China Mobile CRAN White Paper v26 2014

C-RAN
The Road Towards Green RAN

White Paper
Version 2.6 (Sep., 2013)
China Mobile Research Institute
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ....................................................................................................................... 1
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 3
1.1 Background ......................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Vision of C-RAN .................................................................................................................. 3
1.3 Objectives of This White Paper ....................................................................................... 4
1.4 Status of This White Paper .............................................................................................. 4
2 Challenges of Todays RAN ............................................................................................... 5
2.1 Large Number of BS and Associated High Power Consumption .............................. 5
2.2 Rapid Increasing CAPEX/OPEX of RAN.......................................................................... 6
2.3 Explosive Network Capacity Need with Falling ARPUs............................................... 8
2.4 Dynamic Mobile Network Load and Low BS Utilization Rate .................................... 9
2.5 Growing Internet Service Pressure on Operators Core Network............................ 9
3 Architecture of C-RAN ....................................................................................................... 11
3.1 Advantages of C-RAN ..................................................................................................... 13
3.2 Technical Challenges of C-RAN ..................................................................................... 14
4 Technology Trends and Feasibility Analysis ...................................................................... 15
4.1 Wireless Signal Transmission on Optical Network.................................................... 15
4.2 Dynamic Radio Resource Allocation and Cooperative Transmission/Reception . 22
4.3 Large Scale Baseband Pool and Its Interconnection ........................................................... 26
4.4 Open Platform Based Base Station Virtualization ................................................................ 27
4.5 Distributed Service Network ................................................................................................. 31
5 Evolution Path ...................................................................................................................... 33
5.1 C-RAN Centralized Base Station Deployment ........................................................... 33
5.2 Multi-standard SDR and Joint Signal Processing ...................................................... 33
5.3 Virtual BS on Real-time Cloud Infrastructure ............................................................ 34
6 Recent Progress .................................................................................................................. 35
6.1 TD-SCDMA and GSM Field Trial .................................................................................... 35
6.2 TD-LTE C-RAN Field Trial ............................................................................................... 41
6.3 Large Scale Baseband Pool Equipment Development ............................................. 43
6.4 C-RAN Prototype Based on General Purpose Processor .................................................. 45
6.5 Progress on C-RAN Virtualization ................................................................................. 47
7 Conclusions ........................................................................................................................... 52
8 Acknowledgement .............................................................................................................. 53
9 Terms and Definitions ....................................................................................................... 54
i
10 Reference ............................................................................................................................ 56
ii
Executive Summary
Data explosion in the big data era is in fact putting operators in a dilemma situation. On the
one hand, operators have to spend huge investment on network infrastructure upgrade to
accommodate the explosively increasing traffic, resulting in a significant increase of the total
cost of ownership. On the other hand, operators are not seeing proportional revenue growth
with the data traffic. Under the circumstance, traditional RAN architecture where a dedicated
equipment room with supporting facilities is needed for each base station is facing more and
more challenges and issues for network deployment and operation, especially for LTE.
First, LTE site density is higher and thus requires more such equipment rooms, which is
increasingly difficult to obtain since available real estate is becoming scarcer. Moreover, LTE
suffers much more severe interference issue than 2G, 3G networks due to its universal
frequency reuse OFDM nature and its higher cell density. Existing collaborative technologies
such as joint transmission or joint reception can not perform effectively under traditional
architecture with X2 interface which is of low bandwidth and high latency. Last but not the least
traditional base stations are deployed for their peak scale to accommodate the peak traffic. This
practice, however, due to the time-varying nature of the traffic, not only lowers the equipment
utilization efficiency, but also greatly increases the power consumption unnecessarily.
Featuring centralized, collaborative, cloud and clean system, the cloud RAN (C-RAN) is
proposed by CMCC to help operators to address the above-mentioned challenges. A C-RAN
network centralizes the BBU processing resource together into a pool so that the resource could
be managed and allocated dynamically on demand. C-RAN offers many benefits to operators,
including but not limited to:
Energy saving, mainly because of facility sharing in the centralization office, especially
air-conditioning sharing and due to improved resource efficiency by virtualization.
TCO reduction since lots of site rooms could be saved and power consumption is
significantly decreased. Also, site construction can be sped up since there is no need to
find the separate equipment room for every base station. Instead, one centralized site
office can accommodate several dozens of base stations.
Improved spectral efficiency due to facilitation of advanced technology

implementation, especially Coordinated Multi-point technique by providing high-speed lowlatency switching networks in the centralized site office to enable timely information
exchange among BBU within the pool.
Improved resource efficiency thanks to resource virtualization.

