Value Network Configurations in wireless local area access

Abstract

Rapidly growing demand for ubiquitous wireless access is presenting significant challenges to the scalability of the existing mobile wide area (WA) network infrastructure. This is increasing the importance of wireless local area (LA) access points (AP) and base stations (BS) residing in indoor locations. Uncertainty exists over who will control this, potentially very valuable part of the mobile service delivery infrastructure and there are many interested actors in position of coupling local area access to their existing platform. In this paper we conduct an analysis of possible Value Network Configurations (VNC) that could emerge around wireless local area access. We construct seven alternative Value Network Configurations by identifying important roles related to wireless local area access provisioning, the corresponding drivers and actors in position of taking on these roles. The identification and description of these configurations clarifies the different possible evolution paths for wireless local area access provisioning and acts as a basis for the design of corresponding future technologies and regulatory policies.