Perspectives for 5G Network Sharing for Mobile Small Cells

Ensuring enough network resources for all emerging 5G mobile services, with the advent of 5G will be vital. Network sharing is seen as one of the adopted technologies of 5G, to enhance resource utilization by optimizing resource usage among different operators. A key enabler for network sharing is virtualization. While virtualization of the core network has already been implemented in nowadays mobile networks, the virtualization of the Radio Access Network (RAN)is still an emerging research topic that is currently investigated with the aim of exploiting a fully virtualized mobile network. In this paper, we examine a 5G RAN perspective architecture that has the merit of being a Multi-RAT, Multiband V-RAN and using end user equipment as mobile small cells. We highlight its advantages, and identify how virtualization of RAN can lead to efficient RAN resource sharing. Finally, we anticipate how some virtualization functionalities should be extended to manage the particularity of the perspective RAN architecture