Radio Access Network Infrastructure as an Investment

The cost of building and maintaining the network infrastructure is expensive. Commercial organizations, telecom operators, invest in construction, provide paid services to consumers, offset costs and make a profit.

The feasibility of costs is determined by:
  • The cost of the loan. It cannot be zero - even if the organization uses its own funds, they can be loaned and profitable;
  • Sales forecast. Depends on the number of potential customers;
  • Risks Associated with competition.

As a result, we are witnessing a battle for air and buildings in large cities, in the fields and forests there are base stations of large operators, regulators are thinking about eliminating the digital divide.

Wealthy consumers have the opportunity to build their own infrastructure - put Wi-Fi access points and connect them to the local network, there is the opportunity to purchase low-power base stations operating in licensed ranges from mobile operators. The quality of mobile communications will be better; This is beneficial for the operator, as the consumer invests his funds in the construction of the network infrastructure.

Many operators collaborate in the construction of base stations - they share the costs of building a tower and place their base stations nearby. Technically, there is no problem using one base station to connect subscribers of different networks - in this case, the costs are even less. There are virtual mobile operators - they rent radio access channels from partners and provide services to their subscribers.

The lease is essentially two-way. If there is a tenant, then there is a landlord. Such a lessor does not have to be an operator and serve its own subscribers - it is enough to build your own radio access network and you can lease it to other operators. In this case, the lessor is the owner of the equipment, one or more operators rent this equipment and provide their services to subscribers. If the license for the frequency range belongs to the tenant, he rents only equipment and decides which subscribers will use the channels at its frequencies. If a large landlord has acquired its own license for the frequency range, it can donate not just equipment, but channels on its frequencies to several operators at once based on their own commercial interests. To operators

Technically, there are no problems with one antenna serving several licensed ranges, there are nuances associated with the geometry of the antennas and the propagation of radio waves, but in the general case we can definitely say: the total cost of installing one base station to service all licensed and unlicensed frequencies will be cheaper than installing individual competing base stations or even individual towers.

From an engineering point of view, there is a need to reduce the power of individual base stations and increase their number. This is mentioned in the 3gpp project docs, the developer of fourth generation 4G LTE networks. This is simple to explain - if there are a small number of clients, say, several hundred on a unit of area, say a square kilometer, then one powerful base station is enough for each client to have direct visibility to the antenna of the base station. As the number of clients increases, the likelihood of conflict increases when one client blocks another line of sight to the base station antenna. By increasing the power of the transmitters of the clients or the base station, this problem is not solved - it is associated with geometry and statistics.

As a result, we take forecasts for an increase in devices on the Internet - the number of devices will be much larger than the world's population - due to robots, sensors and other undead IoT. On this basis, we conclude that we will need a huge number of low-power base stations. Outwardly, they will be similar to modern Wi-Fi access points. From the point of view of the cost of mass production, it will be advantageous to place a switch, a router, low-power 4G and Wi-Fi radio channels on one chip and connect an antenna corresponding to the geometry range to each channel. A complex directional antenna is not required. The evolution of the base station can be safely compared with the evolution of a personal computer, which is interestingly described in the Halt and Catch Fire series .

As a result, one can imagine a situation when organizations of any size and even individuals can engage in the development of network infrastructure. Technically, there is no problem combining the laying of fiber optic lines with the laying of life-support communications, such as electricity, water, gas supply. The cost of buying base stations can be compared with the cost of lighting the premises - a beautiful chandelier is today more expensive than an access point. Sales of services of such a network are guaranteed, and risks are eliminated, since it is advantageous to connect each access point to all operators at once. After all, even a neighbor comes to visit a hermit farmer, and in this case, his operator rents a radio access channel from the owner of the base station to connect his subscriber’s phone to his network.

Google already said its fi, the next move for equipment manufacturers. I imagine startup, where today a small development team can integrate several Atheros crystals or their competitors on one PCB, develop software, show a prototype to investors, the first round of financing will take place. Then, experienced sales specialists will negotiate with operators and offer the finished product to consumers - municipalities, developers, private individuals.

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