Radio Access Network and Spectrum Sharing in Mobile Networks: A Stochastic Geometry Perspective

TL;DR

This paper uses stochastic geometry to analyze how sharing radio access networks and spectrum among mobile operators affects network coverage and user data rates, revealing complex non-linear performance trade-offs.

Contribution

It provides a novel stochastic geometry framework to evaluate the impact of resource sharing and spatial clustering on mobile network performance.

Findings

Sharing resources can lead to non-linear gains in coverage and data rates.

Spatial clustering influences the effectiveness of resource sharing.

Trade-offs exist between sharing extent and network performance.

Abstract

Next generation mobile networks will rely ever more heavily on resource sharing. In this article we study the sharing of radio access network and spectrum among mobile operators. We assess the impact of sharing these two types of resources on the performance of spatially distributed mobile networks. We apply stochastic geometry to observe the combined effect of, for example, the level of spatial clustering among the deployed base stations, the shared network size, or the coordination in shared spectrum use on network coverage and expected user data rate. We uncover some complex effects of mobile network resource sharing, which involve non-linearly scaling gains and performance trade-offs related to the sharing scenario or the spatial clustering level.