3.2 Size and location of the managed spectrum park or parks

47. Cabinet has decided that a generous managed spectrum park (MSP) or parks should be made available to provide for local and regional services, including providers of service for Māori.

48. Managed parks are intended to allow a number of users to operate services in a common band of spectrum on a shared basis, but without any particular party having exclusive ownership. Park rules would likely include requirements to ensure that actual services were only placed in use after a cooperative process designed to protect the quality of service for the various users of the park. 

49. Allocation and usage rules for managed spectrum parks are discussed separately in this document. The issue here is considerations relating to the size and placement of a managed spectrum park or parks. 

50. Considerations include:

• The anticipated primary use of the managed park(s) is for WiMAX services, which implies a minimum size for at least one managed park block of 35 MHz (including a guard band of 5 MHz).
• Whether it is desirable to also provide for FDD services (such as CMAR¹) in the 2.5 GHz band. This would require two MSPs in the 2.5 GHz band. Such services would need to coexist, through geographical separation, with services using TDD technologies in the lower MSP.

If provision is made for two nation-wide management rights for WiMAX in the 2.3 GHz band, 25 MHz remains available for MSP purposes.

¹Arguably, it would not be efficient use of spectrum or fair and reasonable to require Telecom or other rural/remote service providers to purchase a nationwide lot in order to continue to provide such localised services. Rather this may be an appropriate use for a managed spectrum park, not least because use of this bandwidth in rural areas is unlikely to preclude use of the same bandwidth in more urban areas.