On the Interdependence of the Financial Market and Open Access Spectrum Market in the 5G Network

Modern 5G networks offer a large space for innovation and a completely new approach to addressing network functioning. A fixed spectrum assignment policy is a significant limitation of today’s wireless communication network practice and is to be replaced by a completely new approach called dynamic spectrum access (DSA). However, there is no general agreement on the organization of the DSA. Some studies suggest that open access market can be inspired by the electricity or financial markets. It allows to treat operators with region coverage as investors entering the market and trading the spectra on an on-demand basis. Because investors operate in both the financial markets and the markets for spectra, new interference between both markets emerges. Our paper shows how the risk-free rate of return stemming from the financial markets influences the techno-economic properties of the network. We show that, for low risk-free returns, the spectrum market becomes oversupplied, which keeps service prices very low and spectrum trading volumes large. In contrast, if risk-free returns are high, then spectrum trading volumes decline and the market becomes price sensitive; in other words, economic rules begin to work better.