Open AccessDeployment of small cells and a transport infrastructure concurrently for next-generation mobile access networks
Author(s) -
Welton Vasconcelos Araújo,
Rafael Fogarolli,
Marcos César da Rocha Seruffo,
Diego Lisboa Cardoso
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0207330
Subject(s) - computer science , software deployment , computer network , heuristics , base station , cellular network , upgrade , scalability , heterogeneous network , network planning and design , distributed computing , wireless network , telecommunications , wireless , database , operating system
The exponential growth of mobile traffic means that operators must upgrade their mobile networks to provide higher capacity to final users. A promising alternative is to deploy heterogeneous networks (HetNets) that combine macro Base Stations (BSs) and SmallCells (SCs), although this increases the complexity and cost of the transport (SCs to Fiber Access Point–FAP). Most of the planning strategies outlined in the literature are aimed at reducing the number of SCs and ignore the impact that the transport segment might have on the total cost of network deployment. In this paper, heuristics are used for the joint planning of radio (i.e., SCs) and transport resources (i.e., point-to-point fiber links). These were compared and examined to determine the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and in some cases, this led to a 50% reduction in total costs, while still creating a non-scalable network.