Tethering Over TV White-space: Dynamic Hotspot

Selection and Resource Allocation

Haleh Tabrizi

, Golnaz Farhadi

, John Cio

Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

Fujitsu Laboratories of America, Inc.

Department of Computer Science, King Abdulaziz University

Emails: {htabrizi, ciof}@stanford.edu, and gfarhadi@us.fujitsu.com
AbstractIn dense wireless areas where the cellular spectrum
resources are insufcient, the conventional approach is to install
more base-stations (BS) or ofoad some of the trafc onto unli-
censed WiFi bands. Both approaches require adding new infras-
tructure that might be necessary for only a short time. This paper
proposes an algorithm for operator-controlled tethering over TV
white-space (TVWS) with cellular based access mechanism. In
a dense wireless area, some of the nodes can act as hotspots
and tether/relay the data to and from their corresponding slaves
over TVWS. The proposed algorithm iteratively clusters the
nodes into hotspots and slaves, and allocates resources with
the objective of minimizing total network transmission power.
Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can reduce
the required total transmission power signicantly in comparison
with direct communication between the BS and all nodes.
I. INTRODUCTION
Smart-phone proliferation has created the demand for ubiq-
uitous access to wireless data anywhere and at anytime. This
demand is specially pronounced in crowded venues such as
concert halls, conference halls, and sports stadiums, where a
large number of mobile devices contend for the limited spec-
trum. The wireless cellular infrastructure is not optimized for
resource allocation in dense areas and cannot simultaneously
meet the demands of hundreds of mobile users densely packed
in a region. Some solutions to this problem include adding
new infrastructure such as WiFi APs and femtocells to enable
services to users. However, the scarcity of WiFi bands and
interference have not completely satised user demands [1].
To combat the ever-increasing demand for spectrum, re-
cently, other unlicensed spectra such as the now vacated televi-
sion bands have gained a lot of attention from the industry and
researchers. The unused broadcast television spectra referred
to as TV white-space (TVWS) are present on the 50700 MHz
bands and have better propagation characteristics as compared
to WiFi ISM bands. Microsoft has been one of the pioneers
in this eld with its recent development of SenseLess [2], a
TVWS network that operates based on an up-to-date database
of incumbents. In contrast to WiFi-based TVWS communica-
tion, this paper proposes cellular-based TVWS usage, such that
a cellular-based device can operate on both TVWS and cellular
spectrum by simply switching its frequency of operation when
necessary. The performance gain obtained by adding a TVWS
overlay to the LTE network has been investigated [3].
This work was done while H. Tabrizi was at Fujitsu Labs of America.
Fig. 1: Proposed hotspot-slave conguration
Furthermore, this paper proposes mobile hotspots that can
communicate with the BS and relay (tether) information to
other nodes over TVWS channels. In this paper, a mobile
hotspot refers to a mobile device that is directly connected to
the BS and aggregates its slaves (if any) uplink and downlink
data with its own data when communicating with the BS. A
slave is dened as a mobile device that communicates with
the BS through a hotspot (dual-hop relaying) as depicted in
gure 1. Out-of-band, ad hoc relaying was rst introduced in
2003 by Todd, et. al. [4]. It assumes a mobile device can be
selected as a hotspot only when it is inactive, and it can relay
only one slaves data at any time. Further, WiFi-based relaying
as opposed to cellular-based relaying is used.
Sharing the spectral resources efciently among the mobile
users is the main challenge in high dense wireless areas. In
contrast to conventional cellular systems which utilize xed
relays, this paper proposes mobile nodes to act as hotspots
and relay the data to other nodes over the now vacated
television bands. The proposed conguration, as pictured in
gure 1, can increase the capacity of the system without
adding new infrastructure. Furthermore, such conguration
allows ofoading data onto the unlicensed TVWS bands that
have better propagation characteristics.
With the proposed conguration, capacity can be gained
through decreasing pathloss and frequency reuse. By selecting
some of the closer nodes as hotspots, the distance between the
transmitter and receiver is decreased and hence less power is
required to transmit data. By clustering the nodes into small
groups, small cells are created that require low transmission
power to communicate. Such conguration allows frequency
D S
1
S
2
S
3
G
1
G
21
G
31
D S
1
S
2
S
3
G
1
G
2
G
3
a) direct mode b) relay mode
Fig. 2: Direct mode and relay mode comparison
reuse among the clusters. A mobile hotspot similar to a
traditional relay, relays the data between the BS and slaves.
However, in contrast, its sole purpose is not just relaying data
and its location is not xed. A node when in good conditions,
can act as a hotspot and when its conditions change, it can
become a slave. In other words, the conguration of the
network adapts to the changing environment conditions in such
a manner that the overall system can perform at its best.
II. MOTIVATION
Consider the 4-node scenario in gure 2. Assume all source
nodes S
i
, i {1, 2, 3} need to transmit at a xed rate R to the
destination node D. There are 3 LTE channels (smallest unit
of bandwidth that can be allocated) of bandwidth b available,
such that each S node transmits on a different channel. It is
further assumed that there are 2 TVWS channels of bandwidth
b available at the location of S nodes. The channel gain to
noise power ratio on LTE channels is denoted by G
i
from
each source node to destination node and on TVWS channels
it is denoted by G
ij
between any two S nodes. According
to the Shannon capacity, the total power required for direct
transmission from the S nodes to the D node is calculated as:
P
D
=
3

