The LTE frequency bands in 3GPP standards are divided into paired bands and unpaired bands. Some of the bands are presently used by other technologies and LTE can coexist with the legacy technologies.
In the best case in Europe there is over 600MHz of spectrum available for the mobile operators when including the 800, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) and Time Division Duplex (TDD) bands.
In the USA the LTE networks will initially be constructed on 700 and 1700/2100 MHz frequencies. In Japan the LTE deployments begin using the 2100 band followed later by 800, 1500 and 1700 bands.
Flexible bandwidth is desirable to take benefit of the diverse spectrum assets: refarming typically requires a narrowband option below 5MHz while the new spectrum allocations could take advantage of a wideband option of data rates of 20MHz and higher.
It is also evident that both FDD and TDD modes are required to take full advantage of the available paired and unpaired spectrum. These requirements are taken into account in the LTE system specification.
LTE and LTE Advanced Frequency Bands Allocations
| Frequency Band | E UTRA Operating Band Uplink (UL) operating band BS receive UE transmit FUL_low – FUL_high |
Downlink (DL) operating band BS transmit UE receive FDL_low – FDL_high |
Duplex Mode | Regions |
| 1 | 1920 MHz – 1980 MHz | 2110 MHz – 2170 MHz | FDD | Japan, Europe, Asia |
| 2 | 1850 MHz – 1910 MHz | 1930 MHz – 1990 MHz | FDD | Canada, US, Latin America |
| 3 | 1710 MHz – 1785 MHz | 1805 MHz – 1880 MHz | FDD | Finland, Hong Kong, Germany, Poland |
| 4 | 1710 MHz – 1755 MHz | 2110 MHz – 2155 MHz | FDD | Canada, US (T-Mobile), Latin America |
| 5 | 824 MHz – 849 MHz | 869 MHz – 894MHz | FDD | Canada, US, Australia, Latin America |
| 6 | 830 MHz – 840 MHz | 875 MHz – 885 MHz | FDD | Japan |
| 7 | 2500 MHz – 2570 MHz | 2620 MHz – 2690 MHz | FDD | EU, Latin America |
| 8 | 880 MHz – 915 MHz | 925 MHz – 960 MHz | FDD | EU, Latin America |
| 9 | 1749.9 MHz – 1784.9 MHz | 1844.9 MHz – 1879.9 MHz | FDD | Japan |
| 10 | 1710 MHz – 1770 MHz | 2110 MHz – 2170 MHz | FDD | Uruguay, Ecuador, Peru |
| 11 | 1427.9 MHz – 1447.9 MHz | 1475.9 MHz – 1495.9 MHz | FDD | Japan (Softbank, KDDI, DoCoMo) |
| 12 | 699 MHz – 716 MHz | 729 MHz – 746 MHz | FDD | US |
| 13 | 777 MHz – 787 MHz | 746 MHz – 756 MHz | FDD | US (Verizon) |
| 14 | 788 MHz – 798 MHz | 758 MHz – 768 MHz | FDD | US |
| 15 | Reserved | Reserved | FDD | |
| 16 | Reserved | Reserved | FDD | |
| 17 | 704 MHz – 716 MHz | 734 MHz – 746 MHz | FDD | US (AT&T) |
| 18 | 815 MHz – 830 MHz | 860 MHz – 875 MHz | FDD | |
| 19 | 830 MHz – 845 MHz | 875 MHz – 890 MHz | FDD | |
| 20 | 832 MHz – 862 MHz | 791 MHz – 821 MHz | FDD | EU |
| 21 | 1447.9 MHz – 1462.9 MHz | 1495.9 MHz – 1510.9 MHz | FDD | |
| 22 | 3410 MHz – 3490 MHz | 3510 MHz – 3590 MHz | FDD | |
| 23 | 2000 MHz – 2020 MHz | 2180 MHz – 2200 MHz | FDD | |
| 24 | 1626.5 MHz – 1660.5 MHz | 1525 MHz – 1559 MHz | FDD | |
| 25 | 1850 MHz – 1915 MHz | 1930 MHz – 1995 MHz | FDD | US (Sprint) |
| … | ||||
| 33 | 1900 MHz – 1920 MHz | 1900 MHz – 1920 MHz | TDD | |
| 34 | 2010 MHz – 2025 MHz | 2010 MHz – 2025 MHz | TDD | |
| 35 | 1850 MHz – 1910 MHz | 1850 MHz – 1910 MHz | TDD | |
| 36 | 1930 MHz – 1990 MHz | 1930 MHz – 1990 MHz | TDD | |
| 37 | 1910 MHz – 1930 MHz | 1910 MHz – 1930 MHz | TDD | |
| 38 | 2570 MHz – 2620 MHz | 2570 MHz – 2620 MHz | TDD | EU |
| 39 | 1880 MHz – 1920 MHz | 1880 MHz – 1920 MHz | TDD | |
| 40 | 2300 MHz – 2400 MHz | 2300 MHz – 2400 MHz | TDD | China, India, Australia |
| 41 | 2496 MHz 2690 MHz | 2496 MHz 2690 MHz | TDD | US (Clearwire) |
| 42 | 3400 MHz – 3600 MHz | 3400 MHz – 3600 MHz | TDD | |
| 43 | 3600 MHz – 3800 MHz | 3600 MHz – 3800 MHz | TDD |
Note: Band 6 is not applicable
