Extending the benefits of LTE to unlicensed
spectrum
M.U. Hadi, Student Member IEEE
usmanhadi@ieee.org
July 24th, 2015
AbstractProvision of sufficient network capacity for the wireless
data protocol is presently the biggest challenge in telecom industry;
Discussions are underway to take advantage of hundreds of
megahertz in an unlicensed spectrum. In late 2013, telecom
companies were presented a proposal by the Third
Generation Partnership Project to retool and deploy Long Term
Evolution technologies in unlicensed bands. This paper studies the
fundamental questions of deploying this technology using Long
Term Evolution Advanced carrier aggregation mechanism, co-
existence of Unlicensed Long Term Evolution and Wi-Fi networks,
its regulatory requirements, advantages, Unlicensed Long Term
Evolution and its impact on existing services. Similarly, once the
technology is deployed, its important to route out the methodology
of the sharing between multiple technologies and operators. The
mechanism for sharing between strategic operators is depicted from
Teng et al., 2013 [1].Moreover, the paper provides a solution to the
deployment of cells by creating a Neutral host for Unlicensed
Long Term Evolution.
Index TermsUnlicensed Long Term Evolution, Third
Generation Partnership Project, Clear Channel Assessment,
Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission
I. INTRODUCTION
T he demand for mobile traffic has been rising exponentially
and will keep on the same track in coming years. The
licensed frequency spectrum allocated to operators is very
limited due to which operators are feeling crunched. In order
to cope up with this situation, a holistic approach is needed to
address this ominous challenge that will result in increasing
end-to-end efficiency. Spectrum with Hundreds of MHz under
10 GHz is still unlicensed. These observations paved the way
for the companies like Qualcomm, Huawei & Ericsson to start
their R&D about this topic. A proposal to the Third
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for extending LTE to
unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band has already been
presented. In principle, LTE could operate in any unlicensed
frequencies but the initial industry focus is on the 5 GHz band
since there is up to 500 MHz of available spectrum around the
world. This availability of capacity makes this band of
spectrum attractive.
In late 2013, Qualcomm presented a proposal to the Third
Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to put forth LTE to
unlicensed spectrum in the 5 GHz band. The objective was to
create 20 MHz channel that can be combined with
channels in licensed spectrum using LTE Advanceds carrier
aggregation mechanism. Ericsson was also the part of the team
presenting the proposal.
In January 2014, an unofficial workshop was held in which
companies like Huawei, Ericsson, Qualcomm, China Mobile,
NTT DoCoMo, T-Mobile USA, Deutsche Telekom,
TeliaSonera, and Verizon supported to accelerate LTE-U. This
workshop followed by preliminary meeting was opposed
strongly by companies like orange, Telefonica, Vodafone,
AT&T and Sprint. This lead to the formulation of two groups
advocating LTE-U and Wi-Fi respectively. The opposition is
self-explanatory as these operators have their own Wi-Fi
networks. The process of deploying LTE-U is not so trivial as
said by the advocates of LTE-U.
II. LTE-U: A DANGER TO WI-FI
The advocates of LTE-U have been saying that it is being
designed in a way that it will not degrade the performance and
impact of the existing Wi-Fi systems. It means that if a small
cell of LTE-U is placed in proximity of Wi-Fi AP (Access
Point), it will have no impact on the overall system
performance. The studies say that LTE-U and Wi-Fi together
offer a four- fold increase in the handling of the data traffic.
But this argument doesnt seem to be valid completely! LTE-
U advocates have been claiming that a solution is under way
that will make both of these technologies to co-exist. Since,
LTE doesnt require Carrier sensing is not required but for
Wi-Fi, to make sure that no other user is using the same
channel, Channel sensing is required. This point will make
Wi-Fi lose at the Transmission opportunity battle. Even if Wi-
Fi and LTE-U coexist, then we need to have a 5 GHz band to
be harmonized globally which will require governments to be
on board all over the globe. These arguments make it vivid
that Wi-Fi will lose this competition clearly.
One of the most important points in implementing LTE-U is
the selection of spectrum. It is of great importance that why 5
GHz band should be selected. The fact that Path loss for the
band of frequency less than 6 GHz is less makes its selection a
vital point. As it is known that 2.4 GHz and accompanying

Fig.1. 5 GHz Unlicensed Spectrum Band Plan.
