page_title: Asia-Pacific Telecommunity band plan in the 700 MHz band
section_title: Compatibility of the APT band plan with the foreseen usage of the 700 MHz band in different regions of the world
hierarchical_section_title: Asia-Pacific Telecommunity band plan in the 700 MHz band / Ecosystem / Compatibility of the APT band plan with the foreseen usage of the 700 MHz band in different regions of the world
caption_attribution_description: English: Comparison of 700, 800 and 900 MHz bands across regions
context_page_description: The Asia-Pacific Telecommunity band plan is a type of segmentation of the 698–806 MHz band formalized by the APT in 2008–2010 and specially configured for the deployment of mobile broadband technologies. This segmentation exists in two variants, FDD and TDD, that have been standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project and recommended by the International Telecommunications Union as segmentations A5 and A6, respectively. The APT band plan has been designed to enable the most efficient use of available spectrum. Therefore, this plan divides the band into contiguous blocks of frequencies that are as large as possible taking account of the need to avoid interference with services in other frequency bands. As the result, the TDD option includes 100 MHz of continuous spectrum, while the FDD option comprises two large blocks, one of 45 MHz for uplink transmission in the lower part of the band and the other also of 45 MHz for downlink transmission in the upper part. As defined in the standard, both FDD and TDD schemes for the 700 MHz band include guard bands of 5 MHz and 3 MHz at their lower and upper edges, respectively. The FDD version also includes a center gap of 10 MHz.
context_section_description: European countries, which still continue have a high occupancy of broadcasting services in the 700 MHz band that have been granted a period until 2015 to convert to digital. It appears that since the APT segmentation is based on two overlapping duplexers of 30+30 MHz, it fits perfectly in the European scheme, as shown on the graph below. This compatibility opens the way for the harmonization of the 700 MHz band with the European region. Japan, one of largest and most advanced Asian markets and the global technology leader is using the upper duplexer part of the APT band plan and thus will enjoy being the part of the ecosystem of the APT band plan too. This basically means that the terminals designed to work in the APT band plan will perfectly function in Europe and Japan, thus adding up to the size of the market that is being created by the APT band plan.
  All facts mentioned above and the recent announcements from various governments indicate that the 700 MHz band in the FDD mode of the APT band plan is becoming one of the most harmonized band that exists in the world. This extent of harmonization will lead to economies of scale which will in turn drag down the prices of terminals, speed up adoption of smart devices and finally convert to socio-economic benefits.
caption: Figure 4. Scheme of possible harmonization of sub 1 GHz bands
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