Radio Spectrum Occupancy Measurements in Three South-West Geopolitical Cities in Nigeria

Abstract

The demand for and usage of radio spectrum over the last three decades have increased geometrically throughout the world as a result of daily increase in new wireless services and applications that are in need of radio spectrum. However, the current fixed allocation policy currently being using in radio spectrum management has made availability of radio spectrum for the new emerging wireless services and applications practically infeasible since all available radio spectrum had been allocated nationally and internationally. Nevertheless, results of recent radio spectrum occupancy measurements conducted in several parts of the world had revealed that most of the allocated radio spectrum under the current fixed allocation policy nationally and internationally was underutilized. In additional, the results of some of the spectrum occupancy measurements conducted also showed that the usage of most already allocated radio spectrum varies with time, space and frequency. In order to experimentally verify the actual radio spectrum usage in Nigeria, radio spectrum occupancy measurements were conducted in three major cities in South-West geopolitical zone of Nigeria. The analysis of the results of the radio spectrum occupancy measurements conducted show that the actual radio spectrum usage in the three cities follows the same pattern with the rest of the world with actual usage varies with time, space and frequency with actual overall percentage of occupancy less than 26.0%. The analysis of the results of the occupancy measurements conducted also show that while some allocated radio spectrum were sparsely used, some were medially used and some were heavily used.