Mechanisms for LTE Coexistence in TV White Space

Mihaela Beluri, Erdem Bala, Yuying Dai, Rocco Di Girolamo, Martino Freda, Jean-Louis Gauvreau, Scott Laughlin,
Debashish Purkayastha, Athmane Touag
InterDigital Communications, LLC

Abstract This paper presents a high level description of an LTE

system operating in license exempt bands. Since wireless
networks potentially using different air interfaces may operate in
these bands, coexistence is a challenge that needs to be addressed.
This paper introduces a coexistence gap based method for LTE to
dynamically share the spectrum with other secondary users. A
simulation based analysis of the coexistence gap method is
presented, and the results are compared with an energy based
sensing channel access method.
Keywords- DSM, LTE, LTE Carrier Aggregation, TVWS,
License-Exempt, Wi-Fi, 802.11af, ETSI RRS

I.

INTRODUCTION

The popularity of the smartphone and the resulting increase

in the volume of wireless data traffic that is generated and
consumed by these devices have exposed a number of
bandwidth shortcomings for cellular operators [1], [2]. In
addition, the emergence of new services, such as video, is
placing large demands on the bandwidth, and many studies are
forecasting a bandwidth shortage in the coming years. As a
result, the cellular industry has tried to address this issue by
being more spectrally efficient, but the opportunistic use of
available spectrum in license exempt bands appears to be a
promising and complementary way to address the spectrum
crunch.
The transition to digital television transmission has resulted
in a digital dividend, opening up new spectrum bands
(referred to as TV white space (TVWS)) in both the US and
Europe and providing prime license-exempt (LE) spectrum.
IEEE 802.11 has already begun a standardization effort to
allow operation within this spectrum [3], and it is expected that
LTE operators will follow suit in an effort to address their
bandwidth issues. For example, the aggregation of licensed and
TVWS bands would enable the operators to make use of freely
available spectrum for offload. Possible use cases and
deployment scenarios for the operation of Reconfigurable
Radio Systems within White Spaces in the UHF 470-790 MHz
frequency band for Europe, as well as an overview on methods
for protecting the primary/incumbent users (TV broadcasts and
wireless microphones) are defined in ETSI RRS [4]. ETSI RRS
will be standardizing systems that operate in TVWS, and are
currently working on feasibility studies and system
requirements for TVWS operation, in [5] and [6].
The TVWS is unlicensed spectrum, so we expect that
different technologies will need to coexist. In the context of
deploying LTE in license-exempt bands, which include the
ISM and the TVWS bands, this paper investigates methods for

LTE to coexist with other secondary users (SUs) of the

spectrum, in particular with Wi-Fi. For the remainder of this
paper, we will use the LE terminology for the license-exempt
bands, with the understanding that this includes TVWS.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows.
Section II presents the deployment scenario assumed in this
paper. Section III presents a brief background of the FCC and
Ofcom framework for operation in TVWS, and a high level
overview of coordinated vs. non-coordinated (in particular
CSMA for Wi-Fi) coexistence mechanisms. Section IV
describes two methods for the non-coordinated coexistence
mechanisms to allow LTE to coexist with other SUs in LE
bands, and Sections V and VI present a simulation based
analysis and comparison of the two coordinated coexistence
methods. Conclusions and planned future work are presented in
Section VII.
II.

DEPLOYMENT SCENARIO

The deployment scenario considered in this paper consists

of a heterogeneous network composed of LTE macro cells and
an underlay of small LTE cells (femto/pico/HeNB), as shown
in Fig. 1. In contrast to the macro cells, the small cells can
operate both in the licensed spectrum and in the LE band. It is
assumed that the LTE operation of the small cells can be
enhanced to perform carrier aggregation between the licensed
and LE bands or to operate entirely over LE bands.
Macro cells provide service continuity, while the small cells
(femto/pico/HeNB) provide hot-spot coverage. The
architecture relies on an information based coexistence
database and on a coexistence mechanism to enable operation
with other secondary networks and users operating in TVWS
bands. The HeNBs are connected to the MME/S-GW, the
operators Core network, and the HeMS via the Internet. The
HeMS is a 3GPP LTE OAM entity [7] which configures
multiple HeNBs and connects to the TVWS database and
Coexistence Database (CDIS). The LTE HeNB is assumed to
be an FCC Mode II device (see the definition in the next
section) that accesses a TV band database to determine the list
of available channels (not occupied by primary users) to use in
the small cells. Once a suitable channel is identified by the
HeNB, it is configured as an active channel, while other
available channels (if any) are configured as candidate
channels. Throughout the operation, the HeNB continuously
monitors the quality of both the active, and the candidate
channels. In certain cases, depending on the traffic load and
deployment layout, it is possible that the interference level on
the active channel is too high and the LTE performance starts

