Resource Allocation with User Discrimination for Spectrum Sharing

In this chapter, we focus on the problem of radio resource allocation with user discrimination for different scenarios in cellular networks. First, we present a resource allocation with user discrimination approach for spectrum sharing between public safety and commercial users. It is important to have a common technical standard for commercial and public safety users as it provides advantages for both. The public safety systems market is much smaller than the commercial cellular market which makes it unable to attract the level of investment that goes in to commercial cellular networks and this makes a common technical standards for both the best solution. The public safety community gains access to the technical advantages provided by the commercial cellular networks whereas the commercial cellular community gains enhancement in their systems and makes it more attractive to consumers. The National Public Safety Telecommunications Council (NPSTC) and other organizations recognized the desirability of having an inter operable national standard for a next generation public safety network with broadband capabilities. The USA has reserved spectrum in the 700 MHz band for an LTE based public safety network. The current public safety standards support medium speed data which drives the need of new technology to add true mobile broadband capabilities and makes LTE the baseline technology for next generation broadband public safety networks.