  This paper proposes a novel mechanism to enforce contention-free channel
access in the unlicensed spectrum, as opposed to the traditional
contention-based approach. To achieve this objective, we build on the Wi-Fi~7
multi-link operation (MLO) and define the means whereby independent channel
access attempts are performed in all the addressable links to ensure one
available channel/link is ready for transmission at all times, such that a
sequence of continuous acquired channels can be maintained. We call this method
continuous multi-link operation (ConMLO). In this work, we aim to verify the
applicability of ConMLO, its ability to retain spectrum resources for a given
duration of time, and its fairness with respect existing approaches, namely
legacy single-link operation (SLO) and MLO. To this end, we use realistic data
traffic measurements acquired in a crowded football stadium as an exemplary
case of challenging spectrum occupation. Our results show that the proposed
ConMLO can effectively guarantee continuous channel acquisition under different
occupancy scenarios without compromising fairness of channel access compared to
existing legacy modes.
