The main point of the new method is to estimate the upper bound of demand. In fact, it is proved by the operational data that the area which has the largest spectrum demand is always in urban areas. When requirements of such a scenario are satisfied, the solution might be applicable for others as well. In the calculation, a typical hotspot zone in Beijing is selected as the research area. To gather the historical data within, the government issued an investigation letter to all network operators. The data survey is based on the operator’s network management system in China, in which there is a major difference between the proposed method and other international methods. Supported by these firsthand data, analyses are made to estimate the traffic increase, traffic distribution, and base station (BS) deployments in the future. The general flow chart of the methodology is shown in Fig. 2. According to the calculation, the total IMT spectrum demand in China is 1350–1810 MHz in 2020