Coexistence of Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks on Adjacent
Frequency Bands
Abstract
This paper presents the latest achievements concerning 3GPP Release-17
adjacent band coexistence simulation work on 5G New Radio
Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTNs) for satellite communications. For the
first time, 3GPP considered the introduction of Mobile Satellite Service
(MSS) frequency bands for 3GPP User Equipment (UE) direct connectivity
with satellites and had to consider the coexistence in adjacent bands
with Terrestrial Networks (TNs). This paper will further explain the
most challenging and the main surprising outcomes of this work, which
opened new market opportunities for both terrestrial and non-terrestrial
stakeholders. The main conclusions can be summarized as (1) NTN UE can
reuse the current requirements of the TN UE, (2) the satellite
connectivity does not require a dedicated satellite waveform, and (3) TN
can co-exist with NTN on adjacent channels with relaxed ACIR
requirements for the tested simulation scenario.