Brazil: 3.5GHz band cleared for use in further 194 municipalities

This is an automated translation of the original release published in Portuguese. 

Press release from Anatel 

Starting September 2, 2024, providers that acquired lots in the 3.5GHz band will be able to request that the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) license and activate 5G stations in this band in 194 more municipalities, according to a decision made this Tuesday, 27, at the Ordinary Meeting of the Monitoring Group for the Implementation of Solutions for Interference Problems in the 3,625 to 3,700 MHz band (Gaispi).

With this decision, there will be 5,002 municipalities with the 3.5GHz band available for use by standalone 5G stations, where approximately 201.7 million Brazilians live, corresponding to just over 94.5% of the Brazilian population. To facilitate monitoring of the released municipalities, Gaispi provides a data panel showing the municipalities where the 3.5GHz band has already been released, as well as the planning approved by the Group for the next releases. It is important to emphasize that the release of the band does not mean that 5G networks will be installed immediately in the locations: the early installation of fifth-generation stations in these cities depends on the individual planning of each provider.

The decision taken by Gaispi, chaired by Anatel, follows the guidelines of the 5G Notice and covers municipalities where the Band Administration Entity (EAF) has already started the migration of the reception of the free open television signal through satellite dishes in the C satellite band to the Ku band and concluded the necessary actions to vacate this band by Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) systems, having installed filters to mitigate interference in all impacted FSS stations.

With the anticipation of these 194 municipalities, the States of Mato Grosso, Pará and Piaui have all their municipalities authorized to activate 5G stations in the 3.5GHz band.

With this release, there are now 22 federation units (AC, AL, AM, AP, DF, ES, GO, MA, MS, MT, PA, PB, PR, PI, RJ, RO, RR, RS, SC, SE, SP and TO) with all municipalities released.

In a consultation carried out on 8/25/2024, there were 23,496 sites in the 3.5GHz band licensed in 640 municipalities.

Considering the number of 5,002 municipalities already authorized by Gaispi, this number of municipalities corresponds to almost 13% of municipalities authorized to operate.