Australia's Telstra, GSMA and GSA have launched a major promotion of the APT700 spectrum band for 4G networks. The band is already identified for use in markets covering more than two billion people. The new campaign will highlight further the many socio-economic benefits of greater global alignment around this band.

The APT700 band, also known as the Digital Dividend, reuses spectrum made available as a result of the shift from analogue to digital TV and radio channels. Its propagation characteristics are ideal for rural coverage as well as indoor urban penetration, making the business case for broadscale deployment of LTE service coverage far more viable. 

These benefits, in combination with widespread adoption of the band in markets across Asia, Latin America and Europe, make the APT700 band a key part of the adoption of LTE across the globe, with networks and device manufacturers able to support one band for a wide range of markets, driving economies of scale and the creation of a global ecosystem.

In order to accelerate the scale and take-up of this new band, Telstra, the GSMA and the GSA have led the creation of a series of information papers, aimed at providing a comprehensive source of up-to-date information about the rapidly emerging APT700 ecosystem to operators, industry suppliers and regulators alike. These papers will be made available via the GSMA and GSA websites, as well as on a number of vendor sites and user forums. The three organisations will also drive a series of forums to increase international recognition of the APT700 band for 4G use, including a session scheduled to take place in February at the GSMA Mobile World Congress 2014.

The first of the papers is available on the GSMA and GSA sites from today at www.gsma.com/spectrum/events/drivinglteworkshop and www.gsacom.com/apt700. These include contributions by Telstra, Ericsson and ZTE with additional papers due in the coming weeks.