The report, The case for Wi-Fi offload, predicts that if operators in Western Europe simply try to meet the growing demand for data traffic by deploying more base stations, RAN costs could rise to USD40 billion per year by 2016. This compares with USD5 billion per year in 2011. “Operators can’t afford to spend that sort of money,” says Terry Norman, co-author of the report and Lead Analyst for Analysys Mason’s Wireless Networks research programme.
“Therefore, operators will either accept network congestion or use pricing to control demand – neither are good business practice. The elegant solution is to make substantial efficiency improvements.”
One way to reduce network carriage costs, which is attracting a great deal of interest from mobile network operators, involves carrying a proportion of the traffic on a cost-efficient small cell. “Because Wi-Fi is widely deployed and competitively priced, it is a leading candidate small-cell technology,” Norman explains.
“The costs of indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi are both significantly lower than those of upgrading to 4G,” Norman explains. “In Western Europe, operators need to save USD30 billion in mobile access network costs between now and 2016. Wi-Fi would go a long way towards making up that deficit because it costs only about 20% of an equivalent macro deployment.”
However, a Wi-Fi approach presents residual challenges, such as site accessibility, and maintaining the quality of product and service.