5G networks: Open network architecture and densification strategies for beyond 1000x network capacity increase

The key advantages of the 5G network include among other things a 1000x capacity increase in the available network capacity. This increase will support the Internet of things and also the Device to Device communication architecture. However, the increased network capacity provided by the 5G communications standards comes with the high cost of infrastructure. The high attenuation faced by mmWaves in the proposed 5G spectrum restricts the 5G network deployments to femto cells. This cell size, increases the densification of the network resulting in very high infrastructure cost for the operators. This paper presents a network topology capable of minimizing the deployment costs of the 5G networks and at the same time increasing the network capacity by several factors beyond the 1000x capacity increase currently being proposed by the 5G network. This architecture relies on the use of collocation strategies, centralized system network planning and a cloud based MSC and HLR/VLR database system. With this approach a single third party provides the MSC and database service while each operator controls their dedicated BSC and BTS. The traffic from users of a given operator is transmitted using the operator's infrastructure and bandwidth. When the operator's capacity is exhausted, the traffic is routed through the infrastructure of the next operator and the revenue from the traffic is shared between the operators. This system however gives priority to the original customers of the operator and only transmit traffic from other customers if the second operator has excess unused capacity. The centralized network planning makes the channels from each operator available at each cell. This increases the available capacity of the network to greater than 1000x and improves user experience and spectrum utilization.