The MED released an engineering consideration document in September 2000, asking for commercial and public views on its draft plan for the spectrum. Originally, Miller says International Telecommunications Union-RadioCommunications (ITU-R) studies, as well as international trends at the time were based on the aggregation of 250kHz channels. The band itself was aimed for wireless local loop (WLL) and broadband wireless access (BWA) multipoint distribution service.

Miller says that the MED initially proposed the band should be subdivided into 2.5, 5 and 10MHz sub-blocks, aggregated to form 25MHz blocks where possible in accordance with ITU-R recommendations.

The current legislation allows providers to reach commercial agreements with each other to widen existing spectrum bands if needed, says Miller. Management rights can be carved up he says for this purpose.

The 2.3GHz band that Woosh Wireless Ltd. recently reached an agreement with Telecom New Zealand Ltd. to use was configured for 8MHz channels, as this was deemed likely to be the most appropriate when it was originally allocated in 1990, Miller says.

Although 2.3GHz isn't officially part of the WiMAX standard, Intel and South Korean operators are promoting it for mobile wireless broadband or WiBro, as it is dubbed.