Competitive advantage of URLLC vs. eMBB for supporting timeliness-relevant services

Résumé 0

5G specifications promise a common and flexible-enough network infrastructure capable of satisfying diverse requirements of both current and future use cases. Two service types standardized in 5G are eMBB, without stringent delay guarantee, and URLLC, with stringent delay guarantee. We focus on a use case where data timeliness is the relevant quality parameter. We provide an economic rationale for the support of data-based services, that is, from the point of view of the profits attained by the service providers and operators (SP). More specifically, we focus on data-based services the quality of which is related to the Age of Information, and we assess two alternatives for the support of this sort of services by means of a 5G network: one that is based on the eMBB service type, and one that is based on the URLLC service type. These assessment is conducted in a duopoly scenario. We conclude that URLLC support provides a competitive advantage to an SP against a competitor SP that supports its service offering on eMBB. And that there is a slightly better situation for the users when the URLLC QoS constraint is stringent.