Preserving Operation Frequency Privacy of Incumbents in CBRS

Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) is a novel service band in the United States, spanning 3550-3700 MHz, recently opened for commercial cognitive operations. The CBRS has a three tier hierarchical architecture, wherein, the topmost tier users (also called as incumbents) include military radars. The second and third tier facilitate licensed and unlicensed access to the band, respectively. The privacy of incumbents has been a major concern and different schemes have been proposed in the literature to preserve privacy of their location and operation time. However, the privacy of operation frequency of incumbents has not been suitably addressed. The operation frequency of incumbent is vulnerable to inference attacks from the adversary. For instance, an adversary can deduce the operation frequency of incumbent if a compromised device is asked to switch to another channel. Therefore, in this paper, we propose probabilistic usage of dummy incumbents on a channel and analyse the operation frequency privacy of incumbents for snapshot and time based models in the three tier CBRS system. The optimum dummy generation probability is obtained for the snapshot and time based models, varying capabilities of the adversary, and different system parameters. Finally, we verify the proposed results through simulations. Autho

Creating Effective Broadband Network Regulation

The Internet is central to the business and pastimes of Americans. Calls for increased regulation are ongoing, inevitable, and often justified. But calls for network neutrality or nondiscrimination assume with little hesitation federal agency competence to give predictable and accurate meaning to these terms and create regulations to implement them. This Article\u27s chief contribution to Internet policy debate is to focus attention on the likelihood of successful FCC Internet regulation-a key assumption of some advocates. The Article analyzes three characteristics that hobble the FCC, which is the likeliest federal agency to provide prescriptive rules. First, the record for the agency on a host of industry decisions where technology plays a pivotal role tilts decidedly against counting on successful regulation. Second, the technology here is unlike anything the FCC has successfully regulated before. Judging networks, which are constructed and operated for maximum private gain and not based on a government-approved rate of return model, isn\u27t among them. Finally, the agency itself has yet to demonstrate that it is the best locus of power for deciding the fate of the Internet. The political economy of the FCC makes it less successful as an expert agency. This Article focuses on two somewhat interrelated solutions: reliance on the shame/Wiki/blog culture of the Internet and disclosure of management practices by network providers, enforceable under contract. These approaches are congenial with the most basic Internet values of information transparency and sharing

Creating Effective Broadband Network Regulation

The Internet is central to the business and pastimes of Americans. Calls for increased regulation are ongoing, inevitable, and often justified. But calls for network neutrality or nondiscrimination assume with little hesitation federal agency competence to give predictable and accurate meaning to these terms and create regulations to implement them. This Article\u27s chief contribution to Internet policy debate is to focus attention on the likelihood of successful FCC Internet regulation-a key assumption of some advocates. The Article analyzes three characteristics that hobble the FCC, which is the likeliest federal agency to provide prescriptive rules. First, the record for the agency on a host of industry decisions where technology plays a pivotal role tilts decidedly against counting on successful regulation. Second, the technology here is unlike anything the FCC has successfully regulated before. Judging networks, which are constructed and operated for maximum private gain and not based on a government-approved rate of return model, isn\u27t among them. Finally, the agency itself has yet to demonstrate that it is the best locus of power for deciding the fate of the Internet. The political economy of the FCC makes it less successful as an expert agency. This Article focuses on two somewhat interrelated solutions: reliance on the shame/Wiki/blog culture of the Internet and disclosure of management practices by network providers, enforceable under contract. These approaches are congenial with the most basic Internet values of information transparency and sharing

Communications Policy for 2006 and Beyond

In this Article, the Authors propose sweeping changes to the current telecommunications regulatory regime. With impending reform in telecommunications laws, the Authors argue that an important first step is the creation of a bipartisan, independent commission to examine and recommend implementation of more market-oriented communications policy. Through maximizing the operation of the markets, the authors argue that communications policy will better serve its goals of increasing business productivity and consumer welfare through the better services and lower prices. Important steps to achieve optimal market operation include deregulating retail prices where multifirm competition is available, minimizing the cost of public property inputs, overhauling universal service, assigning greater jurisdictional authority to federal regulators, and significantly reorganizing the FCC. The Authors argue that the timely implementation of these policies is crucial for achieving United States telecommunications policy goals

