CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 16
W I R E L E S S T E C H N O L O G I E S A D VA N C E S F O R
E M E R G E N C Y A N D R U R A L C O M M U N I C AT I O N S
COGNITIVE RADIO ON TV BANDS:
A NEW APPROACH TO PROVIDE
WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY FOR RURAL AREAS
YING-CHANG LIANG AND ANH TUAN HOANG, INSTITUTE FOR INFOCOMM RESEARCH
HSIAO-HWA CHEN, NATIONAL CHENG KUNG UNIVERSITY
ABSTRACT
WRAN BS Employing wireless technologies to provide
Microphoneconnectivity for rural areas is an active topic in
protectionthe academic and industrial communities. In this
area
article we begin by discussing the challenges of
Wireless
rural communications and reviewing existing
microphones wireless technologies that have been proposed or
implemented for this market. We then focus on
an emerging technology, cognitive radio, that
promises to be a viable solution for rural com-
munications. The most notable candidate for
rural cognitive radio technology is the IEEE
802.22 standard that is currently being developed
We discuss the and is based on time division duplexing, orthog-
onal frequency division multiple access, and
challenges of rural opportunistic use of the VHF/UHF TV bands.
We address two important issues that can affect
communications and the success of IEEE 802.22 technology in rural
deployments, namely, to:
reviewing existing • Provide suitable service models
wireless technologies • Overcome the problem of long TDD turn-
around time in large rural cells
that have been For the first issue, we introduce a service
model that combines TV broadcasting and data
proposed or services to facilitate service adoption. For the
second issue, we propose an adaptive TDD
implemented for this approach that effectively eliminates the require-
ment for long TDD turn-around time and thus,
market. We then increases the efficiency of large-coverage rural
focus on an emerging networks.
technology, cognitive INTRODUCTION
radio, that promises According to a report published by the United
Nations, more than three billion people are cur-
to be a viable rently living in rural areas [1]. In developing
countries like China and India, about 70 percent
solution for rural of the total population live in rural communities,
communications. which are spread far and wide over large geo-
graphic areas. For these communities, it is
believed that providing communications services
is an important step to facilitate development
and social equity [2]. Apart from that, rural com-
16 1536-1284/08/$25.00 © 2008 IEEE
munications networks are crucial in
disaster/emergency response scenarios.
However, providing rural communications is
often challenging due to the mismatch between
costs and demand. Most rural areas have low
population density and the demand for services
per individual or household can be much lower
in rural areas if compared to urban areas. To
create a viable business, operators must aim for
low-cost solutions. However, the deployment and
maintenance of rural communications networks
can be costly due to large areas requiring cover-
age, lack of transportation, and difficult terrains.
This is particularly true for wired networks
because wires or cables must be laid all the way
to the destinations. As a result, wireless tech-
nologies usually are preferred for rural connec-
tivity.
In fact, there are various approaches that
consider wireless technologies for rural commu-
nications [3–7]. Proposals that make use of cellu-
lar or satellite technologies can be found in [3,
4]. Recently, with the proliferation of Wi-Fi,
there have been proposals to extend this short-
range/local-area-network technology for rural
coverage [5–7]. Nevertheless, the challenges of
providing low-cost services to a low-demand
market still remain.
Cognitive radio is an emerging technology
that promises to overcome one of the most chal-
lenging problems of modern wireless communi-
cations, namely, spectrum scarcity. Access to
radio spectrum today is based largely on fixed
allocation, that is, different frequency bands are
allocated to different services. With the prolifer-
ation of wireless applications and services in
many countries, most of the available spectrum
has been allocated. On the other hand, careful
studies reveal that most of the allocated spec-
trum experiences low utilization [8]. By intelli-
gently detecting and making use of the allocated
but under-utilized spectrum, cognitive radio
enables wireless networks to operate without
requiring dedicated spectrum. This, in the con-
IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008
CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 17
text of rural communications, means cognitive
radio networks can be deployed at lower costs.
The most notable example of cognitive radio
technologies for rural communications is the
IEEE 802.22 wireless regional area network
(WRAN) standard that is currently being devel-
oped, which is based on time division duplexing
(TDD), orthogonal frequency division multiple
access (OFDMA), and opportunistic use of very
high frequency/ultra high frequency (VHF/UHF)
TV bands [9]. Apart from the fact that 802.22
technology does not require dedicated spectrum,
which significantly saves deployment costs, the
large network coverage makes this technology
particularly suitable for rural deployment. Due
to the favorable propagation condition in the
VHF/UHF bands, an 802.22 WRAN signal can
reach a much longer distance, compared to Wi-
Fi and WiMAX signals transmitted on frequen-
cies above 2 GHz. In fact, 802.22 WRAN is
designed to provide wireless broadband access to
rural and suburban areas, with an average cover-
