The civil works for cell site construction and the rent for the cell site would more than likely increase (not necessarily by the factor of 9, but still a significant increment), which will significantly increase both deployment and operation costs of radio access network already consuming significant investment. This means that roughly 9 cells of 20GHz will be needed to replace a cell of 3.5GHz if same coverage is to be provided. A cell using 20GHz is expected to have only a third of the radius of coverage compared to a cell using 3.5Ghz. However, the following can provide an illustrative example of the potential cost increase in the 5G era. It is true that deployment of 5G sites may be different from sites of legacy cellular networks (e.g., 5G sites may be in the form of indoor small cells rather than grand towers/masts) and that not as much cost may be required to deploy 5G sites than to deploy legacy sites. This means that cell offers smaller radius of coverage and so achieving widespread coverage may be challenging. To meet mobile broadband demand, 5G is likely to be offered on higher frequency radio spectrum above 6GHz. Radio access networks already comprise the largest portion of the cost in network deployment and operation. 1.2.2 Cost of 5G Deployments to meet throughput demandĥG networks are expected to incur a higher cost of deployment to meet throughput requirement and demand. In this context, it would be more rational for operators to share in-building infrastructure or at least the transmission lines to share the burden while achieving reasonable coverage. Even if the operators are successful in securing and deploying base stations in proximity of an optimal site, each operator will have to invest in the civil works of antenna and transmission lines. Secondly, having more than one mobile operators further complicate the problem because the mobile operators will have to compete for a few sites. This means that there is only so much space where indoor base stations can be installed, where only a few choices will be available considering the coverage demand to be satisfied. Firstly, the space within buildings are usually confined and reasons of aesthetics/civil works limit the choice even further. Network densification to address coverage demands in indoor environments has led to increasing difficulties in acquiring sites for radio access network (namely, base stations). 1.2 Why Infrastructure Sharing? 1.2.1 Difficulties in acquiring sites for access network While subscribers do not perceive directly the composition/configuration of the infrastructure, the performance (e.g., throughput and latency) of the whole mobile network infrastructure determines the user experience and therefore the network infrastructure has been one of the key assets for mobile operators. The definition of network infrastructure is not only limited to electronic components but also includes passive elements such as physical sites and towers that are required to operate the network. Mobile network operators provide connectivity and communications service over deployed network infrastructure (whether owned or leased). Introduction to Infrastructure Sharing 1.1 What is Infrastructure?
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