Interoperator fixed-mobile network sharing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a flexible, software-defined interoperator fixed-mobile network sharing approach that significantly enhances resiliency and reduces service downtime by leveraging redundant resources across operators.

Contribution

It presents a novel, deployable network sharing method that improves resiliency and service availability through strategic placement of active nodes and interoperator communication.

Findings

Mean service downtime reduced more than threefold.

Resiliency improved by using redundant resources from different operators.

Evaluation conducted on 87,400 networks with high statistical confidence.

Abstract

We propose the novel idea of interoperator fixed-mobile network sharing, which can be software-defined and readily-deployed. We study the benefits which the sharing brings in terms of resiliency, and show that, with the appropriate placement of a few active nodes, the mean service downtime can be reduced more than threefold by providing interoperator communication to as little as one optical network unit in one hundred. The implementation of the proposed idea can be carried out in stages when needed (the pay-as-you-grow deployment), and in those parts of the network where high service availability is needed most, e.g., in a business district. While the performance should expectedly increase, we show the resiliency is brought almost out of thin air by using redundant resources of different operators. We evaluated the service availability for 87400 networks with the relative standard error of the sample mean below 1%.