Mobile Stations to Expand Frequency use Worldwide

One of the agreements to emerge from the recent World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai is the expanded spectrum becoming available for use by certain mobile base stations internationally. The designated parts of the spectrum are at 700 to 900 MHz, 1.7 GHz and 2.5 GHz. This is intended to give greater flexibility to operators around the world making use of HAPS mobile broadband communication, also known as High Altitude Platform Station communication. According to the International Telecommunication Union, any fixed-point radio station situated 20 to 50 kilometres above the Earth is a high-altitude platform station.

The company that has led the spectrum-expansion proposal for the past few years is the SoftBank Corporation. The Japanese company has been studying international standardization for such use since the issue was put on the WRC 2023 agenda four years ago during WRC 2019. HAPS technology has also been recognised as useful for communications during disaster recovery, especially when storms or other events have left terrestrial networks damaged.