Next generation of radio spectrum management: Licensed shared access for 5G

Abstract

Deployment of 5th generation (5G) mobile communication technology is setting the stage for the next generation of radio spectrum management. New spectrum sharing arrangements have been identified as effective ways to satisfy emerging connectivity needs. In particular, the so-called Licensed Shared Access (LSA) regime has been given prominence in the European Union (EU) to facilitate access to additional spectrum necessary to meet the exponential growth of mobile data traffic. Under the LSA regime, already occupied, but underutilised spectrum would be shared, on a licensed-basis, between incumbents and mobile operators, under agreed frequency, location and time sharing conditions. A similar system has been proposed in the United States (US), called Spectrum Access System (SAS).In this context, the purpose of this paper is two-fold: firstly, to assess the novelty of the LSA regime with respect to existing spectrum sharing arrangements in the EU and, secondly, to identify the main differences between the LSA and the SAS regimes. Policy documents, academic papers, position papers and analysis reports are scrutinised to gather information on technical and regulatory aspects of existing and emerging spectrum sharing regimes.This paper concludes that the novelty of the LSA regime is found in the possibility for mobile operators to access additional spectrum below 6 GHz (GHz) with the regulatory certainty required to invest in 5G. Implementing other spectrum sharing regimes to access sub-6 GHz spectrum would not guarantee mobile operators protection from harmful interference and predictable Quality of Service (QoS).The comparison between the LSA and the SAS approaches suggests that the LSA regime can be implemented quicker and with less effort than the SAS regime, because of its lower level of technical complexity. Nevertheless, the LSA regime is expected to be overtaken by the SAS regime in the long term, as technology advances. The SAS regime would allow more users to coexist in the same spectrum bands thanks to spectrum sensing techniques.

Blockchain for Internet of Things: A Survey

“…7. Blockchain for 5G Beyond Networks in IoT is one of the most important resources [45]. Radio spectrum management typically includes spectrum auction and spectrum sharing.…”

“…The growing demands of mobile data traffic are driving the more efficient resource management in the fifth generation (5G) communication systems. For example, radio spectrum is one of the most important resources [45]. Radio spectrum management typically includes spectrum auction and spectrum sharing.…”

Licensed Shared Access Evolution to Provide Exclusive and Dynamic Shared Spectrum Access for Novel 5G Use Cases

“…Table 1 gives a brief comparison of the key features of the LSA and SAS concepts. More detailed considerations and comparisons from both technical and business perspectives are given in [43,44].…”

“…The dominant problems in spectrum sensing are the removal of shadowing and multipath fading. Methods to overcome these problems through cooperative mobile measurements to create interference maps are discussed in [48], but the current technologies related to spectrum sensing are still not able to guarantee protection from harmful interference [43]. A concept called LSA evolution is currently under development.…”

Location Privacy in Cognitive Radios With Multi-Server Private Information Retrieval

“…A major difference compared to SAS, is that in LSA, PU s are responsible for populating DBs by providing their a priori information; i.e. their activities and, therefore the spectrum availability information, are known upfront [8].…”