5G wireless dense access network for automotive applications: Opportunities and costs

One distinctive feature of next 5G systems is the presence of a dense wireless access network including a very large number of access points at short distances each other. Dense access networks allows to providing very high transmission capacity to terminals. However, due to very limited extension of the radio coverage area provided by each access point it could be difficult to provide reliable access to mobile vehicles even when they move at low or moderate speed. Main problems are due to the high handover rates between access points. Central coordination of access points operations allow dense access network to efficiently support mobile vehicles. In this work we discuss on the effectiveness of dense networks to support mobile vehicles by means of the 'concept' of dynamically programmable radio coverage. However, fast deployment of dense networks is slowed down by the costs of the fiber-based infrastructure required to connect the access points to the processing entities and then to the core network. In this paper we analyse the costs of such infrastructure by taking into account of typical FttB and FttH possibilities. FttB is a viable solution for dense network deployment on outdoor allowing to save up to 30% on the overall costs required for the FttH approach.