The Telecom Infra Project, which now has 300 members working on open source telecom network elements and platforms, is likely one reason coming 5G networks will not cost “10 times more” than 4G, as some fear.
In fact, predicts GSMA Intelligence, on a global basis, mobile infrastructure spending is going to remain mostly flat through 2020. And history suggests that will not change post 2020, as more 5G networks are built.
In fact, post 2016 capex has been close to 2010 levels, GSMA Intelligence data suggests. In part, the reason for relatively constant spending is that mobile service providers in recent years have tended to spend about 15 percent of revenue on capex.
And if revenue is flat, capex spending will tend to be flat as well.
Including fixed and mobile capex, some forecasters believe spending will grow to 2020 at low single digit rates.
Existing Telecom Infra groups are working on crowd cell, power, disaggregated cell site gateways, OpenCellular radios, millimeter wave, vRAN fronthaul, artificial intelligence, machine learning, software defined radios,
The point is that even though 5G networks might involve higher capex to support huge numbers of small cells, some believe costs actually can drop. Open source, software-defined radios and virtualized network elements all will help.
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