Resource Allocation with Carrier Aggregation for Commercial Use of 3.5 GHz Spectrum

It is better to use the second paragraph of the chapter as an abstract as follows: In this chapter, we introduce an application-aware spectrum sharing approach for sharing the Federal under-utilized 3.5 GHz spectrum with commercial users. In our model, users are running elastic or inelastic traffic and each application running on the UE is assigned a utility function based on its type. Furthermore, each of the small cells’ users has a minimum required target utility for its application. In order for users located under the coverage area of the small cells’ eNodeBs, with the 3.5 GHz band resources, to meet their minimum required quality of experience (QoE), the network operator makes a decision regarding the need for sharing the macro cell’s resources to obtain additional resources. Our objective is to provide each user with a rate that satisfies its application’s minimum required utility through spectrum sharing approach and improve the overall QoE in the network. We present an application-aware spectrum sharing multi-stage algorithm that is based on resource allocation with carrier aggregation to allocate macro cell permanent resources and small cells’ leased resources to UEs based on a utility proportional fairness policy, and allocate each user’s application an aggregated rate that can at minimum achieve the application’s minimum required utility