Figure 1. Deployment scenario with LE capable small cells

to suffer. In this case, the system may switch to one of the

candidate channels. As illustrated in Fig. 1, the small cells that
operate LTE in LE bands, may be in the vicinity of other small
cells, some of which may operate LTE, while others may
operate Wi-Fi, in the same LE spectrum. As a result, it is
important to ensure that proper mechanisms are implemented
to enable friendly coexistence between interfering systems.
In the remainder of this paper, the small cell LTE base
stations (femto/pico/HeNB) will be referred to as an eNB.
III.

BACKGROUND

A. TVWS in North America: FCC framework

In the United States, the FCC ruled in 2010 [8] that
Television White Spaces be open for unlicensed use by
commercial devices provided that they do not interfere with
licensed (primary) services (including DTV broadcasters and
wireless microphone users). This includes spectrum on TV
Channels 2 - 51 (54 MHz to 698 MHz) excluding channels 3, 4
and 37. Furthermore, operation of unlicensed radio transmitters
needs to satisfy several conditions as described below. Four
kinds of unlicensed TV Band Devices (TVBDs) have been
defined: Fixed, Mode I portable (or personal), Mode II portable
(or personal) and Sensing-Only.
Both fixed TVBDs and Mode II portable TVBDs need to
have geo-location capability and network access to register to
a designated TV band database [9] (the FCC designated 10
TVWS Database Administrators in 2011, including Google and
Spectrum Bridge). The access to the TV band database
involves a query to determine the available TV channels in an
area, in order to avoid interference with these licensed
transmitters. Similarly a Mode I device may transmit over
available spectrum permitted by the TVWS Database
information, except that it queries the database indirectly
through a Fixed or Mode II TVBD. Spectrum sensing is

considered as an add-on feature for TVBDs to guarantee that

very little interference will be caused to digital TV signals and
licensed signals. Furthermore, a Sensing-Only TVBD is a
stand-alone device that does not need access to a database. It
must be certified to operate, and once certified, it can use any
TVWS spectrum where it does not detect a primary user. Fixed
TVBDs can operate on channels 2 to 51, except channels 3, 4,
37, but they cannot operate on the same or the first adjacent
channel to a channel used by a TV service. The maximum
transmission power of a fixed TVBD is 1 W, with at most a 6
dBi antenna gain. Hence, the maximum Effective Isotropic
Radiated Power (EIRP) is 4 W. Portable TVBDs can only
operate in the band 512 MHz to 698 MHz, excluding 608 MHz
to 614 MHz (corresponding to channels 21 to 51, except
channel 37), but they are prohibited from using a channel used
by a TV service. The maximum transmission power of a
portable TVBD is 100 mW, or 40 mW if it is on the first
adjacent channel to a channel used by TV services.
Furthermore, if a TVBD device is a sensing-only device, then
its transmission power cannot exceed 50 mW. The FCC has
also defined strict out-of-band emissions for all the TVBDs.
B. TVWS in Europe: Ofcom framework
At the time of writing this paper, the UK Office of
Communications (Ofcom) has begun the development of a
Voluntary National Specification (VNS) which lays out the
rules and requirements for devices using UHF TV Band White
Spaces. In the UK, the TVWS spectrum spans the frequency
band from 470 MHz to 790 MHz, excluding 550 MHz to 614
MHz [10], and is divided into 8 MHz channels. The latest
Ofcom draft regulatory requirements [10] define a master
device to be a device which is capable of connecting to and
exchanging information with a White Space Database
(WSDB), and a slave device which has no WSDB access but
receives its information from a master. A master device must
be capable of providing its geographical location to the WSDB

and may also provide the location of its slave devices, if these
devices are also equipped with geo-location capability. Unlike
the case of the FCC, the WSDB provides a master device with
the maximum transmit EIRP for each of the TVWS channels
and a time of validity for this information. The master device
then communicates to the WSDB the channels and actual
transmit EIRP it will use. A master device is also responsible
for ensuring that its slave devices transmit within the limits
specified by the database. The Ofcom VNS also specifies the
maximum required ACLR characteristics for any device using
the TVWS, as well as additional information (technology
identifier, device identifier, antenna characteristics, etc) to be
provided to the WSDB before a maximum EIRP can be
calculated by the database for each channel. Although the VNS
and an eventual European Harmonized Standard (to be used
throughout the European union) will not specify the algorithm
for EIRP calculation to be used by the WSDB, it is expected
that each regulator/country (e.g. Ofcom for the UK) will
develop this algorithm based on factors such as the proximity
of the white space device to nearby TV broadcast systems, the
probability of interfering with these systems, and potentially
the effect of multiple white space devices transmitting in an
area.

