The NGA said the report is aimed at technology providers, spectrum licensees and regulators.
ATIS’ Next G Alliance (NGA) has released a new report evaluating various spectrum management and access mechanisms, including sharing regimes, to maximize 6G opportunities in North America.
The report, “Spectrum Access Mechanisms,” includes an assessment of licensed, unlicensed and shared use and considers deployment and operational aspects of existing systems within the band or in adjacent bands.
“This report advances NGA’s efforts to proactively address spectrum issues in the Next G world,” said Jaydee Griffith, managing director of the ATIS Next G Alliance. “The report builds on previous NGA publications on spectrum, including papers such as 6G Spectrum Considerations and Spectrum Needs for 6G, and further explores evolving spectrum management and access types.”
“How we access spectrum for next-generation communications is critical to ensuring sufficient spectrum resources in North America,” said Andrew Thissen, chair of the Next G Alliance Spectrum Working Group. “To date, work has been done on unlicensed, shared licensed and exclusively licensed spectrum, but going forward we will need to significantly evolve leveraging all three types of spectrum access to ultimately meet spectrum needs.”
Last month, NGA announced the publication of new research on 6G communications channels and Joint Communications and Sensing (JCAS)/Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) channel models.
NGA noted that JCAS/ISAC is one of the key new features for future 6G systems, allowing existing communications infrastructure to also be used for RF sensing, without requiring active transmissions from the detection target.
The group highlighted that JCAS/ISAC introduces new use cases, bringing “wide possibilities” for autonomous vehicles, healthcare, entertainment, smart industry, smart cities, and new applications of spectrum.Specific to joint communications and sensing modeling based on extensive measurements conducted by NGA members, the report includes multiple sensing target models and indoor background clutter models for monostatic sensing, NGA said.
In January, NGA published a white paper examining the transformative role future 6G technology is expected to play in enhancing integrated sensing and communications systems.
NGA said next-generation systems will enable distributed sensor and communication networks to conduct integrated data exchange and allow sensor systems to work together, providing critical analytics to networks and allowing configurations to be upgraded to improve performance, NGA said, adding that these systems will also enable new user capabilities.
The Next G Alliance is an initiative launched by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) that aims to advance North American wireless technology leadership over the next decade through private sector-led efforts, initially focusing on the as-yet-unstandardized 6G.
