Jonathan Notes #1

Main reference: 5G-era Mobile Network Cost Evolution
Deadline: 9th March 2020

tags: ET6207701

Glossary

TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) = Total of cost accelerators and optimisers
COTS = commercial off-the-shelf, available in the market.

Shift in 5G Priorities

Currently, operators deploying 5G network mostly in small coverage and lean in capacity.

5G Deployment in Boston by Verizon

Network operators are turning their attention to other issues such as:

1. fine-tune 5G deployments
2. Monetizing existing
3. Planing new use case
4. Optimize the network cost

To optimize the 5G-era TCO, the article group the factor to three group:

1. 5G Cost Driver
2. 5G Cost Accelerators
3. 5G Cost Optimisers

5G-era Cost Accelerators

Cost accelerators means that the cost will be higher.

Radio Spectrum

Radio Spectrum is very important for operators since operator very dependent to radio spectrum in doing their business. Operators must lease the spectrum to the goverment.
Operators able to use other spectrum such as <800Mhz and >3Ghz for different use cases such as larger IoT coverage and urban area deployment.

MEC

MEC is a important part of 5G network era. It needs to positioned near edge so could reduce latency.

Core Infrastructure

Conversion from 4G EPC to 5GC relies on these building blocks:

1. Virtualisation of network functions
2. Service-based architecture
3. Cloud readiness
4. Distributed cloud architecture
5. Programmatic automation
   A fully developed 5GC will be lower cost, reducing TCO in deployment and management of network functions, including significant hardware and external IT services cost reductions.

Backhaul

Fibre is the best technology to deliver on 5G-era backhaul requirements for its throughput and latency performance, but also the costliest. Mobile operators that already own fibre networks will, therefore, have a significant cost advantage against those that have to lease or build it themselves.

RAN

Graphs above shows how RAN infrastructure cost to the operator both capex and opex

1. Passive infrastructure
   Passive infrastructures are towers and cabinet. These cost will be higher because of deployment strategy such as densification using small cells. More dense the RAN infrasturcture, the operators must invest more on the passive infrastructure.
2. Active Infrastucture
   Active insfrastructure could be categorized to BBU and radio unit, but also could be other components such as cooling components. Operators must to fine-tunes the 5G networks technology (Massive MIMO) & 5G deployment (pico, micro cell)

Energy

High performing 5Gera mobile networks (including legacy 2G, 3G and 4G networks, as well as new 5G rollouts) will require even more energy – up to 140% more in some deployment scenarios.
Factors that will drive significantly increase 5G-era power consumption

1. Massive MIMO
   More antenna means more energy needed.
2. Densification
   More sites means more energy needed.
3. Mobile data traffic growth
   More data means more energy needed, but more efficient on a-per bit basis.

5G-era Cost Optimisers

These components functions as cost reducers for deployment of 5G network.

Core Virtualization

Core network virtualized to COTS hardware by using virtualized Network Functions (VNFs). The control plane are also centralised which will also lower the cost.

RAN Virtualization

The new RAN architecture, C-RAN architecture stripping cell site RAN equipment to basic radio and antenna functions only which will reduce the cost. But, C-RAN needs a very high capacity and low latency fronthaul which could be achieved by P2P fibre. Network Virtualization also usefull for new revenue generating services using network slicing or special API for better B2C services.

Automation & AI

Automation: rules based, programmable, zero-touch execution of network process
AI: adapt network operating situations dynamically.

Network ownbership sharing

Operators could saving up by sharing resource with other operator escpecially reaching small sites for example lamp post and transport corridor.

Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC)

Near edge cloud system. Lowering backhaul/network cost. New revenue streams.

Cloud and Open Source

Cloud and Open source 5G components will be used by operators. Currently a lot of operators trying deploy Opensource infrastructure such as Kubernetes & OpenStack.

5G Deployment Strategy

Strategy one: Full scale 5G deployment

DEploy on all use case. Seeks to rapidly cover 80% of the population with a high-capacity 5G network would be, unsurprisingly, costly for an operator.

Strategy two: Enterprise focused 5G deployment

Focus on existing use case (EMBB) but also try another enterprise use case.

Strategy three: Capacity-focused 5G deployment

Focus on EMBB deployment. Gradually rolling out a 5G network within the existing flat to low single-digit financial envelopes that most operators operate within

Strategy for cellular Operator

1. Propritize Energy Optimization
2. plan RAN densification as fast as possible
3. Evaluate savings by virtualized RAN
4. Prepare high capacity backhaul
5. Try to saving cost by automation then try make it more efficient by AI

Additional References

• https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/the-road-to-5g-the-inevitable-growth-of-infrastructure-cost
• https://medium.com/@nmecevic/monetizing-mec-what-is-edge-computing-and-where-is-the-value-48b11182bc5