Much debate remains about the value of millimeter wave spectrum as a platform for mobility service use cases. There is good reason to argue that millimeter wave spectrum will perhaps “never” be very useful for coverage.
Nokia Bell Labs, for example, believes the highest near-term value for native mobile network access is coverage in indoor locations such as shopping malls where subscriber density is between 1,000 and 3,000.
That is sound logic, as outdoor cell site usage also is highly concentrated. Where it comes to traffic, a highly-unequal pattern is seen, looking at daily use by any single person, for example. About half of all traffic happens from one cell site.
About 80 percent of traffic uses just three cells. Some 20 percent of traffic then is carried by 28 different cells.
According to Ericsson, five percent of cell sites support 25 percent of total traffic. About a quarter of sites handle half of all traffic, while 70 percent of sites are required for 25 percent of total traffic.
“The top 30 percent of sites--including high- and medium-capacity sites--in the network account for 75 percent of the total traffic, whereas the bottom 70 percent of sites carry only 25 percent of the total network traffic,” Ericsson says.
That relates to use of millimeter wave spectrum as it will have the most value as a capacity tool for a relatively small number of cell sites. That does not preclude other uses as support for fixed wireless, but does suggest the nearer-term uses will be to augment capacity at about five percent of cell sites.
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