Inter-operator resource sharing for 3G systems and beyond

Flexible resource sharing is widely seen to be an important feature for the future beyond 3G generation system's deployment. Therefore, a migration from fixed allocations to a more flexible spectrum management has to be taken into account. In this context, inter-operator resource sharing in a broadband network is considered in this paper. A packet-based cellular network is developed, emphasizing the shift in the telecommunications industry towards IP-based services. We show that we can improve the overall efficiency of the system by sharing different resources in the network between several operators. Moreover, big and small operators, in addition to the customers are altogether satisfied. In this paper, we use the term "resource" to not only account for spectrum sharing but also towers, base stations and time slots sharing. In our framework, we will use a physical layer cellular model with idealistic resource management, where we quantify the achievable sharing gains. We compare the performances for the non sharing case, the case where the base stations decide to share the resources as a "last resort", and finally when the mobile stations always connect to the best base station, regardless of the operator. We finally analyze these gains in terms of quality of service and number of operators, in the context of variable data rates.