LIVE FROM HUAWEI GLOBAL MOBILE BROADBAND FORUM 2015, HONG KONG: GSMA CTO Alex Sinclair talked up the industry’s 4G success story but also warned of challenges ahead – notably agreement on standardisation of the Internet of Things space and the importance of securing spectrum at this month’s World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-15) in Geneva.

“4G is a proven success to date,” heralded Sinclair. “It’s a truly global standard without any rivals, delivering economies of scale like no other technology.”

He touted coverage rates of greater than 90 per cent in developed markets, with a target of 60 per cent in developing markets by 2020. 410 operators across 145 countries have launched LTE networks, reaching 42 per cent of the population.

“But we must make sure fragmentation doesn’t creep in through the backdoor,” he warned.

Indeed, Sinclair noted that the “real opportunity” for the industry is in “mobilising other sectors… positive disruption of other sectors.”

To fulfil that potential, Sinclair wants to see a strong focus on prompt development of IoT standards, particularly around the use of Narrowband-LTE technology for low power IoT applications.

And Sinclair’s concluding message centred on ensuring that operators have access to more spectrum in order to cope with booming data demand (the GSMA predicts 600-800MHz more mobile spectrum will be needed by 2020).

Describing the need as “vital,” Sinclair noted that this month’s WRC-15 event will decide “the future of spectrum.”

“We want as much globally harmonised spectrum for mobile as we can. This is about mobilising economies – we have to convince regulators.”

Sinclair’s calls came on the day that the GSMA released a report from Plum Consulting (also in partnership with Huawei) that claimed the use of additional C-band spectrum for mobile broadband in London and Shenzhen alone will generate an additional $440 million of economic benefit whilst protecting the continued operation of incumbent services.

The report shows that use of C-band spectrum for mobile broadband can be achieved through the development of sharing techniques to allow mobile services to co-exist with other users of the band, such as satellite and fixed link services. Plum’s study shows that C-band small cells can successfully co-exist with satellite services, provided that an exclusion zone of a 5-kilometre radius is established around the satellite installations. Similar provisions can be made to ensure the protection of continued operation of fixed link and point to multipoint services that use the band.

The WRC’s process begins tomorrow and will last about four weeks. Sinclair declared he was “reasonably confident” the mobile industry will have a good outcome.