i=1
2
R
b
1
G
i
(1)
Now assume S
1
acts as a hotspot and relays S
2
and S
3
data
to the destination node D. The 2 TVWS channels are used by
each of the slave nodes S
2
and S
3
and the 3 LTE channels
are used for transmission between the hotspot S
1
and the D
node. The total power in this mode is calculated as follows:
P
R
= 3
2
3R
3b
1
G
1
+

i=2,3
2
R
b
1
G
i1
(2)
The ratio of the power consumed in direct mode relative to
relay mode is given by:
P
D
P
R
=

3
i=1
1
Gi
3
G1
+

i=2,3
1
Gi1
, (3)
where comparison is among a) direct:
1
G2
+
1
G3
and b) relay:
2
G1
+
1
G21
+
1
G31
terms. In this scenario, term b) is smaller
than term a) (hence lower transmission power in relay mode)
for two reasons:
1) The channel gain to noise ratios G
ij
over TVWS are in
general much greater than the G
i
s over LTE, because
of the lower TVWS frequencies, and
2) The hotspot S
1
is selected such that it has better channel
gain to the destination node and hence G
1
G
2
, G
3
.
III. SYSTEM MODEL
Assume a cell (e.g. rectangular region) with the BS located
at its center. There are U active users/nodes uniformly dis-
tributed inside the cell and need to communicate with the
BS. Each node u U = {1, 2, ..., U} is selected to be
either a hotspot or slave. The set of hotspots is denoted
by H and the set of slaves is denoted by S, such that
S H = U and S H = . This approach creates a two
layer transmission scheme, where layer 1 consists of the BS
to hotspot connections and layer 2 consists of hotpspot to
slave connections. Other than providing the required data to
the hotspot nodes, themselves, layer 1 connections are used as
wireless back-haul for the slaves of each hotspot. It is assumed
that each node can operate on both cellular 4G and the TVWS
bands with the same cellular access technology.
Notation: Consider K
n
ij
. The second subscript, j, corre-
sponds to the transmitter and the rst subscript, i, corresponds
to the receiver when i = j. The superscript n corresponds to
the operating frequency band. K
n
jj
correpsonds to the case
where the transmitter is the BS and the receiver is node j. For
ease of representation, in most cases we refer to the hotspots
with j and the slaves with i.
Two sets of spectrum resources are available within the cell,
such that the layer 1 and layer 2 connections operate on non-
overlapping spectrum. The rst set consists of M channels of
total width W
1
, and the second set consists of N channels of
total width W
2
. Each set of channels n N and m M
can correspond to different or similar spectrum bands. For
example, one set can correspond to the TVWS bands and the
other set can correspond to the LTE bands or both sets can
correspond to the same but non-overlapping LTE or TVWS
bands. Resource allocation is based on resource block groups
(RBG) of an LTE network [5, Ch.7], however, it can be based
