• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Traditional centralized radio access network architecture used for 4G is based on Option 8, a functional split between PHY and RF. This option is commonly used with a fronthaul interface based on common public radio interface (CPRI) specifications; however, the increased data rates in 5G make this option impractical because of the fronthaul interface's high bandwidth requirement. Since CPRI specifications have many vendor-specific options, achieving multi-vendor interoperability becomes challenging. Open RAN (O-RAN) Alliance is developing novel open fronthaul interface specifications based on the functional split Option 7-2x, one of the intra-PHY split options, to relax the bandwidth requirement of the fronthaul interface and achieve multi-vendor interoperability. This article provides a brief overview of the various functional split options for 5G fronthaul that have been reported so far and existing fronthaul technologies. Further, the technological trends in the 5G open fronthaul interface is discussed, focusing on the O-RAN Alliance specifications under standardization.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.4618-4639
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• 2018

One of the most innovative paradigms for the next-generation of wireless cellular networks is the cloud-radio access networks (C-RANs). In C-RANs, base station functions are distributed between the remote radio heads (RHHs) and base band unit (BBU) pool, and a communication link is defined between them which is referred as the fronthaul. This leveraging link is expected to reduce the CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operating expense) of envisioned cellular architectures as well as improves the spectral and energy efficiencies, provides the high scalability, and efficient mobility management capabilities. The fronthaul link carries the baseband signals between the RRHs and BBU pool using the digital radio over fiber (RoF) based common public radio interface (CPRI). CPRI based optical links imposed stringent synchronization, latency and throughput requirements on the fronthaul. As a result, fronthaul becomes a hinder in commercial deployments of C-RANs and is seen as one of a major bottleneck for backbone networks. The optimization of fronthaul is still a challenging issue and requires further exploration at industrial and academic levels. This paper comprehensively summarized the current challenges and requirements of fronthaul networks, and discusses the recently proposed system architectures, virtualization techniques, key transport technologies and compression schemes to carry the time-sensitive traffic in fronthaul networks.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.97-106
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• 2017

The introduction of new access technologies in 5G radio networks has had a considerable impact on the design of transport networks. Research activities are underway on new transport technologies in both the wireless and optical domains to support 5G transport. This paper provides an overview of the concept and requirements of a fronthaul. We also discuss the research activities of a new fronthaul interface for future 5G networks, a 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul transport network (5G-Crosshaul), a next-generation fronthaul interface (NGFI), a mobile xhaul network (MXN), and a next-generation mobile fronthaul architecture with multi-IF carrier transmission scheme.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.23-32
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• 2022

This paper provides an overview of optical transport technology for 5G mobile fronthaul. The configuration of fronthaul network is classified with dedicated fiber, passive WDM(Wavelength Division Multiplexing), active WDM, and semi-active WDM, which has its own advantages and drawbacks. Various WDM technology is applied for fronthaul transport, depending on the wavelength bands, required number of wavelength channels, configuration of fronthaul network, etc. In order to meet the increasing transport capacity, a 50/100 Gbps optical transceiver will be used in place of the present 10/25 Gbps technology. Trends will be continued to enhance the flexibility and reliability of the fronthaul optical network supporting highly advanced 5G mobile services.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.37 no.6
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• pp.1055-1064
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• 2015

We demonstrate a next-generation high-capacity mobile fronthaul based on radio over fiber (RoF) technology, which links between a digital unit and a radio unit supporting two frequency assignments and $2{\times}2$ multiple input, multiple output antennas. To confirm the technical feasibility of a mobile fronthaul, we experimentally investigate its down- and uplink end-to-end performances including the optical and radio frequency (RF) signal path. Frequency-dependent performance deviations, error vector magnitude variations, overall system performance variations caused by optical to electrical conversion, and intermediate frequency to RF conversions are examined. Experimental verifications on multiple LTE uplink signals are performed for the first time. We also demonstrate several commercial mobile Internet services, YouTube video streaming, and file transfers using off-the-shelf mobile devices, through a mobile fronthaul based on RoF.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.162-172
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• 2016

The placement of the complete baseband processing in a centralized pool results in high data rate requirement and inflexibility of the fronthaul network, which challenges the energy and cost effectiveness of the cloud radio access network (C-RAN). Recently, redesign of the C-RAN through functional split in the baseband processing chain has been proposed to overcome these challenges. This paper evaluates, by mathematical and simulation methods, different splits with respect to network level energy and cost efficiency having in the mind the expected quality of service. The proposed mathematical model quantifies the multiplexing gains and the trade-offs between centralization and decentralization concerning the cost of the pool, fronthaul network capacity and resource utilization. The event-based simulation captures the influence of the traffic load dynamics and traffic type variation on designing an efficient fronthaul network. Based on the obtained results, we derive a principle for fronthaul dimensioning based on the traffic profile. This principle allows for efficient radio access network with respect to multiplexing gains while achieving the expected users' quality of service.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.915-919
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• 2014

Since smart phones are widely used globally, the demand for high-speed mobile communications are increasing. To accommodate the increased communication demand, the next-generation mobile communication services such as LTE-Advanced are deployed. In the LTE-Advanced base stations, the base station schemes of Digital Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU) are widely used. Here, the link between DU and RU is called fronthaul link. In the current fronthaul link, a digital optical communication interface is used, which is called Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI). However, the CPRI link cannot support the increased mobile traffic efficiently. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate an alternative technology based on the Radio over Fiber (RoF) to accommodate the increased mobile traffic economically.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.22-27
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• 2020

With the deployment of 5G infrastructure, content delivery network (CDN) will be a key role to provide explosive growing services for the independent media and YouTube which contain high-speed mobile contents. Without a local cache, the mobile backhaul and fronthaul should endure huge burden of bandwidth request for users as the increase number of direct accesses from contents providers. To deal with this issue, this paper fist presents both fronthaul solutions for CDN that use dark fibers and a passive optical network (PON). On top of that, we propose the aggregated content request specialized for PON caching and evaluate and compare its performance to legacy schemes through the simulation. The proposed PON caching scheme can reduce average access time of up to 0.5 seconds, 1/n received request packets, and save 60% of backhaul bandwidth compared to the no caching scheme. This work can be a useful reference for service providers and will be extended to further improve the hit ratio of cache in the future.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.53 no.2
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• pp.3-9
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• 2016

In this paper, we propose a Radio over Fiber system for small cell applications and for mobile fronthaul networks supporting cloud-radio access networks(RAN). We built a system with a downlink employing orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques and an uplink using single carrier-frequency multiple access(SC-FDMA). System parameters are evaluated for various subcarrier modulations and the results of link performance measurements are analyzed.

• Journal of Korea Society of Digital Industry and Information Management
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.11-24
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• 2022

Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) standard has been proposed to separate the baseband signal processing unit from the Radio Frequency (RF) unit at base station system mainly for reducing the cost of base station systems through open-source interfaces between the two units. To satisfy the performance metrics in various scenarios, several fronthaul functional split options were presented by O-RAN. Amongst these options, the split option 7-2x is widely adopted in practical applications due to its excellent trade-off between the required bandwidth and RU overhead. In this paper, we present a hardware implementation of a base station system that is compliant with the Category B of O-RAN split option 7-2x. It consists of O-DU and O-RU implemented with a commercial off-the-shelf Digital Signal Processor and RF transceiver, respectively. The performance of the proposed base station system is evaluated in terms of Bit Error Rate and received signal power as well as the required fronthaul bandwidth. Through various experimental tests, we have observed that the proposed system reduces the fronthaul bandwidth nearly by 89.7% compared to the conventional system that dose not employ the O-RAN standard.