Emancipation of the Hertz
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CULTUREOFSPECTRUMSHARING Emancipation of the hertz Author:Supervisor: elmaavdic prof. linda doyle This dissertation is submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering The University of Dublin, Trinity College April 2019 Elma Avdic: Culture of Spectrum Sharing, Emancipation of the hertz © April 2019 To Mimi. DECLARATION I declare that this thesis has not been submitted as an exercise for a degree at this or any other university and is entirely my own work. I agree to deposit this thesis in the University’s open access institutional repository or allow the Library to do so on my behalf, subject to Irish Copyright Legislation and Trinity College Library conditions of use and acknowledgement. Dublin, April 2019 Elma Avdic SUMMARY The dissertation provides theoretical and experimental groundwork for dynamic spec- trum sharing policy design. It embeds the tool of culture of sharing into a sharing framework and proposes dynamic spectrum sharing as a predominant way of spec- trum use, necessary to answer to the future spectrum demands and put spectrum into a cycle of optimal and efficient use. Contemporary challenges to spectrum shar- ing policy are centered around: (1) the technological enablers of the past two decades which can support shareability of spectrum resource, and (2) the emerging regulatory initiatives which recognise the necessity of sharing the spectrum to serve public inter- est of today’s society. Increase on demands for lower latency, pervasive connectivity, higher throughput, and more capacity has an exponential trend. To meet the demands is to put to use all spectrum resources we have and all of the technology capable of “multiplying” it. This asks for a dynamic, responsive regulation that will set free the inappropriately allocated and underutilised spectrum bands - not by designing a new band plan, but with a continuous, dynamic engagement aimed at optimising spec- trum use by sharing it instead. Finally, it asks for the stakeholders’ readiness to share and their awareness of spectrum recyclability, inherent to the nature of the resource. The nature of spectrum resource is the one of multidimensional spectrum space, as spectrum varies in time, frequency, and area, but its unique features of instantaneous recyclability, non-depletability and fluidity have not been utilised in the regulatory circles. This is where the dissertation starts: describing the identified domains of a spec- trum sharing ecosystem and seeking for the enablers of sharing within them. The conceptual framework for dynamic spectrum sharing, informed by the phenomenon of a sharing economy, is an initial step in methodology design as it serves to depict the holistic approach needed to answer the main research question of how to build the culture of spectrum sharing and its nine sub-questions answered in each of the chap- ters. It is termed the NTBRS conceptual framework for dynamic spectrum sharing after the five identified domains: nature, technology, business, regulation, and society. It serves to support the thesis, analyse the problems we encounter and interpret their results. After setting the stage with the NTBRS framework, we proceed with building a compact, heterogeneous set of methods tailored for the multidimensional nature of spectrum resource and its sharing ecosystem. It is an interdisciplinary methodol- ogy design, needed to account for the interplay of technology, economics, law and politics in spectrum policy. Engineering research methods (e.g., optimisation, model- ing and simulation, pattern recognition, geospatial analysis) are coupled with social science research methods (e.g., content analysis based on Krippendorff’s framework, historiographic method of policy analysis), theories of regulation (e.g. socioeconomic theory of regulation of Lawrence Lessig), and philosophical methods of interpreta- vii tion and exposition (e.g. philosophical and pragmatic nature of context in policy de- sign). For example, geospatial analysis is used simultaneously with historiographic research methods and Lessig’s pathetic dot theory while portraying the context in the enstranged form of Socratic dialogues. While representing the foundation of the the- sis, the framework and the methods are contributions of their own as they can ground other related research and the regulatory designs. The initial evidence gives rise to the hypothesis that the culture of sharing is the missing enabler of sharing. To rigorously show it by employing the chosen methods and the framework developed, we conduct a case study of the regulatory design of a spectrum sharing framework in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) 3.5GHz band. This sharing model recently emerged as the