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The wide area cellular networks that offer voice and data
Abstract— Majority of research in Dynamic Spectrum Access services to the end users represent some of the most widely
(DSA) networks has focused on free-for-all, opportunistic deployed and used networks of today. In the USA, these
spectrum access for peer-to-peer ad-hoc communication, networks use 825.030-844.980 MHz, 870.030-889.980 MHz
typically targeting military applications. In this paper, we cellular bands or 1.85-1.91 GHz, 1.930-1.99 GHz frequency
propose that a simple form of DSA called Coordinated DSA that
bands that are licensed to service providers on a long-term
relies on a regional spectrum broker to control spectrum access
can bring benefits to current statically provisioned cellular basis. As new technologies such as multi-carrier EV-DO [10],
networks. We argue that two concepts, namely a dynamically HSDPA [4] show promise of broadband wide area wireless
sharable spectrum band called Coordinated Access Band (CAB) access, increased amount of spectrum will be needed.
band and Statistically Multiplexed Access (SMA) to spectrum that However, it is a common refrain that wireless access lags
relies on demand aggregation can achieve better spectrum dramatically wireline access methods in terms of channel
utilization. We describe in detail our spectrum measurements in speeds and end-user experience. Given that the amount of
existing cellular networks to conclusively demonstrate the spectrum available to each service provider is fixed, there are
feasibility of these concepts. only a few ways to improve per user throughput for single
radio devices: (1) Use ever-so sophisticated modulation
Index Terms—Coordinated DSA, Spectrum measurements,
techniques and media access protocols to “squeeze” more
Statistical multiplexing of spectrum access
bits/Hz throughput and thus, make maximal use of spectrum.
(2) reduce the cell size by using less transmit power and reuse
I. INTRODUCTION
the spectrum intelligently. However, both these methods have
The current static allocation of radio spectrum managed by limitations. Specifically, continued improvement in
regulating bodies, such as Federal Communications modulation and MAC techniques cannot lead to orders of
Commission in USA has left the spectrum access limited magnitude increases in per-user data rates. Reducing cell size
rather than throughput limited. Extensive spectrum increases the number of cell sites and resulting overheads
measurements in various parts of the world have highlighted associated with network management and session and user
several operational implications of the current spectrum handoff for mobility support. In presence of a large number of
management: (1) Even though a large part of spectrum is end-user devices sharing the fixed amount of spectrum, per
allocated and hardly any new spectrum is available for new user throughput varies dramatically. Only realistic way to
services, a large swath of spectrum remains underutilized. The provide sustained multi-megabits/sec throughput to end-users
spectrum allocated to public safety networks, government is to increase the amount of spectrum available for the cellular
networks such military, and several UHF broadcast TV services. In fact, demand responsive activation or deactivation
channels are prime examples. (2) Several licensed bands such of spectrum will be the best way to bring bandwidth-on-
as cellular, PCS bands experience high utilization but demand capabilities to next generation of cellular networks.
utilization varies dramatically over time and space. (3) Recognizing the need for additional spectrum for new
Unlicensed bands such as ISM, UNIII, have experienced cellular services and given the artificial scarcity spectrum,
tremendous but unfettered growth due to inexpensive significant push is currently underway to free up new
equipment and no spectrum access barriers. spectrum. In fact, prime spectrum in 700 MHz range including
Clearly, current spectrum management must give way to a UHF spectrum allocated to television broadcast channels and
new framework that achieves uniform spectrum utilization in public safety networks are currently being considered. [11].
temporal and spatial dimensions and breaks the barrier to However, given “useful spectrum” that can be exploited by
spectrum access. The new paradigm of Dynamic Spectrum consumer grade radio electronics in small form factor is rather
Access (DSA) Networks, enabled by rapid advances in limited, any static and long-term reallocation of spectrum may
reconfigurable, programmable, cognitive radio hardware and be unwise. Also, the long-drawn, legalistic, capital-intensive
real-time spectrum sensing aims to achieve these objectives. spectrum licensing method of today threatens to slow
introduction of new DSA technologies in this spectrum.