To enable service on edge and boost service innovation when open general-purposed
platform is adopted for C-RAN implementation.
To leverage such benefits, however, three major challenges must be addressed.
A cost-effective fronthaul solution which minimizes fiber consumption while

maximizing the number of transported TD-LTE carriers (especially 8-antenna TD-LTE
carriers).
A scalable BBU pool architecture which efficiently supports various key technologies
including CoMP and live migration.
Virtualization technology meeting the strict real-time constraints of wireless signal

processing. This includes the optimization on hypervisor, operating systems, management
functions, I/O virtualization, and so on.
China Mobile has been developing and deploying C-RAN systems since 2009. In particular,
CMCC has conducted extensive field trials in more than 10 cities across China. Our field trials in
GSM and TD-SCDMA have vigorously demonstrated the benefits that C-RAN centralization can
bring to operators. For example, compared to distributed TD-SCDMA networks, up to 15%

CAPEX and 50% OPEX could be saved using C-RAN centralization. Moreover, system roll out
time is saved by 1/3 and in view of green deployment, the saving on power consumption can
be as high as 70%.
In the meantime, the TD-LTE C-RAN trials in the cities of Fuzhou, Chengdu and Guangzhou
have verified the maturity and effectiveness of CPRI compression and single fiber bi-direction
(SFBD) technologies in fronthaul implementation. Using SFBD and CPRI compression with 2:1
compression ratio, we can save the fiber consumption by 4 folds while maintaining a lossless
system performance. Moreover, WDM-based fronthaul solutions are being tested currently,
which promises even greater potential to further save on fiber resource and make it much
easier for large-scale C-RAN deployment.
Simulation results also demonstrated C-RANs advantages in achieving higher CoMP gain than
using traditional architecture. Average cell spectrum efficiency and cell-edge spectrum
efficiency by C-RAN CoMP are 20% and 45% higher than SU-MIMO respectively.
On the road toward virtualization to realize resource cloudization in C-RAN BBU pool, we have
developed an x86-based 3-mode base station prototype in which GSM, TS-SCDMA and TD-LTE
are realized in a pure software manner. We demo-ed an end-to-end call using commercial UE
and CN. However, currently the real-time wireless signal processing in pure software
implementation is not achieved cost effectively; the power-performance ratio is very low. We
therefore concluded that a dedicated hardware accelerator is needed for processing some L1
functions that are computation-intensive, e.g. iFFT/FFT. There is also some discussion and
viewpoints regarding how to implement virtualization from data center in C-RAN in this White
Paper.
C-RAN is a multi-stage RAN evolution which requires joint efforts from every partner in the
ecosystem including both IT and telecom industry. We would also like to take this WP as an
opportunity to call for more action, contribution and commitment on C-RAN research and
development, which we believe is the sure trend to the future.
--- End of Executive Summary
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
Todays mobile operators are facing a strong competition environment. The cost to build,
operate and upgrade the Radio Access Network (RAN) is becoming more and more expensive
while the revenue is not growing at the same rate. The mobile internet traffic is surging, while
the ARPU is flat or even decreasing slowly, which impacts the ability to build out the networks
and offer services in a timely fashion. To maintain profitability and growth, mobile operators
must find solutions to reduce cost as well as to provide better services to the customers.
On the other hand, the proliferation of mobile broadband internet also presents a unique
opportunity for developing an evolved network architecture that will enable new applications
and services, and become more energy efficient.
The RAN is the most important asset for mobile operators to provide high data rate, high
quality, and 24x7 services to mobile users. Traditional RAN architecture has the following
characteristics: first, each Base Station (BS) only connects to a fixed number of sector
antennas that cover a small area and only handle transmission/reception signals in its coverage
area; second, the system capacity is limited by interference, making it difficult to improve
spectrum capacity; and last but not least, BSs are built on proprietary platforms as a vertical
solution. These characteristics have resulted in many challenges. For example, the large
number of BSs requires corresponding initial investment, site support, site rental and
management support. Building more BS sites means increasing CAPEX and OPEX. Usually, BSs
utilization rate is low because the average network load is usually far lower than that in peak
load; while the BS processing power cant be shared with other BSs. Isolated BSs prove costly
and difficult to improve spectrum capacity. Lastly, a proprietary platform means mobile
operators must manage multiple none-compatible platforms if service providers want to
purchase systems from multiple vendors. Causing operators to have more complex and costly
plan for network expansion and upgrading. To meet the fast increasing data services, mobile
operators need to upgrade their network frequently and operate multiple-standard network,
including GSM, WCDMA/TD-SCDMA and LTE. However, the proprietary platform means mobile
operators lack the flexibility in network upgrade, or the ability to add services beyond simple
upgrades.
In summary, traditional RAN will become far too expensive for mobile operators to keep
competitive in the future mobile internet world. It lacks the efficiency to support sophisticated
centralized interference management required by future heterogeneous networks, the flexibility
to migrate services to network edge for innovative applications and the ability to generate new
revenue from revenue from new services. Mobile operators are faced with the challenge of
architecting radio network that enable flexibility. In the following sections, we will explore ways
to address these challenges.
1.2 Vision of C-RAN

