Collaborative Research: Enhancing Access to Radio Spectrum for Real-Time Monitoring and Control

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This EARS (Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum) program was founded in response to the 2010 Presidential Memorandum on Unleashing the Wireless Broadband Revolution mandated by Congress as part of the National Broadband Plan. It was referenced in 2010 State of the Union and later on the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012 (More than 1/3 of the bill deals with radio spectrum), the PCAST 2012 Report [President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology] (which calls for vastly increased use of spectrum sharing) and the 2013 Presidential memo (Expanding America's Leadership in Wireless Innovation). The aim of this program is to identify bold new concepts with the potential to contribute to significant improvements in the efficiency of radio spectrum utilization, protection of passive sensing services, and in the ability for traditionally underserved Americans to benefit from current and future wireless-enabled goods and services. The impact is large on the economics of the Nation as seen on the last FCC bidding of 65MHz of the spectrum for over $45 billion early in 2015. It will enable access to science, engineering, industry, civilian and military users of the RF spectrum.This project will analyze the magnitude of spectrum scarcity as it relates to the optimization of spectrum utilization. The cellular industry has been asking for more spectrum for mobile broadband by calling it a "Supply" to support higher "Demand" of mobile data services. Higher amount of spectrum can surely support data-centric services more efficiently. However, other variables of Wireless Broadband Eco-systems can lower the burden on existing cellular infrastructure and they can collectively play a role of "substitute" for more spectrum. The PI's preliminary model (based on System Dynamics techniques) already showed that the need for more spectrum could be lowered by making efficient use of existing network infrastructure (e.g. Wi-Fi Offloading). To make the existing model comprehensive and future-proof, they plan to expand it by adding economic parameters like auction data and recently emerged technical parameters like Spectrum Re-farming, Small Cells, and LTE deployment in unlicensed bands. This research will also incorporate economic studies and drivers to better understand the efficiency at which the new spectrum is being utilized by cellular operators and how it affects their plans to deploy data offloading techniques on unlicensed frequencies. The proposed project is not limited to "research" activities but it includes "development" phase as well; the research part will allow them to define the mathematical relationships among the technical and economic variables and the development part will produce a working and interactive model of mobile broadband eco-system to demonstrate the effects of various technical and economic variables on spectrum allocation. The project outcome not only will test the Spectrum Scarcity hypotheses but will also provide future projections for spectrum utilization and will trigger recommendations to government and regulatory bodies for sufficient allocation of spectrum.