#CloudRAN

From Centralized RAN to

Cloud RAN
An IHS Technology Webinar
Today’s Speakers #CloudRAN

From Centralized RAN to Cloud RAN

Richard Webb Yvon Rouault Jean-Sébastien Tassé Allen Tatara

Research Director Advisor Product Line Manager Manager, Webinar Events
Mobile Backhaul & Small Cells CTO Office Optical Business Unit (Moderator)
IHS EXFO EXFO IHS

© 2016 IHS 2
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 3
5G Is a Next-Generation Mobile Network That
Goes Beyond Today’s Mobile Broadband

‣ There are 2 schools of thought:

1. Create a blend of existing technologies
to allow higher coverage, capacity,
availability and network density

2. Create new generation radio technology

by setting specific data rates and
latency; this is the most traditional
way of defining a next generation of
mobile technology

© 2016 IHS 4
5G Requirements Have Been Identified…
‣ 1–10Gbps connections to end points in the field

‣ 1 millisecond end-to-end round trip delay (latency)

‣ 1000x bandwidth per unit area

‣ 10–100x number of connected devices

‣ (Perception of) 99.999% availability

‣ (Perception of) 100% coverage

‣ 90% reduction in network energy usage

‣ Up to ten year battery life for low power, machine-type devices

© 2016 IHS 5
Operators Must Accelerate Their Path to 5G
“Operators will be unable to profitably 5G Requirements: New Use Cases
meet traffic demands by 2020”
© Bell Labs

Source: Bell Labs

Source: Nokia © Nokia Networks

© 2016 IHS 6
5G Vertical Sectors
‣ Key requirements for 5G:
• Reliability > 99.99999% for eHealth
• E2E latency < 1 ms for factories, automotive
• Positioning < 0,3 m for automotive
• Throughput > 1 Gb/s for office cloud

‣ This cannot be achieved without:

• Network slicing (per traffic profile)
• Virtualization of the network (cloud RAN)
• New radios: larger bands, new spectrum
• Coordination of multiple radio resources

Source: 5G-PPP “5G empowering vertical industries” white paper

© 2016 IHS 7
LTE-Advanced Pro as Preliminary Step
‣ 3GPP Release 13
‣ Bridging the gap with the availability
of 5G (2020 the earliest)
• Carrier aggregation
evolution – wider bandwidths
• Many more antennas: path to
massive MIMO
• LTE in unlicensed spectrum

‣ 1Gb/s downlink throughput 

16 Gb/s fronthaul CPRI
Source: Qualcomm © Qualcomm

© 2016 IHS 8
More Pressure on RAN Centralization
‣ Complexification of radio access
• Coordination of radio resources:
multiple carriers, CoMP, small cells, etc.
• Challenge of delivering capacity, short latency,
high availability
‣ Reduction of capex and opex
• Antenna site simplification
• Energy consumption gain (>50%)
• Improved efficiency of field services
‣ More flexibility of operation
• Pool of BBUs in secured place
‣ Road blocks
• Availability of optical network up to antenna sites

© 2016 IHS 9
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 10
Fronthaul: Some Definitions
RRHs
Fronthaul is the connection
between baseband
Radio Radio Ant controllers and remote
Radio Radio Ant
RF
Antennas Ant
Radio
Amp
standalone radio heads

acronyms:
RRU = RRH
Optical Fiber DU = BBU
Cables DU pool = BBU hotel

Base
Band
Unit BACKHAUL

Cell NID MPLS EPC

CPRI
BBU Site
Router
CSR

Fronthaul Cell Site Cabinet = BBU Hotel

© 2016 IHS 11
From FTTA to Centralized RAN
‣ Key requirements:
• Latency (RTT of HARQ messages):
3 ms max. in LTE
• Power budget: target approx. 15–20 dB
• Latency asymmetry (uplink vs. downlink)
< 16 ns (3 meters)
© 2016 IHS
‣ Loss challenge:
• Longer distances in C-RAN imply loss;
budget harder to meet
• C-RAN introduces very « lossy »
elements like MUX/DEMUX
• Macro-bends, splices, connectors, …
12
C-RAN – The Critical Aspects

Clock Synchronization Power Budget

(Fiber, Connectors, WDM MUX/DEMUX)

Latency Budget RF Spectrum Analysis

(3ms HARQ* RTT*) (Digitized RF Over Fiber)

© 2016 IHS (*) HARQ = Hybrid Automatic Retransmission request, RTT = Round Trip Delay
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Cloud RAN (Virtualized BBU)
‣ 3-step approach:
• Phase1: BBU centralization
• Phase 2: BBU pooling
• Phase 3: BBU function split
‣ Functions of the BBU not
virtualized will be located at
the cell site
‣ vBBU option: L3 only, L3 and L2
‣ Ethernet over fiber to be considered
• IEEE P1914.1 or 5G-PPP Xhaul and
Cross-haul

© 2016 IHS 14
Optical Network Options for C-RAN

© 2016 IHS 15
Loss Budget Calculation

‣ SFP+ spec sheets usually give

min and max launch powers

‣ Loss budget always based on

worst-case scenario such that

• Loss budget = SFP min. launch

power minus SFP sensitivity

‣ Loss budget varies widely

between vendors and models

© 2016 IHS 16
Loss Calculation

‣ In passive C-RAN, MUX/DEMUX

loss to be considered

‣ In active C-RAN, loss measured

between elements that feature
O-E-O conversion

‣ Passive C-RAN example

© 2016 IHS 17
Wavelength Addressing Problem

‣ In fronthaul rings, wavelengths

must be dropped at the right
tower by using the right OADM,
and by connecting the fiber to
the right port

