CITC has begun preparations to auction the 400, 600, 700, 2100 and 3800 MHz bands in H2 of this year as it looks for "innovative methods" to utilise the bands. CITC is also planning to release 2x5 MHz each in the 410 – 430 MHz and 450 – 470 MHz bands either as part of this auction or in a separate award process.
The auction plans follow CITC's release of 23 GHz of spectrum at the end of March.
The consultation opened on Monday and is scheduled to close on 8 July, 2021.
CITC said in a statement that it is "seeking input from potential investors along with all national and international parties who may wish to acquire spectrum, enter the Saudi market or provide services, irrespective of use case, technology or business model".
The statement continued: "CITC is interested to discover new innovative methods in utilising this spectrum like spectrum wholesaling, forming consortium with other national or international vendors, operators and technology providers, or even forming a joint venture from representatives of utility and industrial entities to serve their critical infrastructure service needs and Industrial IoT applications. CITC is also keen to explore a holistic design for this auction to allow fair chance to both terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks to have access to spectrum and both components exist.
Elaborating on its plans, CITC announced the following details for each band:
▪ In the 1980 – 2010 / 2170 – 2200 MHz range, interest is expected from users and operators wishing to deploy different wireless technologies, including, IMT, Air-to-Ground (A2G) or Mobile Satellite Services with a complementary ground component (CGG);
▪ In the 410 – 430 and 450 – 470 MHz bands, interest is expected from users and operators to deploy specialised narrowband and broadband services to enterprises, civil users and verticals, including mission-critical services, to allow digital transformation for utility and industrial sectors and enable adopting advanced IIoT applications;
▪ The 600 MHz, 700 MHz, 700 MHz SDL and 3800 – 4000 MHz bands will be primarily used to provide IMT services in other countries. Given the resulting (and in some cases rapidly growing) ecosystem for IMT in these bands, CITC said it expected entities acquiring spectrum in these bands in Saudi Arabia will also primarily use them to provide IMT services.
CITC said there were a "wide variety of potential use cases" under this umbrella definition ranging from existing mobile networks to verticals and new types of connectivity solutions. For example, the United States held an auction for regional priority-access licenses in a shared portion of the C-Band - Citizens Broadcast Radio Service (CBRS) – which were acquired by a wide range of companies.