Software-defined Networking enabled Resource Management and Security Provisioning in 5G Heterogeneous Networks

Due to the explosive growth of mobile data traffic and the shortage of spectral resources, 5G networks are envisioned to have a densified heterogeneous network (HetNet) architecture, combining multiple radio access technologies (multi-RATs) into a single holistic network. The co-existing of multi-tier architectures bring new challenges, especially on resource management and security provisioning, due to the lack of common interface and consistent policy across HetNets. In this thesis, we aim to address the technical challenges of data traffic management, coordinated spectrum sharing and security provisioning in 5G HetNets through the introduction of a programmable management platform based on Software-defined networking (SDN). To address the spectrum shortage problem in cellular networks, cellular data traffic is efficiently offloaded to the Wi-Fi network, and the quality of service of user applications is guaranteed with the proposed delay tolerance based partial data offloading algorithm. A two-layered information collection is also applied to best load balancing decision-making. Numerical results show that the proposed schemes exploit an SDN controller\u27s global view of the HetNets and take optimized resource allocation decisions. To support growing vehicle-generated data traffic in 5G-vehicle ad hoc networks (VANET), SDN-enabled adaptive vehicle clustering algorithm is proposed based on the real-time road traffic condition collected from HetNet infrastructure. Traffic offloading is achieved within each cluster and dynamic beamformed transmission is also applied to improve trunk link communication quality. To further achieve a coordinated spectrum sharing across HetNets, an SDN enabled orchestrated spectrum sharing scheme that integrates participating HetNets into an amalgamated network through a common configuration interface and real-time information exchange is proposed. In order to effectively protect incumbent users, a real-time 3D interference map is developed to guide the spectrum access based on the SDN global view. MATLAB simulations confirm that average interference at incumbents is reduced as well as the average number of denied access. Moreover, to tackle the contradiction between more stringent latency requirement of 5G and the potential delay induced by frequent authentications in 5G small cells and HetNets, an SDN-enabled fast authentication scheme is proposed in this thesis to simplify authentication handover, through sharing of user-dependent secure context information (SCI) among related access points. The proposed SCI is a weighted combination of user-specific attributes, which provides unique fingerprint of the specific device without additional hardware and computation cost. Numerical results show that the proposed non-cryptographic authentication scheme achieves comparable security with traditional cryptographic algorithms, while reduces authentication complexity and latency especially when network load is high

Net Neutrality

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Chris Marsden maneuvers through the hype articulated by Netwrok Neutrality advocates and opponents. He offers a clear-headed analysis of the high stakes in this debate about the Internet's future, and fearlessly refutes the misinformation and misconceptions that about' Professor Rob Freiden, Penn State University Net Neutrality is a very heated and contested policy principle regarding access for content providers to the Internet end-user, and potential discrimination in that access where the end-user's ISP (or another ISP) blocks that access in part or whole. The suggestion has been that the problem can be resolved by either introducing greater competition, or closely policing conditions for vertically integrated service, such as VOIP. However, that is not the whole story, and ISPs as a whole have incentives to discriminate between content for matters such as network management of spam, to secure and maintain customer experience at current levels, and for economic benefit from new Quality of Service standards. This includes offering a ‘priority lane' on the network for premium content types such as video and voice service. The author considers market developments and policy responses in Europe and the United States, draws conclusions and proposes regulatory recommendations

The Potential Short- and Long-Term Disruptions and Transformative Impacts of 5G and Beyond Wireless Networks: Lessons Learnt from the Development of a 5G Testbed Environment

