5091-5150 MHZ Bandsharing by Airport Wireless Local Area Networks and Satellite Feeder Links

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is considering the use of the 5091-5150 megahertz (MHz) band for a future Airport Network and Location Equipment (ANLE) system. ANLE is visualized as a high-integrity, high-data-rate wireless local area network (WLAN) for the airport area, with terminals on the ground and on taxiing aircraft. The same frequency band, 5091-5150 MHz, has also been allocated, on a co-primary basis, to non-geostationary (non-GSO) mobile-satellite-service (MSS) Earth-to-space feeder uplinks. This paper shows the results of a compatibility analysis that was performed for an ANLE architecture based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards, and two different types of non-GSO MSS satellite systems, namely the low-earth-orbit (LEO) LEO-D and LEO-F systems. The IEEE 802.16 family of standards supports non-line-of-sight (NLOS) wideband communications in the 2-11 GHz band of licensed and unlicensed spectrum. In the bands below 6 GHz the standards allows for networking between users that could be either fixed or mobile (moving at surface vehicular speeds). The future ANLE networks based on the IEEE 802.16 family of standards have been assumed to operate at 497 towered airports in the contiguous United States. A computer model was developed, in which a grid of 2deg times 2deg latitude/longitude satellite locations was assumed, and the aggregate power levels from these ANLE systems have been evaluated at each grid position. Our results show that sufficient interference protection to the MSS feeder links is feasible by applying the mitigation methods that is discussed in the paper