Initial access coexistence with dedicated frequency range 1 spectrum less than 5 megahertz via cell search pruning

A method of a radio access network (RAN), comprising:

• formulating a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) of a synchronization signal (SS)/physical broadcast channel (PBCH) block (SSB) to identify that a channel corresponding to the SSB has a bandwidth that is less than 5 megahertz (MHz);
• identifying a raster point of a frequency raster used for identifying channels having channel bandwidths of less than 5 MHz;
• and
• transmitting the SSB at the raster point.

An apparatus of a user equipment (UE), comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, configure the UE to:
• receive a synchronization signal (SS)/physical broadcast channel (PBCH) block (SSB) at a raster point of a frequency raster used for identifying channels having channel bandwidths of less than 5 megahertz (MHz);
• identify that a channel corresponding to the SSB has a bandwidth that is less than 5 MHz based on a formulation of a PBCH of the SSB;
• and
• use, based on the SSB, the channel to synchronize to a cell.