‣ Simple but very common

issue in access networks of
cable operators, and fronthaul is
very similar

© 2016 IHS 18
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 19
C-RAN Test Domains: On Cell Site

FTB-1 Platform

FIP

OTDR
CPRI
© 2016 IHS 20
C-RAN Test Domains at BBU Hotel

Ethernet
OpticalRF™
CPRI
OTDR
Dispersion

© 2016 IHS 21
Addressing Wavelength Issues:
CWDM and DWDM OTDRs
Tower A
‣ OTDR operating at a specific
CWDM or DWDM wavelength
WDM
‣ It measures loss at signal OTDR
wavelength, which is
impossible with standard
OTDRs

‣ Knowing BBU-to-RRH BBU Hotel Tower B

distances, OTDR can confirm
wavelength is properly
addressed OADM

Tower C
© 2016 IHS 22
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 23
The Road to 5G: An Optical Perspective
‣ Huge 5G bandwidth requirements will stress backhaul/fronthaul capacity
• And likely trigger metro/core optical technologies to make their way into
fronthaul/backhaul

‣ 2 key assumptions/predictions:
• Data rates reach 100G in backhaul (and maybe in fronthaul)

• Distances between BBU and RRH likely extend up to 50–80 km

‣ ROADMs might be introduced in fronthaul to allow for extra routing flexibility

• Reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexers

‣ Impact: new impairments appear, such as dispersion and noise-related issues

© 2016 IHS 24
New Impairment With 5G: Dispersion

‣ Dispersion issues appear since bandwidth

reaches ≥10GBd and spans are longer

‣ Dispersion = pulse broadening as light

travels in fiber; it can lead to BER in
extreme cases

‣ 2 types: chromatic dispersion and

polarization mode dispersion

‣ Recommendation: test dispersion when

data rate ≥ 10 GBaud and reach > 10 km

© 2016 IHS 25
New Impairment With 5G: Noise in Fronthaul

‣ ROADMs can select and redirect wavelengths; might be used in 5G fronthaul

‣ ROADMs contain amplifiers, which are main source of noise in networks
‣ They degrade optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR)
‣ Receivers require minimum OSNR value to operate error-free
‣ OSNR test becomes important when ROADMs are introduced
© 2016 IHS 26
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 27
Intuitive OTDR Measurement With iOLM
‣ Combines in a
single graph the
results of multiple
OTDR acquisitions
at different
iOLM* wavelengths and
different pulse
durations

‣ Highlights in red
any connector,
splice or MUX that
does not meet
specific thresholds

(*) iOLM = intelligent link mapper

© 2016 IHS 28
FTB-5700:
Unique Single-ended Dispersion Tester

‣ Dispersion testers fall in 2 categories:

dual-ended and single-ended

‣ Single-ended dispersion tester cuts in half

or more the required staff and costs

‣ FTB-5700 is world’s unique CD/PMD

single-ended tester

‣ Widely used in mobile backhaul today,

perfect for future C-RAN fronthaul roll outs

© 2016 IHS 29
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 30
Conclusions
‣ C-RAN being deployed as a roadmap to 5G networks
‣ Centralized RAN is the predominant architecture, but this will evolve over time to cloud RAN

Fronthaul Fronthaul Deployment/Operation

Considerations Solutions Considerations
• Latency • CWDM and DWDM • Construction
fronthaul
• Synchronization • Testing, measurement
• Overlapping fronthaul and validation
• Bandwidth
with backhaul
• Service monitoring
• Performance
• Semi-passive fronthaul
• Troubleshooting
• ROADMs - flexible routing

© 2016 IHS 31
FTTA Is the Foundation of CRAN
Mobile edge computing
‣ CPRI link-rate explosion MEC  Distributed content
 RAN-aware content optimization
• (LTE) 150Mb/s DL data rate  2.4 Gbps CPRI  Active device location tracking

• (5G) 3 Gbps DL data rate  48 Gbps CPRI

Virtualization of BBU functions
Virtual BBU function slicing
• E.g. 4x4 MIMO in 200MHz band @ 28GHz 

RAN  Enable service-specific RAN

‣ Make sure the foundation is good before

building up
Centralization of the BBUs
‣ What you deploy should be ready for future C-RAN in BBU hotels
 Group BBUs in pools to optimize utilization
requirements  Facilitate inter-BBU communication (X2)

• CRAN, 5G, higher CPRI rates

Fiber to the antenna
‣ So, pay attention to quality of the FTTA FTTA  Copper replaced by fibers
Split of BBU and RRH
deployments 

 CPRI transport between BBU and RRH

© 2016 IHS 32
 #CloudRAN
1 Market Trends

2 Problems and Challenges

3 New Options and Solutions

4 Deployment Applications

5 EXFO’s Approach

6 Conclusions

7 Audience Q&A

© 2016 IHS 33
Audience Q&A #CloudRAN

From Centralized RAN to Cloud RAN

Richard Webb Yvon Rouault Jean-Sébastien Tassé Allen Tatara

Research Director Advisor Product Line Manager Manager, Webinar Events
Mobile Backhaul & Small Cells CTO Office Optical Business Unit (Moderator)
Richard.Webb@ihs.com Yvon.Rouault@exfo.com Jean-Sebastien.Tasse@exfo.com Allen.Tatara@ihs.com
IHS EXFO EXFO IHS

© 2016 IHS 34
 #CloudRAN

Thank You
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© 2016 IHS

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