ISED seeks mmWave testing after report questions spectrum readiness

Just over a year after a critical internal report raised questions about the technological readiness of millimetre wave frequencies in the wake of a government consultation on using the spectrum for 5G deployment, Innovation Canada on Monday launched a request for proposals to set up a test bed for the spectrum. The department’s research and development agency, the Communications Research Centre (CRC), is seeking an mmWave testing platform that will operate in the mobile urban environment. It will have three goals: capture and analyze data in over-the-air transmissions, test and demonstrate 5G communications using the spectrum, and measure the radio channels, or “channel sounding,” for example in environments such as those with dense foliage. The call for proposals was published on Public Works and Government Services Canada’s website on Monday. It asks the successful contractor to test the frequency band between 27.5 and 29.5 GHz, and gives the winning bidder the optional assignment of testing the 37-40 GHz frequencies. The winner will have a three-year window to complete the tests. Both bands are in a series that formed the basis for a consultation ISED launched last year, as part of a broader spectrum outlook for the next five years. Telecoms replying to the consultation were adamant about the need to release the spectrum, which is expected to deliver high bandwidth and low latency in dense urban areas. But an internal report released in Sep. 2017, a few months following the consultation and obtained via an access to information request, said mmWave for 5G faced “major hurdles” toward proving itself as a viable technological and business success. The technical memo was published as a working document that forms part of a larger research project by the CRC. It lists numerous problems facing the spectrum’s mass deployment, including the need for better hardware, testability, and better predictability when it comes to signal interference -- concerns which, by memo author Ayman Sabbah’s estimation, mean there’s a need for a “more careful and thorough investigation” before the technology can be deployed for 2020. But Sabbah notes that there are “novel design challenges and research questions” that mean deploying the spectrum as a key 5G enabler by 2020 -- the date many peg as the year 5G will begin deployment -- is “very ambitious.” Certain issues are “not well understood,” said the memo, which draws on previous research and testing. For example, Sabbah noted that the spectrum suffers from “higher penetration loss,” and environmental impacts can result in “outages and intermittent channel quality.” “The ongoing standardization and development of mmWave cellular systems is one of the biggest leaps forward in wireless communications in the last two decades,” read the memo, which is not a formal document of the CRC and has a strictly limited distribution. One way to maximize the spectrum’s effectiveness, the memo notes, is through spectrum license sharing between operators. “Reported results show that spectrum license sharing achieves higher performance in terms of per user rate,” it said, adding that both interference and available bandwidth increase with the size of spectrum sharing. “A general conclusion regarding spectrum sharing is that with the full sharing between the operators, data rates get a higher value with the larger available bandwidth,” the memo said. Sabbah is a research fellow and engineer at the CRC. He previously held a position as a network and software specialist at the Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks (CENGN), an incubator for small-to-medium companies to get their technologies off the ground, according to his LinkedIn social media page. When reached for comment, the CRC deferred to ISED, which did not respond by deadline to a request for comment on whether this outlook has changed since it was released last year. Sabbah noted in the memo that the majority of mobile vendors supported the 24.25-27.5 GHz spectrum as the “pioneer band” because of larger bandwidth and the prospect of “continuous tuning range with the 28 GHz band” to scale with the United States and Korea. In June 2018, ISED added the 26.5 to 27.5 GHz band to the consultation. That’s the same month Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains set out the timeline for three auctions for 5G spectrum: the 600 MHz in 2019, 3500 MHz in 2020, and 1 GHz of the millimetre wave in 2021. The memo doesn’t say that mmWave is unsuitable for Canada from a scientific and technological standpoint, and in fact presents the spectrum as a “strong candidate” for 5G where there are spectrum shortages in other favourable bands between 300 MHz and 6 GHz. However, it noted that “further advance in mmWave is required in order to provide a meaningful and evidence-based feedback to ISED.” — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

ISED seeks mmWave testing after report questions spectrum readiness

News | October 23, 2018

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ISED seeks mmWave testing after report questions spectrum readiness

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