on subcarrier bands of an OFDMA network, as well. The
number of resource blocks (RB) in each RBG depends on the
bandwidth of the LTE frequency band. For every 5MHz band,
13 resource block groups of 360KHz are assumed here. Each
TVWS channel spans 6MHz of bandwidth, but to be consistent
with cellular LTE technology, only 5MHz is used (1MHz
guard band) and resource allocation is based on cellular LTE,
such that there are 13 RBGs per TVWS channel.
Each node i has a required rate R
i
that has to be satised.
If a node is a hotspot, it has to satisfy its own rate requirement
as well as its slaves rate requirements. The average channel
gain to noise power ratio across each RBG n between any
two nodes i and j is denoted by g
n
ij
. Each cluster can use the
set of available RBGs n under the condition that it creates
insignicant interference on other clusters.
The link variable y
ij
denotes if there is a link between the
nodes i and j. For the case where i = j, y
ij
is equal to 1 if j
1. Cluster
nodes
2. Resource allocation
among slaves
End
Initialize w
Reduce w
ij
for i
that requires
largest P
ij
3. Power
and rate
requirements
met
5. Rate
requirements
met
4. Resource allocation
among hotspots
Reduce w
jj
for j
that requires
largest P
jj
w
w
yes
no
no
yes
Fig. 3: Proposed iterative clustering & resource allocation algorithm
transmits directly to i and it is 0 otherwise. The term y
jj
= 1
indicates that node j is directly connected to the BS (i.e. j is
a hotspot) and y
jj
= 0, indicates that j is a slave. The U U
matrix Y contains all such variables. The RBG variable x
n
ij
indicates if RBG n is being used by the i, j link or not. The
parameter x
n
ij
is equal to 1 if RBG n is being used by the i, j
link and it is 0 otherwise. The U U max(M, N) matrix X
contains all such variables. The power variable p
n
ij
indicates
the power allocated to the nth RBG on the i, j link. The
U U max(M, N) matrix P contains all such variables.
IV. ITERATIVE HOTSPOT-SLAVE SELECTION AND
RESOURCE ALLOCATION ALGORITHM
The proposed algorithm consists of ve main steps as
summarized by the owchart in gure 3. The darker colored
shapes represent the steps that are taken at the BS and the
lighter shapes represent steps that can be taken at each hotspot.
Step-1: Clustering Nodes into Hotposts and Slaves
The rst step consists of clustering the nodes into groups
by selecting hotspots and the corresponding slaves. The BS
performs such clustering based on the average channel gains
g
ij
s between the nodes and the nodes and the BS. The BS
then sends a signal to the hotspots informing them about their
slaves. Clustering can be based on maximizing the spectral
efciency between the nodes or minimizing the transmission
power in hotspot-slave mode. The optimization based on
minimizing transmission power according to the generalized
version of the equations in section II, is as follows:
minimize
Y
U

