Michail Katsigiannis

Demand Curves and Operator Strategies in the Finnish Mobile Broadband Market

Finland, among the first to adopt mobile broadband services, faces rapid growth of mobile data traffic. Therefore, Finnish mobile operators continually invest in their radio access networks to handle this growth, which represents an attractive revenue source. This study presents a demand curve estimate for mobile broadband data traffic, which takes into account the impact of technology evolution on network coverage and capacity. Based on the demand curve and the market equilibrium, this study proposes two strategies for mobile operators: i) reducing the marginal cost of traffic, and ii) changing the pricing structure. Assuming that mobile operators are price-takers (perfect competition), the findings of this study indicate that a continuing reduction of marginal cost is imposed by market forces. However, this policy of cost reduction will inevitably reach its limits. Thus, this study proposes a change in pricing structure from flat-rate tariff to usage-based charging. Demand Curves and Operator Strategies in the Finnish Mobile Broadband Market

Energy and cost efficient radio access network deployments — Case Finland

Energy consumption of radio access networks is strongly related to the speed and volume of mobile broadband traffic. Finland aims to achieve two conflicting targets by 2015, the one of 100 Mbps user data rate provision to nearly all citizens and the other of the reduction of Information and Communications Technology industry carbon footprint. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the energy consumption and the deployment cost per mobile broadband subscription for several radio access networks deployment scenarios. Mobile operators can advance energy efficiency through (1) energy optimization of individual sites and (2) choice of energy efficient network deployment strategies. We model the power consumption on the site and network level, the mobile data traffic evolution, the average site traffic load factor, the demand-supply mismatch and the deployment cost per subscription. Then, we examine if the wide area access network evolution will be sufficient to meet the traffic demand in an energy and cost efficient way and whether the wide-to-local area offloading will happen. The results show reduction of annual energy consumption, assumed that only new sites are installed in mobile networks. However, only the scenario with fewer cellular sites operating at a lower frequency band and the scenario, in which the wide area network serves only outdoor subscriptions, keep the cost per subscription low. The last scenario enables the wide-to-local area offloading which is likely to happen in urban areas.

Mobile Network Offloading: Deployment and Energy Aspects

The mobile data traffic growth and the high fraction of indoor-generated traffic push mobile operators to devise new deployment strategies such as mobile network offloading. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the energy consumption and the deployment cost, based on the demanded traffic level, for a joint macro-femtocell network which enables mobile network offloading in Helsinki Metropolitan Area by 2015. This deployment is compared to an optimized only macro cellular network. The study tries to resolve under what conditions, in terms of demanded traffic, deployment cost and energy consumption, a mobile operator should deploy femtocells. Assuming that only the new network infrastructure is installed by 2015, the results show that wide-to-local area offloading is beneficial for a mobile operator to handle the mobile data traffic growth, reduce the deployment costs and the energy consumption of the radio access network.