Half a decade ago, network operators in Europe have started to use UMTS not only in the 2100 MHz band but also in the 900 MHz band that was, up until then, only used for GSM services. A good example is France with rural coverage and big cities in the UK. Now it seem seems LTE is also getting some traction in what is called LTE band 8. According to a report by Telegeography, T-Mobile Netherlands has started using LTE in the 900 MHz band in Amsterdam. An interesting move, just makes me wonder how much spectrum they have available. On the device side LTE band 8 is already supported by a number of devices, for example by the current generation of Apple devices. In other words there will be immediate use of the extra resources.
5 thoughts on “LTE Now Also Used In The 900 MHz Band In Europe”
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The following link details the results of a spectrum auction in 2012. Back then T-Mobile NL ended up with 2x25MHz @900MHz.
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/dutch-multiband-spectrum-auction-ends-with-four-winners–914279
Maybe the “Dutch spectrum agency Agentschap Telecom” mentioned in the article has more up to date figures in case anythig changed in the mean time.
Hi Mark,
thanks for the info, very interesting. You seem to have made a little typo in your post, according to the article you linked to, its not 2×25 MHz but 2×15 MHz in the 900 MHz band.
Cheers,
Martin
Slightly related to this, you might be interested in the 450MHz LTE in Finland:
http://www.ukkoverkot.fi/2014/12/03/ukko-mobile-commercially-available-the-worlds-first-commercial-lte-450-network-debuts-in-finland-in-collaboration-with-huawei/#top
The LTE 450 looks nice, it would be interesting to have some information on the performance characteristics. It brings to mind the ill-fated GSM 450 that was standardized by Nokia and Ericsson, but never implemented.
One thing in the press release surprises me:
“Huawei provides end-to-end LTE450 network solutions, not only in facilitating the smooth migration of CDMA 450M to LTE 450M, but also re-using the legacy network resources like base stations, sites, power, and antennas helping to decrease the network investments.”
Is it really possible to reuse a CDMA 450 base station for LTE 450?
LTE 450!? Interesting, I had a closer look and wrote a new post on this: http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2015/06/lte-in-450-mhz-in-finland-5-mhz-only.html
So just a comment on […] re-using the legacy network resources like base stations, sites, power, and antennas […] Is it really possible to reuse a CDMA 450 base station for LTE 450? : Sure it is, its not unheard of that the container or box housing the equipment is re-used for new equipment… 😉
-Martin