20th Review Meeting
20TH FACSMAB Review Meeting
BRUNEI DARUSSALAM HOSTED THE 20TH FACSMAB REVIEW MEETING
The 20th FACSMAB Review Meeting was hosted by AITI on 3rd May 2019 at The Empire Hotel And Country Club, Brunei Darussalam. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Pengiran Hj Mohd Zain, Chief Executive of AITI and was attended by members from Regulatory Authorities from Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia and Singapore. YBhg. Dato’ Mohd Ali Hanafiah bin Mohd Yunus, Chief Officer, Corporate Sector of MCMC and Ms Aileen Chia, Deputy Chief Executive (Policy, Regulation and Competition Development) / Director-General (Telecoms & Post) of IMDA led the Malaysian and Singaporean delegations respectively.
During the meeting, one new work item has been confirmed, which is LTE in 5GHz Unlicensed Band. Two existing work items are to be further studied, and they are (i) 5G Technology and Developments; and (ii) Harmonisation of 24.25GHz to 43.5GHz Frequency Bands for 5G and Beyond.
LTE in 5GHz Unlicensed Band
The commercial success of LTE and the resulting growth in mobile data demand have urged mobile operators to endeavor for innovations. With this, operating LTE in unlicensed spectrum has been proposed to allow mobile operators to offload some of their data traffic by accessing the unlicensed 5GHz frequency band. Currently, there are three technologies for LTE operation in the unlicensed band, namely LTE-U, LAA and MulteFire.
At WRC-15, it was noted that there might be need to specify potential technical and operational restrictions for WAS/RLAN operating in the mobile service within the 5GHz frequency range facilitate sharing with systems of incumbent services.
FACSMAB will study on the suitable frequency band plan, latest standardisation and regulatory efforts to enable practical deployment of the these technologies and to align the frequency band identified for LTE-U, LAA and Multefire and technical aspects based on ITU recommendations among FACSMAB member countries.
5G Technology and Developments
5G technology is seen as a comprehensive wireless-access solution with the capacity to address the demands and requirements of mobile communication beyond 2020. The primary 5G use cases include enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications, ultra-reliable & low-latency communications. With its capability to deliver fibre-like user experience of up to 10Gbps, latency of less than 1 millisecond and massive connection capacity of up to 1,000,000 devices per km2, 5G is envisaged to support a wide range of applications and services with heterogeneous performance requirements.
At WRC-15, a number of mmWave bands were identified for considerations in the WRC-19 meetings to be held at the end of 2019 for 5G deployment.
FACSMAB will continue to study and understand the possible 5G technologies, prioritise 5G spectrum bands and the potential spectrum sharing mechanism to encourage the efficient use of spectrum. To monitor ITU activities and identify spectrum allocations to support 5G requirements within the global framework provided by the ITU Radio Regulations.
Harmonisation of 24.25GHz to 43.5GHz Frequency Bands for 5G and Beyond
The WRC-15 instructed ITU-R Study Group 5 to study on possible identification of frequency bands in the range of 24.25GHz - 86GHz for International Mobile Telecommunications 2020 (IMT-2020)/5G. Identification of frequency bands for 5G including frequency range of 24.25GHz to 43.5GHz is yet to be finalised and will be considered at WRC-19.
FACSMAB will continue to work towards harmonising allocation of frequency bands in the range of 24.25GHz to 43.5GHz for 5G and beyond. To monitor studies by ITU-R Study Group 5 on frequency bands for 5G and beyond and share views on possible harmonisation at FACSMAB meetings and continue to monitor the latest 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) developments on standards for 5G including chipset readiness.