The imminent maturity of technologies such as
*
Funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant CNS-0435348. reconfigurable and software defined radios, multi band radio
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situation, the CAB band network which appears as yet another access and mesh networks which have different temporal and
cellular network can add new capacity. This can improve spatial use characteristics.
cellular data and voice services and translate into cost savings In the second case, the spectral demands may be correlated
for cellular providers, who otherwise need to split existing as in time window (t3, t4) and (t5, t6). Such spectral demand
cells into smaller cells and install new base stations. correlations result from common service usage characteristics
especially if service providers offer homogeneous service
B. Statistical Multiplexing of Spectrum Access such as cellular service. However, each provider experiences
3P peak demands only for a fraction of the total time of operation
Aggr A+ B+ C and underutilizes its spectrum. As such, if spectrum is
A( 2)
B allocated to meet the aggregate demand across all providers,
C( 1)
A( 1) significant savings are still possible over current per-provider
C( 2) P static allocation. The resulting savings will vary over time. For
SPA ( x ,y ,t )
example, savings in (t3, t4) far exceed savings during (t5, t6). In
( x ,y ,t ) P
SPB ( x ,y ,t )
general, among such providers, large savings can accrue over
spatial and smaller temporal scales.
A( i) = Base station i of P
SPC ( x ,y ,t )
Thus, the aggregation effect can significantly reduce the
provider A required spectrum necessary for a region while maintaining
t1 t2 t3 t4 t5 t6
the independence and competitive business characteristics. We
t
call this mode of spectrum sharing across homogeneous or
Figure 2: Statistical multiplexing of spectrum access heterogeneous providers as statistically multiplexed access to
The concept of CAB improves the spectrum access spectrum (SMA) [1]. It can create uniform usage patterns
efficiency, whereas the concept of statistically multiplexed across aggregate regions and thus a more efficient spectral
access is aimed at improving the spectrum utilization in the use. It also allows an NSP to use more spectrum and
CAB. It relies on the regional aggregation of spectrum dynamically add capacity during peak loads and offer better
demands by a spectrum broker. Consider current multi- quality-of-service to end users.
provider cellular networks. The classic cellular base station C. Combining SMA, CAB Bands and Coordinated DSA
site provisioning attempts a match between available
SPIM
bandwidth and the coverage area/user density product for all Spectrum
times of operations for a single provider. It performs a worst- Broker
case analysis at the individual site-level. Figure 2 illustrates
the spectral usage at a location (x, y) where two base stations DIMSUM DIMSUM
of Network Service Provider (NSP) A and C and one base Internet IP Core RANMAN
Network
station of NSP B operate. It shows the spectral usage due to SPEL
Protocol
individual provider signals and their aggregate as waveforms
varying over time.
Consider three time periods (t1, t2), (t3, t4), and (t5, t6). In DIMSUM
DIMSUM DIMSUM
time period (t1, t2), the spectral utilization of provider B peaks IP BS IP BS IP BS
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statistical multiplexing of spectrum access and the resulting input for PCS frequency ranges. We carried out measurements
gains. in Hoboken, NJ which is a dense urban location and also, in
Regional demand aggregation is easier to implement if Holmdel, NJ, a semi-urban location.
infrastructure elements such as base stations, backhaul are We determined the cellular and PCS bands used by various
shared among service providers. This can therefore lead to providers through a frequency survey based on the FCC
new form of network providers that only operate RANs and database and local measurements. Figure 4 illustrates the
service providers that offer end-user services are their MVNO survey results for the Stevens Institute of Technology location
customers [1]. in Hoboken, NJ for four providers, namely Verizon, Sprint, T-
Research Questions: We argue that answers to following Mobile and Cingular.
