In 2011, the Swedish regulator (PTS) invited all interested parties to apply for licenses to use radio transmitters in the 790-862 MHz frequency band. The licenses are service and technology neutral but all licensees are expected to provide Mobile Broadband (MBB) services using the LTE standard. In order to protect the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) services provided in the adjacent bands from interference, PTS imposed a number of technical conditions on the licensees. Here, a brief overview of these technical conditions is given, and a measurement campaign in order to investigate the interference between MBB and DTT services was conducted. The measurements show that the technical requirements indeed provide the additional protection for DTT reception from the MBB downlink as envisioned by PTS. However, the measurements also indicate that MBB services may be suffering from interference from TV Channel 60 within a radius of about 5km from the DTT transmitter. One year after the rollout of MBB services in the Swedish 800MHz band, very few complaints had been received by the regulator. This may be explained with that in cases where interference with the TV reception did occur, the licensees have provided additional filters for free. Another reason may be that to date only a low number of terminals including the 800 band have yet reached the Swedish market and worse interference problems from the MBB uplink may still appear.
QC 20150608
QC 20151214