Licensed and Unlicensed Spectrum for Future 5G/B5G Wireless Networks

The 16 articles in this special section examine both licensed and unlicensed spectrum for 5G/B5G wireless networks. The incredible increase in connected appliances and downloaded applications has pushed mobile operators to the limits of their licensed spectrum bands. This has triggered the idea of evolving the current radio access network to use the underutilized unlicensed spectrum to extend spectrum resources beyond current usage charts. This mode of cellular access has raised a lot of questions about use cases, enabling technologies, and fairness to other native unlicensed users, such as WiFi. Nevertheless, unlicensed access is being accepted as one of the most significant solutions to improve the resource availability and system scalability in future fifth generation (5G)/beyond 5G (B5G) networks.