j=1

y
jj
w
jj
g
jj
+

i=j
y
ij
w
jj
g
jj
+

i=j
y
ij
w
ij
g
ij

(4)
subject to
N

j=1
y
ij
== 1, i (5)
y
ij
y
jj
, i, j (6)
y
ij
= {0, 1} , i, j (7)
where the rst and second terms in the objective correspond to
the transmission power from a hotspot to the BS carrying the
rate of the hotspot and its slaves. The third term corresponds
to the transmission power from the slaves to the hotspot.
Parameter w
ij
[0, 1] is the weight given to link i j.
The w
ij
s are initialized to 1 and can be reduced based on the
outcome of the constraint checks performed in steps 3 and 5 of
the algorithm. Reducing w
ij
in the clustering objective means
assuming a lower channel gain between the i and j nodes
and hence trying to separate the two nodes when clustering.
Constraint (5) suggests that each node i can have only one
transmitter j. Constraint (6) forces node i to be connected to
hotspot j only if j is a hotspot. If j is a hotspot (y
jj
= 1),
then y
ij
can equal 1, as well, but if y
jj
is equal to zero (j is
not a hotspot), y
ij
cannot equal 1. Constraint (7) enforces y
ij
to take on binary values.
This is an integer linear programming problem. In order
to convert this problem into a general linear programming
problem, constraint (7) is relaxed to y
ij
0, i, j. Hence the
problem can be solved using interior point methods, which
have polynomial-time complexity [6]. Before moving on to
the next step, the clustering conguration result has to pass a
slave-hotspot check. If a slave is found that has a better average
channel gain to a hotspot that is different from the hotspot that
it has been assigned to, its corresponding slave-hotspot weight
will be reduced and then reclustered.
Step-2: Resource Allocation Among Slaves
Denote the set of slaves associated with hotspot j as S
j
obtained in the clustering step of the algorithm, i.e., S
j
=
{i|y
ij
= 1}. In the second step of the algorithm, each hotspot
allocates resource block groups to its slaves based on an
OFDMA-like approach with rate and power constraints. In this
approach, each RBG can be used by only one slave. Resource
allocation in this step is similar to the optimal resource
allocation optimization performed in OFDMA systems [7].
The difference here is allocating RBGs instead of subcarriers.
Determining the Maximum Allowed Transmission Power:
In order to prevent interference to neighboring clusters, each
cluster determines the maximum power that it can transmit on
each RBG. This ensures that no cluster is creating signicant
interference on others. Let T
n
j
be the maximum transmission
power that cluster j (i.e., the cluster whose hotspot is node j)
can transmit on RBG n. Interference is considered negligible if
it is on the order of noise power N
0
. Considering that the noise
power N
0
is embedded in the parameter g
ij
, the maximum
transmission power over each RBG n for each cluster j is
dened as:
T
n
j
=

max
kK
g
n
lk
, (8)
where (0, 1] is the noise proportionality factor. The
parameters l and K are dened based on uplink or downlink
operation:

l = j and K = S S
j
, downlink
l S
j
and K = H{j} , uplink
If downlink communication (hotspot to slave) is considered,
l = j and interference is measured based on the channel gain
between hotspot j and the slaves of all other clusters. If uplink
communication (slave to hotspot) is considered, l S
j
and
interference on each RBG is calculated based on the channel
gain between all the j cluster slaves, S
j
, and all other hotspots.
Allocating RBGs and Transmission Powers: After deter-
mining the maximum transmission power on each RBG, and
having knowledge of the rate requirement of each slave, each
hotspot solves the following optimization problem:
minimize
P,X

iSj
N

n=1

p
n
ij

(9)
subject to
N

n=1
x
n
ij
b log(1 +
p
n
ij
g
n
ij
x
n
ij
) R
i
, i S
j
(10)
p
n
ij
T
n
j
, n, i S
j
(11)

