The Changing Dynamics of Wired and Wireless Networks

Wireless networks have long been described as wired networks with wireless links at the edge. This observation has important implications as 5G is rolled out. One of the innovations of 5G is to push the wired part of the network closer to the user, and the need for high capacity and low latency wired networks will increase as 5G becomes ubiquitous. The increased number of nodes in a 5G network, along with the increased capacity and need for lower latency, will transform the demand for backhaul capacity, and the dynamics between the wired and wireless networks will evolve where the wired network becomes an ever-increasing critical complementary input in the 5G services. We show that the presence of wired infrastructure in a license area is an important predictor of spectrum value in 5G auctions.