A conversation with Philip Marnick, Group Director, Spectrum, Ofcom, and Cristina Data, Director, Spectrum Insight and Analysis, Ofcom
The below is only a summary. Download a transcript of the complete interview and access the complete report “3.5 GHz: Assessing technology, deployment options and business models” when it publishes on May 9.
Dynamic spectrum sharing will receive a big boost with CBRS in the US, but there are multiple technologies available and they can be used in multiple bands. Spectrum in some bands is already shared in some countries. Regulators worldwide are assessing options to expand sharing to increase efficiency in the use of spectrum resources.
In this discussion with Philip Marnick, Group Director of Spectrum, and Cristina Data, Director of Spectrum Insight and Analysis at Ofcom in the UK, we talked about the potential for spectrum sharing worldwide, and about the impact that CBRS will have in expanding spectrum sharing beyond the US.
Spectrum sharing will encourage innovation driven by what users demand and the market can deliver. Cristina told us: “we see a lot more advantages in the sharing of spectrum than purely the efficiency of the spectrum. This is because we can see more innovative uses being enabled by shared access.” Flexibility is crucial in this approach: “from an authorization perspective [we want to] allow users to have the spectrum they need, for what they need, in the place they need it.”
Philip added: “What we need to do is to enable permissive things to happen, as opposed to trying to predict what should happen. One of the things that is quite key is that we shouldn’t go for a world where innovation is by permission. For us, innovation is something that we should try to facilitate. We’d like to make sure that people have the option to use it, as opposed to us saying that this is what you should do with it.”
We will discuss our upcoming report ” Learning to share. CBRS in the 3.5 GHz band changes how we use spectrum” in a webinar on May 9, 2017, at 8:00 am PT, 11:00 am ET, 4:00 pm BST (UTC+1), 5:00 pm CEST. The webinar will also be available offline for those who cannot dial in.
This topic was further discussed on a webinar with Derek Peterson, CTO of Boingo.
View the complete webinar.
