Title: Dynamic spectrum access for M2M-WANs: the African regulator's spectrum policy reform conundrum

Authors: Luzango Pangani Mfupe; Fisseha Mekuria

Addresses: FSATI, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa; Meraka Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pretoria 0001, South Africa ' FSATI, Department of Electrical Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa; Meraka Institute, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Pretoria 0001, South Africa

Abstract: This paper presents work that has been done to address the network capacity demands for internet of things (IoT) and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications, based on efficient management and utilisation of radio spectrum resources. IoT/M2M applications are predicted to exponentially grow and cause a massive up-surge in network traffic increase. We argue that existing mobile network architectures are not optimised to handle billions of small intermittent transactions generated by M2M connections, therefore, a technology based on dynamic spectrum access (DSA)-enabled low-power M2M-wide area networks (WANs) is proposed. Subsequently, the article presents a use-case scenario demonstrating a possible deployment of a smart metering M2M-WAN using TV white-space (TVWS) channels and geo-location spectrum database technique. The simulated experimental M2M-WAN showed that with only four TVWS channels an entire metropolitan city can be covered to provide smart-metering services. Furthermore, the article suggests changes in existing spectrum management policies and technical regulations to accommodate the new DSA-based technologies. Hence a cost-effective techno-regulatory-policy model is suggested to promote DSA-enabled low-power M2M-WANs.

Keywords: internet of things; IoT; M2M-WAN; television white space; TVWS; dynamic spectrum access; DSA; smart-metre; spectrum; spectrum policy; geo-location spectrum database; WSD; spectrum regulator; low-power.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAIP.2018.092946

International Journal of Advanced Intelligence Paradigms, 2018 Vol.11 No.1/2, pp.85 - 99

Received: 22 Feb 2016
Accepted: 14 May 2016
Published online: 04 Jul 2018 *

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