An Insight into Spectrum Occupancy in Nigeria

The rapid evolution in wireless communication which has led to the development of several standards has also brought about a perceived spectrum scarcity. Studies have shown that contrary to popular belief concerning spectrum scarcity, most of the allocated spectrum is heavily underutilized. This has led to several spectrum occupancy measurements mostly in the US, Europe and recently Asia to ascertain the utilization level of the allocated spectrum. These measurements will help in determining which bands will be suitable for the deployment of cognitive radio technology. In this paper, an indoor spectrum occupancy measurement conducted within the region of 700 MHz to 2.5 GHz in Abuja, Nigeria is presented. The results obtained indicate that large portion of the allocated spectrum is underutilized which could be considered for the deployment of cognitive radio paradigm in the near future.