The future RAN should provide mobile broadband Internet access to wireless customers with
low bit-cost, high spectral and energy efficiency. The RAN should meet the following
requirements:
Reduced cost (CAPEX and OPEX)
Lower energy consumption
High spectral efficiency
Based on open platform, support multiple standards, and smooth evolution
Provide a platform for additional revenue generating services.
Centralized base-band pool processing, Co-operative radio with distributed antenna equipped
by Remote Ratio Head (RRH) and real-time Cloud infrastructures RAN (C-RAN) can address the
challenges the operators are faced with and meet the requirements. Centralized signal
processing greatly reduces the number of sites equipment room needed to cover the same
areas; Co-operative radio with distributed antenna equipped by Remote Radio Head (RRH)
provides higher spectrum efficiency; real-time Cloud infrastructure based on open platform and
BS virtualization enables processing aggregation and dynamic allocation, reducing the power
consumption and increasing the infrastructure utilization rate. These novel technologies provide
an innovative approach to enabling the operators to not only meet the requirements but
advance the network to provide coverage, new services, and lower support costs.
C-RAN is not a replacement for 3G/B3G standards, only an alternative approach to current
delivery. From a long term perspective, C-RAN provides low cost and high performance green
network architecture to operators. In turn operators are able to deliver rich wireless services in
a cost-effective manner for all concerned.
C-RAN is not the only RAN deployment solution that will replace all todays macro cell station,
micro cell station, pico cell station, indoor coverage system, and repeaters. Different
deployment solutions have their respective advantages and disadvantages and are suitable for
particular deployment scenarios. C-RAN is targeting to be applicable to most typical RAN
deployment scenarios, like macro cell, micro cell, pico cell and indoor coverage. In addition,
other RAN deployment solution can serve as complementary deployment of C-RAN for certain
case.
1.3 Objectives of This White Paper

The objective of this white paper is to present China Mobiles vision of C-RAN and provide a
research framework by identifying the technical challenges of C-RAN architecture. We would
like to invite both industry and academic research institutes to join the research to guide the
vision into reality in the near future.
1.4 Status of This White Paper

This document version 2.5 is a revised version of version 2.0 released in December 2010. It is
not yet fully complete and there may still be some inconsistencies. However, it is considered to
be useful for distribution at this stage. It is expected that new research challenges might be
added in future versions. Comments and contributions to improve the quality of this white
paper are welcome.
2 Challenges of Todays RAN

2.1 Large Number of BS and Associated High Power Consumption
As operators constantly introduce new air interface and increase the number of base stations to
offer broadband wireless services, the power consumption gets a dramatic rise. For example: in
the past 5 years, China Mobile has almost doubled its number of BS, to provide better network
coverage and capacity. As a result, the total power consumption has also doubled. The higher
power consumption is translated directly to the higher OPEX and a significant environmental
impact, both of which are now increasingly unacceptable.
The following figure 1 shows the components of the power consumption of China Mobile. It
shows the majority of power consumption is from BS in the radio access network. Inside the BS,
only half of the power is used by the RAN equipment; while the other half is consumed by air
condition and other facilitate equipments.
Obviously, the best way to save energy and decrease carbon-dioxide emissions is to decrease
the number of BS. However, for traditional RAN, this will result in worse network coverage and
lower capacity. Therefore, operators are seeking new technologies to reduce energy
consumption without reducing the network coverage and capacity. Today, there are quite a
number of amendment technologies that helps reduce BS power consumption, such as the
software solutions which save power through turning off selected carriers on idle hours like
midnight, the green energy solutions which offer solar, wind and other renewable energy for
base stations power supply according to local natural conditions, and the energy-saving air
conditioning technology which combined with the local climate and environment characteristics,
reduce the energy consumption of the air conditioning equipment, etc. However, these
technologies are supplementary methods and cannot address the fundamental problems of
power consumption with the number of increasing BS.
In the long run, mobile operators must plan for energy efficiency from the radio access network
architecture planning. A change in infrastructure is the key to resolve the power consumption
challenge of radio access network. Centralized BS would reduce the number of BS equipment
rooms, reduce the A/C need, and use resource sharing mechanisms to improve the BS
utilization rate efficiency under dynamic network load.
Transmission,
15%
Other Support
Equipment,
3%
Management
office, 7%
Cell site, 72%
Channel, 6%
Air
Conditioners,
46%
Major
Equipment,
51%
Fig.1 Power Consumption of Base Station
2.2 Rapid Increasing CAPEX/OPEX of RAN

