Abstract
This paper examines the spatial variability of duty cycle in the GSM 900 and 1800 MHz bands within Kwara State, Nigeria. The results show spatial variance in the duty cycle with average occupancies of 1.67%, 17.76%, 10.55% and 0.39%, 11.00% and 5.11 in the rural, urban and all locations for 900 and 1800 MHz bands. Findings also show that there is very high positive correlation between rural 900/1800 MHz and urban 900/1800 MHz. But very high negative correlations exits between urban 900 and rural 1800, and urban 1800 and rural 1800. There is a weak and negative correlation between rural and urban 900 MHz, rural-urban 1800. These results clearly showthe abundance of unutilised spectrum within the GSM bands. Therefore, regulatory commissions should adopt flexible spectrum reuse strategy to relax the regulatory bottlenecks to maximize the scarce radio resources in the licensed bands, especially for rural network deployments
Highlights
There is unprecedented growth in mobile data traffic, mostly driven by increase of dataintensive devices, such as tablets and smartphones
The gap is widening as the majority of the unconnected are in the rural areas with communities characterised by extreme poverty, lack of, or limited, social services and infrastructure [2].it becomes highly necessary to develop techniques that will enhance efficient spectrum utilization, free more spectral spaces that could meet the need for the exponential growth in global mobile data traffic and be used as a tool for meeting up the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Such flexible spectrum regime has been identified as the driver for solving these issues [3]
LOCs 4 to 5 were completely unoccupied with duty cycle of 0%. The reason for this spatial variation is that LOC 2, being a rural area, has experienced technological developments including being the host to a state university in Kwara state, Nigeria
Summary
There is unprecedented growth in mobile data traffic, mostly driven by increase of dataintensive devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Despite the notion of the scarcity of the radio spectrum, considerable portion of the spectrum set available for wireless communications have been largely underutilized This underutilization arises due to the current command and control model that largely protects the licensed spectrum owners who may not use the spectrum at all times in all places [1]. The gap is widening as the majority of the unconnected are in the rural areas with communities characterised by extreme poverty, lack of, or limited, social services and infrastructure [2].it becomes highly necessary to develop techniques that will enhance efficient spectrum utilization, free more spectral spaces that could meet the need for the exponential growth in global mobile data traffic and be used as a tool for meeting up the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).Such flexible spectrum regime has been identified as the driver for solving these issues [3]
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