T-Mobile to refarm frequency spectrum, deploys HSPA to 1900MHz = iPhone compatibility

[inquisitor]

A GSM network with a cluster size of 4 which is considered giving the best balance between capacity and interference would require 4.8 MHz of spectrum (see http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/2152165...4-phpapp01.doc). For UMTS you need a 5 MHz block.
If you add a guard band between the GSM and UMTS network of 0.2 MHz you end up with exactly 10 MHz.
So you definitley can operate a GSM and a UMTS network concurrently with 10 MHz of spectrum, however capacity would be modest. So they will need to shift as many users as possible to the AWS band in order to leave enough capacity on the 1900MHz band.

[DRNewcomb]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

A GSM network with a cluster size of 4 which is considered giving the best balance between capacity and interference would require 4.8 MHz of spectrum (see http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/2152165...4-phpapp01.doc). For UMTS you need a 5 MHz block.
If you add a guard band between the GSM and UMTS network of 0.2 MHz you end up with exactly 10 MHz.
So you definitley can operate a GSM and a UMTS network concurrently with 10 MHz of spectrum, however capacity would be modest. So they will need to shift as many users as possible to the AWS band in order to leave enough capacity on the 1900MHz band.

The problem is that US 10 MHz blocks are 10 MHz total (5 up & 5 down).