Indoor Sharing in the Mid-Band: A Performance Study of Neutral-Host, Cellular Macro, and Wi-Fi

2025-06-05

AI Summary

In large, high-loss indoor environments, conventional networks suffer from insufficient deep coverage and capacity bottlenecks under high-concurrency traffic. Method: This study presents the first systematic, real-world performance comparison—conducted in an operational retail setting—among neutral-host (NH) CBRS private cellular, public macrocellular (4G/5G), and Wi-Fi 6. We propose a minimal-deployment NH-CBRS paradigm using only six CBSDs to achieve full-coverage provisioning and interference isolation, and evaluate its efficacy for mobile network operator (MNO) traffic offloading. Contribution/Results: Under 40 MHz bandwidth, NH-CBRS achieves 2.08× higher physical-layer downlink throughput than 5G macrocells, and 4.33×/13× higher uplink throughput than 4G/5G macrocells, respectively. At the HTTP application layer, its downlink performance exceeds Wi-Fi 6 by 5.05×. Moreover, NH-CBRS reduces required access point count by 91% compared to enterprise Wi-Fi, demonstrating superior spectral efficiency and deployment scalability.

Technology Category

• Application Domains: Mobility, Driving & Flight
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Applications
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Neural Spike Coding

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

Indoor environments present a significant challenge for wireless connectivity, as immense data demand strains traditional solutions. Public Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), utilizing outdoor macro base stations (BSs), suffer from poor signal penetration. Indoor Wi-Fi networks, on the other hand, may face reliability issues due to spectrum contention. Shared spectrum models, particularly the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) utilized by private 4G/5G networks, have emerged as a promising alternative to provide reliable indoor service. Moreover, these private networks are equipped with the neutral-host (NH) model, seamlessly offloading indoor MNOs' traffic to the private CBRS network. This paper presents a comprehensive, in-situ performance evaluation of three co-located technologies utilizing mid-bands spectrum (1-6 GHz)--a CBRS-based NH network, public MNO macro networks, and a Wi-Fi 6 network--within a large, big-box retail store characterized by significant building loss. Our analysis demonstrates: (i) the NH network provides superior indoor coverage compared to MNO macro, requiring only six CBRS devices (CBSDs)--versus 65 Access Points (APs) for enterprise Wi-Fi--to achieve full coverage, with a median building loss of 26.6 dB ensuring interference-free coexistence with outdoor federal incumbents; (ii) the NH network achieves substantial indoor throughput gains, with per-channel normalized throughput improvements of 1.44x and 1.62x in downlink (DL), and 4.33x and 13x in uplink (UL), compared to 4G and 5G macro deployments, respectively; (iii) the NH deployment achieves a median indoor aggregated physical (PHY)-layer DL throughput gain of 2.08x over 5G macro deployments indoors, despite utilizing only 40 MHz of aggregated bandwidth compared to 225 MHz for 5G macro; and (iv) the NH deployment also outperforms Wi-Fi in application-layer HTTP DL performance by 5.05x.

Problem

• Evaluating indoor wireless performance of neutral-host, cellular macro, and Wi-Fi networks
• Comparing coverage and throughput of CBRS-based NH networks versus traditional solutions
• Assessing interference and efficiency of shared spectrum models in large retail environments

Innovation

• CBRS-based neutral-host model for indoor coverage
• Superior throughput gains over 4G and 5G macro
• Outperforms Wi-Fi in HTTP DL performance