response of the US regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report in 2012 which laid out a vision for a dy- namic spectrum sharing model. While historiographic in nature, this case study deals with the present and the future as well, by documenting regulatory developments currently in progress and making future predictions on the sharing enablers in the CBRS band. The findings however, are universal and they extend to spectrum sharing in general. A significant part of the case study is the thorough content analysis of the FCC proceeding on CBRS sharing model, the docket GN. 12-354. The content anal- ysis provides inputs and building blocks for the subsequent parts of the thesis, but also represents a valuable resource on its own, as it presents the CBRS spectrum shar- ing ecosystem in a coherent and structured manner. The CBRS landscape is painted and it reveals the little known sub-culture of stakeholders, an epistemic community which shapes the policy rules of sharing. The role of the regulator is to resolve the situation of conflicting policy positions coming from different stakeholders driven by their business interests and to reach a middle ground solution. The one policy issue on which the balanced regulatory approach was not applied is the issue around the CBRS licensing framework: adopting the census tract demographic areas as the basic license area units. We have explored the effectiveness of such licensing scheme design for geographic spectrum sharing and proposed a solution for its shortcomings. The conjectured imbalance of sharing enablers is proven using Lessig’s pathetic dot theory of regulation. Our approach extends Lessig’s orginal approach in two ways. First we established new interconnections between the forces of regulation (law, mar- ket, norms and architecture) to predict the future development of the CBRS band and the sharing behaviour within it. Then we discovered that decomposing the force of architecture into its two components, nature and technology, allows a description of social norm shaping in spectrum sharing. This is where the culture of sharing lives and where Lessig’s set of forces transforms into the NTBRS framework. This key result of the thesis is then a major component of spectrumism, the underlying philosophy for future dynamic spectrum sharing economy. Along the mechanisms for sensible incentivisation and building the culture of spectrum sharing we also discover a new dimension in spectrum space which reveals itself through several types of analysis con- viii ducted and that is the data. The nature of spectrum resource is about its uniqueness and shareability, within which we ground our proposal of a dynamic digital license (DDL). The much needed responsiveness of regulations is achieved through machine- enabled spectrum sharing ecosystem, which we present in a future dynamic spectrum sharing scenario. Finally, the culture of spectrum sharing calls for an inclusion of an important, in spectrum policy discourse disregarded stakeholder - the citizen. After summarising the thesis results we provide actionable recommendations and propose future research directions enabled by this work. ix PUBLICATIONS Some ideas and figures have appeared previously in the following dissemination ef- forts: 1. Avdic, E., Macaluso, I., Marchetti, N. and Doyle, L., 2016, December. Census Tract License Areas: Disincentive for Sharing the 3.5 GHz band?. In Global Com- munications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2016 IEEE (pp. 1-7). 2. Gomez-Miguelez, I., Avdic, E., Marchetti, N., Macaluso, I. and Doyle, L., 2014, May. Cloud-RAN platform for LSA in 5G networks—Tradeoff within the infras- tructure. In Communications, Control and Signal Processing (ISCCSP), 2014 6th International Symposium on (pp. 522-525). 3. Morgado, A., Gomes, A., Frascolla, V., Ntougias, K., Papadias, C., Slock, D., Avdic, E., Marchetti, N., Haziza, N., Anouar, H. and Yang, Y., 2015, June. Dy- namic LSA for 5G networks the ADEL perspective. In Networks and Communi- cations (EuCNC), 2015 European Conference on (pp. 190-194). 4. Avdic, E., Macaluso, I., Ahmadi, H., Gomez-Miguelez, I., Ingolotti, L., Marchetti, N. and Doyle, L., 2016. LSA-Advanced and C-RAN: A (5G) Romance of Many Dimensions. arXiv preprint arXiv:1606.02142. 5. Comments of Elma Avdic, Irene Macaluso and Linda Doyle, In the Matter of Promoting Investment in the 3550-3700 MHz Band; Petitions for Rulemaking Re- garding the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, GN Docket No. 17-258, Before the Federal Communications Commission, Washington, D.C. 20554, Nov 23, 2017. Available at: https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1124135896869/Comments_CBRS_EA_ IM_LD.pdf 6. Elma Avdic, Tim Forde and Linda Doyle, CONNECT’s Response to Ofcom Con- sultation