A week in London: Spectrum usage in metropolitan London

Abstract

We present results from an 8-day spectrum measurement campaign in the centre of the London metropolis. We analyze results from one of the densest central areas in our campaign from the perspective of spectrum measurements at a very exposed location at the roof of a high building. We present the main results of this measurement campaign in terms of spectrum utilization, powers received, and evolution of the activity among different days. The results presented in this paper here are very close to an upper bound of what one might expect to find in any given radio environment in terms of utilization and received power measurements. In addition to producing valuable measurement data on its own, special attention was given on acquiring comparable datasets with previous measurements campaigns we have conducted to allow direct comparisons with other European cities we have studied. In particular, we show a detailed comparison between the downtown London results against measurements carried out in other cities, quantifying the significantly higher levels of spectrum occupancy in London compared to other locations.