Techno-economic viability of integrating satellite communication in 4G networks to bridge the broadband digital divide.

Bridging the broadband digital divide between urban and rural areas in Europe is one of the main targets of the Digital Agenda for Europe. Though many technological options are proposed in literature, satellite communication has been identified as the only possible solution for the most rural areas, due to its global coverage. However, deploying an end-to-end satellite solution might, in some cases, not be cost-effective. The aim of this study is to give insights into the economic effectiveness of integrating satellite communications into 4G networks in order to connect the most rural areas (also referred to as white areas) in Europe. To this end, this paper proposes a converged solution that combines satellite communication as a backhaul network with 4G as a fronthaul network to bring enhanced broadband connectivity to European rural areas, along with a techno-economic model to analyse the economic viability of this integration. The model is based on a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model for 5 years, taking into account both capital and operational expenditures, and aims to calculate the TCO as well as the Average Cost Per User (ACPU) for the studied scenarios. We evaluate the suggested model by simulating a hypothetical use case for two scenarios. The first scenario is based on a radio access network connecting to the 4G core network via a satellite link. Results for this scenario show high operational costs. In order to reduce these costs, we propose a second scenario, consisting of caching the popular content on the edge to reduce the traffic carried over the satellite link. This scenario demonstrates a significant operational cost decrease (more than 60%), which also means a significant ACPU decrease. We evaluate the robustness of the results by simulating for a range of population densities, hereby also providing an indication of the economic viability of our proposed solution across a wider range of areas. • Bridging the broadband digital divide in Europe becomes economically viable thanks to integrating satellite into 4G networks. • Results from this techno-economic model shows Average Cost Per User of 12–155 euro, depending on the bitrate per user. • Caching popular content on the edge saves more than 60% of the operational costs of the satellite-4G solution. • Caching popular content on the edge reduces the required ACPU to 6–66 euro depending on the bitrate per user. • Sensitivity analysis on population density and caching rate provides insights into the most cost-effective solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]