Fig.1. 5 GHz Unlicensed Spectrum Band Plan.
band is used by Bluetooth and existing Wi-Fi. Similarly LAN
for residential purposes uses lower end of 4 GHz so spectrum
between 5 and 6 GHz are the best possibilities. Issues arising
from different frequency management/policies for different
countries should be taken care of first. Each country has
different Wi-Fi frequency band allocations in 5 GHz and
different technology standards to follow.
TDD (time division duplexing) is used in Wi-Fi, the allocation
of time that is used to send data from the Wi-Fi AP to the
mobile Wi-Fi client (the downlink) is orthogonal to the time
used to send the data from the mobile Wi-Fi client to the Wi-
Fi AP (i.e., the uplink). Part of the time the Wi-Fi AP is
talking [and the mobile Wi-Fi client is listening] and part
of the time the mobile Wi-Fi client is talking but they arent
doing it at the same time. LTE supports this concept today
(called LTE TDD), but it also supports FDD (LTE FDD) in
which the serving base station (eNode B in LTE vernacular)
and the LTE mobile clients can communicate at the same time
but they use different frequency bands to do so.
III. REGULATORY MODIFICATIONS
There seems to be a general agreement regarding what needs
to be modified in order to implement LTE-U and satisfy the
regularity requirements. The two basic modifications are as
follows:
i. Prior to transmission on a channel, the equipment must
perform a clear channel assessment (CCA) to make sure
that the channel is unoccupied. If its occupied, it must
move to another channel. If its unoccupied then it can
use the channel for a certain amount of time called the
Channel Occupancy Time (1-10 ms). Within this
Channel Occupancy Time there is also a minimum idle
period that must be at least 5% of the Channel
Occupancy Time.
ii. The specified nominal channel bandwidth of 5 MHz is
supported by LTE today; however, the requirement
pertaining to the occupied channel bandwidth is not
supported. According to this requirement, the wireless
system must use at least 80% of the declared nominal
channel bandwidth
It is still not clear that how 3GPP will address these
ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute)
requirements.
iii. Another very important point that has not been addressed
in LTE-U is the phenomena of Send-Receive Request of
the data packet, there need to be an inbuilt flexibility
regarding sending and acknowledgement of the data
packet.
IV. SHARING
One of the most important points in making this technology
useful is sharing. Spectrum sharing among non-cooperative
systems in unlicensed bands has been studied in [5].This LTE-
U has to be used between the operators that are competitors
and every operator is selfish in one way or the other. So there
exists a game theory between the strategic operators already in
the market and the new operator entering for sharing in an
unlicensed LTE-U. If the operator decides to participate, the
operator must make an initial investment C. If there are
already N operators in the market, then each incumbent
operator selects from two actions: punish or cooperate
when a new operator enters. When all operators punish the
new operator, each uses full spectrum and achieves the utility
of Uf (N + 1); when all cooperate with the new operator, each
gets fraction of the spectrum and achieves the utility of
Uo (N + 1).
V. LTE-U ADVANTAGES
The key benefits of LTE-U can be summarized as follows:
i. LTE-U can result in higher frequency efficiency
since it allows multiple users to communicate at
once.
ii. It is highly interference-resistant.
iii. Economic feasibility: It can take advantage of free
frequency and the current LTE network
iv. User experience: Quality of user experience to be
enhanced by LTE QOS technology
VI. ANALYSIS OF CARRIER SENSING ADAPTIVE TRANSMISSION
Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission (CSAT) is the
algorithm proposed by Qualcomm for coexistence of LTE-U
with Wi-Fi in a co- channel. In the presence of LTE-U, it is
used and Wi-Fi is used if LTE-U is off, the results showed an
overall increase in the performance of LTE-U by two times
when LTE-U is on and when it is off, Wi-Fi performance is
not affected. This argument is presented by Qualcomm and
they claim that it increases the performance, It is very much
evident that performance is increased of LTE-U when LTE-U
 is on but the very own performance of Wi-Fi is decreased
drastically. This will lead to affect the quality of delay
sensitive service.
