Resource and location sharing in wireless networks

Abstract

With more and more demand from devices to use wireless communication networks, there has been an increased interest in resource sharing among operators, to give a better link quality. However, in the analysis of the benefits of resource sharing among these operators, the important factor of co-location is often overlooked. Indeed, often in wireless communication networks, different operators co-locate: they place their base stations at the same locations due to cost efficiency. We therefore use stochastic geometry to investigate the effect of co-location on the benefits of resource sharing. We develop an intricate relation between the co-location factor and the optimal radius to operate the network, which shows that indeed co-location is an important factor to take into account. We also investigate the limiting behavior of the expected gains of sharing, and find that for unequal operators, sharing may not always be beneficial when taking co-location into account.