700 MHz LTE in Alberta

[Jay911]

Interesting development in the Spectrum Direct licenses... TELUS now has a bunch of licenses for the 700 MHz LTE I was talking about the other day in the "Calgary Transit iDEN" thread.

The other public safety network will live in the 700 MHz band, adjacent to 700 public safety voice. (Aside: There are actually two 10 MHz chunks of public safety broadband in the 700 band. The US allocated both of them to public safety. In Canada, one of them was allocated to public safety, and the other was auctioned off - awarded to mobile telephone companies.)

The 700 public safety broadband spectrum will use LTE (Long Term Evolution), the same protocol that mobile phone data uses now - or at least a version of it. This is where telemetry, mobile data terminals, AVL, and similar functionality will reside. Professional radios are coming out with LTE capability now, alongside the 7/8 voice capability.

A Google Map showing the locations of 700 MHz LTE sites

This is part of the auctioned spectrum, in the "lower C block". See Figure 1 on this IC document.

 

[harryshute]

That's quite the cluster of sites around Lethbridge.

 

[beeperboy]

Do the licenses have to used for public safety, or was the spectrum re-farmed to include commercial?

 

[Jay911]

I believe they're free to use the licenses as they see fit. Everything I can find indicates the (at the time) to-be-auctioned spectrum was never allocated for public safety prior to the auction, it was considered "TV channels 60-69". The only segment definitely reserved for public safety (besides the 769-775 range for "narrowband voice" i.e. trunking & conventional) was/is 764-768, with "future consideration to harmonize with the US" (on extending that chunk to 769).

 

[kayn1n32008]

If this is spectrum that Telus won in auction, it will be for consumer LTE... Telus has been building out their 700MHz LTE for a while now.

 

[Jay911]

I forgot that I was doing a search with a radius around Calgary when I tripped over that data. I did a frequency range search countrywide and found many more licenses. I've updated the map with the Alberta ones - still some interesting clusters and conspicuous absences elsewhere.

Looks like every site has three antennas in the same configuration as a typical cell site, from the licenses' antenna azimuths.

Interesting: In addition to TELUS's identified sites, Bell has a blanket license for the province, as does Vidéotron. The other licensees who won auctions don't seem to have Alberta presence.

 

[mikewazowski]

Try plotting the other bands that Telus has LTE on. You might see they're deploying 700MHz as a capacity add-on rather than a coverage add-on.

This will most likely be consumer LTE.

 

[kayn1n32008]

I forgot that I was doing a search with a radius around Calgary when I tripped over that data. I did a frequency range search countrywide and found many more licenses. I've updated the map with the Alberta ones - still some interesting clusters and conspicuous absences elsewhere.

700MHz LTE is still being built out. Telus is not finished construction yet. I would expect to see more sites licensed as time goes on.

Looks like every site has three antennas in the same configuration as a typical cell site, from the licenses' antenna azimuths.

Yes. This is how the 2.1GHz LTE is being built out as well.

Interesting: In addition to TELUS's identified sites, Bell has a blanket license for the province, as does Vidéotron. The other licensees who won auctions don't seem to have Alberta presence.

Likely Telus will utilize the Bell spectrum here and vice versa out east.

Try plotting the other bands that Telus has LTE on. You might see they're deploying 700MHz as a capacity add-on rather than a coverage add-on.

A bit of both. Capacity will go up, but due to propagation characteristics, 700MHz will likely increase the sites LTE coverage IF it currently has 2.1GHz. If it does not then it will add LTE coverage.

There are still lots of areas that do not have LTE in Alberta.

This will most likely be consumer LTE.[/QUOTE]

It will be consumer LTE.


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[kayn1n32008]

If you look at AB1805, it is the original Foster Creek cell site, there is also (as of April 2014) 2 other Telus sites with in the CLAWR, one is at Wolf Den camp, the other is at Bears Den camp. The sites at the camps were installed just for the camps. Any other coverage is incidental. All three sites have 2.1GHz LTE, 1.9GHz HSPA and 800MHz HSPA. I would expect to see both those remaining sites to receive 700MHz LTE before long. This would be for adding capacity. In the winter, the camps are full, Wolfs Den is just shy of 1000 people, plus operations staff. The Bears Den camp comprises of 4 separate camps, close to 3000 beds. Plus everyone that gets bussed up from LaCorey.

Due to tower restrictions, these sites are less than 100 feet tall.


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[mikewazowski]

Likely Telus will utilize the Bell spectrum here and vice versa out east.

I'm pretty sure it's against the spectrum auction rules to share spectrum.

I know Telus hasn't deployed any LTE in Ontario and Bell is sticking with their own spectrum.

 

[Jay911]

For reference: All of the Lower 700 (698-746) and the C1, C2, and D blocks in the Upper 700 (746-756 for C1 and C2, 5MHz each, and 758-763 for D) are for commercial use.

Public safety LTE in Canada is 763-768 (in US: 758-768).

There is a chart on this page, titled "Final Results", which shows who won auctions and in what regions. TELUS picked up some in Ontario, and Bell got some in Alberta. I'm still bemused by Vidéotron going after chunks in Alberta and BC.

 

[thundermedic]

Sharing spectrum may not be allowed, but reciprocal roaming agreements are not!

It would make sense for Videotron to come to BC and AB and partner with Wind or whoever the "4th provider" the Govt wants to bring in

 

[Jay911]

The budget that the federal government announced earlier this week announces 20 MHz for PS LTE.

The Government has already allocated 10 megahertz (MHz) of the highly valued 700 MHz broadband spectrum for public safety communications. The Government will allocate another 10 MHz of the 700 MHz spectrum to enable the creation of a Public Safety Broadband Network, a high-speed mobile network dedicated to emergency management. The Government will also provide $3 million over two years, starting in 2016–17, to take initial steps to establish the network.

So what this means is:

- 769-775 and 799-805 is Public Safety Narrowband (generally P25).
- 758-768 and 788-798 is Public Safety Broadband (LTE).
- 768-769, 775-776, and 798-799 are available for either narrowband or broadband but are intended to be kept for guard bands.

Quick check of non-protected licensees in Spectrum Direct:

758-768/788-798 - several schools (universities of communication technologies), telecom firms, and research entities live here. One TV station still occupying channel 62 (759.25) in northern BC, two occupying channel 68 (795.25) in SE BC and northern BC.

768-769, 775-776, 798-799: London FD has a number of (mobile?) repeaters in 768MHz range and CBSA has a voice channel in 775MHz in Fort McMurray. So much for guard bands!

Oh well, at least it's being established.

 

[electricsheep]

Codan communications has been plugging their 700mhz LTE solutions to us in the public safety sector pretty hard over the past few months.