is very difficult to decide the correct price for something when it is such an unusual market. It wasn't the open market situation with lots of trades of a similar commodity that you could use as a reference point. An auction isn't a bad choice for finding that level in that particular scenario.
Also remember it was at about the peak of the dot com bubble and so money was (almost) no object. Then the bubble burst and reality set in.
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I'd be very happy with a working, reasonably quick 4G, maybe giving me useable 20mbps in most places and no dropouts in large parts of East Anglia, Essex and Kent. That would be good for me.
You only have to go to India to see how far the UK is behind in coverage and speed. Even in the Himalayas you can get fast 5G, 120+mbps which is responsive, low latency and just works. Same in France. Why can the UK not get the same in denser populated areas with lots of installed fibre almost everywhere ?
As usual, UK regulators are just revolving doors for the money grabbers who have their tongues up the rectums of the various sectors, be it water, energy or telecoms. We are our own worst enemy.
Last I heard, the expected use-case for mmwave / above 6GHz freqs was for 'fixed link' / wireless broadband. Given the maturity of GHZ mobile radio, I just don't see how it makes sense to use mmwave stuff between a fixed base and mobile hand-held terminals...fixed-to-fixed makes sense, as does fixed-to-temporary-static-site, but putting a mobile hand-held terminal at one end is asking for trouble and will, IMHO, offer a shite user experience.
Unless, of course MNOs roll out mmwave cells very, very densely.....which won't happen due to the nuts level of capex and opex required.
Anybody who thinks fixed-to-mobile handset mmwave is a reliable RAT - given the current tech available - is kidding themselves.
I expect they will nonetheless. I’d give my money to whichever can give me a reliable 4G service, which in my area is a joke.
Also depending on how long it takes Ofcom to get their act together. Starlink’s Direct to Cell will not be fast to start with, but they can’t do much worse in terms of coverage. No one really needs more than 20mbs to their phone, so whilst I get the cases like stadiums where sheer bandwidth capacity is the issue, network companies could make themself far more appealing by providing 100% coverage, than by providing faster top speed. Yes there are some using 5G for broadband, but how much are people going to pay for that in cities where they already have FTC/FTP broadband?
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