Over recent years, mobile data consumption has experienced a record growth among the
worlds operators as subscribers use more smart phones and mobile devices, like tablets. To
satisfy this consumer usage growth, mobile operators must significantly increase their network
capacity to provide mobile broadband to the masses. However, in an intensifying competitive
marketplace, high saturation levels, rapid technological changes and declining voice revenue,
operators are challenged with deployment of traditional BS as the cost is high, the return is not
high enough. Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) are all affecting mobile operators profitability.
They become more and more cautious about the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of their
network in order to remain profitable and competitive.
Fig. 2: Increasing CAPEX of 3G Network Construction and Evolution
Analysis of the TCO
The TCO including the CAPEX and the OPEX results from the network construction and
operation. The CAPEX is mainly associated with network infrastructure build, while OPEX is
mainly associated with network operation and management.
In general, up to 80% CAPEX of a mobile operator is spent on the RAN. This means that most
of the CAPEX is related to building up cell sites for the RAN. The historical CAPEX expenditure of
2007-2012 forest are shown in Fig.2. Because 3G/B3G signals deployed frequency 2GHz have
higher path loss and penetration loss than 2G signals (deployed frequency 900MHz), multiple
cell sites are needed for the similar level of 2G coverage. Thus, the dramatic increase was
found in the CAPEX when building a 3G network.
The CAPEX is mainly spent at the stage of cell site constructions and consists of purchase and
construction
expenditures.
Purchase
expenditures
include
the
purchases
of
BS
and
supplementary equipments, such as power and air conditioning equipments etc. Construction
expenditures include network planning, site acquisition, civil works and so on. As shown is Fig.3,
it is noticeable that the cost of major wireless equipments makes up only 35% of CAPEX, while
the cost of the site acquisition, civil works, and equipment installation is more than 50% of the
total cost. Essentially, this means that more than half of CAPEX is not spent on productive
wireless functionality. Therefore, ways to reduce the cost of the supplementary equipment and
the expenditure on site installation and deployment is important to lower the CAPEX of mobile
operators.
Fig. 3: CAPEX and OPEX Analysis of Cell Site

OPEX in network operation and the maintenance stage play a significant part in the TCO.
Operational expenditure includes the expense of site rental, transmission network rental,
operation /maintenance and bills from the power supplier. Given a 7-year depreciation period of
BS equipment, as shown in Fig.4, an analysis of the TCO shows that OPEX accounts for over 60%
of the TCO, while the CAPEX only accounts for about 40% of the TCO. The OPEX is a key factor
that must be considered by operators in building the future RAN.
The most effective way to reduce TCO is to decrease the number of sites. This will bring down
the cost for the construction of the major equipment; and will minimize the expenditure on the
installation and rental of the equipment incurred by their occupied space. Fewer sites means
the corresponding cost of supplementary equipment will also be saved. This can significantly
decrease the operators CAPEX and OPEX, but results in poorer network coverage and user
experience in the traditional RAN. Therefore, a more cost-effective way must be found to
minimize the non-productive part of the TCO while simultaneously maintaining good network
coverage.
Fig. 4 TCO Analysis of Cell Site
Multi-standard environment
It is understood that the large number of legacy terminals, 2G, 3G, and B3G infrastructure will
coexist for a very long time to meet consumers demand. Most of the major mobile operators
worldwide will thus have to use two or three networks (Table 1) [1]. In the new economic
climate, operators must find ways to control CAPEX and OPEX while growing their businesses.
The base station occupies the largest part of infrastructure investment in a mobile network.
Multi-mode base station is expected as a cost efficient way for operators to alleviate the cost of
network construction and O&M. In addition, sharing of hardware resources in a multi-mode
base station is the key approach to lower cost.
Table 1. Multi-Network Operation of Major Mobile Service Providers

Cellular Technologies
Vodafone
WCDMA
One
France
Telecom
TMobile
Verizon
SK
Telecom
Telstra
China
Unicom
TD-SCDMA
CDMA
EVDO
China
Mobile
&
2000
&
GSM GPRS EDGE
LTE
2.3 Explosive Network Capacity Need with Falling ARPUs

