Abstract
Emergence of shared spectrum such as CBRS 3.5 GHz band promises to broaden the mobile operator ecosystem and lead to proliferation of small cell deployments. We consider the inter-operator interference problem that arises when multiple small cell networks access the shared spectrum. Towards this end, we take a novel communication-free approach that seeks implicit coordination between operators without explicit communication. The key idea is for each operator to sense the spectrum through its mobiles to be able to model the channel vacancy distribution and extrapolate it for the next epoch. We use reproducing kernel Hilbert space kernel embedding of channel vacancy and predict it by vector-valued regression. This predicted value is then relied on by each operator to perform independent but optimal channel assignment to its base stations taking traffic load into account. Via numerical results, we show that our approach, aided by the above channel vacancy forecasting, adapts the spectrum allocation over time as per the traffic demands and more crucially, yields as good as or better performance than a coordination based approach, even without accounting the overhead of the latter.
Highlights
Mobile data traffic continues to grow rapidly and scaling the capacity of mobile networks to meet this demand is a key driver for the emerging 5G mobile networks
Recent regulatory developments in spectrum sharing below 6 GHz1 that allow sharing of lightly used spectrum held by legacy or public-sector incumbents via tiered spectrum access models [2], [3] are lowering the barrier for new entrants to the mobile network operator ecosystem by significantly reducing the spectrum acquisition cost
We focus on the specific context of interference prediction in shared spectrum small cell networks, the proposed mechanism is more generally applicable
Summary
Mobile data traffic continues to grow rapidly and scaling the capacity of mobile networks to meet this demand is a key driver for the emerging 5G mobile networks. Recent regulatory developments in spectrum sharing below 6 GHz1 that allow sharing of lightly used spectrum held by legacy or public-sector incumbents (e.g., radars and satellite earth stations) via tiered spectrum access models [2], [3] are lowering the barrier for new entrants to the mobile network operator ecosystem by significantly reducing the spectrum acquisition cost This in turn promises proliferation of small cell deployments. While having the cloud-based/centralized SAS mediate access to shared spectrum for interference protection to incumbents and higher tier users is essential, using it to coordinate spectrum sharing among the same tier users (e.g., GAA users in CBRS) as suggested in [8], [9] limits dynamic and fine-grained spectrum use Another approach would be to have operators exchange detailed spectrum usage information between operators via a coordination protocol (e.g., [10]) for interference management purposes. The two sections describe the system model and formally state the problem being tackled
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