Enabling the coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi in unlicensed bands

Author

Abinader, Fuad M. ; Almeida, Erika P. L. ; Chaves, Fabiano S. ; Cavalcante, Andre M. ; Vieira, Robson D. ; Paiva, Rafael C. D. ; Sobrinho, Angilberto M. ; Choudhury, Sankhayan ; Tuomaala, Esa ; Doppler, Klaus ; Sousa, Vicente A.

Volume

52

Issue

11

fYear

2014

fDate

Nov. 2014

Firstpage

54

Lastpage

61

Abstract

The expansion of wireless broadband access network deployments is resulting in increased scarcity of available radio spectrum. It is very likely that in the near future, cellular technologies and wireless local area networks will need to coexist in the same unlicensed bands. However, the two most prominent technologies, LTE and Wi-Fi, were designed to work in different bands and not to coexist in a shared band. In this article, we discuss the issues that arise from the concurrent operation of LTE and Wi-Fi in the same unlicensed bands from the point of view of radio resource management. We show that Wi-Fi is severely impacted by LTE transmissions; hence, the coexistence of LTE and Wi-Fi needs to be carefully investigated. We discuss some possible coexistence mechanisms and future research directions that may lead to successful joint deployment of LTE and Wi-Fi in the same unlicensed band.

Keywords

Long Term Evolution; broadband networks; cellular radio; radio access networks; radio spectrum management; resource allocation; wireless LAN; LTE transmissions; Long Term Evolution; Wi-Fi; cellular technologies; coexistence mechanisms; radio resource management; radio spectrum scarcity; unlicensed bands; wireless broadband access network; wireless local area networks; IEEE 802.11 Standards; Interference; Long Term Evolution; OFDM; Resource management; Wireless communication;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Communications Magazine, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0163-6804

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MCOM.2014.6957143

Filename

6957143