ETSI Licensed Shared Access specifications for a trial in Portugal to support 5G deployment

Sophia Antipolis, 27 March, 2019: According to ETSI, spectrum usage in the mid-term will tend to focus more on spectrum sharing amongst the various radiocommunications systems, as a principle rather than as an exception. So technological and regulatory solutions need to be found that allow for this implementation. With 5G coming soon, Licensed Shared Access (LSA) gives carriers new spectrum capabilities in the absence of the incumbent.

Based on ETSI specifications TS 103 235, TS 103 154 and TS 103 379 developed by the Technical Committee Reconfigurable Radio Systems (ETSI TC RRS), ANACOM, the Portuguese regulator, has OK’d an official LSA trial. This pilot project aimed to evaluate the implementation of the LSA model in the 2.3 - 2.4GHz band, from a practical point of view and in the light of the realities of the Portuguese situation.  A technological demonstrator was created as proof of concept for this purpose. Mobile operators, television operators, industry and R&D centres participated in the event.

LSA provides a licensed sharing of frequencies that are already assigned to the so-called incumbents in return for compensation. LSA can thereby increase the utilization of bands in a controlled way, specifying the use for given location and time in an LSA repository.

“This is a very good example of collaboration between CEPT, ETSI and the European Commission” says Michael Gundlach, Chairman of the RRS working group 1 in ETSI. “The EC issued a mandate to work on this solution which ETSI answered, this triggered an ETSI document sent to CEPT which subsequently led to our specifications. The next step is to reach national adoption, several countries have already tested LSA and Portugal is the latest one.”

Today, journalists in Europe use the 2.3 - 2.4GHz frequency band with wireless cameras when they are filming in mobile situations, covering outside events. In France, the band is used for telemetry from aircraft and missiles to ground stations and is also used to transmit signals between ground stations. Looking into the future, Licensed Shared Access is a big step for carriers who will save costs once implemented in their network and solve spectrum scarcity in the  bands below 6 GHz.

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