questions are central to the design of spectrum broker in the Figure 5 illustrates the measurement method we use for
above architecture and spectrum allocation algorithms it observing a single provider network which has N channels
employs: configured at a location in a cellular or PCS band. For
Temporal Statistical multiplexing gain: For homogeneous example, in case of the CDMA Provider1 network in
service providers (e.g.: all CDMA cellular providers, all GSM Hoboken, NJ, seven 1.25 MHz carrier channels are configured
providers) in a given region, what level of temporal in cellular band. The spectrum analyzer performs the
aggregation is feasible and what are the gains? How does the measurements by repeating a measurement cycle: Each cycle
Channel Switchover
824 MHz Forward Link 896Mhz 1850 MHz 1990 MHz
Chan 1
S
Chan 2
C T C
V p V
I - I
ri E
Cellular N
E
R
PCS M N
n R
G O G
band U
I
Z
band B U
t
-
I
Z
L I L
Chan 3
O P O
A L A
N C N
R E R
S
GSM Chan N
152 153 154 156
156 157 158 159 163 167 179 Verizon
Cingular 825 875 CDMA
CDMA
384 425 466 507 548 589 630 1965.4Mhz 1969.4Mhz
GSM
Verizon
1 2 N-1 N
Verizon Cingular
Figure 4: Cellular/PCS spectrum survey in Hoboken, NJ. Figure 5: Single-band, single provider measurements
cross-correlation of their spectrum demands vary over time? consists of one set of measurement on each of the N downlink
What level of savings from configured capacity is realizable channels starting at channel 1. The CDMA profile used here
by aggregating spectrum demands? allows CDMA PN (Pseudo-random Number) code
Similarly, in the case of heterogeneous providers (e.g.: correlations to determine active codes in use. The CDMA
public safety network and a cellular network), how do these networks currently use 128 PN Walsh codes per 1.25 MHz
parameters vary over time?. carrier [1], of which select codes are used for control channels
Spatial Statistical multiplexing gain: How does the such as pilot, paging, sync etc and rest are used for user
spectrum demand for a single provider vary over space in data/voice traffic. As such a fixed number of codes used for
urban, semi-urban and rural areas? How does cross-provider control channels are always in use and the data/voice channel
temporal behavior of spectrum demand change from region to codes are dynamically allocated when a user terminal gets
region? active. The analyzer marks code whose power correlation
We attempt to answer these questions by performing real- exceeds an assigned threshold as active. In our setup, each
time, non-invasive measurements on existing networks. In the measurement set on a channel contains ten 3.85 ms snapshots.
following, we describe our methodology and results in greater It takes 2 seconds to extract data for processing after each
details. snapshot and 7 seconds to switch over to a new channel.
Therefore, for N channels, the recurring measurement cycle
III. SPECTRUM MEASUREMENTS METHODOLOGY contains total 10N samples and has a period of
Measurement methods: We use a sophisticated signal 10 ⋅ (3.85ms + 2s ) + 7 s ⋅ N ≈ 27 N seconds.
analyzer Tektronix WCA230A [2] capable of real-time The GSM technology uses multiple 200 KHz carrier
spectrum analysis in the frequency range DC-3GHz. This frequencies per cell (in uplink and downlink) and employs
analyzer supports standard demodulations for CDMA and time division multiplexing (TDMA) to support concurrent
GSM networks. We use off-the-shelf omni-directional user calls. The repeating slotted frame structure on each
antennas in cellular and PCS frequency range. These antennas
provide better performance in cellular (800-850 MHz) band
and suffer additional loss of 5 dB to the spectrum analyzer
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Band A
System Task Time
CDMA One measurement snapshot 2s+3.85ms
Band B
Band C
10 consecutive readings ~20 s
Band D Switching of channels 7s
Channel 1
3.85 msec 2 sec
1sec
Total time for 9 CDMA channels 9x27=243s
GSM Time for one reading across provider 1s
Band E
50cycles band
10
cycles 50 consecutive readings 50 s
Band F
Time to switch channel 7s
Band A Band B Band C Band D Band D Band D Band D Band D Band D Band D Band E Band F
ch#1 ch # 2 ch # 3 ch # 4 ch # 5 ch # 6 ch # 7 Total time for 3 GSM bands 3x57=171s
Cellular PCS PCS Cellular Cellular Cellular Cellular Cellular Cellular Cellular PCS PCS
Cingular Cingular Tmobile Verizon Verizon Verizon Verizon Verizon Verizon Verizon Verizon Sprint
Total time consumed in 1 cycle of reading 243s+171s
across all providers =6.9 mins
of data generated in these measurements is quite modest; for Figure 7: 27 hrs measurements in CDMA network at
example, a 2.5 day single CDMA provider measurement Hoboken, NJ
generates ~11 MB of data. One complete measurement cycle
in the multi-provider measurements case takes ~6.9 minutes IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
(see Table 1). Clearly, one drawback of our method is that our In the following, we provide some illustrative results.
