On moving the upper "frontier" of commercial wireless use [Spectrum Policy and Regulatory Issues

Abstract

International spectrum allocations of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) now go to an upper limit of 275 GHz. The upper limit of actual production commercial equipment appears to be in the 80 GHz range in the millimeterwaves or "mmW" region (30-300 GHz). While these upper frequencies have been often associated with fixed and satellite uses, the emergence of IEEE 802.11ad/WiGig mobile standards at 60 GHz [1] and interest in broadband mobile applications above 100 GHz shows that many different uses may now be possible.