Assessing the Spectrum Needs for Network-Wide Ultra-Reliable Communication With Meta Distributions

Identifying and assessing the spectrum needs for ultra-reliable communication are key to enabling ultra-reliable communication services in the next generation of mobile networks. This article proposes a framework to assess the spectrum required to support ultra-reliable communication services network-wide. Using meta distributions, we derive expressions that reveal a simple relationship between spectrum needs and reliability requirements. Broadly speaking, each “nine” in reliability (e.g., five-nines in 99.999%) maps onto one order of magnitude of additional bandwidth. Numerical evaluations indicate that the bandwidth required for ultra-reliable communication can be up to hundreds of gigahertz, beyond what is available in today’s networks.