Reminder: Seventh Alexander Graham Bell Lecture : vTools eNotice

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Reminder: Seventh Alexander Graham Bell Lecture

Seventh Alexander Graham Bell Lecture

Reliable Wireless Access in the UHF Band by Enabling Multi-Operator Spectrum Sharing

Wireless access technology has evolved from voice-only services in the early days of 2G cellular, to data plus voice services in 2.5G and 3G, and to purely data services in 4G standards. The IMT-2020 or 5G wireless access is supposed to provide 1Gbps rates to mobile users by using a mix of more antennas, more bandwidth (at 27GHz and/or 60GHz), and more small cells.

Yet, it is well known that the sub-1GHz bands are the “premium” bands when it comes to providing reliable data links in a cost-effective manner. However, sufficient bandwidth slices are not available, especially in the UHF band (450MHz-700MHz), for exclusive licensing to individual broadband operators.

While various orthogonal spectrum sharing schemes have been considered by various research groups worldwide, we propose a non-orthogonal spectrum sharing scheme which we believe can be very effective for cost-sensitive markets like India. Here, 4 (or even 6) broadband operators can simultaneously radiate and receive on the same spectrum slice, and the interference they cause on each other is “carefully managed” by using a mix of techniques at different levels of the communication link.

Early system simulation results on this Multi-Operator Simultaneous Synchronized Sharing based Air Interface for Communications (MOSSSAIC) indicate the tremendous advantage in terms of spectral utilization (sum rate per Hz), even without nearly any compromise on the rates seen by each operator. This scheme can also be used to provide ultra-reliable communications, especially during emergency scenarios.