Data rate of mobile broadband network grows significantly with the introduction of air-interface
standards such as 3G and B3G; this in turn speeds up end users mobile data consumption.
Some forecasts indicated the number of people who access mobile broadband will triple in next
several years, after LTE and LTE-A are deployed.
These findings reflect the fact that the
increasing bandwidth of wireless broadband triggers the increase in mobile traffic, because the
mobile users can use a variety of high-bandwidth services, such as video-based applications.
This new trend will become a serious challenge to future RAN.
Based on the forecast data [2], global mobile traffic increases 66-fold with a compound annual
growth rate (CAGR) of 131% between 2008 and 2013. The similar trend is observed in current
CMCC network. On the contrary, the peak data rate from UMTS to LTE-A only increases with a
CAGR of 55%. Clearly, as shown in Fig.5, there is a large gap between the CAGR of new air
interface and the CAGR of customers need. In order to fill this gap, new infrastructure
technologies need to be developed to further improve the performance of LTE/LTE-A.
Fig. 5 Mobile Broadband Data-rates/Traffic Growth

On the other hand, the revenue of mobile operators is not increasing at the same pace as the
network capacity they provide. Mobile operators voice volumes are steadily increasing and the
data volume grows quickly, but revenues are not and ARPUs are even falling in some case. In
order to face the slow growth in revenue, operators are forced to constantly hold down costs
notably operating costs. That means mobile operators must find a low cost, high-capacity
access network with novel techniques to meet the growth of mobile data traffic while keeping a
healthy, profitable growth.
2.4 Dynamic Mobile Network Load and Low BS Utilization Rate

One characteristic of the mobile network is that subscribers are frequently moving from one
place to another. From data based on real operation network, we noticed that the movement of
subscribers shows a very strong time-geometry pattern. Around the beginning of working time,
a large number of subscribers move from residential areas to central office areas for work;
when the work hour ends, subscribers move back to their homes. Consequently, the network
load moves in the mobile network with a similar patternso called "tidal effect". As shown in
Fig.6, during working hours, the core office areas Base Stations are the busiest; in the nonwork hours, the residential or entertainment areas Base Stations are the busiest.
Fig. 6 Mobile Network Load in Daytime

Each Base Stations processing capability today can only be used by the active users in its cell
range, causing idle BS in some areas/times and oversubscribed BS in other areas. When
subscribers are moving to other areas, the Base Station just stays in idle with a large of its
processing power wasted. Because operators must provide 7x24 coverage, these idle Base
Stations consume almost the same level of energy as they do in busy hours. Even worse, the
Base Stations are often dimensioned to be able to handle a maximum number of active
subscribers in busy hours, thus they are designed to have much more capacity than the
average needed, which means that most of the processing capacity is wasted in non-busy time.
Sharing the processing and thus the power between different cell areas is a way to utilize these
BS more effectively.
2.5 Growing Internet Service Pressure on Operators Core Network

With the hyper-growth of smart phones as well as emerging 3G embedded Internet Notebook,
the mobile internet traffic has been grown exponentially in the last few years and will continue
to grow more than 66x in the next 5-6 years. However because of increasingly competition
between mobile operators, the projected revenue growth will be much lower than the traffic
growth. There will be a huge gap between the cost associated with this mobile internet traffic
and the revenue generated, let alone the mobile operators needing to spend billions of dollars
to upgrade their back-haul and core network to keep up with the growing pace. This is a huge
common challenge to all the mobile operators in the wireless industry.
The exponential growth of mobile broadband data puts pressure on operators existing packet
core elements such as SGSNs and GGSNs, increasing mobile Internet delivery cost and
challenging the flat-rate data service models. The majority of this traffic is either Internet
bound or sourced from the Internet. Catering to this exponential growth in mobile Internet
traffic by using traditional 3G deployment models, the older 3G platform is resulting in huge
CAPEX and OPEX cost while adding little benefit to the ARPU. Additional issues are the
continuous CAPEX spending on older SGSNs & GGSNs, the higher Internet distribution cost, the
congestion on backhaul and the congestion on limited shared capacity of base stations.
Therefore, offloading the Internet traffic, as close to the base stations as possible, can be an
effective way to reduce the mobile Internet delivery cost.
Fig. 7 Wireless traffic on a commercial 3G