somewhat complementary as it is defining the protocol for

communication between the coexistence entities [12].
Since it will not be possible to guarantee that all systems
will rely on the same coordinated mechanism, it is likely that
two nearby systems will try to operate in the same channel
within the same band. To address these situations, a number of
non-coordinated mechanisms exist for coexistence. CSMA is
commonly used as a non-coordinated mechanism for coexisting
networks. The coexistence of Wi-Fi with ZigBee and Bluetooth
is managed by carrier sensing [13], [14]. A well known
example of CSMA mechanism is the distributed coordination
function (DCF) of the 802.11 MAC, described in [15]. The
DCF uses the carrier sense multiple access with a collision
avoidance (CSMA/CA) mechanism for contention-based
access. In CSMA/CA, a station (AP or STA) with a new packet
ready for transmission, senses the channel to determine the
channel availability. If the channel is detected idle for a DIFS
interval, the station starts the packet transmission. Otherwise,
the station continues to monitor whether the channel is busy or
idle using an exponential backoff mechanism, that helps reduce
packet collisions.
IV.

C. Friendly Coexistence: Coordinated vs Non-Coordinated

Mechanism
Coexistence between multiple systems over a shared
bandwidth may be achieved through a coordinated mechanism,
a non-coordinated mechanism, or some hybrid combination of
these. Coordinated mechanisms rely on a coexistence
infrastructure that is aware of how spectrum is being used in a
geographical area, and may use this knowledge to manage how
spectrum is allocated to specific systems, say by assigning a
specific channel to a system. Both elements (awareness and
management) rely on a communication framework between the
systems using the spectrum, the coexistence infrastructure
performing the coordination task, and, in the case of TVWS,
the database maintaining the list of available channels. The
awareness comes from the systems providing feedback to the
coexistence infrastructure about what they see (sense) and
the channels they have selected for use. In addition, the systems
may supply value-added information to the coexistence
infrastructure which may provide insight into how the system
intends to use the spectrum. The management allows the
coexistence infrastructure to collect the sensing information
(and any value-added information) and guide which channel is
allocated to which system. If necessary, it also allows the
coexistence infrastructure to direct a system to release a
channel, to modify how the system is using a channel (e.g.
change maximum transmission power), or even to change the
system operating channel (e.g. swap channel x for channel y).
The coexistence infrastructure can be implemented via a single
centralized entity or be distributed across a number of nodes.
Numerous standardization efforts have been undertaken to try
to define this coexistence infrastructure. In particular, IEEE
802.19 is defining a distributed solution that collects
information about the RF environment, identifies any
coexistence problems, and finds solutions to these problems
[11]. ETSI RRS will also be defining an architecture for
coexistence of systems operating in TVWS. IETF PAWS is

NON-COORDINATED SU COEXISTENCE MECHANISMS

FOR LTE

This section describes several non-coordinated mechanisms

to enable an LTE system operating in an LE band to coexist
with other SUs operating in the same band, for cases where the
coordinated mechanism is not possible. As previously
indicated, it is assumed that the LTE system accesses a
coexistence database to determine channel availability from a
primary user (PU) standpoint. More specifically, the channel
may be used by the LTE system if it is not allocated to a
primary user (TV/DTV broadcast, or wireless microphones).
As other secondary users such as Wi-Fi systems, Bluetooth,
other LTE systems, may attempt to use the same channel, it is
important to assess the performance of various coexistence
schemes. Some coexistence schemes for LTE have been
investigated in the literature. For example, [16] evaluates
channel and time hopping for the license-exempt LTE
operation.
In our paper, we introduce the coexistence gap approach to
SU coexistence, and compare it for reference purposes, to the
energy sensing based listen before talk (LBT). Simulation
results for both methods are presented, to enable a performance
and complexity trade-off comparison. The analysis presented in
this paper is targeted to LTE Wi-Fi coexistence, as it is
assumed that LTE-LTE coexistence will be managed by the
existing 3GPP Rel-10/11 eICIC framework [17]. The focus of
the current analysis is on the FDD mode of operation, and
assumes the LE spectrum is used in an aggregation scenario,
based on the LTE Rel-10 carrier aggregation framework. More
specifically, the LE band is used as a DL only secondary
component carrier, which is aggregated with a primary
component carrier operating in the licensed band. The UL
signaling of the feedback (ACK/NACK, CQI) for the LE
secondary component carries is performed on the UL primary
component carrier in the licensed band.