iSj
x
n
ij
1, n (12)
p
n
ij
0, n, i S
j
(13)
x
n
ij
= {0, 1} n, i S
j
(14)
The objective of the algorithm is to minimize the total
transmission power over all the available RBGs subject to
minimum rate requirements and the maximum transmission
powers over each RBG. Constraints (10) and (11) determine
the rate and power constraints, respectively. Constraint (13)
enforces power to be positive and constraint (14) forces the
channel selection variables x
n
ij
to take on binary values. This
is a mixed integer programming problem with a combinatorial
solution, hence, the integer constraint is relaxed and solved via
dual decomposition. The dual variable updates are performed
using the Ellipsoid method with polynomial-time complexity
[8]. As discussed in [8], discontinuity in power allocation at
the obtained optimum dual point can occur. In this situation,
the RBG assignment found at the optimum dual point is used
and then power is allocated to satisfy the rate requirements.
Step-3: Cluster Rate and Power Constraint Check
This step performs a check on two constraints: 1) The
optimization performed at each hotspot is feasible. That is each
cluster has satised the rate requirement of each of its nodes
based on the maximum allowed transmission powers T
n
j
. 2)
The transmission power of each node is less than the FCC
mandated transmission power on TVWS channels. If either
constraint is not met, all the nodes need to be reclustered.
In order to recluster the nodes with the hope of the new
clusters satisfying their constraints, the problematic clusters
have to reduce the number of their slaves. This is performed
by reducing the weights w
ij
of the i j links that need too
much power, in the clustering problem (4). The hotspots j
whose constraints are not met, select the slave i that requires
the highest transmission power and reduces its weight w
ij
. It
then noties the BS with its new decision. The BS, collects the
updated weights, and solves the clustering problem (4) again
by returning to step 1 of the algorithm.
Step-4: Resource Allocation Among Hotspots
When the constraints at all clusters are met, the BS allocates
its resources among the selected hotspots j H. The resource
allocation in this step is similar to step 3 resource allocation,
with a slight difference in the rate requirements.
minimize
P,X

jH
M

m=1

p
m
jj

(15)
subject to
M

m=1
x
m
jj
b log(1 +
p
m
jj
g
m
jj
x
m
jj
) R
j
+

iSj
R
i
, j H
(16)
p
m
jj
Z
m
, m, j H (17)

jH
x
m
jj
1, m (18)
p
m
jj
0, m, j H (19)
x
m
jj
= {0, 1} m, j H, (20)
Constraint (16) denotes that the rate hotspot j obtains has to
be greater than the sum of it own rate requirement and its
slaves rates. The parameter Z
m
in constraint (17) indicates
the maximum power that can be transmitted on RBG m.
Step-5: BS Rate and Power Constraint Check
In this step the feasibility of the resource allocation per-
formed in step 4 is checked to make sure that all the hotspots
receive the required resources to satisfy their cluster rate
requirements. If the problem in step 4 is not feasible, that is,
there are not enough resources available, the BS reclusters the
nodes after updating the w
jj
values. The BS selects the hotspot
j

that requires the largest power and reduces its weight w

j

and returns to step 1.

Step 5 is performed for a predetermined maximum number
of iterations, and if this step is yet not completed successfully,
the node i

that requires the maximum amount of transmission

power will be removed from the system and the algorithm re-
initialized with w
ij
= 0, i, j = i

. Such situation indicates

that the total LTE and TVWS resources are not sufcient to
satisfy the requirements of all nodes and hence some nodes
need to be dismissed.
50 0 50
50
0
50
BS
1
h
2
h
3
4
5
6
h
7
8
9
h
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
h
22
23 24
h
meters
m
e
t
e
r
s
clustering # 1
(a) Iteration 1
50 0 50
50
0
50
BS
1
h
2
h
3
4
5
6
h
7
8
9
h
10
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h
22
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h 24
h
meters
m
e
t
e
r
s
clustering # 2
(b) Iteration 2
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718192021222324
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
node #
t
r
a
n
s
m
i
s
s
i
o
n

p
o
w
e
r

(
m
W
)


