A Sharing- and Competition-Aware Framework for Cellular Network Evolution Planning

Abstract

Abstract-Mobile network operators are facing the difficult task of significantly increasing capacity to meet projected demand while keeping CAPEX and OPEX down. We argue that infrastructure sharing is a key consideration in operators' planning of the evolution of their networks, and that such planning can be viewed as a stage in the cognitive cycle. In this paper, we present a framework to model this planning process while taking into account both the ability to share resources and the constraints imposed by competition regulation (the latter quantified using the Herfindahl index). Using real-world demand and deployment data, we find that the ability to share infrastructure essentially moves capacity from rural, sparsely populated areas (where some of the current infrastructure can be decommissioned) to urban ones (where most of the next-generation base stations would be deployed), with significant increases in resource efficiency. Tight competition regulation somewhat limits the ability to share but does not entirely jeopardize those gains, while having the secondary effect of encouraging the wider deployment of next-generation technologies.

Green Virtualization for Multiple Collaborative Cellular Operators

“…7b. The profit is directly linked to the fossil fuel consumption and the cost of energy paid by each operator as evident from (8), (9), (13), and (14). For fixed energy costs, increasing the green energy usage of Op1 increases its profit while reducing the profit of Op2.…”

“…In other words, each operator now virtually owns the combined set of BSs of all operators and can use their resources to serve its customers. This infrastructure sharing is henceforth referred to as collaboration since operators cognitively join hands to serve the collective users for mutual benefit [14]. Resource sharing and coalition formation for common interests is also used in other settings such as in the case of multiple cloud providers [15] and networks using device-to-device communications [16].…”

Understanding the present and future of cellular networks through crowdsourced traces

“…A similar problem is addressed in, e.g., [8] in the case where multiple operators share the network infrastructure. The goal of our study is fundamentally different from all these works: we aim not to optimize infrastructure deployment or sharing, but to develop a methodology to characterise real-world LTE networks and study their performance and potential compared to the present and future traffic demand.…”

Cooperative Infrastructure and Spectrum Sharing in Heterogeneous Mobile Networks

“…On mid-to-long term joint decision making in the context of cellular network planning, [31] introduces a competition-aware network sharing framework which offers a trade-off between the cost benefit of sharing and the incentive for investing in next-generation technologies. While we address a greenfielddeployment of small cell BSs, [31] assumes operators will pool together their existing macro-cell RAN networks and make joint decisions on future changes to their aggregated RAN such as decommissioning, upgrading or adding new sites.…”

“…While we address a greenfielddeployment of small cell BSs, [31] assumes operators will pool together their existing macro-cell RAN networks and make joint decisions on future changes to their aggregated RAN such as decommissioning, upgrading or adding new sites. Also in [32], a recent work by Kibilda et al, the shared network is created by pooling together the operators' individual network infrastructure and/or their respective licensed spectrum.…”