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However, our study shows that the utilization of the highly attractive 6 GHz bands can be significantly enhanced by exploring additional spectrum access opportunities, which remain unrealized in the existing channel contention mechanisms. We propose a novel two\u2010stage channel contention mechanism for the coexistence of Wi\u2010Fi 6 and 5G NR\u2010U in the 6 GHz bands to explore these missed spectrum access opportunities. We formulate the probability of interference to ongoing transmissions and utilize this probability to enhance the utilization of radio resources by allowing simultaneous transmissions on a channel. We incorporate cross\u2010technology communication (CTC) to compute this probability and formulate an optimization problem to derive the optimal CTC information required for the computation. Extensive simulation results show that the proposed framework significantly outperforms legacy channel contention mechanisms in terms of spectrum utilization while ensuring the ongoing transmissions\u00a0unharmed.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1049\/cmu2.70125","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,16]],"date-time":"2026-01-16T20:39:46Z","timestamp":1768595986000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1002\/crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Exploring Missed Spectrum Access Opportunities in Wi\u2010Fi 6 and 5G NR\u2010U Coexistence for Enhancing 6 GHz Spectrum Utilization"],"prefix":"10.1049","volume":"20","author":[{"given":"Md Toufiqur","family":"Rahman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Electrical and Computer Engineering University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte North Carolina USA"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0683-4308","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jiang","family":"Xie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Electrical and Computer Engineering University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte North Carolina USA"}]},{"given":"Xingya","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Computer Science Lamar University Beaumont Texas USA"}]}],"member":"265","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,16]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_13_2_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"L.Baldesi F.Restuccia andT.Melodia \u201cChARM: NextG Spectrum Sharing Through Data\u2010Driven Real\u2010Time O\u2010RAN Dynamic Control \u201dinProceedings of IEEE INFOCOM(IEEE 2022) 240\u2013249.","DOI":"10.1109\/INFOCOM48880.2022.9796985"},{"key":"e_1_2_13_3_1","unstructured":"FCC FCC Opens 6 GHz Band to Wi\u2010Fi and Other Unlicensed Uses(The Federal Communications Commission 2020)."},{"key":"e_1_2_13_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2020.3016036"},{"key":"e_1_2_13_5_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"G.NaikandJ.\u2010M. 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