Dr Abhaya Sumanasena, Head of Policy and Regulation at Real Wireless, attended the ‘Future Communications and 6G’ event at the Technology and Innovation Centre at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow in June.
The event was attended by telecom experts from the UK, US, Canada and more, to collaborate and discuss the development of next-generation wireless systems. The key theme of this event was to ensure that future wireless systems are open, interoperable, scalable, sustainable and accessible to all.
Real Wireless has a deep understanding of technologies and constantly engages with the industry and users to help understand how future wireless technologies can align with these themes.
At Real Wireless we believe international collaboration is vital to ensure that future wireless systems are accessible and affordable to all. Since most spectrum bands are already used by incumbents, the evolution and adoption of shared spectrum strategies are now more important than ever.
At the event, Dr. Abhaya Sumanasena as the Chairman of the UK Spectrum Policy Forum and Dr Ashutosh Dutta from the IEEE & The Johns Hopkins University moderated a panel on the ‘Future policies framework and spectrum requirements’. The panel featured:
- David Willis, Ofcom
- Ed Tiedemann Jr, from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
- David Lister, from Vodafone Group
- Prof Monisha Ghosh, from the University of Notre Dame
- Mark Waddell, from BBC R&D
- Robert Stewart, from the University of Strathclyde
The purpose of the panel was to consider the spectrum requirements of 6G and to explore future policies and frameworks that could support the needs of the next generation of wireless networks.
Abhaya began the session by stating that spectrum requirements should be independent of the technology being deployed, thereby enabling and simplifying future spectrum refarming. He explained how technology advancements enable the access to new bands e.g. access to mmWave in 5G. 6G could utilise higher frequency bands including mmWave, THz, and while low and mid bands will remain crucial for wide area coverage.
Highlights from the other speakers on the panel included:
David Willis spoke about sharing frameworks that Ofcom is working on and how systems should be more interference tolerant to pack more users into the same area.
Ed Tiedemann examined the challenges of sharing spectrum. He introduced the concept of dynamically sharing some components of wireless infrastructure e.g. radio units and spectrum based on operator demand. He discussed how this could benefit the military, however, practical implementation is hindered by waveforms. Further, new spectrum bands identified to study in the next WRC cycle have incumbents such as defence users, making it difficult for them to clear the spectrum. He concluded that the implementation of spectrum sharing is complex and time consuming – which may result in potential use cases evolving before solutions are in place.
David Lister provided an operator’s view about two key points – one, harmonisation of options to access to spectrum. And secondly, success in 6G depends on how successful 5G is. 5G deployments are ongoing and need more investments. He explained that decreasing annual licence fees could allow for direct investments into 5G and if planning permission for deployment was easier this would help 5G to succeed. Ofcom and the government could help by developing policies to make planning permission easier.
Prof Monisha Ghosh provided an academic view of how mobility makes sharing more difficult. She mentioned that spectrum sharing needs to be inherent in 6G from day one, irrespective of the use case. She also mentioned that the spectrum used by outdoor incumbents, such as government users, could be reused with low-power indoors. This would provide access to higher bandwidths than current licensing approaches and enable neutral host, small-cells.
Mark Waddell presented a case study of providing live television coverage of King’s coronation event in London using the shared spectrum band. He claimed that by using the shared band the BBC was able to cover the event at a lower cost than other events.
Prof Bob Stuart detailed the capabilities of the Strathclyde n77 test bed and highlighted a key challenge for smaller players in this band: the lack of availability of devices. He showcased the n77 radios that the University had developed.
