Sensitivity Analysis on Service-Driven Network Planning

Service providers are expected to play an increasingly central role in the mobile market and their relationship with the traditional mobile network operators (MNOs) is starting to change. The dilemma faced by over-the-top service-providers (OTTs) is now whether to enter into a service level agreement with the MNOs (in the same spirit of mobile virtual network operator agreements) or to invest in deploying their own network infrastructure to serve their demand. The purpose of this paper is to study the factors shaping the agreements between OTTs and MNOs and how these factors impact network planning decisions. To this end, we build a synthetic model of cellular network deployment that explores how traditional mobile operators and OTTs compete in deploying new infrastructure. Using our model in conjunction with real-world data, we find that service-driven networks are heavily influenced by regulatory decisions, and that cost structures and demand characteristics play non-marginal roles in the definition of service-driven networks.