Repurposing 4G spectrum for 5G deployments

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Spectrum sharing between 4G and 5G sites

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) frequently need to repurpose the spectrum from the older to the new, more efficient generations of mobile technology. The similarity in the air interface between 4G and 5G allows for a more efficient spectrum repurpose compared to any other technology.

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With technology development, CSPs always need to repurpose the spectrum from the old to the new technology.

For the scarce low-band spectrum, used for FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) technology, there is a standardized industry solution that enables the usage of the same FDD spectrum for both 5G and 4G simultaneously.

There is no standardized industry solution for reusing the TDD (Time Division Duplex) spectrum for 4G and 5G technologies simultaneously. However, due to similarities in the air interfaces, it is possible to share the TDD spectrum between the neighboring 4G and 5G sites.

By sharing the TDD spectrum between neighboring 4G and 5G sites, it is possible to gradually repurpose the spectrum from one technology to another following traffic demand. This way, CSPs can effectively utilize existing and newly acquired spectrum assets.

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By reusing the spectrum between 4G and 5G technologies, the Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can allocate spectrum following traffic demand and efficiently utilize the spectrum asset.
For the scarce low-band FDD (Frequency Division Duplex) spectrum, there is an industry standardized Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS) solution that enables spectrum sharing between 4G and 5G technologies.
This paper focuses on the possibility of reusing the TDD (Time Division Duplex) spectrum between 4G and 5G enabled by similarity in the air interfaces for these two technologies.

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