Co-existence of Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks in S-band

Abstract: Co-existence of terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks (NTN) is foreseen as an important component to fulfill the global coverage promised for sixth-generation (6G) of cellular networks. Due to ever rising spectrum demand, using dedicated frequency bands for terrestrial network (TN) and NTN may not be feasible. As a result, certain S-band frequency bands allocated by radio regulations to NTN networks are overlapping with those already utilized by cellular TN, leading to significant performance degradation due to the potential co-channel interference. Early simulation-based studies on different co-existence scenarios failed to offer a comprehensive and insightful understanding of these networks' overall performance. Besides, the complexity of a brute force performance evaluation increases exponentially with the number of nodes and their possible combinations in the network. In this paper, we utilize stochastic geometry to analytically derive the performance of TN-NTN integrated networks in terms of the probability of coverage and average achievable data rate for two co-existence scenarios. From the numerical results, it can be observed that, depending on the network parameters, TN and NTN users' distributions, and traffic load, one co-existence case may outperform the other, resulting in optimal performance of the integrated network. The analytical results presented herein pave the way for designing state-of-the-art methods for spectrum sharing between TN and NTN and optimizing the integrated network performance.