Policies and technology constraints for auctions in TV white spaces - A practical approach for LTE-A

In this paper we consider the auction approach for cognitive spectrum usage by mobile radio systems, in particular TV white spaces (TVWS) spectrum auctions for LTE and its extension LTE-A. Our auction model considers the nature of TVWS, such as the variety of the allowable transmit power, spectrum fragmentation, and its time availability, as well as various spectrum market characteristics, the nature of potential market participants, regulatory aspects and technology constraints. The impact of these aspects is considered in the proposed auction mode which proposes medium-term combinatorial auction of heterogeneous objects defined by frequency bandwidth and power constraints. Simultaneous auction in time domain is also considered, which allows for reaching the maximum efficiency in terms of the spectrum sold and the achieved auctioneer's profit. The auction is organized in independent areas by the centralized spectrum broker.