A professor in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies recently released a tool that eases the load of wireless technology usage, which has become increasingly overburdened.

The Spectrum Consumption Model Builder and Analysis Tool, developed by iSchool associate professor Carlos Caicedo, aims to help ease that load by taking steps to create a system for spectrum sharing. With a nearly $65,000 grant from Google, in September he released an open-source tool on Github, a website that developers can share their codes for various types of projects. Caicedo worked for two years on the tool, which helps users see the availability of spectrum for transmitting data.

“The radio frequency spectrum is the key resource that makes wireless communications work,” Caicedo said. “The problem is, with more devices trying to transmit their data wirelessly, we need to have enough spectrum so those devices can actually send the data.”

Wireless technology usage is at an all-time high and still growing, according to wireless company Cisco. As a result, the radio frequency spectrum, which is utilized for everything from television broadcasting to deep space radio communications, has become increasingly crowded.

Arnav Mohan, an SU alumnus who worked with Caicedo as a graduate student from 2014-16, acted as a software developer on the project and said the impact this tool will have a significant impact on getting customers faster data rates.

“In order for wireless devices to operate, they need to send and receive information in particular frequencies,” Mohan said.

There are certain frequencies below 6 GHz that allow for greater transmission lengths, so most devices want to live there, Mohan said. Within the spectrum each frequency has only a set amount of space that is allocated to certain services, and then specific users for that service. He said that makes these frequencies valuable.

“In the past, these frequencies have been assigned to operators in very static ways,” Caicedo said. “Say a wireless service provider has a big chunk of spectrum but they’re only using 30 percent of it, different service providers can’t come in and use the other 70 percent if they’re choked and need more spectrum, even though (their frequencies) are unoccupied. The spectrum management part is the problem.”

In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission determines spectrum allocation and assignment as applied to commercial services and issues licenses for specific frequencies. In addition, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration handles federal spectrum usage for government and security purposes.

The military and federal users have been assigned a large amount of spectrum, and commercial users want to use the spectrum more and more dynamically, Caicedo said. The idea now, he added, is to have bands where spectrum is shared between services so the efficiency in the use of the frequencies is increased.

David Starobinski, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University, supported the concept of more flexible spectrum access.

“There is definitely a need and an interest for such a model, because organizations have been granted frequencies and don’t use them. A tool like this can make the market more liquid, facilitating trade,” Starobinski said. “Some companies pay billions of dollars for the best frequencies, but just use this as a way to invest in assets.”

The final rules for shared spectrum operations were released in May for 3.5 GHz, which is the first band to explore this management technique. Caicedo said the rules allow the federal spectrum to be used for commercial services as long as it’s shared. Spectrum sharing for commercial services is new and the United States is taking the lead in that area, Caicedo added.

“It’s a completely different way of managing spectrum than traditional methods, which rely on static assignment,” he said.

Caicedo is the secretary of a group from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association, an engineering organization. His group is developing IEEE 1900.5.2, the standard for spectrum consumption models that describes and shares how devices are going to use spectrums. The program helps devices better plan their usage so as not to interfere with each other.

Mohan said the idea is to create a community of users around the tool and keep growing its capabilities.

Caicedo is promoting the tool through published papers and within the standardization committee, which has members from the Department of Defense as well as commercial operators.

“Spectrum sharing will lead to a greater provision of wireless services, and hopefully for operators to provide very innovative services that we haven’t yet even thought of, because now they’ll have access to spectrum resources,” Caicedo said. “In the future, I see a lot of data communications, entertainment services and new devices being completely wireless.”

Published on October 24, 2016 at 11:41 pm