2600 MHz Nowhere To Be Seen

Before the German LTE spectrum auctions almost exactly three years ago, pretty much everyone I talked to agreed that the 2600 MHz range is the beachfront property for LTE due to the large 20 MHz channels it was offering. Yes, 800 MHz spectrum was interesting as well but not very much loved due to the obligations to deploy on the countryside first. Few people spoke of the 1800 MHz band and actually saw it as a side show. Fast forward to 2013 with three LTE networks now deployed in Cologne where I live. Two of the three networks run on 10 MHz channels in the 800 MHz band because countryside coverage obligations have been met. And the third one is using a 20 MHz channel with twice the speed in the initially little observed 1800 MHz band which has drawn a lot of attention in the meantime all over Europe. And what about the 2600 MHz beachfront property? Nowhere to be seen for the moment. An interesting change of tides.

Comments

[Andreas]

From one side it is easy to explain, that the 1800MHz Capaciti is used first. Because you get a better and cheaper coverage compared to the 2600MHz range. At the moment the Bandwith is not (or only in 800MHz Cells) a problem. I think that the providers except Vodafone will first use 1800MHz and only build city hotspots with 2600MHz. Vodafone has no ressources in 1800MHz so they have to go with 800/2600. All other providers can more or less use 1800MHz and e+ has not the badest starting point. If they start to invest now.

Just my 2 cents

[Christian]

I see 2600MHz as the ideal frequency for femto and pico cells avoiding interference with macro cells in the lower freq bands and - due to the its propagation characteristics - also involving less interference among each other.
Speaking of femtos, I heard Big Magenta is about to acquire a stake in FON, who - besides operating the biggest WiFi network in the world - has been partnering with Ubiquisys to integrate femtos in their Wifi routers since 2009.
Could be a first step to a massive deployment of combined Wifi hotspots and femtos to the German market.