Spectrum Utility: a Novel Metric for Efficient Spectrum Usage in Next-generation Networks

This paper proposes a novel spectrum utility (SU) metric that assesses the efficiency of spectrum usage by a set of heterogeneous applications. Unlike the traditional spectrum efficiency (SE), the proposed metric does not blindly consider the achievable bit- rate, but captures the most relevant performance metrics for each of the considered applications. Specifically, it is formulated as an aggregated utility that combines the satisfaction level with respect to the various requirements with an innovative pricing model based on it to derive the total revenue generated for the spectrum owner. To get insight into the usefulness of the proposed metric, the proposed methodology is instantiated for an illustrative use case, where a mixture of delay- sensitive (i.e., interactive video) and -tolerant (i.e., file transfer) applications are established in dense indoor deployments. The obtained results reveal that the proposed SU significantly outperforms the legacy SE in assessing how efficiently a limited frequency spectrum is utilised from the perspective of the total revenue, particularly when the quality- of- experience (QoE) perceived during video sessions is degraded. This calls for a novel SU-aware ecosystem, where the spectrum sharing models, billing policies and resource allocation mechanisms (e.g., medium access control (MAC) and radio resource management (RRM)) are jointly revisited to maximise the overall SU.