1 research outputs found
Urban wireless traffic evolution: the role of new devices and the effect of policy
The emergence of new wireless technologies, such as the Internet of Things,
allows digitalizing new and diverse urban activities. Thus, wireless traffic
grows in volume and complexity, making prediction, investment planning, and
regulation increasingly difficult. This article characterizes urban wireless
traffic evolution, supporting operators to drive mobile network evolution and
policymakers to increase national and local competitiveness. We propose a
holistic method that widens previous research scope, including new devices and
the effect of policy from multiple government levels. We provide an analytical
formulation that combines existing complementary methods on traffic evolution
research and diverse data sources. Results for a centric area of Helsinki
during 2020-2030 indicate that daily volumes increase, albeit a surprisingly
large part of the traffic continues to be generated by smartphones. Machine
traffic gains importance, driven by surveillance video cameras and connected
cars. While camera traffic is sensitive to law enforcement policies and data
regulation, car traffic is less affected by transport electrification policy.
High-priority traffic remains small, even under encouraging autonomous vehicle
policies. We suggest that 5G small cells might be needed around 2025, albeit
the utilization of novel radio technology and additional mid-band spectrum
could delay this need until 2029. We argue that mobile network operators
inevitably need to cooperate in constructing a single, shared small cell
network to mitigate the high deployment costs of massively deploying small
cells. We also provide guidance to local and national policymakers for
IoT-enabled competitive gains via the mitigation of five bottlenecks. For
example, local monopolies for mmWave connectivity should be facilitated on
space-limited urban furniture or risk an eventual capacity crunch, slowing down
digitalization