A Practical Perspective on 5G-Ready Highly Dynamic Spectrum Management with LSA

A diversity of wireless technologies will collaborate to support the fifth-generation (5G) communication networks with their demanding applications and services. Despite decisive progress in many enabling solutions, next-generation cellular deployments may still suffer from a glaring lack of bandwidth due to inefficient utilization of radio spectrum, which calls for immediate action. To this end, several capable frameworks have recently emerged to all help the mobile network operators (MNOs) leverage the abundant frequency bands that are utilized lightly by other incumbents. Along these lines, the recent Licensed Shared Access (LSA) regulatory framework allows for controlled sharing of spectrum between an incumbent and a licensee, such as the MNO, which coexist geographically. This powerful concept has been subject to several early technology demonstrations that confirm its implementation feasibility. However, the full potential of LSA-based spectrum management can only become available if it is empowered to operate dynamically and at high space-time-frequency granularity. Complementing the prior efforts, we in this work outline the functionality that is required by the LSA system to achieve the much needed flexible operation as well as report on the results of our respective live trial that employs a full-fledged commercial-grade cellular network deployment. Our practical results become instrumental to facilitate more dynamic bandwidth sharing and thus promise to advance on the degrees of spectrum utilization in future 5G systems without compromising the service quality of their users.