To evolve to the next generation, cellular systems are expected to move to higher frequency bands, causing transmission conditions to be harsher. There are many network solutions available in special or harsh environments. While many of these solutions may be good technical solutions, they are often not cost-effective, resulting in limited deployments. One of the reasons is because they are specially designed to cope with harsh environments. This differentiation in design makes these solutions stand out in performance but lack volumes for economical deployments. The preferred approach should overcome harsh environments while also being suitable for common deployments. In this article, a solution 1 is examined that integrates a proximity network with a radio access network (P-RAN). With this integration, P-RAN has the potential to provide a cost-effective solution not only for indoor areas, shopping malls, and sport arenas, but also for normal macrocell environments.
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