Business Aspects of the Neutral Host Model: The Immersive Video Services Case

The introduction of novel approaches that cause a paradigm shift on a technological level can become the driver of innovative business models that benefit from capabilities that may have emerged. Such is the case for 5G which offers an entirely new way of delivering services that affects consumers and even more fundamentally the providers. The introduction of network slicing and the ability to provide individually configurable parts of the network to providers offer unique opportunities and solutions particularly when it comes to solving the known issue of overlapping infrastructure investments from various stakeholders. In this paper, the scenario of a single wholesale 5G network provider – the Neutral Host – operating in the City of Lucca is examined. Some remarks about the impact of the NH model on Barcelona superblock urbanistic model are also provided.