measurements are not truly temporally concurrent across the
providers. This can be rectified by employing multiple
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A. Code Utilization in CDMA Networks
The measurements shown in Figure 7 are carried out on a
weekday in Hoboken, NJ for a period of 27 hrs from (9:00
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We also define statistical multiplexing gain as The threshold is based on the SNR of each FFT capture that is
Number of configured channels estimated through the max min ratio of each measurement.
β CDMA (t ) = This generates the binary matrix [O] of
α CDMA (t )
BW
Figure 9 presents α(t) and β(t) calculated for the CDMA1 size ( O ) = × 50 (Figure 11.b).
provider in Hoboken, NJ with the assumption that the 200kHz
v
maximum number of codes allowed per channel is 32. We define a row vector o
v
The average value of βCDMA = 3.5 suggests that significant let o = ∑ O(i, j )
savings are feasible in number of carriers (spectrum) j
v
configured. This saved spectrum can be either reused by other A = {oi ∈ o / oi ≥ thresshold }
cellular providers dynamically or used by secondary users. C =| A |
Also, note that a-priori knowledge of α(t), can help provider
where oi is the cumulative occupancy indicator and is defined
negotiate or release spectrum in a predictive fashion. Figure as the sum of the ith column of matrix O and A is the set of all
10 illustrates another way to look at this; it plots variation of occupancy indicators that exceed an a-priori set threshold.
difference between number of codes used in consecutive 7.5 The number of active channels C is defined as the cardinality
min slots. This time series helps predict how much the code of set A. We then statistically determine timeslots used per
requirement in next time window will change. Therefore, if channel T as a value between 1 and 8:
the maximum number of codes per channel is known, v
T = T1 ...Ti ...TC C = No of active channels
instances of spectrum negotiation can be predicted easily.
Developing empirical models for these time series can be used Active Timeslots of channel i
Ti = ROUND 8 ×
in simulators as well as in spectrum broker design. 50
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this case, rate of change of utilization can be used to predict We notice a mean α GSM = 2.1 and mean β GSM = 10 . It is
spectrum demand. an important point to note that though the mean number of
In order to characterize the spectrum savings during low channels is small (~2.1), there is significant variation on a
demands, we define quantities similar to ones defined for the small timescale (indicated by jagged sawtooths). Such
CDMA channels; specifically, instantaneous number of variation in α GSM , which is consistent with the narrowband
channels required (α) and the statistical multiplexing gain (β)
as follows: nature of GSM carriers, is analogous to variation seen in
codes used in CDMA measurements. High mean value of
r mean and rapid temporal variation of β GSM , suggests
∑ T (t )
α GSM (t ) = significant savings are possible on small timescales for
8
allocations of spectrum in small granularities.
