The Cambridge Communications Assessment Model
Description
The Cambridge Communications Assessment Model is a decision support tool to quantify the performance of national digital infrastructure strategies for fixed and mobile broadband, using different fixed, wireless and satellite technologies. The tool currently consists of two sub-models, one for use with fixed broadband networks, and the other for use with 4G and 5G mobile networks.
Citations:
Oughton, E.J. and Frias, Z. (2017) The Cost, Coverage and Rollout Implications of 5G Infrastructure
in Britain. Telecommunications Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2017.07.009.
Oughton, E.J., Z. Frias, T. Russell, D. Sicker, and D.D. Cleevely. 2018. Towards 5G: Scenario-Based
Assessment of the Future Supply and Demand for Mobile Telecommunications Infrastructure. Technological
Forecasting and Social Change, 133 (August): 141–55. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.03.016.
Oughton, E.J., Frias, Z., van der Gaast, S. and van der Berg, R. (2019) Assessing the Capacity,
Coverage and Cost of 5G Infrastructure Strategies: Analysis of The Netherlands. Telematics and
Informatics (January). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2019.01.003.
Setup and configuration
All code for The Cambridge Communications Assessment Model is written in
Python (Python>=3.5) and has a number of dependencies.
See requirements.txt for a full list.
Using conda
The recommended installation method is to use conda,
which handles packages and virtual environments,
along with the conda-forge channel which has a host of pre-built libraries and packages.
Create a conda environment, using digital_comms as a short reference for digital communications:
conda create --name digital_comms python=3.5
Activate it (run each time you switch projects)::
activate pysim5g
First, install required packages including fiona, shapely, numpy, rtree, pyproj and pytest:
conda install fiona shapely numpy rtree pyproj pytest
For development purposes, run this command once per machine:
python setup.py develop
To install digital_comms permanently:
python setup.py install
The run the tests:
python setup.py test
Quick start
If you want to quickly generate results run:
python scripts/mobile_run.py
And then to visualize, install pandas, matplotlib and seaborn:
conda install pandas matplotlib seaborn
Followed by running:
python vis/vis.py
Background and funding
The Cambridge Communications Assessment Model has been collaboratively developed between the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, the Networks and Operating Systems Group (NetOS) at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory, and the UK's Digital Catapult. Research activity between 2017-2018 also took place at the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.
Development has been funded by the EPSRC via (i) the Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium (EP/N017064/1) and (ii) the UK's Digital Catapult Researcher in Residence programme.