Analysis of Interference to S-Band Geo-Mobile Satellite Services from 4G LTE Systems

To cater to the exponential growth of terrestrial mobile services, several frequency bands have been included for use in International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT). Consequently, the 2500-2690 MHz frequency band is now being shared between Band 41 of 4G-LTE (Long Term Evolution) and regional Geo-Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) [1]. Within a country the inter-system interference is minimized through its national-level coordination, which ensures that the frequencies used for both systems are mutually exclusive. However, other countries (including neighbouring) can independently choose to use this band for either LTE or MSS, resulting in interference to systems of both countries. This paper proposes a novel method to estimate aggregate interference from LTE terrestrial services on S band Geo-MSS return (user to satellite) and forward (satellite to user) links. The results of interference analysis are presented and it is shown that MSS forward and return links of a particular country are severely affected by co-frequency LTE services of other countries.