Ashraf Awadelkarim Widaa Ahmed

Device-to-device communications and small cells: enabling spectrum reuse for dense networks

In the evolution of communication networks, there has always been a need to increase the capacity to cope with the continuous growing demand for data transmission. However, with the arrival of the Internet-of-Things and the commoditization of broadband access through smartphones, tablets, smart-watches, and all types of connecting devices, future networks must be capable of providing higher bandwidth and Quality of Experience, as wellas operating in dense networks with a massive number of simultaneous connections. This high number of connections will be very heterogeneous, spanning from highly-demanding data rate applications to low-complexity and high energy-efficient Machine-to-Machine communications. In such a dense and complex scenario, a more flexible use of spectrum resources is deemed to be the way to meet the growing requirements for data transmission. In particular, this article focuses on Device-to-Device communications and small cell deployments as emerging facilitators of such a demanding and heterogeneous scenario. The pros and cons of both complementary strategies are identified from both a technical and a business point of view, and main standardization activities are discussed. The aim of this article is to identify and describe open challenges and to inspire new areas for research that make viable the next generation of dense networks.

Interplay between cost, capacity and power consumption in heterogeneous mobile networks

Mobile operators nowadays tend to deploy dense heterogeneous layers of 3G and 4G networks in outdoor and indoor environments by adding more macrocells and small cells (e.g. microcells, picocells and femtocells) in response to the increasing demand for coverage and capacity. Another main driver and enabler behind this tendency is the phenomenon that around 80% of power consumption in mobile communication networks stems from the radio base stations. This situation makes mobile operators opt for the use of low-power radio base stations to provide better coverage, capacity and an environmentally-friendly operation. In this paper the interplay between the deployment costs, targeted QoS and power consumptions have been studied considering two deployment options for the provisioning of the required mobile broadband coverage and capacity; namely the heterogeneous network (HetNet) option versus the homogenous macrocell deployment option. The main findings indicate that, the perceived saving in the total cost of ownership (TCO) resulting from offloading percentage of network traffic to indoor smallcell, in the case of HetNet, is bounded by the mobile subscriber density per area, their usage patterns, the adopted backhaul solution and the used spectrum resources. In general, a quite paying cost and power saving can be achieved by the heterogonous deployment solution for scenarios with high demand levels especially when there is a need to use the spectrum resources more efficiently.

Study on the effects of backhual solutions on indoor mobile deployment „macrocell vs. femtocell”

The deployment of low cost and low power base stations has been recognized in recent years as a promising cost-efficient solution and energy-efficient strategy. In this paper the femtocell and macrocell deployment options have been compared in the context of indoor mobile broadband deployment, with focus on the effect of different backhauling solutions in power consumption and the total deployment cost. This study has been based on the deployment of mobile broadband services within an area of one square kilometers in a new densely populated business district where the different user demands, spectrum bandwidths, backhaul technologies and radio access technologies are taken into account. Moreover, various deployment scenarios reflecting the business perspectives of mobile operators have been looked into as well. The main findings reached indicate that backhaul solutions contribute differently to cost and power consumption depending on the employed deployment strategy. However, contributions to the total power consumption and to the CapEx and OpEx elements of the total deployment cost elements turned to be more significant in the case of femtocell deployment scenarios than in the case of macrocell ones. It is worthy of notice that the femtocell deployment is more cost-efficient, especially in high demand situation when new macro sites are needed to be deployed.

Evaluation of spectrum access options for indoor mobile network deployment

The investments in indoor mobile networks are highly related to the spectrum availability and its associated authorization options. The aim of this paper is to discuss the differences in the spectrum demand taking into consideration both wide and local area network deployment requirements and the kind of actor that provides the indoor wireless access. The analysis covers different authorizations options namely licensed, unlicensed, licensed shared access (LSA) and secondary access. A quantitative approach is used to analyze the differences between macrocell and femtocell deployments focusing on deployment cost and spectrum demand. This is complemented by a qualitative study to explore and discuss the strategic business decisions of different actors in view of the available spectrum bands and spectrum authorization options. The main conclusions from this study are; spectrum has more value in macrocell deployment scenarios than in femtocell ones. More spectrum in macrocell deployment scenarios means that operators can deploy less number of new sites and exploit previous infrastructure investments. Femtocell networks are often coverage limited which allows for frequency re-use. As a consequence, the value of spectrum is not the same for mobile network operators (MNOs) and for local network operator (LNOs). MNOs are traditionally confined to macrocell deployment strategies which entail the exclusive usage of licensed bands. While, the use of licensed spectrum by LNOs may incur more cost than the cost of infrastructure deployment. This explains why the use of unlicensed bands is lucrative and viable for LNOs. Furthermore, the LSA scheme may or could soon become an enabler for LNOs business due to the prevailing technical, regulation and policies developments.

Impact of the flexible spectrum aggregation schemes on the cost of future mobile network

Nowadays the spectrum regulations landscape is changing towards more flexible spectrum management schemes, such trends are expected to make additional spectrum resources available and lowers the spectrum access hurdles. In this paper, different spectrum aggregation scenarios have been compared focusing on the tradeoff between the total cost of ownership and the targeted QoS under different market conditions. The main finding in this study thereof indicates that the addition of more spectrum resources will lead to an overall reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) as long as the spectrum price remains small compared to the cost of the network infrastructure. Moreover, schemes such as LSA and secondary access will enable operators who have insufficient licensed spectrum resource to expand their mobile network infrastructure especially in hotspots with high subscribers demand in a cost-effective way. In this regard, the harmonization of spectrum use for LSA and TVWS across multiple countries stands as a key requirement for the reduction of the production cost of equipment and hence, the creation of an economy of scale considering both of the network equipment (i.e. radio base station) and end-subscriber devices.

On the engineering value of spectrum in dense mobile network deployment scenarios

The continuing growth in the mobile data traffic magnifies the challenges for the design and deployment of scalable high-capacity mobile networks that can meet the future demand at reasonable cost levels. In order to meet the future traffic demand, an operator should invest on both infrastructure, i.e. densification of base stations, and more radio spectrum. Knowing the effectiveness of each element is thus of utmost importance for minimizing the investment cost. In this paper, we study the economic substitutability between spectrum and densification. For this, we measure the engineering value of spectrum, which refers to the potential saving in the total cost of ownership (TCO) as result of acquiring additional spectrum resources. Two countries are considered to represent different market situations: India with dense population and high spectrum price and Sweden with moderate population density and low spectrum fee. Numerical results indicate that additional amount of spectrum substantially relieves the need for densifying radio base stations, particularly for providing high user data rate in dense India. Nonetheless, the engineering value of spectrum is low in India (i.e. spectrum acquisition has less cost benefit) under the high spectrum price of today, whereas spectrum is instrumental in lowering the total cost of ownership in Sweden. Our finding highlights the importance of affordable and sufficient spectrum resources for future mobile broadband provisioning.