LTE can be operated in a variety of frequency bands that are assigned by national frequency regulators, based on the decisions of the World Radio Conference.

This spectrum can be, in principle, used for any member of the IMT-2000 and IMT Advanced family.

It originally encompassed the frequency bands discussed ,later additional frequencies were assigned, which became available through the so-called “digital dividend,” – i.e., spectrum that was freed up when TV was converted to digital transmission techniques that required less spectrum than the old analog techniques.

Tables show the bands available by the time of this writing (2009). However, not all bands are available in all countries. In Europe, band 1 is the same as that assigned for WCDMA, thus anticipating existing operators to migrate, without new frequency assignments, from WCDMA to LTE.

Migration from GSM to LTE is anticipated by the creation of bands 3 and 8 (in Europe). Similarly, bands 2, 4, 10, cover the Personal Communication System (PCS) frequencies currently occupied by operators in the U.S.A., while band 5 covers the frequencies long used by U.S. operators for lower-frequency operation.

Bands 6 and 9 cover the traditional Japanese operator frequencies. Bands that became available through the digital dividend include several blocks of spectrum in the 700-MHz range have been recently auctioned off (bands 12, 13, 14, 17) in the U.S.A.

In Europe and Asia, current activity concentrates on the 2,300–2,700 MHz range (bands 7, 38, 40); further spectrum in the 3,400–3,600-MHz range will become available in the near future.

Note that some newly available spectra are reserved exclusively for specific systems, while other frequencies might be used by the operators as they deem fit.

For migration from second- and third-generation systems to LTE, operators that own more than 5 MHz of spectrum can make a “soft transition” by first assigning a 5-MHz block to LTE, while retaining the remainder of the band for their legacy services.

As more users switch to LTE, additional parts of the spectrum can be rededicated to use in LTE.

LTE can also be operated with various bandwidths. The most common bandwidths are anticipated to be 5 and 10 MHz, but lower bandwidths (1.4 and 3 MHz) as well as higher bandwidths (15 and 20 MHz) are also foreseen. When peak data rates are mentioned, they usually refer to usage in the 20-MHz spectrum.

Due to the use of OFDM as modulation format, bandwidths can be adjusted with great ease by changing the number of sub carriers, without changing any of the other parameters in the system.