Practical IMT and EESS Spectrum Sharing in the 7 to 8 GHz Band

The 7.3 GHz (350 MHz bandwidth) Earth Observation Satellite (EOS) band, while not protected, is used for Passive Sea Surface Temperature (P-SST) measurements that provide important data for weather forecasts, coastal disaster prevention, climate modeling, and oceanographic research. The full 7 GHz band (7.125 to 8.4 GHz), which encompasses these EOS frequencies, is the largest contiguous block of potentially available mid-band spectrum and will play a significant role in meeting the anticipated demand for wireless services. A Real Time Geofenced Spectrum Sharing (RGSS) system is shown to be a practical and near term solution to spectrum sharing between P-SST measurements and 5G or 6G networks in the 7GHz band. RGSS enables IMT networks and EOS radiometers to share 350MHz of overlapping spectrum centered at 7.3 GHz. It prevents interference to P-SST measurements while simultaneously allowing IMT systems un-constrained access to the shared spectrum greater than 99.9% of the time. Subscriber impact during the less than 0.1 percent paused access time can be prevented by using 3GPP defined capabilities and O-RAN APIs to move subscribers to other frequencies. Paused access time data from a proof-of-concept RGSS system is available to academic, government, and industry researchers through a web or programmatic interface.