2021/04/09 by Line M. P. Larsen, Frank Slyne, Larsen, Line +8
Engineering · #Advanced Optical Network Technologies #Advanced Photonic Communication Systems #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Networking and Internet Architecture (cs.NI) #Optical Network Technologies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2104.04645
openalex publication_date 2021/04/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Cloud-Radio Access Networks (Cloud-RANs) are separating the mobile networks\nbase station functions into three units, the connection between the two of them\nis referred to as the fronthaul network. This work demonstrates the\ntransmission of user data transport blocks between the distributed Medium\nAccess Control (MAC) layer and local Physical (PHY) layer in the radiounit over\na Passive Optical Network (PON). PON networks provide benefits in terms of\neconomy and flexibility when used for Cloud-RAN fronthaul transport. However,\nthe PON upstream scheduling can introduce additional latency that might not\nsatisfy the requirements imposed by Cloud-RAN functional split. In this work we\ndemonstrate how our virtual Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation(DBA) concept can be\nused to effectively communicate with the mobile Long Term Evolution (LTE)\nscheduler, adopting the well known cooperative DBA mechanism, to reduce the PON\nlatency to satisfactory values. Thus, our results show the feasibility ofusing\nPON technology as transport medium of the fronthaul for the MAC/PHY functional\nsplit, in a fully virtualised environment.Further background traffic is added,\nso that measurements show a more realistic scenario. The obtained round trip\ntimes indicates that using PON at fronthaul might be limited to the distance of\n11km for a synchronised scenario, or no compliance for a non-synchronised\nscenario.\n