Number of active channels ( C )
β GSM (t ) = Figure 14 shows a plot of variation of difference in number
α GSM (t )
of time slots used in consecutive 7.5 min timeslots and
Figure 13 illustrates α GSM , β GSM for a GSM provider based on corresponding plot of difference in number of carrier channels
a 7-day data collection. Note that in the GSM standard [13], used. These plots too confirmed the rapid variation of GSM
50 MHz spectrum in the cellular 800 MHZ band is split into slot demands and corresponding number of carriers required.
25 MHz each for uplink and downlink. The maximum number It suggests that as much as 50% of GSM carriers can be saved
of distinct narrowband carriers is therefore ~124 (=25/.200). using dynamic allocation and activation over a timescale of
To encourage competition, FCC split each 25 MHz into two
blocks – A and B and allowed a provider to license one of the
two blocks in a region. This means the maximum number of
carriers available to a single provider is ~68 in uplink and
downlink. In case of PCS band which is 60 MHz in each
direction, there are 6 such blocks – blocks A, B, C each of 30
MHz and blocks D, E, F, each of 10 MHz. Given this a single
provider has anywhere from ~74 (15 MHz/200 KHz) to ~25
(~5 MHz/200 KHz) carriers at its disposal.
V. DISCUSSION
Our reported measurements have been carried out for
providers of a homogenous service type – namely cellular
voice service. As such the “demand characteristics” of various
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feasibility.
Our measurements are done primarily for voice networks
as such for a homogenous traffic type. As data networks such
as EV-DO [10], HSDPA [4] evolve, the dominant traffic will
be data traffic which has markedly different characteristics.
Also, the uplink (MNÆBS) and downlink (BSÆMN) have
different characteristics and need different amount of
spectrum. Currently, most technologies support download
intensive application well. As applications that aggressively
use uplink (e.g.: video phones and file uploads) become
common, more spectrum may be required to support high per
user throughput. In our ongoing work, we plan to perform
measurements on available EV-DO [10] networks.
One important caveat for our current measurements is that
they are not truly concurrent temporally and spatially for all
the providers under consideration. We plan to develop a small
measurement probe based on off-the-shelf COMBLOCK [12]
modules with 800 MHz and 2.4 GHZ range RF front ends.
Several of these measurements probes will be distributed in a
terrain or in remote locations and simultaneously controlled
by a measurement agent. We intend to use this probe first for
better spatial measurements for GSM networks using the FFT
based frequency domain approach outlined earlier.
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[13] --, “Technical Specifications and Technical Reports for GERAN-based
3GPP System, 3GPP TS 41.101.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we argued that the coordinated Dynamic
Spectrum Access (DSA) approach that relies on a spectrum
broker to manage spectrum in regional fashion can be applied
beneficially to cellular networks. The broker manages a
Coordinated Access Band (CAB) designated for dynamic
sharing. We also elaborated a new concept called Statistically
Multiplexed Access (SMA) to spectrum that relies on regional
spectrum demand aggregation to improve spectrum utilization.
We reported detailed spectrum measurements in existing
cellular networks to show that SMA technique is indeed
feasible and can bring in spectrum savings and high
utilization.
Our proposed coordinated DSA concepts will help
commercial cellular networks evolve to next generation
wherein they support new bandwidth-on-demand capabilities
and multi-megabits/sec per user throughput.
REFERENCES
[1] CDMA Development Group, http://www.cdg,org
[2] -- Tektronix WCA230A: www.tektronix.com
[3] – http://www.qualcomm.com
[4] –http://www.3gpp.org, UTRA High Speed Downlink Packet Access
(HSDPA); overall description; Stage 2. 3GPP TS 25.308.
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“DIMSUMnet: New Directions in Wireless Networking Using
Coordinated Dynamic Spectrum Access,” IEEE WoWMoM05, June
2005.
[6] W. Horne, ``Adaptive Spectrum Access: Using the Full Spectrum
Space,'' ISART2003.
[7] R. T"onjes: "DSA and Re-configurability Requirements", Presentation
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June 2002.
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[9] W. Lehr et al., ``Software Radio: Implication for Wireless Services,
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VA, Sept. 2002.
[10] D. J. Schafer, ``Wide Area Adaptive Spectrum Applications,'' MITRE
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http://www.qualcomm.com/mediaflo/index.shtml
[12] Communication Blocks, Inc., http://www.comblock.com/
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