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Land Mobile 003 - Licensing of Land Mobile Services
Licensing of Land Mobile Services
1. Purpose
In 1992 a policy was established of encouraging applicants for land mobile licences to engineer their systems on the basis of 12.5 kHz channelling in order to cope with congestion arising from the continued use of 25 kHz plans. In 1995, a firm policy was adopted of only granting land mobile licences in accordance with 12.5 kHz channel plans (except trunked dispatch bands), and was promulgated under radio spectrum policy document POLDOC 95/009. It was expected that over a number of years 25 kHz land mobile services would be phased out in favour of universal use of 12.5 kHz systems. Therefore, only in special circumstances were exceptions to this policy permitted.
In 2008, the Ministry consulted with industry on appropriate licensing arrangements for the introduction of digital land mobile radio (DLMR) in trunked dispatch bands in the 800 MHz spectrum (TS band). The outcomes of the consultation resulted in the introduction of TETRA and APCO P25 digital land mobile in the TS band1.
Later in 2009, due to the increased demand for DLMR in other bands, the Ministry consulted with industry on the introduction of DLMR in all the remaining LMR bands in the VHF and UHF spectrum. This consultation also identified the requirement of completely phasing out legacy 25 kHz analogue LMR in order to align New Zealand with international practice and to allow the introduction of the more spectrum efficient DLMR technologies in highly congested bands. The consultation outcomes and the proposed introduction steps are detailed in section 2 of this document.
2. Policy
This policy is effective from the date of publication of this POLDOC. It outlines the proposed steps for the introduction of DLMR (except in the TS band which was already defined in 2008) and the phase out of 25 kHz analogue LMR.
Licensing of digital LMR in all interleaved bands2 to be introduced on from December 2009. This licensing regime is design to cater for 12.5 kHz and 6.25 kHz channel bandwidths.
From 1 December 2009, users of 6.25 kHz FDMA channels are be required to provide the exact emission designator and channel bandwidth in their licences, or the licence will be deemed non-compliant. This is required to avoid the misuse of 12.5 kHz channels as one licence instead of using two 6.25 kHz licences (one for each 6.25 kHz FDMA digital LMR emission). Users of 12.5 kHz TDMA technologies are different (two voice channels are multiplexed in the time domain). In such cases, the emission bandwidth is effectively 12.5 kHz.
Analogue LMR licences with channel bandwidths of 25 kHz (currently granted by Radio Spectrum Management (RSM) on a strict case by case basis) are no longer issued from 1 December 2009.
Existing use of 25 kHz analogue LMR channels to cease operation by 1 December 2014. This period is in accordance with the minimum period (five years) specified in PIB 483 for giving notice of revocation of a licence of an undefined duration.
LMR frequency bands with an offset channel plan (E, EN, and ENX band) require a different treatment to manage the introduction of digital LMR (due to potential adjacent channel interference risks). The following steps apply to these bands:
a) Users of E band (25 kHz channels) wanting to transition to digital LMR from 1 December 2009, can migrate to the EE band (also in the VHF range) or any other band open for digital LMR licensing;
b) E band users wanting to continue operating analogue services after the five year transition period can migrate to 12.5 kHz analogue channels in the EN band (also in the VHF range) or any other band open for narrow band analogue LMR; and
c) Introduction of digital LMR in the EN and ENX bands prior to 1 December 2014 will be considered on a case by case basis. Licensing of digital LMR in these bands will be possible in areas where E band users have vacated the band, or when rigorous engineering analysis guarantees no risk of interference to other band users.Data links used for telemetry in UHF LMR bands, with channel bandwidths of 25 kHz, will be licensed on a case by case basis subject to approval by RSM licensing.
Engineering guidelines for the licensing of digital LMR in VHF bands and UHF bands (below 800 MHz) are included in PIB 38. These guidelines specify the determination of coverage and protection area.
Digital LMR systems are be required to comply with open standards that ensure backwards compatibility with analogue LMR (APCO and ETSI DMR). The standard AS/NZ 4768.1:2006 is based mainly on ETSI standards; therefore, it’s also applicable. Proprietary equipment will be assessed on a case by case basis.
Approved By:
Manager
Operational Policy.
Appendix A
Interleaved bands
All UHF LMR bands (TS, TD, TDX, C, CX, CN, CNX, D, DX, DN and DNX bands) and some VHF bands (A, EE and EEX bands) currently have interleaved channel plans.
These bands can include digital services designed to operate in 25 kHz, 12.5 kHz and 6.25 kHz channels without the need for band migrations (provided the selected technology standards are compatible with existing analogue equipment).
Figure 1. Interleaved bands
Figure 2. Interleaved bands including 6.25 kHz channels
Offset Bands
The remaining VHF bands (E, EN and ENX bands) have offset channel plans. The offset channel plan designed for these bands was a response to band congestion arising from the use of 25 kHz channels for analogue services. By introducing an underlying offset channel plan for the newer 12.5 kHz analogue channels, channel re-use benefits were obtained by utilising the ‘white space’ spectrum between emissions from adjacent channels.
These benefits were applicable to analogue emissions; however, they are not applicable in the case of digital emissions due to the risk of adjacent channel interference. Analogue emissions tend to concentrate their power closer to the centre frequency and within a narrower bandwidth than the channel space assigned in the band (i.e. the effective emission bandwidth in a 25 kHz analogue LMR channel only occupies approximately 16 kHz). Since analogue LMR channels do not spread their power across the entire allocated channel space, its is possible to licence narrower 12.5 kHz analogue channels (which also concentrate their power in the same way) in the offset gap between 25 kHz analogue channels, without causing harmful interference (as shown in figure three).