A. Listen Before Talk (LBT)

In this approach to SU coexistence, the eNB attempts to
access the channel only at pre-assigned time instants denoted as
transmission opportunities, which are aligned to the subframes boundaries. This mechanism was described in [18] and
[19], and is summarized here for convenience. At a
transmission opportunity, if the eNB has data to send on the LE
channel and it is not already transmitting, then it starts sensing
the channel. Sensing is based on detection of energy in the
channel during a predefined time interval. If the energy
detected in the channel is below a certain threshold, then the
channel is deemed to be available and the eNB accesses the
channel and starts transmitting in DL. If the energy is above a
certain threshold, then the channel is deemed busy and no LTE
DL transmission is performed. This process of energy based
sensing before initiating a DL transmission is referred to as
Listen Before Talk (LBT). When the channel is found
available, the eNB performs the DL transmission for a predetermined number of sub-frames, without performing LBT
between back-to-back DL subframes.
The DL transmission is followed by a coexistence gap, to
enable other secondary users such as Wi-Fi, to access the
channel. A new transmission attempt may occur at the end of
the coexistence gap, when channel sensing (LBT) is performed
to assess channel availability. If the channel is found to be
busy, the eNB waits until the next transmission opportunity
when it again tries sensing the channel. After a predefined
number of unsuccessful attempts to access the channel, the
eNB may trigger a channel switch.
The LBT mechanism is illustrated in Fig. 2. DTX denotes
periods during which the eNB has performed LBT, has
assessed the channel to be busy, and does not transmit on the
DL.

DTX DTX

DL

CG

DTX DTX

LBT

LBT

LBT

LBT

LBT

LBT

Sub-frame boundary
(transmission opportunity)

DL

CG

DL

multiple
subframes
1 subframe

Coexistence
gap (multiple
subframes)

Figure 2.

B.

No Transmission
(channel busy)

LBT channel access

Coexistence gaps (no LBT)

The second method considered uses gaps in the LTE
transmission to provide opportunities for other secondary
networks to operate in the same band. The silent gaps are
referred to as coexistence gaps (LTE OFF periods). At the
end of the coexistence gap, the LTE eNB simply resumes the
DL transmission (LTE ON), without attempting to assess the
channel availability (i.e., no LBT is performed upon returning
from the gap). A possible coexistence pattern consists of a
periodic LTE ON-OFF transmission, as illustrated in Fig. 3. It
should be noted that the coexistence gap approach to coexistence
is similar to one of the approaches currently considered in 3GPP
Rel-11 for the in-device coexistence study [20]. Coexistence

patterns may also be aperiodic, but for simplicity, periodic

patterns will be considered in the remainder of this paper.
LTE Transmission
pattern

DL

CG

TON

TOFF
CPP

Figure 3.

DL

CG

HeNB
transmits

HeNB
Silent (no Tx)

Periodic gap pattern for secondary users coexistence

The period of the coexistence pattern is denoted by CPP,

and is given by:
,
where TON is the LTE ON duration, and
TOFF is the LTE
OFF duration (i.e. the coexistence gap length). The duty
cycle of the coexistence pattern (CPDC) is defined by:

The period of the coexistence pattern is a static parameter

that may be configured at the time the component carrier is
configured, while the coexistence pattern duty cycle is a semistatic parameter that may change as a function of the traffic and
presence of other secondary users, as will be described in the
following section.
In some deployment scenarios, all nodes experience the
same interference, and the hidden node problem does not
occur. In this case, during the coexistence gaps (when the LTE
eNB is silent), the Wi-Fi nodes detect the channel available and
start transmitting packets. Fig.4B and Fig.4C illustrates this
case, for long and short Wi-Fi packet duration, respectively. It
can be seen from Fig.4B that when Wi-Fi uses longer packets,
it is possible that the last Wi-Fi packet transmitted during the
LTE gap, overlaps on the next LTE DL transmission, thus
creating interference. The longer the Wi-Fi packets are, the
longer the potential duration of the LTE-Wi-Fi interference at
the beginning of the LTE ON cycle. It is therefore expected
that Wi-Fi transmissions using long packets may result in more
degradation of the LTE throughput as compared to shorter WiFi packet transmissions.
In other deployment scenarios, the interference between the
nodes may be localized, in which case the hidden node problem
may occur. This is illustrated in Fig.4D, where it can be seen
that Wi-Fi nodes do not detect (or defer to) the LTE
transmission, and thus transmit both during the LTE
coexistence gap and the LTE ON duration. This scenario is
possible, as the Wi-Fi uses a high threshold for detection of
non-Wi-Fi systems (-62 dBm for 20 MHz transmission BW),
so any LTE transmission below the -62 dBm threshold at the
Wi-Fi node will not be detected.
C.