DM: LTE
RM: modeII
(c) Per node power comparison
Fig. 4: Iterative clustering example
V. SIMULATION RESULTS
A. Simulation Setup
In this paper, a dense wireless area is modeled as a 100100
meter square area packed with tens of mobile users. Assume
the LTE BS operates on the 895 - 915MHz band in uplink
mode. The BS can be a xed or portable mode-II TVWS
device that obtains a list of available channels from the TVWS
database. The mobile users are portable mode-I or mode-II
devices. Mode-I devices can obtain the list of available TVWS
channels from mode-II or xed devices, while mode-II devices
obtain the list by directly connecting to the database [9].
Consider a similar environment as in downtown San Fran-
cisco, where the BS can operate on channel 26 (frequency
bands 542 - 548MHz), while in some regions, channels 22
and 24 (frequency bands 518 - 524MHz, and 530 - 536, resp.)
are also available for mode-II devices. The FCC mandated
maximum transmission power for mode-II devices on each
of these channels is 40 mW. For simulation purposes, it is
assumed that TVWS channel 26 is available everywhere within
the 100 100 area while channels 22 and 24 are available
everywhere but the upper right corner of the simulated area,
similar to the shaded region in gure 4a.
In such distribution of TVWS, different mode-II devices can
operate on different channels. For example, node 2 in gure 4
can operate only on channel 26 and node 4 can operate on three
channels 22, 24 and 26. Mode-I devices that obtain the list of
TVWS channels from the BS, can only operate on channel
26, independent of their location. Furthermore, the simplied
pathloss model [10] with pathloss exponent 5 is assumed
between the transmitters and receivers. The proportionality
factor in equation (8) that determines the maximum allowed
interference in terms of the noise power is set to 0.5.
B. Results and Discussion
In order to illustrate the ow of the proposed algorithm,
consider 24 mode-II devices uniformly distributed in a 100m
100m square area with the BS at the center. Nodes in the
upper right corner can use one TVWS channel, while the rest
of the nodes can use three. All users are required to transmit
at a minimum rate of 2.16Mbps to the BS (uplink). Figure
4a shows the result of the clustering step (step-1). During the
resource allocation step (step-2), it is found that the lower
cluster with node 24 as its hotspot cannot satisfy the per user
constraints. If the rates of all users are met, slave 23 will create
too much interference on its neighboring hotspot 6.
Out of each problematic cluster, the weight of the link con-
necting the slave creating highest interference to its hotspot,
i.e., 23 24 link (w
23,24
) is reduced by a factor of 0.5. The
other weights remain the same, and the BS reclusters the nodes
according to the updated weights. In the second clustering,
gure 4b, node 23 is congured as a hotspot taking node 7 as
its slave. With this conguration, step 3 constraint checks are
passed successfully and step 4, resource allocation among the
hotspots is performed. Step 5 checks are passed, as well.
Transmission power in the proposed relay mode (RM) is
compared with direct mode (DM) where all nodes directly
transmit to the BS. In DM, the BS performs resource allocation
in an OFDMA-like manner over LTE bands, similar to step-
4 of the proposed algorithm. The total transmission power
required to satisfy the minimum rate requirements in DM is
equal to 132.3mW. In RM, the total transmission power from
slaves to hotspots on TVWS channels is equal to 0.763mW
and the total transmission power from the hotspots to the
BS on LTE bands is equal to 10.9mW. The resulting RM
total transmission power of 11.6mW shows a factor of 11.41
reduction in transmission power compared to DM.
Figure 4c compares each nodes required transmission
power in RM with DM. The hotspots are marked with a
square. This gure shows that all slaves required transmission
powers are signicantly lower in RM compared to DM and the
hotspots transmission powers are generally lower in RM. The
reason for a hotspot requiring higher transmission power in
RM is that it needs to transmit at a signicantly higher rate (the
addition of the sum of the rates of its slaves) and the number of
resources allocated to it might not be sufcient. For example,
hotspot number 2 has a single TVWS channel available as
opposed to all other hotspots and requires larger transmission
power. On the other hand, even though a hotspot transmits at a
higher rate in RM, it might require lower transmission power,
because a signicant number of RBGs might be allocated
to it. In DM, the OFDMA-like resource allocation algorithm,
allocates the better RBGs to the worst users (generally nodes
that are further away). However, in RM, the more distant nodes
acting as slaves operate on TVWS and hence the better LTE
