Dense deployment of base stations (BSs) and multi-antenna techniques are considered key enablers for future mobile networks. Meanwhile, spectrum sharing techniques and utilization of higher frequency bands make more bandwidth available. An important
question for future system design is which element is more effective than others. In this paper, we introduce the concept of technical rate of substitution (TRS) from microeconomics and study the TRS of spectrum in terms of BS density and antenna number per BS. Numerical results show that TRS becomes higher with increasing user data rate requirement, suggesting that spectrum is the most effective means of provisioning extremely fast mobile broadband.