Dynamic Adaptation of the Coexistence Gap Pattern

The coexistence gap approach described in Section V.B is
static. The system performance may be improved if the length
of the coexistence gap is dynamically updated to account for
the presence of Wi-Fi SUs, as well as for the LTE traffic load.
More specifically, if the LTE traffic load is high and no Wi-Fi

A)

LTE Transmission
pattern

DL

CG

TON

TOFF
CPP

DL

CG

HeNB
transmits

HeNB
Silent (no Tx)

Wi-Fi Transmission
B) Pattern (long packet,
defers to other SU)
Wi-Fi interfers with LTE

Wi-Fi Transmission
C) Pattern (short packet,
defers to other SU)
Wi-Fi interfers with LTE

D)

Wi-Fi Transmission
Pattern (short packet,
does not defer to other
SU)
Wi-Fi interfers with LTE

Figure 4. LTE-Wi-Fi coexistence using gaps

users are detected, it is beneficial from an LTE standpoint, to

use a high duty cycle (short coexistence gap). To enable the
reception of the Wi-Fi beacon by a potential neighboring Wi-Fi
network, the minimum coexistence gap length should be larger
than the Wi-Fi beacon length. If the LTE traffic load is high
and Wi-Fi users are detected, the duty cycle should be set to
50% to enable Wi-Fi to access the channel. The value of 50%
for the duty cycle was selected to enable friendly sharing of the
spectrum with other SUs. Additionally, system level
simulations show that for medium Wi-Fi traffic load, the Wi-Fi
performance is not impacted as long as the LTE duty cycle is

50% or less (see Section V.B). For low LTE loads, the duty
cycle may be set to a minimum value. Note that in cases where
Wi-Fi and LTE traffic loads are high, a duty cycle of 50% may
not be enough to accommodate the Wi-Fi traffic. In this case, if
the Wi-Fi system does not defer to LTE, it will create a high
level of interference. In response, the LTE system may switch
the channel to one of the candidate channels, as indicated in
Section II. The high level algorithm for dynamically adapting
the coexistence duty cycle is shown in Fig. 5.
The coexistence duty cycle adaptation algorithm may run

Start

Yes

Yes

Set duty cycle:

50%

Wi-Fi
detected?

LTE load = HI?

No

No

Yes

Set duty cycle:

Max

LTE load=LO?

Set duty cycle: Min

End

Figure 5. Dynamic adaptation of the coexistence duty cycle

No

Set duty cycle:

50%

Figure 6. Sample topologies for simulation scenario #1

periodically, or it may be event triggered. Examples of triggers

are a change in the Wi-Fi detection flag or the LTE load
crossing a certain threshold.
V.

To enable a fair comparison between the simulation results

for LBT versus CG, the simulation parameters were chosen to
result in a 50% LTE channel usage ratio for both the LBT
method, and the CG method. The simulation parameters
relevant for the channel usage ratio for both the LBT and the
CG method are shown in Table I below.

COMPARISON BETWEEN LBT AND CG SCHEMES

This section presents a simulation based analysis of the

LBT and the CG schemes. Simulations were run with a
combination of Matlab and C-based test benches to compare
the performance of LBT and CG schemes and to evaluate the
performance of LTE and Wi-Fi under different traffic loads and
different LTE channel usage ratios. The scenario described in
Section V.A is a high interference scenario (where hidden
nodes are possible), with parameters chosen to reach a 50%
LTE channel utilization ratio for both the LBT and the CG
scheme. The simulation measures the throughput of the LTE
and the Wi-Fi nodes to determine the relative performance of
the two schemes. The scenario in Section V.B is the lower
interference case, where each node can sense all other
transmissions and defer. In this scenario, the LTE channel
usage ratio is a parameter, and for each channel usage ratio, the
Wi-Fi throughput is evaluated, for both the LBT and the CG
schemes. Based on the simulation results from Sections V.A
and V.B, conclusions on the relative performance of the LBT
and CG schemes are presented in Section V.C.

TABLE I. Parameter settings for CG and LBT

Parameter
settings

TABLE II. Relative LBT versus CG throughput (LTE, Wi-Fi)

LTE t-put
Relative LBT vs. CG
throughput gain

Simulation scenario #2
The goal for this set of simulations is to asses how the LBT
and the CG gap approaches used by LTE affect the Wi-Fi
performance. For this scenario, simulations were run for
various values of the coexistence duty cycle.
One difference with respect to the simulation presented in
Section V.A is that all Wi-Fi nodes can sense the LTE
transmissions and defer to it. Similarly, when LTE uses the
LBT method for coexistence, the LTE nodes sense the Wi-Fi
transmissions and do not access the channel.
Other relevant simulation settings are shown below:
No hidden nodes.
RTS/CTS is enabled in Wi-Fi nodes.
Wi-Fi MPDU (MAC layer payload) = 1500 Bytes.

