A comparative cost-capacity modeling of wireless heterogeneous networks, implemented within the 0.7 GHz, 2.6 GHz, 5 GHz and 28 GHz bands

In this paper, we perform comparative cost-capacity analysis of the heterogeneous wireless networks deployed in separate 4G cellular micro-wave bands, Wi-Fi 5 GHz band and 5G 28 GHz cellular millimeter-wave band. We consider the standardized Long Term Evolution Release 10 and 11 and IEEE 802.11ac, alongside with the forthcoming radio access technology to be utilized by the millimeter-wave systems. We aim to assess the most cost-effective radio access network when satisfying indoor environment represented by the office of the future which demands above 100 GB per user and month. By evaluation of various path and propagation loss models, we confirm that the key concern in millimeter-wave systems is the coverage range. Hence, besides the Wi-Fi deployment, we analyze two separate small cell (pico) deployment scenarios of the 5G cellular network, through the placement of the base station sites outside and inside the buildings. Concerning the macro layer, we utilize the 4G cellular deployment. The outcome of the cost model gives the proper assessment of the total investment needed to serve certain area of interest, considering different chunks of bandwidth in various microwave and millimeter-wave bands. The key finding is that the small cell solutions like pico cells deployed with millimeter-wave system and Wi-Fi are more cost efficient when new macro base station sites need to be deployed or when very high demand levels need to be ensured. In the other evaluated cases, results show that the importance of the spectrum size is significant in leveraging cost-capacity performance, what in particularly is considerable with the utilization of the 5G millimeter-wave system bringing superb capacity performance.