Meanwhile it is interesting to understand how people are using todays mobile internet. A recent
research paper [3] published by one major TEM may give us a glimpse of the most popular
mobile applications. It is surprising to see that people are gradually using mobile internet just
like they use the fixed broadband network. Content services which include content delivered
through web and P2P are actually dominating the network traffic. Fig.7 is an example of
wireless traffic on a commercial 3G operator. Considering this usage pattern, do we have better
choice than just blindly spending billions of dollars to upgrade back-haul and the core network?
10
3 Architecture of C-RAN
We believe Centralized processing, Cooperative radio, Cloud, and Clean (Green) infrastructure
Radio Access Network (C-RAN) is the answer to solve the challenges mentioned above. Its a
natural evolution of the distributed BTS, which is composed of the baseband Unit (BBU) and
remote radio head (RRH). According to the different function splitting between BBU and RRH,
there are two kinds of C-RAN solutions: one is called full centralization, where baseband (i.e.
layer 1) and the layer 2, layer 3 BTS functions are located in BBU; the other is called partial
centralization, where the RRH integrates not only the radio function but also the baseband
function, while all other higher layer functions are still located in BBU. For the solution 2,
although the BBU doesnt include the baseband function, it is still called BBU for the simplicity.
The different function partition method is shown in Fig.8.
Antenna
Solution 2 Solution 1
GPS
Core
network
Main
Control
& Clock
Baseband
processing
Digital
IF
Transmitter
/Receiver
PA
&
LNA
RRU
BBU
Fig. 8 Different Separation Method of BTS Functions

Based on these two different function splitting methods, there are two C-RAN architectures.
Both of them are composed of three main parts: first, the distributed radio units which can be
referred to as Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) plus antennas which are located at the remote site;
second, the high bandwidth low-latency optical transport network which connect the RRHs and
BBU pool; and third, the BBU composed of high-performance programmable processors and
real-time virtualization technology.
Virtual BS Pool
L1/L2/L3/O&M
L1/L2/L3/O&M
L1/L2/L3/O&M
Fiber
RRH
RRH
RRH
RRH
RRH
RRH
RRH
Fig. 9 C-RAN Architecture 1: Fully Centralized Solution

11
Virtual BS Pool
L2/L3/O&M
L2/L3/O&M
L2/L3/O&M
Fiber or
Microwave
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
RRH/L1
Fig. 10 C-RAN Architecture 2: Partial Centralized Solution

The fully centralized C-RAN architecture, as shown in figure 9, has the advantages of easy
upgrading and network capacity expansion; it also has better capability for supporting multistandard operation, maximum resource sharing, and its more convenient towards support of
multi-cell collaborative signal processing. Its major disadvantage is the high bandwidth
requirement between the BBU and to carry the baseband I/Q signal. In the extreme case, a TDLTE 8 antenna with 20MHz bandwidth will need a 10Gpbs transmission rate.
The partial centralized C-RAN architecture, as shown in figure 10, has the advantage of
requiring much lower transmission bandwidth between BBU and RRH, by separating the
baseband processing from BBU and integrating it into RRH. Compared with the full centralized
one, the BBU-RRH connection only need to carry demodulated data, which is only 1/20~1/50 of
the original baseband I/Q sample data. However, it also has its own shortcomings. Because the
baseband processing is integrated into RRH, it has less flexibility in upgrading, and less
convenience for multi-cell collaborative signal processing.
With either one of these C-RAN architectures, mobile operators can quickly deploy and make
upgrades to their network. The operator only needs to install new RRHs and connect them to
the BBU pool to expand the network coverage or split the cell to improve capacity. If the
network load grows, the operator only needs to upgrade the BBU pools HW to accommodate
the increased processing capacity. Moreover, the fully centralized solution, in combination with
open platform and general purpose processors, will provide an easy way to develop and deploy
software defined radio (SDR) which enables upgrading of air interface standards by software
only, and makes it easier to upgrade RAN and support multi-standard operation.
Different from traditional distributed BS architecture, C-RAN breaks up the static relationship
between RRHs and BBUs. Each RRH does not belong to any specific physical BBU. The radio
signals from /to a particular RRH can be processed by a virtual BS, which is part of the
processing capacity allocated from the physical BBU pool by the real-time virtualization
technology. The adoption of virtualization technology will maximize the flexibility in the C-RAN
system.
12
Both solutions described above are under development and evaluation. They could be properly
deployed in different networks depending on the situation of the network. The following
discussion will focus on the Fully Centralized Solution.
3.1 Advantages of C-RAN

The benefits of the C-RAN architecture are listed as follows:
Energy Efficient/Green Infrastructure