AP
STA
Cellular transmitter
UE

50

LTE transmission = full buffer.

0
0

-50
-50

50

100

150

-100
-150

The data rates for the Wi-Fi STA were set as a function
of the distance between the STA and the AP, to 54, 48,
36, 24, 18, 12, 9, 6 Mbps, corresponding to a distance
of 26, 34, 40, 51, 63, 77, 84, 100 meters, respectively.
Wi-Fi loads = 4 Mbps, and 9 Mbps.

50

-50

Wi-Fi t-put
6.3%

B.

150

-100
-100

18%

A similar experiment has been done in scenarios with

somewhat lower interference, as described in the following
section.

150

100

packet

LBT
50% LTE channel usage
ratio
-82 dBm LTE sensing
threshold
10 ms LTE Tx duration

The relative throughput gain of the LBT method compared

to the CG method, for the above settings of the parameters, and
for both LTE and Wi-Fi systems, is shown in Table II below.

A. Simulation scenario #1
The goal for this set of simulations is to asses how the LBT
and the CG gap approaches used by LTE affect both the Wi-Fi
throughput, and the LTE throughput. Scenario #1 is a high
interference scenario, where 4 Wi-Fi APs and 3 LTE eNBs are
randomly placed in a circle of radius 120m, and STA and UE
receivers are placed around the transmitters in a circle with
radius 60 m. The simulation uses 3 STA per AP, and 3 UEs per
eNB. The transmit power for the AP and eNB is set to 100
mW. Only distance dependent free space propagation path loss
has been used to model the channel (no fading or shadowing
were modeled). All nodes interfere with each other. The
channel access is managed by CSMA/CA for the Wi-Fi nodes,
and LBT or coexistence gaps by the LTE nodes. The Wi-Fi
nodes are configured to use a 20 dB higher energy detection
threshold for non-Wi-Fi systems, as compared to the preamble
detection threshold for Wi-Fi. The throughput for all nodes is
computed by using the Shannon capacity (no additional margin
was added) to be able to observe only the effect of channel
access strategies of the cellular nodes. However, different
SINR ranges have been used for 802.11 and cellular nodes, as
follows: [6 .. 23] dB for the Wi-Fi nodes and [-2 .. 23] dB for
the cellular nodes. The results are averaged over 20 topologies.
Fig. 6 illustrates two sample topologies.
100

CG
50% duty cycle
2 ms Wi-Fi
length

-100

-50

50

100

150

200

The Wi-Fi throughput for a Wi-Fi load of 9 Mbps, when

LTE uses either LBT or CG for coexistence, is illustrated in
Fig. 7. It can be seen that if the LTE channel usage ratio is
below 50%, the Wi-Fi performance is almost equal to the

submitted traffic load, and is the same regardless of the

coexistence method (LBT or CG) used by LTE. Once the LTE
channel usage ratio grows above 50%, the Wi-Fi traffic
becomes full buffer, and the Wi-Fi performance degrades
linearly as a function of the LTE channel usage ratio. For this
value of the Wi-Fi traffic load, channel congestion occurs when
the LTE channel occupancy is 50% for the CG method, and
about 55% for the LBT method. For LTE channel occupancies
of 60% and higher, the Wi-Fi throughput is better for the LBT
coexistence scheme as compared to the CG scheme (the trend
is consistent with the observations in Section V.A).

WiFi Load 4 Mbps

4.5
4

WiFi throughout (Mbps)

3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5

WiFi Load 9 Mbps

10

LBT
Coexistence Gap

9
0.5

WiFi throughput (Mbps)

10

20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Percentage of Time LTE occupies the channel (%)

90

100

Figure 8. Wi-Fi throughput vs. LTE channel occupancy (4 Mbps load)

6
5

C.

