Indoor environments present a significant challenge for wireless connectivity. Public
Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), utilizing outdoor macro base stations (BSs), suffer from poor
signal penetration. Indoor Wi-Fi networks, on the other hand, may face reliability issues due to
spectrum contention over unlicensed bands. Shared spectrum models, particularly the Citizens
Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) utilized by private 4G/5G networks, have emerged as a
promising alternative to providing reliable indoor service, using the neutral-host model. This talk will
present results from extensive real-world measurements in multiple environments that demonstrate
the efficiency gains from neutral-host models deployed in the CBRS band. We will also discuss
recent spectrum policy directions where there is a growing appreciation of treating indoor spaces
differently from outdoors, especially when spectrum sharing is under consideration. This raises a
classification problem: can devices self-identify their level of "RF Containment" and use spectrum
accordingly? Recent results on indoor/outdoor classification using signals of opportunity (cellular,
Wi-Fi and GNSS) will be presented.
is also the Policy Outreach Director for SpectrumX, the first NSF Center for Spectrum Innovation
and the co-chair of the FCC’s Technological Advisory Council (TAC) Working Group on Advanced
Spectrum Sharing. Her research interests are in the development of next generation wireless
systems, with an emphasis on spectrum sharing and coexistence, and leveraging insights from
extensive measurements of real-world network deployments, both cellular and Wi-Fi. Prior to joining
the University of Notre Dame in 2022, she was the Chief Technology Officer at the Federal
Communications Commission, a Program Director at the National Science Foundation, Research
Professor at the University of Chicago and spent 24 years in industry research at Bell Labs, Philips
Research and Interdigital working on a wide variety of wireless systems: HDTV, Wi-Fi, TV White
Spaces and cellular. She obtained her BTech from IIT Kharagpur in 1986 and PhD from USC in
1991. She is a Fellow of the IEEE.