Provision of broadband Internet in Oman by joining LTE-A with TV white space (TVWS)

In the last 45 years, the Sultanate of Oman has developed overdramatically and steadily in all aspects of life. This progress has included health, education and transportation sectors along with social and economic areas. The progress has also counted in the telecommunication services with many new land and wireless networks such as fibre optic networks, 3G, 4G/LTE and WiMAX. These telecommunication services have covered major cities and towns in the country, but due to the vast and inhospitable terrains of Oman with its geographical, demographical and social factors, it has been very problematic to cover major rural and urban areas of the country with satisfactory fibre and mobile services for home and mobile users by using one of the current traditional fixed and mobile technologies. Therefore, in this research, we have investigated the feasibility of using Television White Space (TVWS) technology in providing the required internet service by combining it with the ever-evolving Long Term Evolution- Advanced (LTE-A) technology as a solution to the problem mentioned above. For this purpose, and to specify the occupancy of the TVWS spectrum so to suggest a solution based on the LTE-A operating on the TVWS, we have conducted a radio spectrum occupancy measurement survey campaign for 40 MHz to 2800 MHz range. The survey was conducted in five major areas of the country. The campaign has identified that the TV spectrum (470 MHz to 890 MHZ) is idle most of the time. Further, we have implemented our proposed solution through the simulation of the Long-Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) Ver. 12 technology operating in the TV spectrum (470-710 MHz). This type of solution is the first to use Ver. 12 on TVWS even on a simulation level. The simulation approach has been chosen over a real implementation because the technology is still in its early development stage, therefore, the hardware required for the implementation is still out of reach. Our simulation involved planning and implementation of two networks with eight scenarios. One network is our proposed network and the other is the classical LTE network operating on the 1800 MHz spectrum. The simulation results and analysis have demonstrated that our solution could provide reliable mobile and fixed service to a large number of users in a very large area with high data throughput and good Quality of Service (QoS) by using very little resources such as sites, Base Stations (BSs) and other resources. The simulation has demonstrated that one TVWS Base Station (TVWSBS) could cover up to 110 Km radius area and provide up to 4 Gigabits Per Second (4Gbps) DownLink (DL) and up to 2 Gbps UpLink (UL) data throughput. Therefore, our solution overweighs the traditional LTE/4G network in all aspects. This type of technology could meet the needs of broadband internet service for rural and congested areas of Oman using most of the existing old TV towers infrastructure and with minimum investment. Therefore, in our research, we are proposing an alternative method of providing broadband internet service that differs from the available traditional methods found in the literature considering the unique particularities of the demographic, geographic, social and environmental factors of Oman.Additionally, we have outlined TVWS regulations that could be utilised by concerned spectrum authorities in Oman and similar countries. Finally, we have developed an algorithm that could manage TVWS Database (TVWSDB) and could be incorporated in the Service Providers’ (SP) network management systems