It is clear that emerging new network architectures will drive mobile operators to deploy their 4.5G and 5G systems in a new way. Even with advances in automation and a shift from hardware to software, the ultra-dense HetNets and virtualized RANs of the future will be almost impossible to justify economically if the industry sticks to its ‘one network per MNO’ norm. RAN sharing is already on the rise and there will be increasing interest in options like network as a service and neutral host platforms, as MNOs’ need to align their costs to their revenues starts to outweigh their natural wariness of sharing with competitors or losing network advantage. In Cloud-RAN, once that starts to become more mainstream towards…