Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– new to Europe and USA, but very successful in
Australia over the past 9 years
– fully defined access rights with no further
negotiation with Regulator or adjacent
spectrum licensees:
• technically clear and legally certain access for any
equipment/deployment since 1998
• fully self-managed: 5000+ site WCDMA850 network fully
authorised in past 3 months
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Value of a spectrum space is established by:
– 5 dimensions:
• physical space (3)
• frequency (1)
• Time (1)
– access conditions
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– Space-Centric Management: treats radio spectrum
space as a commercial asset with a clearly defined
and preserved utility for any technology and service a
licensee may wish to operate (where necessary
separate rights for legacy users are required)
– technology and service neutral: certain technologies
and services require more spectrum space than others,
therefore, technology and service neutral spectrum
access can only mean there is a pre-defined and clear
means of access for all equipment/deployment types
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– Ofcom’s Spectrum Usage Rights or SURs: no
similarity whatsoever with Space-Centric
Management
– “spectrum mask” approach: contains one element
of Space-Centric Management but by no means
represents a complete solution [1]
[1] The “spectrum mask” approach relies heavily on expected use (device-centric)
and therefore has low intrinsic flexibility/spectrum efficiency. Future uses then
have an over-reliance on negotiation with both adjacent licensees and the
Regulator. Regulator remains central to management.
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
The expediency of using traditional interference
management methods for spectrum licences results in
design weaknesses which reduce potential for
innovation
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
1. partial spectrum access rights: all
interference mechanisms and equipment
deployments not being considered
2. unclear spectrum access rights: ambiguous
interference settlement responsibilities
3. over-reliance on negotiation: reduced
investment and licence value through high cost
and commercial uncertainty of ongoing
negotiation [2]
[2] Authentic freedom within an interdependent system can only be achieved
by establishing all the necessary rules.
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
4. spectrum access rights based primarily on
traditional device-centric coordination: nonreciprocal (inequitable) access when dissimilar
services are operated in adjacent spectrum
licences – utility of licence not preserved
5. single licence syndrome:
•
•
•
Regulator avoids design of spectrum access rights for
internal spectrum space boundaries
makes later spectrum division/trading by licensee very
difficult
leads to inconsistent and conflicting negotiated internal
boundary conditions
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
6. no centralised database:
• important source of legal certainty is then lost
• design options for spectrum access rights are
severely curtailed [3]
• resulting worst case solutions significantly
reduce spectrum utility and licence value [4]
[3] A Regulator’s attitude to the provision of a centralised online database
fundamentally affects the available design options
[4] Benefits of data being public far outweigh any disadvantage. Because
interference is interdependent, good management requires good data.
Sufficient information must be made available in a centralised database to
enable spectrum licensees to extract maximum value from their licences.
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– investment in innovation requires legal certainty
for spectrum access
• explicit and permanent rules (not hidden e.g. in software)
• clear and legally robust
• no negotiation (except for spectrum sharing/trading)
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– the optimum form for Spectrum Access
Rights/Responsibilities (SARs) is an
integrated technical, administrative, legal
and economic design – not just technical [5]
– SARs must allow licensees to manage
interference efficiently
[5] “The primary objective in designing spectrum access rights is not to determine
whether interference is actually occurring but to enable the market to operate
efficiently” – Roberto Ercole
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– separate interference benchmarks for all interference
mechanisms are necessary (see background paper for
more details)
• Interference category A: same band-adjacent area
• Interference category B: adjacent band-same area
• Interference category C: out-of-band interference[6]
[6] There is no close parallel to intermodulation (interference category C) in the
management of any other natural resource.
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Frequency band of
spectrum licence Receiver
Bandwidth
A) In-band Interference
(Linear type response)
Same Band-Adjacent Area
B) In-band Interference
(Linear type response)
Same Area-Adjacent Band
C) Out-of-band Interference
(Non-Linear type response)
Same Area-Adjacent Band
Transmitter Signal
Emission
Receiver Signal Rejection
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
Interference
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Receiver
responds to
emissions that
are well outside
the frequency
band of the
spectrum licence
– explicit receive rights (e.g. Power Flux Density (PFD) at
some distance from the antenna) are impractical as
legal rights for boundary conditions [7]
– technical and legal certainty are created with Explicit
Transmit Rights
– clearly defined maximum power levels radiated by
transmitters at the antenna (or array) in relation to
all interference mechanisms and all spectrum
space boundaries [8]
[7] OK at a point in spectrum space e.g. as rights for a legacy service.
[8] Note: Limits involving aggregate radiated power from a number of separate
antennas are an impractical and unnecessary complication.
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– Explicit Transmit Rights:
• based on interference benchmarks
• can not be defined using explicit receive rights e.g. PFD at
geographic boundary
• independent of actual received levels at any space boundary
• relate use of spectrum space directly to equipment design
• may be viewed as an alternate legally robust definition for “harmful
interference”
• additional interference benchmarks in the form of deployment
constraints are necessary – see book for details
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
The Explicit Transmit Rights are not restrictions on
what equipment may be operated but define a
maximum interference potential in adjacent
spectrum spaces
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– equipment/deployment which can not be
authorised by the transmit rights must provide
different amounts of internal guard space[9] to
maintain the defined maximum interference
potential:
• the amount of internal guard space a licensee must
supply is variable
• established by considering the type of
equipment/deployment and the transmit rights
• avoids inefficient worst case spectrum planning
• preserves the utility of adjacent spectrum spaces when
dissimilar equipment is operated
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
[9] Without involvement of the Regulator. All spectrum
planning utilises guard space
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
– authorisation to operate transmitters within a
space and coordination between all the devices
within that space are separate tasks
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
1. authentic neutrality: fully scalable general solution for
spectrum licences that are authentically technology
and service neutral
2. equitable access: utility of each spectrum licence is
preserved
3. efficient self-management: no traditional spectruminefficient risk-averse approach:
•
implicit receive rights require licensees to design their
receivers to operate within the defined interference potential
• becomes a case of managing interference from an adjacent
spectrum licensee instead of managing interference to another
spectrum licensee
• more efficient because in a self-managed regime, spectrum
licensees are able to accept higher risk of interference when
the outcome
only affects their own receivers
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop
on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
4. spectrum-efficient: variable internal guard space
requirement works to avoid inefficient worst case
planning
5. future-proof framework: better still, Space-Centric
Management provides a future-proof framework for
high power Software Radio incorporating Dynamic
Spectrum Access
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007
Book: “Flexible Radio Spectrum Access: Moving
from Device-Centric to Space-Centric
Management” Edition 1.0, March 2006, available
at www.futurepace.com.au
Workshop: “Legal Foundations for Flexible
Spectrum Access Rights” European Spectrum
Management Conference 2007, Brussels, 4-6
June 2007
Michael Whittaker, ITU Workshop on
Market Mechanisms for Spectrum
Management, January 2007
©Spectrum Management International Pty Ltd, 2007