White Papers

Business Opportunities and Scenarios for Cognitive Radio Systems

ABSTRACT

The European Commission project QoSMOS specifies and develops a cognitive radio system which will allow opportunistic use of radio spectrum for mobile users as well as providing managed Quality of Service (QoS). If opportunistic wireless access is to be a real alternative to current licence-based technology it must be able to provide at least as good a user experience. Some of the most interesting business opportunities are the access to the wireless market for new entrants and well as benefits for current wireless operators. Some examples are easier access to new markets, capacity enhancements, spectrum sharing, spectrum trading, cost and performance gains in existing networks and new services.

If a cognitive radio system is to be attractive for actors in the wireless industry, it has to provide significant benefits. Consequently, the QoSMOS project has defined several criteria to find feasible deployment scenarios for cognitive radio systems. These criteria address both technical and commercial factors. The resulting promising scenarios are cognitive femtocells, cellular extension in whitespaces (including rural broadband) and cognitive ad-hoc networks. All of these could provide a benefit, either for new entrants, or for existing wireless operators and fixed broadband operators. Some initial business case definitions have been set up.

Spectrum trading is an important tool to increase overall spectrum utilization and to open up opportunities for businesses to get access to desired spectrum. An ecosystem for spectrum trading consisting of spectrum traders, spectrum brokers, spectrum databases and a spectrum regulator has been defined. In addition, a wireless sensor network may be implemented to provide more detailed information about the real-time spectrum status. Fair trading is dependent on well-defined trading metrics which are quantifiable measures of the performance of the trading market. Recommended high levels metrics are market viability, channel quality, spectrum utilization and social welfare.

This white paper explains the business environment in which cognitive radio may exist and benefit in the future.

The full White paper can be downloaded here.

Cognitive Context Acquistion

ABSTRACT

This white paper presents an overview of cognitive context acquisition mechanisms which are under consideration in the European Union (EU) FP7 Integrated Project (IP) called QoSMOS. Its main focus is to present two context-awareness approaches: spectrum sensing and access to spectrum databases. Spectrum sensing is considered one of the principal enabling technologies for future opportunistic network in last decade. However, current regulatory trends (for instance Ofcom in UK, and FCC in USA) are more in the favour of spectrum database approach in the TV white space context. This white paper highlights the sensing algorithms and the detailed BT1 whitespace estimator, considered in QoSMOS. The main findings are summarised in a conclusion section.

The full White paper can be downloaded  here.