Rethink Ring and Young: Green and Soft RAN for 5G
This chapter discusses one of the key design principles for 5G systems: “No More Cells” (NMC) [1 ]. NMC transfers the traditional cell-centric network design to a user-centric design principle. It is pointed out that NMC realization could be facilitated b
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Rethink Ring and Young: Green and Soft RAN for 5G Chih-Lin I, Jinri Huang, Ran Duan, Gang Li and Chunfeng Cui
Abstract This chapter discusses one of the key design principles for 5G systems: “No More Cells” (NMC) [1]. NMC transfers the traditional cell-centric network design to a user-centric design principle. It is pointed out that NMC realization could be facilitated by the Cloud RAN (C-RAN) architecture which pools the processing resources and virtualizes “soft” BBUs and various applications on demand. The major challenges for C-RAN, including the transport networks to connect the resource pool and the remote sites as well as virtualization with potential solutions, are analyzed in detail. Various fronthaul solutions, including Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI) compression, single-fiber bi-direction, as well as wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology, are demonstrated and verified through our extensive field trials. In addition, the feasibility of general purpose processor (GPP) platform adoption in baseband processing with optimized virtualization implementation is functionally demonstrated and initially verified in terms of interruption time through prototype development implemented with a commercial LTE protocol stack.
11.1
Introduction
The concept of cellular systems was proposed in 1947 by two researchers from Bell Labs, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young. Since the first generation of cellular standards, this cell-centric design has been maintained through every new generation of standards including 4G. The nature of a homogeneous cell-centric design is that cell planning and optimization, mobility handling, resource management, signaling and control, coverage, and signal processing are all assumed to be done either for or by each base station (BS) uniformly.
C.-L. I (&) J. Huang R. Duan G. Li C. Cui Green Communication Technology Research Center, China Mobile Research Institute, Beijing, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 M. Tornatore et al. (eds.), Fiber-Wireless Convergence in Next-Generation Communication Networks, Optical Networks, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42822-2_11
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To meet the rapid traffic growth (potentially 1000 by 2020), network densification is viewed as a major way to achieve the targeted increase in throughput. Further, heterogeneous network (HetNet) deployment is widely adopted. Thus, from the network’s perspective, diverse types of BSs with different coverage, transmit power, frequency bands, etc., are introduced, such as Macro, Micro, Pico, and Femto. Also, from the users’ perspective, traffic fluctuation is more significant than before, taking into account the emerging millions of mobile data applications. Therefore, in practical deployment, it is clear that the current system design for homogeneous networks is not compatible with traffic variations and diverse radio environments. Conventionally, radio resources are allocated semi-statically from the standpoint of the network rather than the user e
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