Outdoor Small Cell Deployment with Complementary Spectrum Authorizations, Licensed (LSA) and Unlicensed (LAA) : Techno-Economic Analysis

Abstract: The significant increase in mobile data traffc has put a considerable load on the wireless mobile networks. In the current highly competitive market, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have to strive to provide additional capacityof their network, by also considering the cost factor to make their business sustainable. Along with advances in spectrum-efficient technologies, small cells deployment have provided cost-efficient methods to provide additional capacity for indoor and outdoor subscribers. The gain of better spectrum utilization and opportunistic spectrum access have motivated the deployment of wireless networks utilizing below 6GHz spectrum, where there are opportunities for mobile networks to access the spectrum by co-existing with incumbent users and technologies. Two emerging complementary spectrum authorizations have attracted industry and academia, Licensed Shared Access (LSA) and License Assisted Access(LAA). In this thesis, the techno-economic aspects of operating under individual authorization (LSA) and general authorization (LAA) regimes are investigated and compared. The dynamics of operating under unlicensed spectrum are represented considering the scenario of two MNOs co-existing following the regulatory requirements. The results show that choosing the appropriate channel selection mechanism is of high importance when operating under the unlicensed regime (LAA). The results indicate that LAA can be an alternative for cost-efficient deployment method in some scenarios, for example when there is a low or moderate availability of LSA bandwidth. For the future work, we suggest an optimized user association to the small cells to provide a better load balancing mechanism.