Network sharing looked financially obvious until operators discovered that shared RAN without shared core addresses the least painful part of network economics. The assumption was that radio equipment represented the majority of network spending. Yet 2024 operator financial disclosures consistently show that RAN contributes only 20–25% of total lifecycle cost, while site acquisition, transport/backhaul, power, and operations drive 50–60%.
Sharing radio while maintaining separate core networks reduces CAPEX by 20-30% but does nothing for the operational complexity that consumes margin. As 5G SA traffic grows, this gap widens; signaling volume in 5G networks is already multiple times higher than LTE, amplifying the inefficiencies of duplicated core infrastructure.
MoCN Gateway solutions are a pivotal solution but first, let us understand the perils of radio sharing in the current scenario.
The Cost Structure Radio Sharing Doesn’t Touch
Traditional network sharing splits RAN infrastructure between operators who maintain independent core networks. This requires duplicate backhaul from each shared site to each operator’s core, separate provisioning systems, independent monitoring infrastructure, and parallel maintenance operations. The equipment sharing offers capital relief, but operational costs remain largely unchanged.
Shared RAN agreements typically reduce individual operator network spending by 25-35%, but combined spending across both operators only drops 15-20% versus standalone deployments. The rest is stranded in duplicated functions that radio sharing cannot consolidate. Core separation creates a second problem: subscriber roaming between operators requires full interconnect infrastructure despite sharing radio equipment. A subscriber moving from operator A to operator B goes through the same roaming process as international roaming, adding $2-4 per subscriber per month in signaling and settlement costs.
GSMA’s 2024 cost benchmarking confirms that RAN-only sharing slows CAPEX growth but generates no measurable long-term OPEX deflation because operational duplication persists. Regulators in Europe and Southeast Asia are now approving active sharing only when it includes transport and core due to these financial limitations.
Gateway Architecture Changes Core Economics
Multi-operator core network architecture combines RAN sharing with shared core network elements. MoCN gateway architecture centralizes operator-specific logic at the network edge while preserving data isolation. The gateway handles subscriber identification, routes traffic to appropriate billing systems, applies operator-specific policies, and maintains data separation despite shared infrastructure. Core network elements run as generic, multi-tenant processing layers without knowing which operator owns the subscriber.
Backhaul requirements drop by 40-50% when core consolidation means single transport path instead of parallel links to each operator’s core. In rural deployments where backhaul represents 60-70% of site costs and where fiber shortages have pushed backhaul prices up 18–22% since 2022, this can determine whether deployment is financially viable.
Core consolidation eliminates roaming-like signaling entirely. When subscribers from all operators use the same core network, handoff happens through internal mechanism rather than interconnect procedures, cutting signaling traffic by 30-40%. This matters even more in the 5G era where signaling growth is outpacing user-plane growth.
The operational leverage increases further through unified network management. Traditional sharing requires each operator to maintain its own NOC capabilities, trouble ticketing systems, and vendor relationships. Consolidated core reduces headcount requirements 35–45%, and operators adopting AI-assisted NOC automation in 2024 reported 25–35% fewer cross-domain incidents due to unified event correlation.
Dynamic Resource Allocation Transforms Capacity Economics
Historically, each operator overprovisioned core capacity for its individual worst-case peak. Shared cores allow provisioning against aggregate demand. Enterprise-focused operators peak during business hours while consumer-heavy operators peak evenings. Moreover, different regional footprints peak at different times.
Gateway-enabled dynamic resource allocation achieves the economic equivalent of hyperscale cloud multi-tenancy, allowing infrastructure to operate at much higher effective utilization. It monitors real-time traffic and allocates processing to match current demand. Operators adopting early multi-tenant 5G core pilots in 2024 achieved 38% reductions in peak provisioning requirements, and the broader industry is shifting toward cloud-like economics for core infrastructure.
Core infrastructure scales to average aggregate load across operators rather than sum of individual peaks, meaning 30-40% less processing capacity. Lower processing requirements also mean reduced power consumption, less cooling infrastructure, and smaller data center footprints. This is critical in EMEA markets where energy prices remain 30–40% above 2020 levels.
Integration Speed and Vendor Independence
Traditional approaches embedded operator-specific logic throughout core network functions, resulting in 6–9-month integration timelines and tight coupling between operators’ upgrade cycles. MoCN gateways remove this barrier by localizing operator differentiation at the gateway, reducing new-operator onboarding to 4–6 weeks.
