Ericsson Shows Off 3G Infrastructure at 2.6GHz Ericsson has announced the launch of infrastructure and device platforms for WCDMA/HSPA in the 2.6GHz frequency band. The company says that the move is triggered by strong market interest, and that new licenses for the 2.6GHz frequency band are now becoming available in some countries. Ulf Ewaldsson, Vice President and Head of Product Area Radio at Ericsson, says: "The launch of HSPA products for the 2.6GHz frequency band supports Ericsson's ambition to bring mobile broadband everywhere, at any time, from any device to as many people as possible. "HSPA is a proven technology and the leading industry standard. It is already deployed in several frequency bands - including 850, 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100MHz - and deployment in the 900MHz frequency band will start soon. Support in the 2.6GHz frequency band brings the economies of scale of HSPA also to operators with 2.6GHz licenses and their end users." The commercial launch of networks and end-user devices with HSPA support in the 2.6GHz frequency band is set to the latter part of 2008. Ericsson Shows Off 3G Infrastructure at 2.6GHz
Certainly not in the US. But I know many countries (like Brazil) have 450Mhz licenses, but it used mostly for CDMA. Don't know which countries will use 2.6Ghz.
This is one of the reason's that they are drooling over the 700 auction, they can get away with better coverage with it & more distance in the rural area's.
700Mhz won't really offer much better coverage than 850Mhz. I'm not sure why all the meida reporters are latching into that (are these the same reporters who were raving about the 1900Mhz PCS band only a few years ago?) . I read one article that made 700Mhz sound like it will cut thru buildings like butter. That's rediculous. It's going to be about the same as 850Mhz. The freq difference will maybe be something like 10-20% better in the best case. 450Mhz on the other hand IS something to drool about. That would provide maybe 40-50% better coverage than 850Mhz. The most interesting thing about the 700Mhz auction is that it is on a low frequency (albiet not much different than 850Mhz, but still low) but it is less crowded than 850Mhz, so wider bandwidth will be available (wider bandwidth=faster data, and more allowance for error protection). Also it's an interesting auction, because non-telecom companies like Google and Apple are thinking about jumping in. But don't get fooled and think 700Mhz is a magical frequency. It isn't. It's basically the same as 850Mhz. As for Ericsson's 2.6Ghz equipment, I'm also not sure what countries that is aimed at. But it's in a similar band to WiMAX, so maybe they are trying to step up competition against that technology.
