"Real-world Performance Measurements of Cellular Networks Using Smartphones"
Monisha Ghosh, Professor of Electrical Engineering, University of Notre Dame and Former Chief Technology Officer at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
Abstract: As 5G deployments increase in the newly allocated mid-band and mmWave spectrum, and discussions on 6G begin, it is important to characterize real-world performance of the enhancements made to 5G to determine how best to design the next generation of cellular networks. For example, how well does massive MIMO work in the real-world? How is sharing in CBRS performing? In this talk we will present recent results from detailed measurements of 4G and 5G in the various bands: mmWave (> 24 GHz), mid-band (2.5 - 3.98 GHz) and CBRS (3.55 - 3.7 GHz). Our studies demonstrate that mmWave 5G is severely limited in coverage, especially outdoors-to-indoors, while performance of 5G in mid-band also depends on network densification, contrary to popularly held beliefs. Our studies in CBRS show that secondary co-channel sharing as well as adjacent channel interference from high power deployments pose fundamental challenges for cellular networks in shared spectrum. We conclude with some directions for future network design based on our research that will allow 6G to be "sharing native".
Speaker Bio: Monisha Ghosh is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the Notre Dame Wireless Institute. She is also the Policy Outreach Director for SpectrumX, the first NSF Center for Spectrum Innovation and the co-chair of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC) Working Group on Advanced Spectrum Sharing, 2022 - 2023. Her research interests are in the development of next generation wireless systems: cellular, Wi-Fi and IoT, with an emphasis on spectrum sharing and coexistence. Prior to joining the University of Notre Dame in 2022, she was the Chief Technology Officer at the Federal Communications Commission, a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Research Professor at the University of Chicago and spent 24 years in industry research at Bell Labs, Philips Research and Interdigital working on a wide variety of wireless systems: HDTV, Wi-Fi, TV White Spaces and cellular. She obtained her B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur in 1986 and Ph.D. from USC in 1991. She is a Fellow of the IEEE.