TABLE OF CONTENTS The first commercial UMTS networks in Europe will probably be launched in 2002. This may happen a bit earlier in Japan, especially since NTT DoCoMo has been eager to get its own (non-IMT-2000) WCDMA network running by mid-2001. In the beginning, most of these networks will be local, providing only urban coverage, while 2G GSM provides wider-area coverage. Note, however, that greenfield operators (i.e., operators without an existing 2G network) must build out their networks to cover wide areas as soon as possible (unless they are given airtime from existing 2G networks; see the mobile virtual network operator [MVNO] concept in Section 10.4.1).
Although the first commercial 3G network is yet to be launched, it can already be seen that the original spectrum-allocation for terrestrial UMTS systems will not be sufficient in the long run. The industry's own figures for successful business plans show that the current spectrum will not be enough. In Europe the current terrestrial spectrum allocation is 2 * 60 MHz in paired bands and 35 MHz in unpaired bands. As radio spectrum is a scarce resource, it is difficult to find new spectrum that could be allocated for UMTS worldwide.
Worldwide spectrum-allocation recommendations are made by the ITU in World Radio Conference (WRC) meetings. The ITU has already started to look for additional spectrum for IMT-2000. Note that the original IMT-2000 spectrum recommendation was released as long ago as 1992. It included the following spectrum bands:
1,885-2,025 MHz;
2,110-2,200 MHz.
The new bands...
