Radio access sharing strategies for multiple operators in cellular networks

Mobile operators are moving towards sharing network capacity in order to reduce capital and operational expenditures, while meeting the increasing demand for mobile broadband data services. Radio access network sharing is a promising technique that leads to reduced number of physical base station deployments (required for coverage enhancement), increased base station utilization, and reduced overall power consumption. Today, network sharing in the radio access part is passive and limited to cell sites. With the introduction of Cloud Radio Access Network and Software Defined Networking adoption to the radio access network, the possibility for sharing baseband processing and radio spectrum becomes an important aspect of network sharing. This paper investigates strategies for active sharing of radio access among multiple operators, and analyses the individual benefits depending on the sharing degree. The model used to assess the sharing strategies is based on multidimensional loss systems, and blocking probability is considered as performance metrics.