In this context, mobile operators must use cost-effective methods, so hosting the increase in traffic does not require a similar growth in infrastructure costs. Traditional infrastructure systems can only reduce costs in a limited way, even under cost-cutting pressures, but sharing infrastructure significantly reduces the costs of providing mobile telephony infrastructure. Sharing infrastructure allows operators to focus on competition at the service level, regardless of the scope of the authorization. Operators can share entire or strategically insignificant parts of their infrastructure to share infrastructure costs while delivering acceptable performance. In addition, these savings can facilitate the transition of mobile operators to next-generation technologies and make the latest available technologies available to their customers. Sharing infrastructure can be a step towards streamlining legacy networks such as 2G or 3G networks. With declining revenues from 2G/3G networks and the increased spectral efficiency of next-generation (4G and 5G) networks, many mobile operators are already streamlining these legacy networks. Network Economics attempts to analyze cases of passive infrastructure release and active sharing of infrastructure that are actually implemented commercially (or at least pre-market testing) and to learn from them for effective infrastructure sharing. The reason for the coverage of these types alone is that, as explained in section 1.2, the biggest cost element of a network is the radio network (70% according to Gemalto) and that it is therefore possible to achieve the greatest number of savings (for innovations that specifically optimize backhaul costs, see here). In addition to the two forms of sharing, the differentiation of the competitiveness of infrastructure, which remains an important factor of customer satisfaction in most mobile markets. In addition, the two forms of sharing are less complicated to implement than other types of sharing.
Some regulators encourage the exchange of mobile operators in infrastructure because they believe there are regulatory/social benefits that society can reap.