Application of spectrum sharing type cognitive radio technologies within a single network operator

This paper focuses on the application of cognitive radio technologies for sharing spectrum resources among multiple radio access networks (RANs) in a single network operator. As the RANs are assumed to be under the control by a single operating entity, the proposed architecture exploits intimate information exchange and admits tolerable interference among multiple RANs for achieving high efficiency spectrum utilization. The key technological challenges are cross-RAN signal detection technologies, cross-RAN information sharing technologies, and cross-RAN radio resource management technologies. This paper also presents possible usage scenarios on the application of cognitive radio technologies within a single network operator; such as, transition between RAN generations and multiple RAN coexistence for different application purposes.