Techno-Economic Assessment of 5G Infrastructure Sharing Business Models in Rural Areas

International audienceHow cost-efficient are potential infrastructure sharing business models for the 5G/6G era? How should telecommunication regulators formulate a national policy to improve mobile broadband connectivity? These are significant questions that need to be addressed if we are to deliver universal affordable broadband and achieve Target 9c of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. For example, over one-third of the global population has never used the Internet, with many of these users in areas of low economic viability. Consequently, this assessment evaluates the cost implications of different infrastructure sharing business models. Over a decade, the results show that a rural 5G neutral host network (NHN) strategy helps to reduce the total cost by 10-50% over "No Sharing", "Passive Sharing", or "Active Sharing" approaches. We also find that compared to a baseline strategy with "No Sharing", the net present value of rural 5G sharing strategies can earn between 30-90% more profit. The network upgrades to 5G using various sharing strategies are most sensitive to changes in the average revenue per user, the adoption rate, and the amount of existing site infrastructure. For example, a 20% variation in demand revenue is estimated to increase the net present value of the sharing strategies by 2-5 times compared to the net present value of the "No Sharing" strategy. Similarly, a 10% increase in existing infrastructure lowers the net present value by 8-30%