age radius of 33 km that can increase to 100 km.
To realize the advantages of 802.22 technolo-
gy, there are many technical challenges that
must be overcome. For example, to avoid caus-
ing interference to incumbent users, namely, TV
receivers and FCC Part 74 wireless microphones,
WRAN systems must be able to perform spec-
trum sensing and detect these incumbents at
very low signal strength [9]. Another challenge is
how multiple WRANs can coexist and interact
with networks of other types. Whereas these
challenges are general in any 802.22 deployment,
for rural scenarios the success of 802.22 technol-
ogy and the like depends on two important fac-
tors, namely:
• Whether service providers can offer attractive
content models for the rural market
• How to ensure the efficiency of operation in
large coverage scenarios
In terms of service content, it should be noted
that customers in rural communities are more
familiar with and have higher demand for tradi-
tional applications such as telephony and TV
broadcasting, than for the Internet, data, or
other multimedia applications [7]. To account
for this, we propose a service model that com-
bines TV broadcasting and data services to facil-
itate the growth of rural demand for connectivity.
To reduce costs and increase customer popu-
lation, rural wireless networks must be deployed
in large coverage areas. In such cases, if TDD is
used as in 802.22 WRAN, the system efficiency
will be seriously affected by the TDD turn-around
time, that is, the time a system must stay idle for
nearby and faraway subscribers to synchronize
their uplink transmission. To address this prob-
lem, we propose an adaptive TDD technology
that effectively eliminates the requirement for
long TDD turn-around time and thus increases
the efficiency of large coverage rural networks.
RURAL CONNECTIVITY: CHALLENGES AND
EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES
In this section, we highlight the challenges faced
by service providers in the rural information and
communications technology (ICT) market. This
IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008
is followed by a discussion of existing technolo-
gies that were proposed or deployed for rural
The rural ICT market
communications. exhibits a significant
CHALLENGES OF HIGH COSTS AND LOW DEMAND mismatch between
Compared to the urban ICT market, the rural
market exhibits a significant mismatch between costs and demand.
costs and demand. In particular, the rural ICT
market can be characterized as follows. To overcome this
• High deployment/maintenance cost: Deploying
and maintaining a communications network in
problem, rural
rural areas often incurs higher costs, com- network providers
pared to doing so in urban areas. This is due
to large coverage areas, difficult terrains, lack should aim for
of transportation, and often a shortage of
local trained staff. solutions that incur
• Low customer density and demand: Most rural
areas are sparsely populated. Moreover, cus- low costs and offer
tomers in the rural market often have lower
incomes than those in urban areas and there-
large coverage.
fore, have less to spend on ICT services. The
low service demand also is due to low cus-
tomer awareness and expertise. This is partic-
ularly true in developing countries.
• Slow service adoption rate: It has been observed
that it takes longer for consumers in rural
areas to adopt new services compared to those
in urban areas [7].
With the previously mentioned characteristics
of the rural ICT market, service providers tend
to face the following chicken and egg problem.
To reduce the service costs, network providers
require a large or fast-growing customer base;
however, in rural markets, the customer demand
can only be increased if services are offered at
sufficiently low rates. To overcome this problem,
rural network providers should aim for solutions
that incur low costs and offer large coverage.
EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES
In the following, we discuss the technologies that
were proposed or deployed for rural communi-
cations.
Cellular/Wireless Local Loop/Satellite — Fixed cellu-
lar and wireless local loop (WLL) technologies
have been proposed for rural communications,
for example, in [4]. Their advantage is the rela-
tively short deployment time. Moreover, with the
proliferation of cellular technologies, the cost of
portable devices has decreased significantly.
Nevertheless, these technologies still require a
large user base to offset their costs.
Small satellite earth stations are widely used
in developing regions, usually for distribution of
TV signals and interactive voice/data. Examples
include the bank networks in remote parts of
Brazil and the India National Information Cen-
ter Network for government data services [2].
However, the hardware costs and service charges
of satellite communications are relatively high
for the rural market [7].
Wi-Fi and WiMAX — With the success of Wi-Fi
technology for short-distance, local area network
applications, there has been significant interest
in using this technology for rural connectivity.
An example is the Digital Gangetic Plain pro-
ject, developed jointly by IIT Kanpur, India and
Media Lab Asia, where IEEE 802.11 technolo-
17
CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 18
gies are used to provide long-haul access links.
WRAN systems will This is achieved by using highly directional
antennas mounted on tall structures and tuning
operate on the 802.11 protocols to obtain a much longer cover-
age (more than 30 km) [5]. Compared to cellular
VHF/UHF TV bands, and satellite technologies, the advantages of Wi-
Fi include ease of set-up and maintenance, rela-
