Capacity and costs for 5G networks in dense urban areas

A techno-economic analysis of the 5G enhanced mobile broadband scenario in dense urban areas has been accomplished by radio capacity modelling of probable 5G technologies within a 1 km² grid representing central London. Different density networks were modelled at 700 MHz (macro network), 3.5 GHz (micro network) and 24-27.5 GHz (hot spots) - together with 802.11ac access points. Using published data on network costs various deployment options have been evaluated for capacity, headline rate and capital expenditure/operating expense. It has been shown that reaching headline rates of 64- 100 Mbps everywhere is possible with a number of different technology options. Massive increases in capacity (in excess of 100 Gbps/km²), however, can only be realistically achieved with a millimetre wave (outdoor) and 802.11ac (internally). The cost of deploying such capacity, however, will be several times that of LTE - the authors estimate a 4-5 times increase in costs for a 100 Mbps everywhere network that has ×100 capacity increase over existing LTE networks. The cost of rolling out 5G is becoming an important issue and this work provides one of the few published estimates of the economics of ultra-high capacity networks.