VII. LICENSE ASSISTED ACCESS (LAA)
Ericsson has launched the same technology by giving it a
name of LAA. The authorities are saying this as 4.5G and this
technology is being regarded as a stepping stone towards 5G.
Fig.2.Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission (CSAT) proposed by Qualcomm
Since 5G has yet to be defined but LAA will address the
critical goals of Next Generation Networks.
VIII. CONCLUSIONS
x Carrier Sensing Adaptive Transmission technique
employed by Qualcomm (claims that deployment of
unlicensed spectrum performs better than controlled Wi-
Fi deployment) is invalid since a poor efficiency of Wi-Fi
is observed when LTE-U is on. This needs to be fixed
since delay-sensitive service like VoIP could be adversely
effected.
x One of the very important arguments that need to be
addressed is the survival of the fittest between the
operators in the competitive environment. What matters to
every mobile operator is that how much frequency each
one can obtain. For these scenarios, 3GPP needs to devise
a scenario for the sharing of the spectrum. The scenarios
defined for competitor operators by Teng et al., 2013 [1]
are completely applicable. They should be accepted so
that that selfish and strategic operators can cooperate for
their mutual benefit.
x LTE-U being implemented at regional level is bad for
everybody and regulatory modifications as explained in
[]are must.
x Comprehensive protection assessment is must; LTE-U
should not have adverse impact on future licensed
spectrum allocation.
x LTE-U should address the global market. For this
purpose, band of 5 GHz is not green field and it must be
changed which is acceptable globally.
x LTE-U should not negatively impact existing services;
peaceful coexistence with Wi-Fi is required;
x All the advocates of LTE-U are silent about the important
fact that what is the best possibility to deploy thousands
of small cells and unleash the haunting wave of mobile
broadband capacity. The idea is simple; if companies are
able to create a neutral host for LTE-U that serve multiple
operators, then sharing can be done but it will give rise to
another question whether telecom operators will be
willing to share their network access equipment,
remains an unanswered question.
x Controlling Interference is a challenge for the companies
that are implementing LTE-U, One of the ways to control
it can be using Active Beacons. Beacon signals right now
are not a part of LTE standard but they have a capability
to be used by LTE-U to minimize interference when Wi-
Fi APs or LTE-U small cells from other operators are in
the immediate vicinity.
Benefits of LTE-U are too compelling to be ignored, it
has some invalid and debatable arguments but with the
above solutions presented in the conclusions, LTE in
unlicensed spectrum will revolutionize the globe.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research is funded by University of Bologna, Bologna,
Italy.
REFERENCES
[1] F.Teng, D.Guo and M.L.Honig, Sharing of Unlicensed Spectrum
by Strategic Operators, in Proc. of the IEEE Wireless
Communications and Networking Conference, 2013.
[2] Qualcomm, Extending the benefits of LTE to unlicensed spectrum,
3GPP Workshop on LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum, June, 2014
[3] Nokia Corporation, Extending the benefits of LTE to unlicensed spec-
trum, 3GPP Workshop on LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum, June, 2014
[4] Signals Research Group, The Prospect of LTE and Wi-Fi Sharing
Unlicensed Spectrum,December,2014
[5] N. Clemens and C. Rose, Intelligent power allocation strategies in an
unlicensed spectrum, IEEE Symposium on New Frontiers in Dynamic
Spectrum Access Networks, Baltimore, MD, Nov. 2005.
[6] Y. Xu, W. Chen and Z. Cao, Spectrum sharing in frequency-selective
unlicensed bands: a game theoretic approach, Wireless
Communications and Mobile Computing, vol. 14, pp. 460-471, March,
2014
[7] R. Elkin, A. Parekh, and D. Tse, Spectrum sharing for unlicensed
bands, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, vol. 25, pp.
517-528, 2007.
[8] A. Cavalcante, E. Almeida, R. Vieira, F. Chaves, R. Paiva, F. Abinader,
S. Choudhury, E. Tuomaala, and K. Doppler, Performance evaluation
of LTE and Wi-Fi coexistence in unlicensed bands, in Proc. of the
IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, 2013.