C-RAN is an eco-friendly infrastructure. Firstly, with centralized processing of the C-RAN
architecture, the number of BS sites can be reduced several folds. Thus the air conditioning
and other site support equipments power consumption can be largely reduced. Secondly,
the distance from the RRHs to the UEs can be decreased since the cooperative radio
technology can reduce the interference among RRHs and allow a higher density of RRHs.
Smaller cells with lower transmission power can be deployed while the network coverage
quality is not affected. The energy used for signal transmission will be reduced, which is
especially helpful for the reduction of power consumption in the RAN and extend the UE
battery stand-by time. Lastly, because the BBU pool is a shared resource among a large
number of virtual BS, it means a much higher utilization rate of processing resources and
lower power consumption can be achieved. When a virtual BS is idle at night and most of
the processing power is not needed, they can be selectively turned off (or be taken to a
lower power state) without affecting the 7x24 service commitment.
Cost-saving on CAPEX &OPEX

Because the BBUs and site support equipment are aggregated in a few big rooms, it is much
easier for centralized management and operation, saving a lot of the O&M cost associated
with the large number of BS sites in a traditional RAN network. Secondly, although the
number of RRHs may not be reduced in a C-RAN architecture its functionality is simpler, size
and power consumption are both reduced and they can sit on poles with minimum site
support and management. The RRH only requires the installation of the auxiliary antenna
feeder systems, enabling operators to speed up the network construction to gain a firstmover advantage. Thus, operators can get large cost saving on site rental and O&M.
Capacity Improvement
In C-RAN, virtual BSs can work together in a large physical BBU pool and they can easily
share the signaling, traffic data and channel state information (CSI) of active UEs in the
system. It is much easier to implement joint processing & scheduling to mitigate inter-cell
interference (ICI) and improve spectral efficiency. For example, cooperative multi-point
processing technology (CoMP in LTE-Advanced), can easily be implemented under the CRAN infrastructure.
Adaptability to Non-uniform Traffic

C-RAN is also suitable for non-uniformly distributed traffic due to the load-balancing
capability in the distributed BBU pool. Though the serving RRH changes dynamically
according to the movement of UEs, the serving BBU is still in the same BBU pool. As the
coverage of a BBU pool is larger than the traditional BS, non-uniformly distributed traffic
generated from UEs can be distributed in a virtual BS which sits in the same BBU pool.
Smart Internet Traffic Offload

Through enabling the smart breakout technology in C-RAN, the growing internet traffic from
smart phones and other portable devices, can be offloaded from the core network of
operators. The benefits are as follows: reduced back-haul traffic and cost; reduced core
network traffic and gateway upgrade cost; reduced latency to the users; differentiating
13
service delivery quality for various applications. The service overlapping the core network
also supplies a better experience to users.
3.2 Technical Challenges of C-RAN

The centralized C-RAN brings lots of benefits in cost, capacity and flexibility over traditional
RAN, however, it also has some technical challenges that must be solved before deployment by
mobile operators.
Radio over Low Cost Optical Network

In C-RAN architecture 1, the optical fiber between BBU pool and RRHs has to carry a large
amount of baseband sampling data in real time. Due to the wideband requirement of LTE/LTE-A
system and multi-antenna technology, the bandwidth of optical transport link to transmit
multiple RRHs baseband sampling data is 10 gigabit level with strict requirements of
transportation latency and latency jitter.
Advanced Cooperative Transmission/Reception

Joint processing is the key to achieve higher system spectrum efficiency. To mitigate
interference of the cellular system, multi-point processing algorithms that can make use of
special channel information and harness the cooperation among multiple antennas at different
physical sites should be developed. Joint scheduling of radio resources is also necessary to
reduce interference and increase capacity.
To support the above Cooperative Multi-Point Joint processing algorithms, both end-user data
and UL/DL channel information needs to be shared among virtual BSs. The interface between
virtual BSs to carry this information should support high bandwidth and low latency to ensure
real time cooperative processing. The information exchanged in this interface includes one or
more of the following types: end-user data package, UE channel feedback information, and
virtual BSs scheduling information. Therefore, the design of this interface must meet the realtime joint processing requirement with low backhaul transportation delay and overhead.
Baseband Pool Interconnection

The C-RAN architecture centralizes a large number of BBUs within one physical location, thus
its security is crucial to the whole network. To achieve high reliability in case of unit failure, in
order to recover from error, and to allow flexible resource allocation of BBU, there must be a
high bandwidth, low latency, low cost switch network with flexible, extensible topology that
interconnects the BBUs in the pool. Through this switch network, the digital baseband signal
from any RRH can be routed to any BBU in the pool for processing. Thus, any individual BBU
failure wont affect the functionality of the system.
Base Station Virtualization Technology

