Revenue Model with Multi-Access Edge Computing for Cellular Network Architecture

Due to the drastic growth in the number of devices connected to mobile networks, the demand for further expansion of the capacity of wireless communication is increasing. It is necessary to decrease the traffic on the backhaul and reduce the end-to-end latency. To address it, in the last few years, the authors have proposed the concept of mmWave overlay heterogeneous cellular networks, where mmWave small cell base stations are introduced into the conventional macro cells. The conventional cloud applications are deployed on the Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) according to the application requirements and data traffic situations, and the users are controlled with out-of-band C-plane to connect to the surrounding MEC applications. For the installation of MEC in the heterogeneous cellular networks, to the best of authors knowledge, there is no research conducted on whether a business model can be established when additional fees are paid for MEC. In this paper, the authors attempt to introduce a new concept of ecosystem for MEC based on the combination of ultra-broadband mmWave communications. Moreover, the authors propose a business model for MEC, and report the numerical analysis results from simulations.