Analyzing the economic impact of fixed relaying deployment in a LTE network

The current generation of mobile networks - Long Term Evolution (LTE) - allows the use of several new techniques, which will bring direct and visible performance benefits. This enables a better overall user experience and new features to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). One of the most important new techniques will be Relaying. In addition to capacity and coverage gains, the usage of Relay Stations (RSs) minimizes the networks Capital Expenditure (CapEx) and Operating Expense (OpEx). In this paper, a comparison is made, from an economical perspective, between a LTE network composed entirely by evolved NodeBs (eNBs) and other scenarios which use additional RSs. The aim of the paper is to determine the conditions for a suitable eNB to RSs replacement, and the associated economical benefits.