Defying all the naysayers, when ultimately mmWave bands were proven to be well suited for 5G networks, the biggest question on everybody’s mind was, whether they are cost-effective for building large scale networks. GSMA Intelligence (GSMA-I), the market analysis wing of the operator industry body of GSMA has definitively answered that question, after a comprehensive network economics study. Obviously, mmWave bands are not suitable for every purpose, but this study discovered that they are extremely cost-effective when combined with the mid-band spectrum, in many use cases and traffic scenarios that are common among most operators in the world.
