Comparative Analysis of LOS-MIMO and Millimeter Wave Band for Microwave Link Capacity Enhancement: The Case of Ethio Telecom

No Thumbnail Available

Date

2020-02-24

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Due to high growth of users, enhanced user terminals and service development, the demand for high data rate and new services are growing rapidly. Backhaul networks need to handle these huge volume of traffic or else they will become bottleneck for the rest of the network. LOS-MIMO and millimeter wave band can be applied at wireless backhaul network for capacity enhancement. However, technological advancement alone cannot show the performance acceptability and economic viability of an investment without detail technical and economic feasibility assessment. On the other hand, operators like ethio telecom rather than depending on vendor driven choice, should do localized techno-economic assessments. This thesis work investigates and evaluates suitable scenarios of link capacity enhancing techniques for delivering broadband services at wireless backhaul. In particular, this work presents techno-economic analysis of four scenarios: Single-Input Single-Output (SISO), Line-of-Site Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (LOS-MIMO), Millimeter wave (mmW) band and Millimeter wave Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (mmW-MIMO) that can be used to boost link capacity of wireless backhaul based on traffic data requirements. The studies are based on a modeling methodology for network value analysis that involve capital expenditure (CAPEX), operational expenditure (OPEX), total costs of ownership (TCO) and revenue calculation for all scenarios, while the overall technology deployment financial or economic assessment is based on techno-economic evaluations such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and pay-back period (PBP) economic indicators. For techno-economic evaluation, techno-economic assessment (TEA) model is implemented in MATLAB and MS-excel, and consists of revenue and cost modeling parts. The results indicate that, the pay-back period of the scenarios are: 0.9, 1.18, 1.226 and 1.426 years for mmW band, MIMO, mmW-MIMO and SISO respectively. Regarding to NPV and IRR, all scenarios have positive NPV for the study periods and greater IRR value than defined discounted rate. Sensitivity analysis also shows that, traffic data rate is the most sensitive parameter over CAPEX, OPEX and TCO that affect the revenue, which in turn influences the rate of return on investment (ROI) period. Thus, the economic indicators imply that all scenarios are technically and economically feasible for deployment but the scenarios should be deployed based on the requirements. Considering long period benefit, mmW-MIMO is the best solution with highest NPV and IRR., and mmW band, MIMO and SISO are in 2 nd rd position. Millimeter wave band is scenario with shortest ROI.

Description

Keywords

LOS-MIMO, mmW band, mmW-MIMO, SISO, TE analysis

Citation