Spectrum Management in Mauritius and Motives for a Reform. Jerome LOUIS CEng MIET Director Engineering ICTA

Transcription

1 Spectrum Management in Mauritius and Motives for a Reform Jerome LOUIS CEng MIET Director Engineering ICTA

2 This Session What do we manage? Why do we manage? How are we managing the radio spectrum in Mauritius? What is good with our current management method? What are the limitations of our current management method? Where do we want to go? How do we move from there?

3 What do we manage? Spectrum management agencies manage the spatial, temporal and format (frequency, polarisation, etc ) dimensions occupied by RF electromagnetic energy radiated from transmitting antennas in order to ensure a manageable level of interference at potential victim receivers; Two radio operators cannot use the same radio frequency at the same time in the same geographic area without causing interference to each other.

4 What do we manage? (cont d) Time Frequency band

5 What do we manage? (cont d) 3D Space

6 What do we manage? (cont d) Due to imperfections in transmitters and receivers, even if users transmit on neighbouring frequencies, they can still interfere; Signals transmitted in one channel leak into adjacent channels and with practical receivers signals in adjacent channels cannot be completely removed from the wanted signal; Non-linearities within transmitters and receivers are also at the origin of interferences;

7 Why do we manage? The key purpose of spectrum management is to maximise the value that society gains from the radio spectrum by allowing as many efficient users as possible while ensuring that the interference between different users remains manageable (Essentials of Modern Spectrum Management)

8 How spectrum is managed traditionally? The spectrum manager provides each user with the right to use devices that comply to specific equipment standard and to transmit on a particular frequency over a particular geographical area; In Mauritius these rights are given through type approval certificates and licences;

9 National Primary Allocations between MHz GE-06 Channel Plan

10 Evolution in Spectrum related licences in Mauritius Act 1988 telecom operator s licence (e.g. for mobile networks, no technologies specified), device licences (including for mobile phones), relay link licences; Act 1998 telecom operator s licence (technologies specified, GSM, Analogue, UMTS), device licences (mobile phones no more requires licence), relay link licences; Act 2001 Spectrum licence (technologies not specified), device licences (stations and apparatus), relay link licences. Licensing exemptions given under certain circumstances; None of the above have materially changed the underlying principles of traditional command and control spectrum management

11 Command and Control Spectrum Management Regulators decide on both the use of a particular band and which users are allowed to transmit in the band; Keeping tight regulatory control over spectrum use:- Makes it easier to manage interference and; Results in high technical efficiency of spectrum use

12 Example: Decision of 5 June 2012 on additional spectrum for IMT in the 1800 MHz band

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14 What are the issues with command and control and why reform? Technologies now are flexible by default Software Defined Radios allow several technologies and frequency band of operation in a single box (e.g. LTE, WiMAX, 3G); GSM compared to LTE is quite rigid single bandwidth of 200kHz, single frequency band (900 MHz), single duplexing method (FDD), single modulation scheme (GMSK), etc LTE several bandwidth possible (1.4 MHz 20 MHz), more than 20 frequency bands, both FDD and TDD possible, adaptive modulation and coding schemes, etc Traditional ways of specifying licence conditions may limit operators in taking advantage of these inbuilt flexibilities and hence limit innovation in service provisioning; This may warrant introducing flexibility into spectrum management by defining technology and service neutral licence conditions.

15 What are the issues with command and control and why reform? Convergence of services results in additional challenges for regulators in their decision process for the appropriate frequency bands for assignment; The Regulator may not be best placed to decide on the most appropriate technologies to deploy in a frequency band; Many technologies do not get access to spectrum because they do not comply with set standards; The regulator may not be best placed to decide on the economic value of the spectrum;

16 Where do we want to go? The objective is not to replace the current spectrum management tools by new tools but to add new spectrum management tools in our tool kit The proposal is to define:- harmonized spectrum assignment apparatus assignment; flexible spectrum assignment; class assignment; Existing tools New tools

17 What about international rights and obligations under the Radio Regulations Mauritius is an ITU Member State; The Radio Regulations (RR) constitute the principal regulatory framework within which ITU Member States undertake to operate radio services and are the basic tool for international spectrum use; Each country is however sovereign with respect to its spectrum management policies so long as it does not cause interference to systems in other countries;

18 What about international rights and obligations under the Radio Regulations Adoption of flexible spectrum management may sometimes require derogation to the RR and application of Article 4.4 of RR (i.e. non-interference, non-protection) Mauritius, through its participation in the last WRC, has made contributions with a view to study all aspects of interference management resulting from the impact of technical convergence on the radio regulatory environment; The contributions of Mauritius have been adopted as a WRC-12 Recommendation and studies are currently being undertaken under ITU-R Study Group 1.

19 How do we move from there? Questions that are aimed to be answered at this workshop:- Is the industry ready for a reform? How should flexibility (technology and service neutrality) be introduced in spectrum access in Mauritius? What benefits the industry will derive from such flexibility? How should the regulator define flexible licence conditions in view of managing interference between spectrum users and uses properly? What should be the design of spectrum licences?

20 How do we move from there? How far are market approaches to spectrum management relevant for a small island economy like Mauritius? How far are auctioning and spectrum trading essential to the reform of spectrum management, to what frequencies should they apply, and what should be auctioned precisely? What are the benefits and drawbacks of spectrum auctioning for the Mauritian context? How should we go about choosing the right spectrum management system(s) for Mauritius?

21 Thank You