  Future cellular networks are expected to support new communication paradigms
such as machine-type communication (MTC) services along with human-type
communication (HTC) services. This requires base stations to serve a large
number of devices in relatively short channel coherence intervals which renders
allocation of orthogonal pilot sequence per-device approaches impractical.
Furthermore, the stringent power constraints, place-and-play type connectivity
and various data rate requirements of MTC devices make it impossible for the
traditional cellular architecture to accommodate MTC and HTC services together.
Massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MaMIMO) technology has the potential to
allow the coexistence of HTC and MTC services, thanks to its inherent spatial
multiplexing properties and low transmission power requirements. In this work,
we investigate the performance of a single cell under a shared physical channel
assumption for MTC and HTC services and propose a novel scheme for sharing the
time-frequency resources. The analysis reveals that MaMIMO can significantly
enhance the performance of such a setup and allow the inclusion of MTC services
into the cellular networks without requiring additional resources.
