Economic models of network effects, which describe how the market for a good or service depends on the number of units sold, have been used for decades in the economics literature. However, it is not clear how these models may be applied to the cellular network service. The relationship between the “value” of cellular service and the “size” of the cellular network (including the base station density, user density, and bandwidth), is not straightforward. Furthermore, this relationship is dependent on physical and technical characteristics of the network. This paper develops a joint engineering-economic model for network effects in cellular networks. The model captures the relationship between the network size and its technical characteristics, and the behavior of the market for that service. It is shown how the developed model can be used to find equilibrium size of the market for different networks. For example, this model identifies and formalizes fundamental differences between the markets for millimeter wave and microwave networks, that are not revealed by standard engineering or economic analyses.

中文翻译：

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蜂窝系统联合工程经济分析模型

网络效应的经济模型描述了商品或服务的市场如何取决于销售的单位数量，已在经济学文献中使用了数十年。然而，尚不清楚如何将这些模型应用于蜂窝网络服务。蜂窝服务的“价值”与蜂窝网络的“规模”（包括基站密度、用户密度和带宽）之间的关系并不简单。此外，这种关系取决于网络的物理和技术特性。本文为蜂窝网络中的网络效应开发了一个联合工程经济模型。该模型捕捉了网络规模与其技术特征之间的关系，以及该服务的市场行为。展示了如何使用开发的模型来找到不同网络的市场均衡规模。例如，该模型识别并规范了毫米波和微波网络市场之间的根本差异，而标准工程或经济分析并未揭示这些差异。