Techno‐economic analysis of inflight connectivity using an integrated satellite‐5G network

Abstract

Summary The demand for mobile broadband services is increasing exponentially alongside with user expectations regarding the reachability of these services and their prices. This paper presents an integrated satellite and fifth generation (5G) network for providing inflight connectivity and evaluates the economic viability of offering broadband connectivity to passengers on commercial airplanes by the development of a techno‐economic framework, which considers both capital and operational expenditures to compute the total cost of ownership (TCO) and an average cost per user and per Megabyte. Results show high operational costs mainly due to satellite bandwidth usage. Therefore, caching popular content on the network onboard is beneficial to reduce the traffic carried over the satellite link, thus lowering the operational costs as well. Furthermore, the framework is used to compare the identified business models for Inflight Entertainment and Connectivity offerings and their pricing strategies, alongside a benchmark against the current inflight connectivity pricing. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is elaborated in order to mitigate the uncertainty of inputs (e.g., rate of caching) used to feed the TCO model. Following concrete recommendations are the main result of this research: (1) Providing inflight broadband services with a 2–5 Mbps throughput per user is feasible if satellite communications is integrated into the 5G network. (2) Caching popular data reduces the operational costs and hence the average cost per user (from 25% to 32% depending on the caching rate adopted). (3) This framework allows to provide recommendations on the best suited business models and related pricing schemes.

Surveying 5G Techno-Economic Research to Inform the Evaluation of 6G Wireless Technologies

“…For example, using a techno-economic model of 5G transport networks the sensitivity of the TCO is explored in relation to energy prices, antenna prices, leasing prices and the quantity of available reusable civil infrastructure [130], [150]. It is also common to include sensitivity analysis of the key radio engineering parameters, such as for (i) propagation losses resulting from shadowing and wall penetration [136], or (ii) the ability for 5G networks to cache content to reduce traffic demand [151]. Some studies have included sensitivity analysis of key parameters affecting the deployment of 5G, such as the total spectrum cost [15].…”