that is, from 54 MHz tively high bandwidth, and low costs for both
to 862 MHz, by users and providers. Another candidate technol-
ogy is WiMAX, which is based on the IEEE
opportunistically 802.16 standards. WiMAX is described as an
enabling technology that provides last mile wire-
making use of the less broadband access as an alternative to cable
and DSL. Currently, WiMAX trials are being
unused TV channels. performed in several countries.
While doing so, DakNet — Asynchronous Service Network — DakNet
it must ensure that is a network architecture based on store-and-for-
ward. Instead of real-time services, DakNet pro-
no harmful interfer- vides remote communities with useful
asynchronous Internet access. The rationale are
ence is caused to the [7]:
incumbent users.
• Real-time communications are generally too
expensive as a widespread investment for the
nascent rural ICT market.
• Asynchronous ICT services appear to be suffi-
cient to meet most of the needs of rural com-
munities.
• Local information caches can be used to pro-
vide local users with immediate access to com-
monly requested information without the need
for real-time Internet access.
The three major entities in DakNet are the
hub, the mobile access point (MAP), and Info
Kiosk. A physical transport vehicle, for example,
a car or motorbike, carries a MAP through a
rural area where the DakNet service is provided.
When a MAP reaches within the communication
range of an Internet hub or an Info Kiosk, it
uploads or downloads e-mail, voice mail, and
other offline data content [7]. However, due to
its asynchronous nature, DakNet is not suitable
for disaster/emergency relief situations.
COGNITIVE RADIO AS AN EMERGING
TECHNOLOGY
In this section, we introduce the concepts of
opportunistic spectrum access and cognitive
radio. After that, we describe how the IEEE
802.22 cognitive radio technology can be
employed in rural communications and highlight
challenges that must be overcome.
OPPORTUNISTIC SPECTRUM ACCESS
Traditionally, the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) regulates the radio spectrum
resource by allocating separate frequency bands
for different purposes. Today, nearly 75 percent
of the UHF band (300 MHz–3 GHz) has been
allocated in this command and control manner.
Such a rigid and long-term allocation approach
leads to spectrum under-utilization. Recent mea-
surements by the FCC show that 70 percent of
the allocated spectrum in the United States is
not utilized [11]. This motivates the concept of
opportunistic spectrum access that allows sec-
ondary networks to borrow unused radio spec-
trum from primary licensed networks [14].
18
The core technology behind opportunistic
spectrum access is cognitive radio ([12]), which
consists of the following components:
• Spectrum sensing: cognitive radio devices can
sense the spectrum environment to identify
frequency bands that are not occupied by pri-
mary users.
• Dynamic spectrum management: cognitive radio
networks can dynamically select the best avail-
able frequency bands for communications and
monitor the spectrum environment to protect
primary users.
• Adaptive communications: Cognitive radio
devices can configure their transmission
parameters to opportunistically make the best
use of the ever-changing available spectrum.
Cognitive radio targets spatial and temporal
spectrum white space by allowing secondary
users to identify and exploit local and instanta-
neous spectrum availability in non-intrusive
manners.
IEEE 802.22 — PROVIDING RURAL WIRELESS
BROADBAND
The IEEE 802.22 Working Group was formed
in 2004 to develop a standard for wireless
regional area networks (WRANs), based on
cognitive radio technology [10]. WRAN sys-
tems will operate on the VHF/UHF TV bands,
that is, from 54 MHz to 862 MHz, by oppor-
tunistically making use of the unused TV chan-
nels. While doing so, it must ensure that no
harmful interference is caused to the incum-
bent users, which include TV receivers and
FCC Part 74 wireless microphones [10]. Figure
1 illustrates a typical WRAN deployment that
consists of a WRAN base station (WRAN BS)
serving multiple fixed-location wireless cus-
tomer premise equipment (CPE). Figure 1 also
shows a TV station and a wireless microphone
system. The WRAN must ensure that interfer-
ence caused to all TV receivers within the TV
protection contour (around 150 km from the
TV station) is below a predefined threshold.
Similarly, there is a protection area for the
microphone system, but with a much smaller
size (a few hundred meters).
For rural communications, 802.22 technology
offers two main advantages, that is, no dedicated
spectrum is required, and the coverage is large.
These two advantages help service providers
address the cost-demand mismatch discussed
earlier. In particular, as no dedicated spectrum
is required, service providers can save the cost of
obtaining a spectrum license. In addition, wide
coverage is essential to reach a large customer
base in rural areas. 802.22 technology is designed
to provide the average coverage of 33 km and
can increase to 100 km.
Although most of the 802.22 related work has
focused on various technical challenges, such as
designing advanced spectrum sensing to detect
weak TV and microphone signals or providing
coexistence for multiple WRANs, we contend
that these issues may not be critical for remote,
rural WRAN deployments. In particular, in
remote areas, there may be TV channels that are
always available for 802.22 access, that is, with-
out any need of spectrum sensing. Also, it is not
IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008
CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 19

