9th Review Meeting
9TH FACSMAB Review Meeting
The Info-comm Development Authority hosted the 9th FACSMAB Review Meeting on 18th June 2010. It was held at the Carlton Hotel Singapore.
Amongst the items discussed in the meeting are briefly described below.
IDA also hosted a welcoming dinner at Safra Mount Faber Pioneer Spring Restaurant where delegates enjoyed sumptuous seafood in 5-star cozy dining environment. The dinner was attended by Mr. Leong Keng Thai, DG of IDA and Pg Hj Mohd Zain, CE of AITI, Nur Sulyna Abdullah on behalf of Chairman of MCMC together with the other FACSMAB Members. After the FACSMAB Review meeting, delegates attended a Guided tour at Singapore’s very first reservoir in the city, Marina Barrage.
Maximising the Benefits of Digital Dividend LEAD BY IDA
According to the RSPG Opinion, the Digital Dividend is defined as the spectrum made available over and above that required to accommodate the existing analogue television services in a digital form in VHF (Band III) and UHF (Band IV/V).
The Digital Dividend is touted as a unique opportunity to meet the fast growing demand for wireless communications services. It opens up sufficient spectrum for broadcasters to significantly develop and expand their services while at the same time ensuring that other important social and economic uses, such as wireless broadband applications to have access to this valuable resource.
The aim for this work item is to enable member countries to maximise the value that the services using the digital dividend to create for its citizens and consumers over time. The strategy is for member countries to release the digital dividend in a way that gives users as much freedom and flexibility as possible to decide how it is used, creating major new opportunities for competition and innovation in communications
Long Term Evolution in 2.5GHz Band LEAD BY AITI
LTE is touted to be the planned successor of the current 2G/3G networks and emerge as the industry mainstream technology. Although LTE is not deemed to be 4G, it is anticipated to operate in most of the IMT spectrum bands, including the 700 MHz band and 2.5 GHz band, which mobile operators are inclined to adopt as their preferred migration path to 4G. Nevertheless, LTE will not be commercially available until 2010 and probably not mass market until around 2014. In contrast, mobile manufacturers like Ericssion are holding a more promising view and predict LTE to be widely deployed in 2012 instead.
Globally, the trend on the use of the 2.5 GHz band is largely narrowed down to two competing mobile technologies LTE and WiMAX. Among the two, WiMAX has a headstart in rolling out commercial products in this band and having its standard ratified two years ago. Both the LTE and WiMAX technologies however share similarity in the way information is delivered to the end-users.
Broadcasting in 25MHz for Local Coverage LEAD BY MCMC
The 25670 – 26100 kHz frequency band (herein called the 26 MHz band) is exclusively allocated to the broadcasting service in the ITU Radio Regulations. This band comes under the provisions of RR Article 12, which includes an informal coordination procedure. This band is not heavily used for transmissions with analogue modulation for the following reasons:
- The sparse availability of suitable receivers capable of receiving this band;
- The periods of propagation that support reliable long distance transmission may be limited (sunspot cycle, seasonal, diurnal).
Recent development in broadcast technology shows broadcasting using Digital Radio Mundial (DRM) in the 26 MHz band can provide local coverage similar to that achieved in Band II (VHF FM). DRM can deliver FM-comparable sound quality, but on frequencies below 30 MHz (long wave, medium wave).