Abstract
With the spectrum liberation obtained by the deployment of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and the analog TV switch-off, new bands are being assigned to IMT Long Term Evolution (LTE). In the first cellular deployments in the digital dividend of Region 1, at the 800 MHz band, problems emerged when it was observed that the LTE Downlink could interfere to DTT signals. Possible solutions imply either an inefficient use of the spectrum (increasing the guard band and reducing the number of DTT channels) or a high cost (using anti-LTE filters for DTT receivers). The new spectrum allocated to mobile communications is the 700 MHz band, also known as second digital dividend. In this new IMT band, the LTE Uplink is placed in the lower part of the band. In this paper, the coexistence problem is studied in both 700 and 800 MHz bands, evaluating the interference of LTE signals into DTT services. Several coexistence scenarios have been considered and, using measured protection ratios, planning studies have been performed. In addition, potential approaches for coexistence have been proposed in order to guarantee the performance of DTT services.
