Centralized RAN

(C-RAN)

WHAT IS IT?

AND WHY SHOULD YOU CARE?

Paul Kennard, CTO

June 13, 2013

AVIAT NETWORKS

THE DATA STORM

low or stable average revenue per user LOW ARPU

NEW DEVICES

NETWORK COSTS

NEW CONSUMERS explosion of smart phones, tablets

and other mobile devices

increased network CAPEX and OPEX

5 billion consumers will have

access to internet

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DENSER NETWORKS

This has several problems:

How to meet the required coverage

and capacity?

How to deal with interference?

How to manage increased complexity:

To increase spectral efficiency?

To manage customers data?

To deal with higher CAPEX and

OPEX?

the only way to deal with the data storm is to have denser wireless networks with ever increasing spectral efficiency

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STRATEGIES FOR DENSER NETWORKS

RAN DECENTRALIZATION (HetNet) TRADITIONAL MACRO CELLS

SMALL CELLS, SON

BACKHAUL

RAN CENTRALIZATION (C-RAN) DISTRIBUTED ANTENNAS (DAS)

REMOTE RADIO HEADS (RRH)

FRONTHAUL

WiFi OFFLOAD OFFLOAD

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CENTRALIZED RAN (C-RAN) TERMINOLOGY

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Source: NGMN

C-RAN IMPLEMENTATION JUST ANOTHER FORM OF SMALL CELL

TRADITIONAL MACRO CELL DEPLOYMENT CELL SPLIT USING FRONT HAUL

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ADVANTAGES OF C-RAN

Resource pooling

Greener infrastructure (re-use)

Base station virtualization

Simplified management and operation

Coordination for interference mitigation (ICIC)

Multi technology support

No GPS in each remote site

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MAIN C-RAN CHALLENGE IS FRONTHAUL

Difficult to reach RRU locations

(mostly urban)

Non traditional deployments

(street furniture, non-tower)

CPRI interface creates new challenges

(capacity, latency, management, etc)

PLUS FIBER IS NOT EVERYWHERE,

AND NOT FOR FREE SO WIRELESS SOLUTIONS FOR

FRONTHAUL WILL BE NEEDED

PLUS FIBER IS NOT EVERYWHERE,

AND NOT FOR FREE SO WIRELESS SOLUTIONS FOR

FRONTHAUL WILL BE NEEDED

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BUT CAPACITY AND LATENCY REQUIREMENTS PUSH THE

BOUNDARIES OF WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES

Latency

CORE CPRI

BBU

TRANSMISSION MEDIUM (FIBER / MICROWAVE)

RRH

IP BACKHAUL

RRH

CPRI CPRI

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WHICH MEANS NEW INNOVATIONS (IN WIRELESS TRANSPORT)

WILL BE REQUIRED

smaller

faster

low power

higher capacity

lower latency

cheaper

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C-RAN offers many benefits for

operators however Fronthaul challenges

need to be addressed to make it a reality

W W W . AV I AT N E T W O R K S . C O M