NSN has said it has successfully completed a live trial of Authorised Shared Access(ASA) that began in April 2013.
Earlier this year, NSN and the CORE+ consortium conducted what they claim was the world’s first spectrum sharing trial of ASA on a live 2.3GHz TD-LTE network.
The ASA concept allows mobile operators’ networks to share frequency bands from other types of incumbent systems, such as government agencies or TV broadcast networks, while guaranteeing quality of service for both.
“The benefit of ASA is that it provides both the technology and regulatory framework for sharing spectrum,” said Marc Rouanne, executive vice president, Mobile Broadband at NSN.
“Our trial showed that operators can get up to 18% extra bandwidth for mobile broadband networks cost effectively. This technology works with existing LTE and TD-LTE networks and does not require specific software for the end-user devices, making it easy to deploy and transfer the benefit directly to the mobile customers.”
For the live trial, NSN deployed its network elements in three Finnish cities: commercial Single RAN Flexi MultiRadio 10 Base Stations in Ylivieska, commercial Core Network in Oulu and commercial NetAct network management system in Tampere.
Spectrum sharing using the ASA/LSA concepts is currently under study for regulation and standardisation in Europe with a special focus on making the 2.3 GHz band available for TD-LTE networks by sharing with incumbents depending on national conditions.
CORE+ (Cognitive Radio Trial Environment, phase 2) is a Finnish research consortium that consists of three research organizations and seven industry companies including Nokia Siemens Networks.