RBGs are now allocated to the closer nodes or hotspots.
For a more general comparison, 4 different approaches in-
cluding 2 DM and 2 RM performances are compared: DM over
1) LTE bands (DM: LTE), 2) DM over both LTE and TVWS
bands (DM: LTE + TVWS); RM where all mobile devices are
of type 3) mode-I (RM: mode-I), and 4) mode-II (RM: mode-
II). In RM: mode-I, all devices can communicate with each
other over TVWS channel 26, while in RM: mode-II some
devices can operate on channels 22, 24 and 26. All results
have been obtained by averaging the transmit power values
over twenty randomly generated node congurations.
Keeping the amount of resources xed and increasing the
number of users from 10 30, gure 5 shows how the power
savings in the proposed conguration varies. Consider the 25
user scenario in gure 5. If all users have mode-II devices, by
employing the distributed clustering and resource allocation
algorithm a factor of 5.6 power savings can be gained com-
pared to the conventional direct user-to-BS connection over
LTE bands. Even if the BS employs TVWS bands in addition
to LTE bands, there is a 3.4 power savings factor with the
proposed RM: mode-II. If all the users have mode-I devices
and use the BS to obtain the list of available TVWS, the
clustering and resource allocation algorithm can be performed
at the BS, which reduces the signaling overhead corresponding
to the re-clustering iterations. However, in this case, the extra
TVWS channels that are not identied at the BS cannot be
utilized. There is a factor of 1.7 power savings gain when using
the distributed algorithm (mode-II) compared to centralized
(mode-I) in expense of extra signaling overhead.
Figure 5 also shows the increase in the number of users
when using the proposed hotspot-slave conguration. With a
total network transmission power of 92mW, and each user rate
requirement of 2.16Mbps, using the proposed RM: mode-II
algorithm, 30 users can be supported, while the conventional
DM: LTE network can only support 10 users. This is 2.3
times increase in the number of users admitted to the network.
Figure 6 shows how the total network transmission power
increases with increasing user rate demands. In this simulation,
24 nodes are uniformly distributed in the region discussed
before and the rate requirement of each user is increased
from 0.36 3.6Mbps. Results show that with a total network
transmission power of about 248mW, in DM: LTE, each
user can obtain a rate of 2.16Mbps, while in RM: mode-II,
each user can obtain 3.5Mbps, which is a 60% rate increase
for each user. With the same amount of network transmission
power, the DM: LTE + TVWS users can obtain a rate of
2.5Mbps and the RM: mode-I users can obtain a rate of
3.1Mbps. At the expense of signaling overhead, the mode-II
devices can obtain a 16% increase in rate compared to mode-I.
As the users rate requirements increase, each nodes trans-
mission power increases, and hence the interference between
clusters increases. To reduce the interference, the proposed al-
gorithm reduces the number of slaves per cluster and increases
the number of hotspots. This reconguration of clusters, de-
mands more re-clustering iterations. For example, the average
number of iterations in RM: mode-II increases from 1.2 to
4.8 as the rate requirement increases from 0.36 3.6Mpbs.
10 15 20 25 30
0
100
200
300
400
500
number of users
t
o
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a
l

n
e
t
w
o
r
k

t
r
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s
m
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t

p
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(
m
W
)


DM: LTE
DM: LTE + TVWS
RM: modeI
RM: modeII
Fig. 5: Network power vs number of users with 2.16Mbps demand
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
2000
per user rate demand (Mbps)
t
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k

t
r
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s
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p
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(
m
W
)


DM: LTE
DM: LTE + TVWS
RM: modeI
RM: modeII
Fig. 6: Network power vs each user rate demand (24 users)
VI. SUMMARY
Because of the large signaling overhead and the limited
spectral resources, a single BS cannot accommodate simul-
taneously large number of nodes. This paper proposes a
hotspot-slave conguration of nodes that allows more efcient
distribution of resources among users in dense areas. The
proposed algorithm congures the nodes into hotspots and
slaves and allocates LTE and TVWS resources with the
objective of minimizing total network transmission power.
Simulation results show that the total number of supported
users can signicantly increase in the proposed hotspot-slave
mode compared to conventional direct mode communication.
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