India & US 6G Alliance
India & US's 6G Spectrum Bands are hardly in Sync - Making it look like a 6G Accord with 6G Spectrum in Discord
A couple of days back ATIS’ Next G Alliance and India’s Bharat 6GAlliance Announced a Memorandum of Understanding to explore collaboration opportunities on 6G wireless technologies.
The purpose of this alliance is to encompass aligning research and development priorities that support a common 6G vision and creating secure and trusted telecommunications as well as resilient supply chains.
This is a piece of excellent news, however, the true success of this alliance also rests on the alignment of the 6G bands - without which the objective of creating a secure and trusted telecommunication supply chain can’t be fully accomplished, as telecom equipment are manufactured to work in ONLY specific bands made available for that purpose. The objective of this note is to analyze where are these misalignments and what needs to be done to rectify this issue.
India’s & US 6G Bands
On 1st Aug 2023, India submitted to the 6th APT Conference a list of frequencies for future studies for inclusion as candidate bands for IMT (6G technologies). Now the US’s 6G candidate bands can be extracted from the Next 6 Alliance Report published recently in Aug 2023. I have mapped both lists for the purpose of checking the synergies reproduced below. Note, that the Last Column if painted Green indicates alignment, and if painted RED indicates no alignment.
Also note, that the US has many more spectrum bands (< 7 GHz and > 19.7 GHz) to be evaluated as likely candidates for 6G, but I have excluded those bands from this table due to the reasons - a) Either India has not made any proposal for the inclusion of these bands for 6G in the APT; b) Or these bands are not candidates bands for auctions of satellite spectrum (refer to page 143 of TRAI’s CP for Auctioning Satellite Spectrum).
Now limiting the mapping to only these 8 sets of bands results in an overlap of just 16.5% if the full block of spectrum is taken for the purpose of calculation. However, the actual overlap may be even less when studies are carried out to check the usability of these bands given most of these are already occupied by existing services.
How Can India Increase Alignment?
The easiest and quickest way to achieve alignment is by NOT assigning spectrum for satellite services (S.No, 5,6 & 8 in the table above) exclusively for the purpose of ONLY satellite usage and opening up these bands for possible 6G deployments by working closely with Next G Alliance.
Doing so will increase the Overlap of the 6G spectrum between the US and India to 51% - a leap of 34.5%.
This shouldn’t be that difficult as most nations are migrating their spectrum towards flexible usage (for both satellite and terrestrial) with the intent of unlocking more value. Also, since satellite services are unable to use spectrum efficiently (due to limited frequency reuse capabilities), flexible usage can help use unused capacities that will remain free for the reasons mentioned above.
Also, in a recent consultation floated by the FCC (July 2023) for the usage of 12.7-13.25 for mobile broadband, it has made the following observation as regards SpaceX’s views reproduced below for ready reference.
The Commission seeks comment accordingly. The Commission notes, however, that SpaceX supports the Commission's decision to explore the use of the 12.7 GHz band rather than the 12.2 GHz band for terrestrial mobile broadband and other expanded uses. SpaceX asserts that “[w]hile [it] is licensed for both bands, it nonetheless joins the other commenters supporting the Commission's shift in focus to the upper 12 GHz band.” In any event, SpaceX's “[o]perations of [NGSO] systems in the 12.75–13.25 GHz (Earth-to-space) frequency band with earth stations in the United States are restricted to individually licensed earth stations in accordance with footnote NG57 to the U.S. Table of Frequency Allocations, 47 CFR 2.106, NG57.” Additionally, SpaceX's “authorization is subject to modification to bring it into conformance with any rules or policies adopted by the Commission in the future.
Note the last sentence - “SpaceX’s authorization is subject to modifications”. Hence, if the FCC in the US can allow satellite services to function with riders to enable flexibility, then shouldn’t India do the same? That too, when 6G is in focus - providing India the opportunity to make up for the past losses?
Conclusion
India and the US working 6G alliance is a welcome step in the right direction. But in order for this accord to unlock its full potential India needs to align its 6G bands with that of the US. Doing so will result in economies of sale for 6G equipment, enabling India with more empowerment to procure from trusted sources.
Therefore, India needs to introspect its assignment strategies for Satellite Spectrum. The drive for auctioning it shouldn’t help create perpetual rights - which India might find difficult to unwind in the future. If that happens, all the good work and initiatives taken today towards 6G will go down the drain, which is NOT in the interest of India and its consumers.