# Spectrum Demand Forecasting for IoT Services
## 6 Study Case Results: Colombia  
Spectrum Forecasting: Required Spectrum  
The amount of required spectrum is a straightforward calculation after obtaining the required capacity by means of link or area spectral efficiency. However, this quantity is of relatively low importance. The different bands and coverage where the full IoT spectrum would be spread make spectrum requirements tricky to analyze. For example, medical devices in need of a Body Area Network might need some spectrum, but the very short coverage of these networks makes that spectrum chunk reusable. These considerations should guide further discussions about the type of spectrum (licensed, unlicensed, or new sharing schemes) that should be allocated to different services. Figure 3 shows the coverage requirement per scenario. Notice that 6 out of 14 scenarios require very short-range coverage (local, personal, or around a human body). It is also important to analyze the spectrum requirement in terms of the economic sector. For this purpose, we have identified four main economic sectors, driving the needs for IoT spectrum, as follows. (i) Industrial: including machinery tracking, inventories, freight, and fleet tracking. (ii) Agricultural: including harvesting logistics, greenhouse lighting, environmental sensors, cattle tracking, and air and water monitoring. (iii) Smart cities: including home automation, Gbit rate multimedia, urban tolls, smart traffic lights, street cameras and sensors, security cameras, smart lighting, smart parking, ambulance network, and smart metering. (iv) Healthcare: including home healthcare, home hospitalization, smart beds, and vital signs monitoring. Some of these services are more adequate to be carried directly by the cellular networks hence, we split the spectrum requirements into cellular bands (CB) and non-cellular bands (NCB). Figure 4 shows the required spectrum per economic sector from 2020 to 2030. On the left-hand side, calculations are made without spectral efficiency increase and without teleclensity increase. On the right-hand side, the calculations were made considering the increase in both spectral efficiency and teledensity for IMT-2020 minimum requirements according to ITU as explained in Section 5.2. Comparing both sides in 2030, the teledensity and spectral efficiencies could provide important spectrum savings. In most sectors, some  
Figure 3: Coverage requirement per scenario (Body, Personal, Local, Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks). Short range coverage allows more efficient and intensive sharing spectrum schemes. Scenarios 2, 3 and 10 will not have competition from cellular networks. tens of MHz become just a few MHz. One order of magnitude (around 80%) of the spectrum would be saved if the infrastructure is effectively installed. This result urges solid coordination between operators, vendors, regulators, and all involved authorities to deploy and operate the network's infrastructure successfully. The requirements for NCB in Industrial, Agricultural, and Healthcare are particularly low and are shown at the bottom graphs. Carried by cellular networks, Industrial and Agricultural services may add up to some tens of MHz by 2030; however, the role of non-cellular standards is foreseen as marginal for these sectors. The smart cities sector also requires substantial portions of spectrum in both CB and NCB. In NCB the main component is a LAN-coverage spectrum for Gbit multimedia services in homes and offices, and security cameras whose access link should be wireless in some years. Despite the availability of fiber optics in this scenario, placing the cameras in optimal locations should be cheaper with wireless links that may be operational in mm-Wave bands. In the CB spectrum, services for smart cars dominate the trend, especially for onboard entertainment systems. Part of these requirements should be covered with traditional bands using spectrum re-farming for LTE-A and 5G NR. Other services should be carried on higher bands (like 5.8 GHz) that are likely to be allocated for V2X cellular communications.