Vendor profiles fully updated

Spectrum policy makers and strategists often consider availability of equipment as a key input to their decision making. Verizon’s high bids for licences at the low end of the 3.7 – 3.98 GHz, for example, was justified by globally available equipment for those frequencies.

The reverse is also true; equipment makers consider spectrum policy as a key input to their decision making.

Given the close relationship between spectrum policy and equipment availability, it is useful to track what vendors currently think about spectrum.

At a high level, equipment vendors often agree that more spectrum should be made available for commercial use. Some differences are well known. Vendors with a focus on Wi-Fi, such as Cisco, support unlicensed approaches to the 6 GHz band while those focussed on mobile broadband, such as Huawei, want the spectrum auctioned to mobile operators. A closer look reveals more subtle differences in emphasis and on details. Ericsson and Nokia support the FCC’s reforms to 900 MHz business radio rules, for example, whereas this niche appears of little interest to the other vendors we track.

More information is set out in our updated profiles of spectrum positions for Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm, Huawei, Intel, Apple, and Cisco. These are available to Spectrum Research Service subscribers here.