4
3
2
LBT
Coexistence Gap

1
0

10

20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Percentage of time LTE occupies the channel (%)

90

100

Figure 7. Wi-Fi throughput vs. LTE channel occupancy (9 Mbps load)

The Wi-Fi throughput for a Wi-Fi load of 4 Mbps, when

LTE uses either LBT or CG for coexistence, is illustrated in
Fig. 8. As the Wi-Fi traffic load is lower than in the previous
case, the LTE channel occupancy can increase above 50%
without degrading the Wi-Fi performance. Once the LTE
channel occupancy increases above 70-80%, the Wi-Fi traffic
becomes full buffer, and the Wi-Fi performance starts
degrading linearly as a function of the LTE channel usage ratio.
The relative performance of the LBT versus the CG methods is
about the same as in the previous case. More specifically,
channel congestion occurs for lower LTE channel occupancies
when the CG scheme is used as opposed to the LBT scheme
(for the LBT scheme and a Wi-Fi traffic load of 4 Mbps,
channel congestion occurs when LTE channel occupancy is
80%).

Performance versus complexity trade-off for LBT and

CG schemes
Based on the simulation results presented in Sections V.A
and V.B, it can be seen that in non-congested channels, the WiFi throughput is not impacted by the choice of the LTE
coexistence scheme (LBT or CG). In highly congested
channels, the LBT based scheme outperforms the CG scheme
(no LBT). While the performance difference may seem
significant, operation in that region should be avoided, due to
the quality of service (QoS) issues that arise (low throughout,
increased latency). Given the fact that the simulations use an
ideal LBT, it is expected that realistic implementations of LBT
will show a smaller benefit, due to the following reasons:
Realistic LBT might incur missed detections, as well as
false alarms. Missed detections result in collisions with
other secondary users, which in turn may lead to retransmissions, thus to reduced throughput. False alarms
result in missing opportunities to transmit, so resources
are wasted until the next transmission opportunity,
which again results in reduced LTE cell throughput.
Implementation of LBT may incur additional overhead,
such as Rx to Tx switching and Tx to Rx switching,
with the corresponding guard time. This means that a
fraction of the sub-frame is potentially lost to switching
and guard time, which reduces the LTE cell
throughput.
Furthermore, it is expected that implementation of LBT in
an LTE system would result in significant changes throughout
the system, such as: the physical layer, measurements,
procedures, timing alignment, and so on.
Considering the complexity of implementing LBT in LTE,
the extent of the changes that would be needed to support LBT,
and the relative performance of the LBT and CG schemes, it
appears that a non-LBT based scheme is an acceptable first step
to enable LTE to coexist with other secondary users in LE
bands.

Based on the above conclusion, simulations were also run

to optimize the period and the duty cycle of the coexistence gap
pattern (these are not presented here). It was found that short
and frequent coexistence gaps are detrimental to the Wi-Fi
performance, as a larger number of Wi-Fi packets get interfered
with by LTE. On the other hand, longer and less frequent gaps
may result in increased latencies in the LTE system. The
optimum coexistence gap lies somewhere between these two
patterns.
VI.

SIMULATION RESULTS FOR VARIOUS CG

CONFIGURATIONS

The simulations presented in this section focus on the CG

approach to coexistence, and evaluate the benefit of
coexistence gaps in cases when Wi-Fi nodes do not defer to
LTE.
A. Test Bench Description
The simulations described in this section are based on an
OPNET system level simulator that implements the CG
approach for LTE coexistence. The goal is to evaluate the
performance of an LTE and a Wi-Fi system sharing the same
channel, for various configurations of the LTE coexistence gap
and of the Wi-Fi CSMA setting. A block diagram of the test
bench is shown in Fig. 9.

analyze the impact of the coexistence gaps on the system

performance, the LTE system was alternately configured to
enable coexistence gaps with a 50% duty cycle, and to disable
the coexistence gaps. Two configurations were used for the
CSMA mechanism of the Wi-Fi nodes, as follows. The
configuration referred to All Wi-Fi defer is such that all
Wi-Fi nodes detect the LTE transmission and defer to it. The
configuration referred to No Wi-Fi defers is such that Wi-Fi
nodes do not detect the LTE transmission and as a result, do
not defer to it. However, for this configuration, Wi-Fi nodes do
detect Wi-Fi transmissions and defer to these transmissions.
Clearly, the All Wi-Fi defer and No Wi-Fi defer scenarios
are ideal. In real deployment scenarios, it is expected to have a
mix of nodes, some of which defer to LTE, some of which do
not defer. The reason for choosing the ideal All Wi-Fi defer
and No Wi-Fi defer scenarios is to determine upper and
lower bounds of the performance. It should also be noted that
in the current test bench implementation, the eNB is silent and
does not transmit any data, control, or reference symbols
during the coexistence gaps.
A baseline simulation was run for the LTE system with no
coexistence gaps on the TVWS channel, with the LTE traffic
load (submitted input data rate) to match the peak channel
capacity, and with all the Wi-Fi nodes configured to detect the
LTE transmission and defer to it. The measured LTE
throughput for the baseline scenario was 22.5 Mbps. A
summary of the coexistence gap scenarios simulated is
presented in Table III.
TABLE III. Configuration of the simulation scenarios
Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Case 4