likely that multiple WRANs will be deployed in

a sparsely populated region.
Based on the previously mentioned argu- TV protection
contour
ments, we believe that the success of 802.22 as a
technology for rural communications, significant- TV station
ly depends on whether a scalable service model
can be introduced for the rural market, and
whether the technology can be deployed in an
efficient way. A scalable service model that is
tailored for rural customer demand and aware-
ness is discussed later. Regarding system effi-
ciency, a major concern is that when TDD is
used in WRANs with large coverage areas, the
long TDD turn-around time will significantly
reduce the system throughput. We will discuss
an approach to overcome this problem.

COMBINING TV AND DATA SERVICES FOR WRAN BS

RURAL AREAS Microphone

protection
area
Two important factors that determine the growth
of the rural ICT market are cost and service con- WRAN CPE Wireless
tent. In terms of service content, as pointed out microphones
in [7] and other surveys, although there are many
potential applications, in the short-term, only e-
mail, scan-mail, voice-over-e-mail, and chat are
likely to be revenue-generating applications for
the rural market. We further contend that to WRAN
increase the demand in the initial phase of net- coverage
work deployment, service providers should focus
on traditional applications such as telephone and ■ Figure 1. IEEE 802.22 WRAN deployment. Each WRAN system consists of
TV broadcasting. Data services such as e-mail, a BS serving fixed wireless subscribers (CPE). Incumbent users are TV
Internet access, and video streaming, should be receivers and FCC's Part 74 wireless microphones.
introduced gradually, in accordance with the
adoption and awareness of rural customers.
Based on the above arguments, we propose domains, for a system that employs TDD and
that service providers start with a TV broadcast- OFDMA, that is, similar to IEEE 802.22. In sce-
ing service, as the demand and awareness already nario (a), a digital TV payload is transmitted on
exist in rural communities. This TV broadcasting the earlier time slots of the downlink subframe.
can be combined with delay-tolerant, asyn- This is followed by downlink and uplink (UL)
chronous data applications such as e-mail and data payloads. In scenario (b), both TV and DL
voice mail. These data applications can be scaled data payloads can be transmitted simultaneously,
up in accordance with demand. Furthermore, but on orthogonal frequency subchannels. These
when the need arises, such as in emergency/disas- two configurations provide the flexibility to sup-
ter responses, TV broadcasting can be switched port different amounts of data payload, for
off to deliver command, control, and rescue infor- example, e-mail, file transfer, and different
mation. With this, we can eventually create a latency requirements.
widespread wireless infrastructure that grows We note that there are existing technologies
seamlessly with the rural communications market. that support digital TV broadcasting, such as the
Figure 2 illustrates how digital TV and data European Digital Video Broadcasting standards
payloads can be multiplexed into the downlink (DVB-T for terrestrial and DVB-H for hand-
(DL) channel, in both time and frequency helds), the North America Advanced Television

Time Time
UL data payload

UL data payload
DL data payload
Frequency

Frequency
Control and

Control and
TV payload
signaling

signaling

TV payload

DL data payload

DL subframe UL DL subframe UL
(a) subframe (b) subframe

■ Figure 2. Different frame configurations that support combined digital TV and data services for a system
that employs TDD and OFDMA (e.g., IEEE 802.22).

IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008 19

CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 20

Systems Committee (ATSC) standards, and mul-
tichannel multipoint distribution service
(MMDS). DVB and MMDS are also based on
OFDM. DVB and ATSC technologies only focus
on TV broadcasting, not general data services.
MMDS can be used for both video and data ser-
vices, but the high operating frequency (above 2
GHz) makes it unsuitable for large rural cover-
age. In our opinion, 802.22 technology that oper-
ates on VHF/UHF bands and supports the
flexible frame structures in Fig. 2 can be a good
solution to provide both TV and data services to
the rural market.
ADAPTIVE TDD FOR LARGE RURAL
COVERAGE
TDD TURN-AROUND TIME
The operation of a point-to-multipoint system
employing TDD and OFDMA can be illustrated
in Fig. 3. Time is divided into fixed-length
frames; each consists of a DL subframe and an
Time
DL subframe UL subframe
1 OFDMA symbol
BS
Distance
UL subframe that are used respectively for
downlink and uplink transmissions. In the time
domain, DL and UL subframes are further divid-
ed into multiple OFDMA symbols; each consists
of a set of orthogonal subchannels in the fre-
quency domain.
Due to the difference in propagation delay
from BS to the CPE, different CPE finish the
downlink reception at different time instances.
Specifically, a nearby CPE can finish its DL
reception long before a faraway CPE does. This
also means that a nearby CPE is ready to start
uplink transmission before a faraway CPE is.
However, to guarantee reliable reception at the
BS, the UL transmissions from different CPE
must be scheduled in a way such that the
OFDMA symbol boundaries are aligned at the
BS.
The existing approach is to schedule the UL
transmissions of all CPE based on the farthest
one. Specifically, even when nearby CPE finish
DL reception and are ready for UL transmis-
sion, it is delayed so that UL transmissions reach
the BS at the same time as those from the far-
thest CPE. This can be illustrated in Fig. 3,
where the UL transmission of nearby CPE 1 is
delayed to align (at the BS) with that of the far-
away CPE 2. The delay CPE 1 endures is equal
to the difference in round-trip propagation
delays between CPE 1 and CPE 2.
As was mentioned, 802.22 rural networks
should target large service areas, for example, up

to 100 km in a coverage radius. This means that

DL subframe UL subframe the difference in the round-trip propagation
CPE1 delay between nearby and edge CPE can be sig-
nificant. For example, if the coverage radius is
100 km, then the difference in round-trip propa-
gation delay will be {2×100×103/3×108} = 660 ×
DL subframe UL subframe 10 –6 s = 660 µs. This delay, when compared to
CPE2 the typical frame duration of 5 to 10 ms is signif-
icant and can seriously reduce the operation effi-
Propagation delay Switch from receiving to ciency of 802.22 WRANs.
from BS to CPE2 transmitting mode
ADAPTIVE TDD
■ Figure 3. Structure of conventional TDD. Uplink transmission from nearby Our proposed scheme, termed adaptive TDD
CPE 1 is delayed to align with uplink transmission from faraway CPE 2. (ATTD), allows the transition gap between DL
and UL subframes to be CPE-dependant. Specif-
ically, after finishing their downlink reception,
nearby CPE is scheduled to start uplink trans-
Time
mission first, and far-away CPE start uplink
transmission later. While doing so, the OFDMA
DL subframe UL subframe symbol boundaries of all CPE are synchronized
BS at the BS for reliable communications.
Extra symbols Adaptive TDD is illustrated in Fig. 4. When
gained by the difference between the round-trip propaga-
Distance

ATDD
tion delays of nearby CPE 1 and faraway CPE 2
CPE1 is comparable to the OFDMA symbol duration,
CPE 1 is allowed to start UL transmission right
after finishing DL reception. Faraway CPE 2 is
scheduled to start UL transmission later such
that the OFDMA symbol boundaries of all CPE
CPE2 are aligned at the BS. In Fig. 4, at the BS, the
first OFDMA symbol of CPE 2 is aligned with
Propagation delay Switch from receiving to the fourth OFDMA symbol of CPE 1.
from BS to CPE2 transmitting mode
THE IMPACT OF ADAPTIVE TDD
■ Figure 4. Structure of proposed adaptive TDD. Uplink transmission from When adaptive TDD allows nearby CPE to start
nearby CPE1 arrives at the BS earlier than that from faraway CPE 2. The uplink transmission early and gain extra
OFDMA symbol boundaries of CPE 1 and CPE 2 uplink transmissions are OFDMA symbols, this throughput gain can be
synchronized at the BS. beneficial to all users in the system and for both

