Google may have given up on Loon, but there is still plenty more to come from high-altitude platform stations (HAPS). WRC-19 defined operational characteristics and spectrum bands for HAPs, and a number of countries proposed similar regulatory visibility for platforms referred to as HIBs, high-altitude International Mobile Telecommunications base stations.… Read more...

The histories of spectrum policy and the mobile industry are closely intertwined. Much of the news in radio spectrum is driven by the stakeholders with the deepest pockets: mobile operators. Mobile operators' business strategies and technology focusses vary, but they all need spectrum. How they obtain that spectrum depends on… Read more...

One of the pleasures of reporting on spectrum is that it gives you the opportunity to see the technologies of the future. Spectrum managers were dealing with mega-constellations and 5G, or reading about them in PolicyTracker, years before they they were discussed in the mainstream press. But as well as… Read more...

The frontiers of useful and valuable spectrum, we are told, are constantly moving upwards. A visitor from 2010, for example, might be shocked by Thai mobile operators paying $375 million for the 26 GHz band, or their South Korean counterparts paying $550 million for the 28 GHz band. The same,… Read more...

Facebook may no longer be planning to build its own high altitude battery-powered gliders, but it remains committed to HAPS and this is the main theme of its WRC-19 lobbying. The HAPs strategy is part of the company's drive to connect the developing world and this commitment also motivates their… Read more...

Our second Countdown to WRC-19 Research Note looks at the mobile and fixed services, the topics covered in Chapters 1 and 2 of the conference preparatory document. Excluding 5G mmWave services, the first big issue is additional spectrum around 39 GHz and 20 GHz for High Altitude Platforms (HAPS), such… Read more...