Techno‐economic model of fibre‐to‐the‐home as 5G fronthaul: evaluation of capital expenditures

Abstract

Fibre optics is the best solution for the deployment of 5G fronthaul, but it is expensive and time-consuming. The use of a common fibre access network for fixed and mobile services results in cost reduction, quality of experience improvement, and synergy and convergence of the resources. Accordingly, in this study, a practical dual-purpose techno-economic model (FTTx + 5G) was introduced to evaluate its Capital Expenditures (CAPEX). Some technical, financial, and geographical data were also used for computation and comparing the costs in different situations by the integer linear programming method. Nomenclature Notation P e unit price of e P λ unit price of λ on WDM link for B λ preparation B λ prepared bandwidth by λ P Tre cost of a meter trenching and fibre cabling O e output bandwidth capacity of e e i equal to '1' if e type is available at the point i q e i quantity of e at the point i G i j equal to '1' if i and j path exists in a network graph F i j equal to '1' if the fibre is available between i and j l i j length of the selected route (m) between i and j q λ i j quantity of the prepared λ between i and j k e protection coefficient, '2' for mobile and '1' for the fixed network

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

“…For example, one of the best financial cost metrics to use is the TCO which represents the combination of both capital and operational expenditure, over a specific time-period best related to asset lifetime (or in cellular, a generational upgrade which generally happens on a decadal basis). Unfortunately, not all studies actually include Opex, instead focusing on purely Capex [129], [153], [155]- [158]. Not only does such an approach produce only a single part of the picture, which could lead to inefficient decision making, but this problem is exacerbated by the general shift in cost structures in 5G to 'Anything-as-a-Service', such as 'Network-as-a-Service'.…”