Page 7 - 20180911 Access Transformation white Paper Final

Fixed Wireless Evolution

Fixed wireless started as a piggyback solution on
mobile networks by connecting fixed end points to a
mobile network infrastructure to offer basic internet
access services. Due to the success and promise of
wireless access capabilities, dedicated fixed wireless
infrastructures are being introduced rapidly ([7], [8],
[9], [10])

Even more than in wireline networks, spectrum comes at a premium in the very regulated wireless world. Large chunks of the wireless
spectrum range are licensed or dedicated to specific use. Only small parts of the spectrum range are unlicensed and can be used by
anybody. The fixed wireless solutions being deployed are either using standard 4G LTE over licensed spectrum or proprietary solutions
in the unlicensed spectrum. Unlicensed spectrum solutions have gained a lot of traction with wireline service providers who typically do
not own nor want to invest in acquiring spectrum.

Proprietary Solutions (Unlicensed Spectrum)
These are typically closed solutions with proprietary extension on WIMAX or other protocols. Deployment of these solutions today are
mostly in the 5.8 GHz or 3.65GHz spectrum range. A key characteristic of these soltutions is the use of directional antennas on both the
tower and the receiver. With directional antenas multiple sectors can be defined on a single tower allowing for reuse of the same
frequency bands in each sector.

Early deployments started with 40 MHz wide channel bands with 64 QAM delivering up to 250 Mbps per sector (1G per tower). A
second generation is already being deployed using wider 80 MHz bands with 256 QAM delivering 750 Mbps per sector making it
suitable for serving serve triple play subscribers. Further evolution steps are bonding bands from different frequency ranges together to
get the maximum out of all available spectrum.
Side Note on CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service)

The CBRS band is a 150 MHz wide spectrum band (from 3.550GHz
to 3.7Ghz) defined as a semi-licensed spectrum where base stations
and customer devices must operate under the authority and
management of a centralized Spectrum Access System (SAS). Both
proprietary and LTE based wireless solutions are implementing
CBRS band solutions[8].

4G LTE and 5G Standardized Solutions

In the current licensed spectrum between 700 MHz and 2.5 GHz, 4G LTE is being used to deliver broadband solutions. With the limited
available bandwidth in the current licensed band, additional LTE standards have been developed to allow for the use of the LTE
protocol in unlicensed spectrum to compete with higher bandwidth solutions. Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) defined as part of LTE
Advanced Pro standard is one LTE solutions that uses unlicensed spectrum. LAA requires an anchor frequency in a licensed band and
uses carrier aggregation in the downlink to combine LTE in unlicensed spectrum with LTE in the licensed band.[7]
Alternatively, another LTE standard, MulteFire[9], defines the standalone operation of the LTE protocol in unlicensed spectrum bands.

In anticipation of the introduction of 5G, some of the 5G improvements such as 4x4 and 8x8 MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output),
256 QAM on small cells, and more aggregated carriers are being introduces in 4G. The new 5G wireless standard promises to tackle

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