LSA - Licensed Spectrum Access

Nederlands

Licensed Spectrum Access (LSA) facilitates access for additional licensees in bands which are already in use by one or more incumbents. LSA is a concept to dynamically share this band, whenever and wherever it is unused by the incumbent users. Shared use of the spectrum is only allowed on the basis of an individual authorisation (i.e. licensed).

Licensed Shared Access is a further development of an industry proposal for Authorised Shared Access (ASA). ASA was introduced to enable access to additional frequency bands for mobile broadband which were identitified for IMT but not available in some countries. The concept was extended as Licensed Shared Access (LSA), with the potential for application to other services in addition to mobile broadband, e.g. wireless camera´s.

LSA is defined within the framework of the European Union as:

A regulatory approach aiming to facilitate the introduction of radiocommunication systems operated by a limited number of licensees under an individual licensing regime in a frequency band already assigned or expected to be assigned to one or more incumbent users. Under the Licensed Shared Access (LSA) approach, the additional users are authorised to use the spectrum (or part of the spectrum) in accordance with sharing rules included in their rights of use of spectrum, thereby allowing all the authorised users, including incumbents, to provide a certain Quality of Service (QoS).

Depending on the nature of the use of the band by the incumbent, the sharing rules can be fixed or there may be a need to use a repository which holds actual information on the use of specific frequencies in a given area by the incumbent. Based on this information an LSA controller can give clearance to the LSA user to use certain frequencies in the shared band.

This means that if LSA is used in e.g. a mobile network, there might be a need to extend the network with functionality to control spectrum access by the base stations within the shared band. Since the mobile devices are under control of the base stations, there is no need to have any added functionality in the mobile devices.

The first use of LSA will probably be the introduction of mobile broadband in the 2.3 - 2.4 GHz band (mobile sharing with military applications/wireless cameras).

See also