State-of-the-Art Business Performance Evaluation of the Advanced Wireless Heterogeneous Networks to be Deployed for the “TERA Age”

Abstract

This article originally presents a conceptual model to assess the business performance of the future advanced wireless and mobile heterogeneous network aiming to preserve enormous broadband demand of the so called "TERA age" in which a monthly usage will be expressed in terabytes and average data rates of 1.0 Gbps per single user. During the assessment from techno-economic perspective, in addition to the level of the user demand, we also take into account the wall penetration losses, density of existing/new base station sites and the recent improvements in cost of the hierarchical cell structures. We consider a spectral efficiency relevant for the forthcoming advanced radio access technologies like: 4G LTE-Advanced or LTE-A (Long Term Evolution Release 10 and beyond), 5G cellular systems deployed in the millimeter-wave (mmW) bands and high-capacity wireless local area network (WLAN) standards like IEEE 802.11ac/ad. In order to compare the achievable profit margins of various network architectures, through extensive network dimensioning for the dense-urban environment and considering the total network cost in present value, we determine the cost-efficient capacity expansion strategies for the mobile network operators by means of proper relation of the production cost per transferred data to the revenues. The findings show that the future micro base stations equipped with 5G mmW radio access technology and WLAN equipped with IEEE 802.11ac access points, can be a guarantee for the business sustainability of outdoor operations. For the highly demanding office environments the most cost-efficient solutions are the pico 5G mmW systems placed inside the buildings together with the IEEE 802.11ad enabled access points. The infrastructure cost is most elastic to a decrease of the unit cost per macro and micro base stations from one side and the capacity and coverage increase of the 5G and WLAN systems form other side. In the cases of the capacity over-provisioning, we determine the principles to provide guaranteed quality of service in terms of data rates to particular number of users.