A business case for 5G mobile broadband in a dense urban area

Abstract

5G networks are envisioned to provide consumers and industry with improved transmission performance and advanced communication possibilities. To deliver on this promise of ushering in faster downloads and lower latency, mobile network operators are called upon for substantial investment in network infrastructure. Investors and operators need a clear 5G business case before making such investment. So far, very little research has been published on the topic of the 5G business case. This article studies the impact of different elements driving the business case of a 5G network. The study was performed within 3 boroughs of central London, UK, for the period 2020-2030. 5G-related costs and revenues were calculated to derive the business case. The results show that the business case for a 5G network providing mobile broadband services alone is positive over the time period 2020-2030 but has some risk in the later years of this time period. The business case is also particularly sensitive to assumptions on the revenue uplift and the rate of traffic growth which are inherently challenging to forecast. The sensitivity analysis shows that the return on investment becomes negative if both traffic and costs are significantly higher and revenues increase more slowly than our baseline forecasts. Network sharing helps to substantially improve the business case. Further research is needed to understand the business case on a regional or nationwide basis, and for a network that provides additional services beyond broadband.

The importance of spatio-temporal infrastructure assessment: Evidence for 5G from the Oxford–Cambridge Arc

“…The widely-used Cisco traffic forecast expects mobile traffic to continue to grow significantly over coming years, with mobile data traffic in the UK expected to grow at 38.5% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), from 2017 to 2022 (Cisco, 2017). The Cisco estimates are commonly used in the literature (Rendon Schneir et al, 2019), hence a set of data demand forecasts are created for Low, Baseline and High scenarios. One of the largest unknown factors is the adoption of unlimited data plans which could have a substantial impact on future data growth.…”

“…However, as data consumption has grown exponentially year-on-year since the Apple iPhone release in 2007, driven mainly by increased video consumption, mobile networks have struggled to keep up with demand. Consequently, the fifth generation (5G) of cellular technology provides significant improvements which are particularly needed in capacity-constrained urban areas (Rendon Schneir et al, 2019). Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) around the world have begun to roll-out 5G infrastructure and are offering enhanced mobile broadband, although it will likely be years before most users are covered.…”

A Bibliometric Content Analysis for Understanding 5g Technology: Promise, Challenges and Future Road Map

“…[13], [14] which have been proposed for making 5G more secure and robust. Apart from all above technologies, there are other technologies such as software defined networking (SDN) and Network function virtualization (NFV) which are used for intelligent manufacturing concept [15], [16]. SDN can be used to reduce the operating cost and load of equipment and NFV uses the concept of centralization of hardware such as storage, servers, etc.…”

Real-Time Compression for Tactile Internet Data Streams

“…Although initially focused on the Internet of Things, which was dominantly driven by low frequency, low bandwidth sensing and monitoring, use cases have changed dramatically over the past decade. The increasing use of sensing, processing, and actuating control loops across sectors from agriculture over industry to leisure application scenarios has become ever increasing [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. More recently, this has resulted in the consideration of these control loops with human operators in the loop, coined as the Tactile Internet (TI) [ 7 , 8 ].…”