Gateway architecture also enables asymmetric sharing models. One operator might share full core capabilities while another shares only RAN or backhaul. Traditional frameworks required all participants to use identical configurations.
The gateway also breaks vendor lock-in. Historically, shared RAN meant standardizing on a single vendor for both RAN and core to avoid incompatibilities. In 2024–2025, regulators in Africa, GCC, and Southeast Asia approved multi-operator core sharing specifically because gateway-based interfaces decouple RAN and core vendor choices. Operators pursuing mix-and-match architectures (e.g., Ericsson RAN + Mavenir core) gain 12–18% cost leverage through diversified procurement.
Technology refresh cycles finally decouple across network layers. Operators can upgrade core compute capacity without independently of RAN technology cycles, extending asset lifespan and aligning investments to real capability needs.
Real-Time Settlement Enables Commercial Flexibility
Traditional approaches used quarterly settlement based on average traffic ratios. Quarterly reconciliation means operators lack visibility into current network costs, preventing dynamic pricing for wholesale partnerships or MVNO agreements. When an operator considers sponsoring traffic for a content partner or launching unlimited plans in specific regions, they need cost implications before making commitments. Quarterly settlement provides that data six months too late.
MoCN gateway produce usage records with the same granularity used for dynamic capacity allocation, enabling continuous settlement based on actual traffic distribution. Operators gain near-real-time understanding of cost implications for:
- Dynamic MVNO pricing models
- Regional unlimited plans
- Sponsored or zero-rated content
- On-demand QoS or slice-based charging for enterprise bursts
This turns shared networks into programmable economic platforms, not static cost-sharing constructs. Capacity planning discussions become fact-based rather than negotiation exercises based on projections months out of date.
Migration Path Converts Risk into Validation
Transitioning from independent cores to consolidated infrastructure once seemed too risky because it required major cutover events. Moving from independent cores to consolidated infrastructure requires subscriber migration, service continuity during transition, and coordination between operators with different technology maturity. The industry has become increasingly unwilling to accept such transitions after several widely publicized failures in major markets between 2022–2023.
MoCN gateway enables incremental migration through parallel operation. Operators provision for new subscribers on the shared core infrastructure while existing subscribers remain on legacy infrastructure. They then migrate subscribers in controlled phases over 12-18 months, using the gateway to route traffic appropriately based on subscriber status, enabling hybrid architecture during transition without service disruption.
This effectively turns migration into an A/B validation process: operators can benchmark shared-core performance against legacy cores with small populations before committing to full-scale transition.
Market Structure Forces Architectural Decisions
Spectrum inlfation, infrastructure densification requirements, 5G SA complexity, and flat revenue curves and competitive service pricing are pushing operating costs above sustainable levels. Global ARPU growth remains below 1% CAGR, while mobile data demand continues to rise 25–35% annually. Operators need to reduce network spending by 40-50% to maintain profitability. Traditional sharing can’t deliver this.
This is driving a structural shift. By 2025, 40% of new 5G deployments outside Tier-1 cities already use shared infrastructure, and neutral hosts in the UK, France, UAE, and Indonesia are targeting 60–70% reductions in capital intensity per subscriber.
MoCN architecture is ther prerequisite for this market evolution. It enables full infrastructure separation where neutral operators deploy shared core networks that multiple service operators use simultaneously. It allows service providers to compete on brand, pricing, and customer experience instead of infrastructure scale. Infrastructure investment spreads across subscriber bases from multiple providers, dropping capital intensity per subscriber by 60-70% compared to independent networks.
Operators whose architecture supports this separation can play on either side of the emerging market structure. Those limited to traditional RAN-sharing will face steady margin compression until they consolidate or exit markets where infrastructure economics no longer support service pricing.
Telecom economics are shifting from “infrastructure as competitive advantage” to “infrastructure as shared utility.” MoCN gateway architectures deliver the CAPEX and OPEX reductions (40–50%+) that traditional sharing models cannot reach, while enabling operational simplicity, commercial flexibility, and risk-mitigated migration.
Ready to reduce network costs by 40-50% while positioning for the infrastructure separation reshaping telecommunications? Contact us to learn how MoCN gateway solutions transform network economics without the migration risk that has kept core sharing out of reach.