LTE system
Coexistence Gap, channel usage
ratio set to 50%
Traffic load 11.2 Mbps = 50%
channel capacity (corresponds to
50% of the measured LTE
throughput for the baseline)
Full buffer = Yes
No coexistence gap
Traffic load = Same as Case 1
Full buffer = No
Coexistence Gap, channel usage
ratio set to 50%
Full buffer = Yes
No coexistence gap
Full buffer = Yes

Wi-Fi System
All Wi-Fi defer

All Wi-Fi defer

No Wi-Fi defers

No Wi-Fi defers

B.
Figure 9. OPNET test bench layout

The simulated topology consists of 1 eNB and 4 UEs for

the LTE system, and 1 AP and 4 STAs for the Wi-Fi system.
The channel bandwidth was set to 5 MHz for both the LTE and
the Wi-Fi systems. Link adaptation is implemented for the LTE
system, while for the Wi-Fi system, the rate adaptation was not
available at the time of running the simulations. In terms of the
traffic submitted to each system, the LTE traffic load is a
function of the scenario, as will be described below, while the
submitted Wi-Fi traffic load is 4.18 Mbps (medium load). To

Simulation Results
The throughput of the LTE and Wi-Fi systems, measured in
the TVWS channel, for each of the cases defined in Table III, is
shown in Fig. 10.
Figure 10 shows that in Case 1 and Case 2 (All Wi-Fi
defer), there is no degradation of the measured LTE
throughput compared to the submitted load. This is expected,
as for these cases, the LTE transmissions were not interfered by
the Wi-Fi. In Case 1, when the LTE system uses a gap pattern
with a 50% duty cycle, the measured Wi-Fi throughput equals
the Wi-Fi submitted load. When the LTE system does not
allocate coexistence gaps to transmit the same load (i.e. the
LTE system does not operate full buffer), the Wi-Fi

LTE and Wi-Fi T-put on TVWS

12

T-put (Mbps)

10
8
6
LTE t-put
4

Wi-Fi t-put

2
0
Case 1
50% CG
LTE full buffer
All Wi-Fi defer

Case 2
No CG
LTE not full buffer
All Wi-Fi defer

Case 3
50% CG
LTE full buffer
No Wi-Fi defers

Case 4
No CG
LTE full buffer
No Wi-Fi defers

Figure 10. Throughput of LTE and Wi-Fi systems on the TVWS channel

performance degrades by a factor of 2 compared to the

submitted Wi-Fi load.
In Case 3, which uses the same 50% coexistence duty cycle
as Case 1, but the Wi-Fi nodes do not defer to LTE, the LTE
performance degrades by about a factor of 2 as compared to
Case 1 (when all Wi-Fi nodes defer), due to the Wi-Fi
interference. This interference also impacts the Wi-Fi
performance, which is slightly degraded compared to the Wi-Fi
throughput measured in Case 1. Lastly, in Case 4, when the
LTE system does not use coexistence gaps and the Wi-Fi nodes
do not defer, the LTE performance degrades by a factor of 5
with respect to Case 1 (LTE coexistence gap, Wi-Fi defers).
The Wi-Fi performance degrades significantly, because in this
case the Wi-Fi transmissions are always interfered by LTE, and
no rate adaptation is implemented in the test bench for Wi-Fi. It
is expected that if rate adaptation would be implemented, the
Wi-Fi throughput in Case 4 would be non-zero, but would still
be smaller than for Case 3. Comparing the performance of both
LTE and Wi-Fi for Case 3 to Case 4, it can be seen that
allocating coexistence gaps in the LTE system is beneficial for
both LTE and Wi-Fi, even when the Wi-Fi nodes do not defer.

support LBT in LTE, and the fact that the operation in highly
congested channels is to be avoided, we feel that enhancing
LTE to support LBT is not justified. Moreover, the simulation
results show that the coexistence gap is a feasible approach to
non-coordinated coexistence with other secondary users of the
TVWS channels. Lastly, the simulations for different static gap
durations presented in Section V.B, suggest that extending or
reducing the gap length as a function of the traffic and
interference as explained in Section V.C, is a promising
method for friendly non-coordinated coexistence with other
SUs.
Future work includes extending the simulations to the
dynamic adaptation of the coexistence pattern parameters, as
well as investigating the performance of the coexistence gap
approach, to LTE systems operating in TDD mode.
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In this paper, we introduced the Coexistence Gap (CG)
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