Dynamic spectrum access for M2M-WANs: the African regulator's spectrum policy reform conundrum

Abstract

This paper presents work that has been done to address the network capacity demands for internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, based on efficient management and utilisation of radio spectrum resources. IoT/M2M applications are predicted to exponentially grow and cause a massive up-surge in network traffic increase. We argue that existing mobile network architectures are not optimised to handle billions of small intermittent transactions generated by M2M connections, therefore, a technology based on dynamic spectrum access (DSA)-enabled low-power M2M-wide area networks (WANs) is proposed. Subsequently, the article presents a use-case scenario demonstrating a possible deployment of a smart metering M2M-WAN using TV white-space (TVWS) channels and geo-location spectrum database technique. The simulated experimental M2M-WAN showed that with only four TVWS channels an entire metropolitan city can be covered to provide smart-metering services. Furthermore, the article suggests changes in existing spectrum management policies and technical regulations to accommodate the new DSA-based technologies. Hence a cost-effective techno-regulatory-policy model is suggested to promote DSA-enabled low-power M2M-WANs.