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The millimeter wave spectrum will provide the fastest version of 5G services and, after six months of semi-secret bidding, the Federal Communications Commission has finally announced the winners of the US 28GHz and 24GHz spectrum. The commission raised more than $ 2.7 billion in auctions and the winners were for the most part major players in the telecommunications sector: more than $ 982 million for AT & T for 831 licenses at 24 GHz, 803 million for T-Mobile, 1,356 licenses at 24 GHz and 505 million for Verizon, for Verizon 28GHz licenses.
Nearly 60 bidders have already registered for the 24 GHz auction, including cable operators Cox and Frontier, as well as various other regional operators. In particular, Verizon and AT & T used auctions to increase their previous millimeter-wave holdings purchased from other companies, allowing them to develop prior 5G services tested and launched on those frequencies. T-Mobile has obtained enough licenses at 24 GHz to establish with millimeter-wave towers, after concentrating almost exclusively on a strategy of using low frequency and medium band resources for 5G.
Recognizing the spectrum potential, the FCC has offered significant discounts to small bidders and rural bidders to encourage competition. The largest bidder among the three largest carriers is still US Cellular, which won 590 licenses for $ 254 million.
Although the FCC has announced a transfer of $ 702 million for the 28GHz spectrum in late January and a product of just under $ 2 billion since its first phase of bidding at 24 GHz, a second and final "allocation phase" brought the latter to $ 2.024 billion at the close on May 28. The commission's tender process has dragged every bid for more than two months and, with gaps between auctions, the identity of the bidders has remained secret since last November.
The auction participants fought for specific geographic rights on the millimeter-wave spectrum, so that an operator could buy rights on a 24 GHz spectrum in central Utah, while 39, another would have already gained a spectrum of 28 GHz in the same area. Although the two types of spectrum are not identical, they are very similar and allow an operator to provide data rates of several gigabits with extremely low latencies – baduming they are willing to install many small cells ". radios in an area to distribute millimeter wave signals at high speed but short distance.
The millimeter wave spectrum was considered almost useless for consumer devices many years ago, as the equipment needed to send and receive millimeter wave signals tended to be the size of an antenna. dish or oven. The engineers saw potential in the spectrum and successfully reduced millimeter-wave hardware to pocket-sized components, with the former now available in Netgear's Nighthawk 5G Hotspot, Motorola 5G Moto Mod, and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G.
In the absence of millimeter-wave equipment or material, some operators have chosen to run 5G on non-millimeter wave spectra, "below 6 GHz," which may be slower, but able to travel longer distances. US operators plan to use both types of frequencies but start with a millimeter wave, while other operators will typically start with frequencies below 6 GHz and then add a millimeter wave when it is available locally.
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