This work presents eight demonstrators and one showcase developed within the 5G-Xcast project. They experimentally demonstrate and validate key technical enablers for the future of media delivery, associated with multicast and broadcast communication capabilities in 5 ^th Generation (5G). In 5G-Xcast, three existing testbeds: IRT in Munich (Germany), 5GIC in Surrey (U.K.), and TUAS in Turku (Finland), have been developed into 5G broadcast and multicast testing networks, which enables us to demonstrate our vision of a converged 5G infrastructure with fixed and mobile accesses and terrestrial broadcast, delivering immersive audio-visual media content. Built upon the improved testing networks, the demonstrators and showcase developed in 5G-Xcast show the impact of the technology developed in the project. Our demonstrations predominantly cover use cases belonging to two verticals: Media & Entertainment and Public Warning, which are future 5G scenarios relevant to multicast and broadcast delivery. In this paper, we present the development of these demonstrators, the showcase, and the testbeds. We also provide key findings from the experiments and demonstrations, which not only validate the technical solutions developed in the project, but also illustrate the potential technical impact of these solutions for broadcasters, content providers, operators, and other industries interested in the future immersive media delivery.

Since the introduction ofthe idea of cognitive radio, various approaches towards spectrum sharing have been considered, for example, the Licensed Shared Access (LSA), which is considered in Europe, or Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) with Spectrum Access System (SAS) regulated by the US. This paper deals with the problem of coordinated resource allocation among a set of available base stations. A detailed definition of the problem is provided, followed by a discussion on aset of heuristics proposed for solving the problem. Four solutions are presented that are based on existing standards as well as on the approaches described in the literature. Next, new multiselection (multi-choice) algorithm is proposed and discussed in detail. The main problem is divided in two subproblems, which are solved by using graph theorem and analytical description. The performance of the proposed solutions is analyzed in various scenarios. Finally, a trade-off between power allocation and frequency use is provided. All challenges identified during the investigation of the problem are presented.

The European Commission requires all European Union (EU) Member States to use telecommunications networks to alert the population of an ongoing crisis or an upcoming threat by June 2022. Public Warning System in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G System currently supports a text-based warning using Cell Broadcast technology. Cell Broadcast does not support multimedia warning message delivery. This paper analyses requirements that need to be fulfilled to support multimedia warning message delivery in the 5G System and describes trials of a broadcast multimedia public warning alert system. The trials demonstrate delivery of multimedia public warning messages using Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS), dynamic spectrum management and bonded connections. By using eMBMS the public warning messages can be sent with additional robustness and in multicast mode, resulting also in less congestion to the network as the messages do not need to be sent separately to each user. Dynamic spectrum management system allows to dynamically obtain spectrum resources for the public warning system messages and the bonded connections improves the throughput and reliability of the delivery by combining the capacity of several different networks.

This paper presents the Italian pilot on Licensed Shared Access (LSA) in the IMT Band 40 to explore the potential and logistics of spectrum sharing from a regulatory perspective. Organised on a small cell / micro cell scale, it verified both the technical feasibility and regulatory compliance of LSA in a real, LTE-TDD network, constrained by the national spectrum use in Band 40. The LSA system was implemented in compliance with the CEPT, ETSI and 3GPP specifications. We present an innovative distributed architecture implemented across three countries, enabling certain features of 5G networks. We describe the sharing framework and sharing conditions in the Italian scenario for the use cases representing actual incumbents. These were verified through in-field measurements, key results of which are presented. Measurement results show that sharing based on LSA is feasible to provide additional capacity for mobile broadband services in the 2300-2400 MHz band without detriment to incumbent services. Use of commercial off-the-shelf equipment to create new mobile broadband service in an urban indoor / outdoor environment, pilot enabled us to assess the spectrum sharing opportunities through LSA technology for general deployment today and towards future policy for 5G spectrum in Italy.

This chapter studies the Licensed Shared Access (LSA) concept, which was initially developed to enable the use of the vacant spectrum resources in 2.3–2.4 GHz band for mobile broadband (MBB) through long-term static licenses. The LSA system was developed to guarantee LSA licensees a predictable quality of service (QoS) and exclusive access to shared spectrum resources. This chapter describes the development and architecture of LSA for 2.3–2.4 GHz band and compares the LSA briefly to the Spectrum Access System (SAS) concept developed in the USA. 5G and its new use cases require a more dynamic approach to access shared spectrum resources than the LSA system developed for 2.3–2.4 GHz band can provide. Thus, a concept called LSA evolution is currently under development. The novel concepts introduced in LSA evolution include spectrum sensing, short-term license periods, possibility to allocate spectrum locally, and support for co-primary sharing, which can guarantee the quality of service (QoS) from spectrum perspective. The chapter also describes a demonstration of LSA evolution system with spectrum user prioritization, which was created for Programme Making and Special Events (PMSE) use case.

Spectrum management is a key challenge in the domain of wireless network virtualization. An efficient tool is needed to support dynamic, yet policy-compliant allocation of the frequency resources in virtual networks. In this article, we discuss the idea of a spectrum management application (SMA) as a tool for solving this technoeconomic issue in virtualized networks. The generic idea is exemplified in the application of the Citizen Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) model for spectrum sharing, and it has been tested in field trials with real operating networks. The results of this study show that the fully automated allocation of frequency resources, following the rules provided by the SMA, may be used for better spectrum utilization, while preserving the quality of all managed networks. This result may be treated as an important step toward efficient network management in a virtualized wireless networks.