20 IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008

CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 21

OFDMA symbols OFDMA symbols

Freqency subchannels

Freqency subchannels
UL for
Control and signaling

Control and signaling

DL for user 1 DL for user 1 user 5
UL for user 1
UL for

DL for user 5
user 1 UL for
DL for UL for user 2 DL for user 2
user 2 user 2
DL for DL for
user 3 UL for user 3 user 3
UL for UL for
DL for DL for user 3
user 4 UL for user 4 user 4 user 4

DL subframe UL subframe DL subframe UL subframe

Frame structure for conventional TDD Frame structure for conventional adaptive TDD

■ Figure 5. Exploiting the gain of adaptive TDD. Two OFDMA symbols are gained by adaptive TDD, and the BS can use this gain to
support one extra user (user 5) in both DL and UL.

uplink and downlink usage. This is because the

BS can exploit the throughput gain of adaptive 60
TDD in different ways, for example, to give Frame size = 5 ms, CP = 1/4
Frame size = 5 ms, CP = 1/8
some users extra uplink bandwidth or to support Frame size = 10 ms, CP = 1/4
more users in the uplink, or even to keep the Frame size = 10 ms, CP = 1/8
50 Frame size = 20 ms, CP = 1/4
uplink load unchanged and schedule more down-
Percentage increase in UL throughput

Frame size = 20 ms, CP = 1/8

link transmission.
The above arguments are illustrated in Fig. 5, 40
where example bandwidth allocations are shown
for the conventional TDD and the adaptive
TDD approaches. When conventional TDD is
30
used, the BS can schedule DL and UL traffic for
four users. When adaptive TDD is used, two
nearby users, namely, user 1 and 4 can transmit
20
UL data two symbols earlier than the rest. Due
to this gain of two OFDMA symbols, the BS can
schedule the DL and UL traffic for one extra
user, namely, user 5, whereas the bandwidth 10
allocated to the existing four users remains
unchanged.
0
NUMERICAL RESULTS 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
Percentage of nearby CPEs
To demonstrate the performance gain of adap-
tive TDD, we consider a 802.22 deployment sce-
■ Figure 6. Throughput gain of adaptive TDD.
nario with the following parameters. The cell
radius is 50 km; all CPE located inside a 5 km
inner disk from the BS is regarded as nearby,
and all CPE locating outside this inner disk is er transform (FFT) size with cyclic prefix set at
regarded as far away. We vary the percentage of 1/4 and 1/8.
nearby CPE from 1 percent to 90 percent, where In Fig. 6, we plot the percentage gain in the
the low and high percentages of nearby CPE, uplink throughput versus the percentage of near-
respectively, represent the case of uniform and by CPE. With the chosen parameters, a CPE
center-concentrated CPE distributions. As near- located inside the inner 5 km disk can transmit
by CPE usually experience good channel condi- UL data at one OFDMA symbol earlier than
tions, they can transmit at higher rates compared CPE located outside the inner disk. As can be
to faraway CPE. Here, we assume that all CPE seen, the gain in average UL capacity when
inside the inner disk can transmit using 64-QAM employing the proposed adaptive TDD scheme
and 3/4 code rate and that all CPE outside the is significant. The highest gain is around 30 per-
inner disk can transmit using quadrature phase cent, and the lowest gain is around 5 percent.
shift keying (QPSK) and 1/2 code rate. When The gain decreases when the percentage of near-
the number of extra OFDMA symbols gained is by CPE increases. This trend can be explained as
fixed, the percentage gain in uplink capacity follows. The absolute gain, in terms of UL
depends on the frame size. The shorter the throughput, is almost constant (due to the fixed
frame size, the higher the percentage gain in one OFDMA symbol gain). On the other hand,
uplink capacity. We consider the frame sizes of the absolute average throughput increases with
5, 10, and 20 ms. The TV channel bandwidth is 6 the percentage of nearby CPE. As a result, the
MHz, and OFDMA is based on 2048 fast Fouri- percentage gain, which is equivalent to absolute

IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008 21

CHEN LAYOUT 6/5/08 1:24 PM Page 22
We discussed two gain divided by the absolute throughput, will
decrease as the percentage of nearby CPE
important issues that increases.
can affect the success CONCLUSIONS
of IEEE 802.22 In this article, we began with a discussion on the
challenges of rural communications and then
technology for rural reviewed existing wireless technologies that were
applications: implemented or proposed for this market. We then
focused on an emerging technology, cognitive
providing a suitable radio, that promises to be a viable solution for
rural communications. The most notable example
rural service model; of a rural cognitive radio system is the IEEE 802.22
standard that currently is being developed, which is
overcoming the based on TDD, OFDMA, and opportunistic use of
VHF/UHF TV bands. We discussed two important
problem of long TDD issues that can affect the success of IEEE 802.22
turn-around time in technology for rural applications:
• Providing a suitable rural service model
large rural cells. • Overcoming the problem of long TDD turn-
around time in large rural cells
For the first issue, we introduced a service
model that combines TV broadcasting and data
services to facilitate the growth of rural demand
for connectivity. For the second issue, we pro-
posed adaptive TDD technology that effectively
eliminates the requirement for long TDD turn-
around time and thus, increases the efficiency of
large coverage, rural networks.
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[2] E. Hudson, “Economic and Social Benefits of Rural
Telecommunications: A Report to the World Bank,”
June 1995.
[3] M. D. Farrimond, “PCN and Other Radio-Based Telecom-
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BIOGRAPHIES
YING-CHANG LIANG [SM’00] (ycliang@i2r.a-star.edu.sg) is cur-
rently a senior scientist at the Institute for Infocomm
Research (I2R), Singapore. He also holds adjunct associate
professorship positions in Nanyang Technological University
and National University of Singapore. His research interests
include cognitive radio, reconfigurable signal processing
systems for broadband communications, space-time wire-
less communications, and information theory. From
December 2002 to December 2003, he was a visiting schol-
ar with the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford
University. At I2R he has been leading the research activi-
ties in cognitive radio and standardization activities in IEEE
802.22 WRANs. He received Best Paper Awards from IEEE
VTC-Fall 1999 and IEEE PIMRC 2005.
ANH TUAN HOANG [M] (athoang@i2r.a-star.edu.sg) received
a Bachelor’s degree (with First Class Honors) in telecommu-
nications engineering from the University of Sydney in
2000. He completed his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineer-
ing at the National University of Singapore in 2005. He is
currently a research fellow in the Department of Network-
ing Protocols, I2R. His research focuses on design/optimiza-
tion of wireless communication networks. Specific areas of
interest include cross-layer design, dynamic spectrum
access, and cooperative communications.
HSIAO-HWA CHEN [SM’00] (hshwchen@ieee.org) is currently a full
professor in the Department of Engineering Science, National
Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, and he was the founding director
of the Institute of Communications Engineering of the National Sun
Yat-Sen University, Taiwan. he received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees
from Zhejiang University, China, and a Ph.D. degree from the Uni-
versity of Oulu, Finland, in 1982, 1985, and 1990, respectively, all
in electrical engineering. He has authored or co-authored over 200
technical papers in major international journals and conferences,
five books, and several book chapters in the areas of communica-
tions, including the books entitled Next Generation Wireless Sys-
tems and Networks and The Next Generation CDMA Technologies
(Wiley, 2005 and 2007). He has been an active volunteer for vari-
ous IEEE technical activities for over 20 years. Currently, he is serv-
ing as chair of the IEEE ComSoc Radio Communications Committee
and vice chair of the IEEE ComSoc Communications & Information
Security Technical Committee. He served or is serving as symposium
chair/co-chair of many major IEEE conferences, including VTC,
ICC, GLOBECOM, and WCNC, and so on. He served or is serving
as associate editor and/or guest editor of numerous important tech-
nical journals in communications. He is serving as Chief Editor (Asia
and Pacific) for Wiley's Wireless Communications and Mobile
Computing Journal and Wiley's International Journal of Communi-
cation Systems. Currently, he is Editor-in-Chief of Wiley's Security
and Communication Networks Journal (http://www.interscience.
wiley.com/journal/security). He is also an adjunct professor at Zhe-
jiang University, China, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China.
IEEE Wireless Communications • June 2008