Unlike analogue emissions, digital emissions tend to spread their power across the entire channel, and therefore mixing digital and analogue emissions in offset bands can cause adjacent channel interference (from digital into analogue). These offset bands would require either band segmentation or migration plans to be implemented in order to protect existing analogue services.
Figure 3 - Offset bands
Appendix B
Land Mobile Bands4
VHF | |||||
A band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
81 MHz | 83.5 MHz | 84.98125MHz | 87.46875 MHz | ||
AX (simplex) | 84.0375 MHz | 84.975 MHz | |||
EN band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
151.0125 MHz | 153.4 MHz | 153.60625 MHz | 155.18125 MHz | ||
ENX (simplex) | 150.05 MHz | 150.9875 MHz | |||
153.43125 MHz | 153.59375 MHz | ||||
E band* | 151.025 MHz | 153.4 MHz | 155.20625 MHz | 155.18125 MHz | |
EE band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
162.5875 MHz | 165.325 MHz | 167.1875 MHz | 169.925 MHz | ||
EEX (simplex) | 165.7125 MHz | 166.7875 MHz | |||
170.3125 MHz | 174 MHz | ||||
UHF | |||||
TD band | Base Tx range |
| Mobile Tx range |
| |
414.1125 MHz | 419.100 MHz | 406.100 MHz | 411.500 MHz | ||
TDX (simplex) | 414.000 MHz | 414.100 MHz | |||
C band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
455.3250 MHz | 458.3250 MHz | 450.2875 MHz | 453.2875 MHz | ||
CX (simplex)* | 449.7625 MHz | 449.9875 MHz | |||
453.3125 MHz | 463.6125 MHz | ||||
454.9875 MHz | 455.2875 MHz | ||||
CN band | 455.31875 MHz | 458.3375 MHz | 450.275 MHz | 453.29375 MHz | |
CNX (simplex) | 449.750 MHz | 450.000 MHz | |||
453.30265 MHz | 453.6250 MHz | ||||
454.975 MHz | 455.30625 MHz | ||||
D band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
461.825 MHz | 464.800 MHz | 467.01250 MHz | 469.9875 MHz | ||
DX (simplex)* | 458.350 MHz | 458.525 MHz | |||
458.625 MHz | 458.650 MHz | ||||
| 461.4875 MHz | 461.7875 MHz | |||
464.825 MHz | 465.175 MHz | ||||
466.6875 MHz | 466.9625 MHz | ||||
DN band | 461.81875 MHz | 464.80625 MHz | 467.00625 MHz | 470.000 MHz | |
DNX (simplex) | 458.3375 MHz | 458.5375 MHz | |||
458.6125 MHz | 458.6625 MHz | ||||
461.475 MHz | 461.80625 MHz | ||||
464.81875 MHz | 465.1875 MHz | ||||
466.675 MHz | 466.800 MHz | ||||
466.850 MHz | 466.99375 MHz | ||||
F band | Base Tx range | Mobile Tx range | |||
478.000 MHz | 487.975 MHz | 472.0125 MHz | 493.9875 MHz | ||
FX (simplex)* | 470.500 MHz | 470.975 MHz | |||
471.525 MHz | 471.925 MHz | ||||
476.025 MHz | 476.375 MHz | ||||
477.450 MHz | 477.975 MHz | ||||
482.000 MHz | 483.975 MHz | ||||
488.000 MHz | 489.975 MHz | ||||
FNX (simplex) | 470.500 MHz | 471.000 MHz | |||
471.500 MHz | 471.99375 MHz | ||||
476.00625 MHz | 476.400 MHz | ||||
477.425 MHz | 477.98125 MHz | ||||
481.99375 MHz | 483.98125 MHz | ||||
487.99375 MHz | 489.99375 MHz | ||||
FN band | 477.99375 MHz | 481.98125 MHz | 472.00625 MHz | 475.99375 MHz | |
483.99375 MHz | 487.98125 MHz | 490.00625 MHz | 494.000 MHz | ||
TX (simplex) | 868.100 MHz | 869.025 MHz | |||
TS Band | 858 MHz | 864 MHz | 813 MHz | 819 MHz | |
Footnotes
1Land mobile bands with 25 kHz channel spacing will cease operation on 1 December 2014. The only 25 kHz band that will remain in place after 1 December 2014 will be the TS band, which has been assigned to host TETRA and APCO P25 systems. Channels with 25 kHz spacing in the TS band will not be available for analogue LMR systems from 1 December 2014.
2Current interleaved bands include: EE, EEX, TD, TDX, TX, C, CX, CNX, D, DX, DNX, F, FN, FNX and FX bands.
3PIB 48 can be found at http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms/resource-library/publications/public-information-brochures-pib/pib-48-security-of-tenure-for-radio-licences-transitional-plan-guidelines.
4Land mobile bands with 25 kHz channel spacing will cease operation on 1 December 2014. The only 25 kHz band that will remain in place after 1 December 2014 will be the TS band, which has been assigned to host TETRA and APCO P25 systems. Channels with 25 kHz spacing in the TS band will not be available for analogue LMR systems from 1 December 2014.
