From March 18, 2024, providers can request the National Telecommunications Agency (Anatel) to license and activate 5G stations in the 3.5 GHz band in an additional 395 municipalities.
With this decision, there will be a total of 3,678 municipalities having access to the 3.5 GHz band, to be utilized for the deployment of standalone 5G stations. This could impact over 180 million Brazilians, corresponding to nearly 85% of Brazil's population.
To facilitate the monitoring of released municipalities, the Monitoring Group for the Implementation of Solutions for Interference Problems (GAISPI) provides a data panel showing the municipalities in which the 3.5 GHz band has already been released, and the approved planning for the next releases: 220 municipalities in April 2024, 233 municipalities in May 2024, and 171 municipalities in June 2024.
It is noted that the release of the 3.5 GHz band does not mean that 5G networks will be installed immediately in the locations. The early installation of 5G stations will depend on the individual planning of each provider.
Mitigating Interference
The decision taken by GAISPI follows guidelines from the 5G Notice and covers municipalities where the 3.5 GHz band administrative entity (EAF) has already started the migration of free and open television signal reception through satellite dishes within the satellite C band to the Ku band. Moreover, the necessary actions to vacate this band by Fixed Satellite Service (FSS) systems are completed by installing filters to mitigate interference in all impacted FSS stations.
Notably, in February 2024, the EAF reached 2 million free-to-air TV reception kits in the Ku band since the beginning of activities, having the capacity to install around 10,000 kits per day.