The capacity and coverage requirements for 5 th generation (5G) and beyond wireless connectivity will be significantly different from the predecessor networks. To meet these requirements, the anticipated deployment cost in the United Kingdom (UK) is predicted to be between £30bn and £50bn, whereas the current annual capital expenditure (CapEX) of the mobile network operators (MNOs) is £2.5bn. This prospect has vastly impacted and has become one of the major delaying factors for building the 5G physical infrastructure, whereas other areas of 5G are progressing at their speed. Due to the expensive and complicated nature of the network infrastructure and spectrum, the second-tier operators, widely known as mobile virtual network operators (MVNO), are entirely dependent on the MNOs. In this paper, an extensive study is conducted to explore the possibilities of reducing the 5G deployment cost and developing viable business models. In this regard, the potential of infrastructure, data, and spectrum sharing is thoroughly investigated. It is established that the use of existing public infrastructure (e.g., streetlights, telephone poles, etc.) has a potential to reduce the anticipated cost by about 40% to 60%. This paper also reviews the recent Ofcom initiatives to release location-based licenses of the 5G-compatible radio spectrum. Our study suggests that simplification of infrastructure and spectrum will encourage the exponential growth of scenario-specific cellular networks (e.g., private networks, community networks, micro-operators) and will potentially disrupt the current business models of telecommunication business stakeholders - specifically MNOs and TowerCos. Furthermore, the anticipated dense device connectivity in 5G will increase the resolution of traditional and non-traditional data availability significantly. This will encourage extensive data harvesting as a business opportunity and function within small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as well as large social networks. Consequently, the rise of new infrastructures and spectrum stakeholders is anticipated. This will fuel the development of a 5G data exchange ecosystem where data transactions are deemed to be high-value business commodities. The privacy and security of such data, as well as definitions of the associated revenue models and ownership, are challenging areas - and these have yet to emerge and mature fully. In this direction, this paper proposes the development of a unified data hub with layered structured privacy and security along with blockchain and encrypted off-chain based ownership/royalty tracking. Also, a data economy-oriented business model is proposed. The study found that with the potential commodification of data and data transactions along with the low-cost physical infrastructure and spectrum, the 5G network will introduce significant disruption in the Telco business ecosystem

Spectrum Abundance and the Choice Between Private and Public Control

Prominent commentators have recently proposed that the government allocate significant portions of the radio spectrum as a wireless commons. The problem for commons proposals is that truly open access leads to interference, which renders a commons unattractive. Those advocating a commons assert, however, that a network comprising devices that operate at low power and repeat each other's messages can eliminate the interference problem. They contend that this possibility renders spectrum commons more efficient than privately owned spectrum, and in fact that private owners would not create these abundant networks (as I call them) in the first place. In this Article I argue that these assertions are not well-founded, and that efficiency considerations favor private ownership of the spectrum. Those advocating a commons do not propose a network in which anyone can transmit as she pleases. The abundant networks they envision involve significant control over the devices that will be allowed to transmit. On the question whether private entities will create these abundant networks, commons advocates emphasize the transaction costs of aggregating spectrum, but those costs can be avoided via allotment of spectrum in large swaths. The comparative question of the efficiency of private versus public control, meanwhile, entails an evaluation of the implications of the profit motive (enhanced ability and desire to devise the best networks, but also the desire to attain monopoly power) versus properties of government action (the avoidance of private monopoly, but also a cumbersome process than can be subject to rent-seeking). The deciding factor, in my view, is that these networks might not develop as planned, and so the flexibility entailed by private ownership, as well as the shifting of the risk of failure from taxpayers to shareholders, makes private ownership the better option. The unattractiveness of a commons in this context casts serious doubt on the desirability of commons more generally. Commons proponents have championed abundant networks because those networks avoid interference problems. If private ownership is a more efficient means of creating abundant networks, then the same would almost certainly be true for networks that run the risk of interference. Most uses of spectrum are subject to interference, so the failure of the commons advocates' arguments undermines the appeal of a commons for most potential uses of spectrum. (Updated December 2003.)