After the baseband processing units have been put in a centralized pool, it is essential to design
virtualization technologies to distribute/group the processing units into virtual BS entities. The
major challenges of virtualization are: real-time processing algorithm implementation,
virtualization of the baseband processing pool, and dynamic processing capacity allocation to
deal with the dynamic cell load in system.
Service on Edge
Unlike service in a data center, distributing services on the edge of the RAN has its unique
challenges. In the following research framework part, we try to summarize these challenges
into the following three categories: services on the edges integration with the RAN, intelligence
of DSN, and the deployment and management of distributed service.
14
4 Technology Trends and Feasibility Analysis

In order to solve the technical challenges of C-RAN architecture, based on current technical
conditions and future development trends, we suggest to do further research in the following
areas. The purpose is to solve the low cost high bandwidth wireless signal transmission problem
based on an optical network, dynamic resource allocation and collaborative radio technology. It
also comprehends the large scale BBU pool and associated interconnection problem, virtualized
BS based on open platforms and distributed service network solutions. The following is a
detailed analysis and discussion of these challenges.
4.1 Wireless Signal Transmission on Optical Network

The C-RAN architecture, which consists of the distributed RRH and BBU, means that need to
transport untreated wireless signals between BBU and RRH. The BBU-RRH connectivity
requirements pose challenges to the optical transmission speed and capacity. Usually, optical
fiber transmission must be used to carry the BBU-RRH signal to meet the strict bandwidth and
delay requirements.
BBU-RRH Bandwidth Requirement

Air interface is upgrading rapidly, new technologies like multiple antenna technology (2 ~ 8
antenna in every sector), wide bandwidth (10 MHz ~ 20 MHz every carrier) has been widely
adopted in LTE/LTE-A, thus the bandwidth of CPRI/Ir/OBRI (Open BBU-RRH Interface) link
bandwidth is much higher than the 2G and 3G era. In general, the system bandwidth, the
MIMO antenna configuration and the RRH concatenation levels are the main factors which have
an impact on the OBRI bandwidth requirement. For example, the bandwidth for 200 kHz GSM
systems with 2Tx/2Rx antennas and 4xsampling rate is up to 25.6Mbps. The bandwidth for
1.6MHz TD-SCDMA systems with 8Tx/8Rx antennas and 4 times sampling rate is up to
330Mbps. The transmission of this level of bandwidth on fiber link is matured and economic.
However, with the introducing of multi-hop RRH and high orders MIMO supporting 8Tx/8Rx
antenna configuration, the wireless baseband signal bandwidth between BBU-RRH would rise to
dozens of Gbps. Therefore, exploring different transport schemes for the BBU-RRH wireless
baseband signal is very important for C-RAN.
Transportation Latency, Jitter and Measurement Requirements

There are also strict requirements in terms of latency, jitter and measurement. In CPRI/Ir/OBRI
transmission latency, due to the strict requirements of LTE/LTE-A physical layer delay
processing
also
improve
the
baseband
wireless
signal
transmission
delay
jitter
and
requirements indirectly. Not including the transmission medium between the round-trip time
(i.e., regardless of delays caused by the cable length), for the user plane data (IQ data) on the
CPRI/Ir/OBRI links, the overall link round-trip delay may not exceed 5s. The OBRI interface
requires periodic measurement of each link or multi-hop cable length. In terms of calibration,
the accuracy of round trip latency of each link or hop should satisfy 16.276ns [4].
System Reliability
For the reliability of the system, because the traditional optical transmission networks
(SDH/PTN) in the access network links provide reliable loop protection, automatic replace and
fiber optic link management function, C-RAN architecture in the access network must also
provide comparative reliability and manageability. In traditional RAN architecture, each BBU on
the access ring usually has access to the corresponding transmission equipment of the center
transmission machine room through SDH/PTN. Through the SDH/PTN ring routing and
15
protection function, the system can quickly switch to the safe routing mode when any point on
this loop experiences optical fiber failure, ensuring that business is not interrupted. Under the
C-RAN architecture, it also should offer a similar optical fiber ring network protection function.
Centralized BBU should support more than 10~1000 base station sites, and then the optical
fiber connected OBRI link between distributed RRH and centralized BBU is long. If only point-2point optical fiber transmission occurred between each distributed RRH and centralized BBU,
then any fault on the optical fiber link will lead to the corresponding RRH loosing service. In
order to ensure the normal operation of the whole system under the condition of any single
point of failure in the optical fiber, the CPRI/Ir/OBRI link connecting the BBU-RRH should use
fiber ring network protection technology, using the main/minor optical fiber of different
channels to realize CPRI/Ir/OBRI link real-time backup.
Operation and Management

At the same time, under the traditional RAN architecture, the transmission network which
consists of SDH/PTN also provides the unified optical fiber network management ability for the
access ring. This includes unified management of the access ring fiber optic link of the entire
network, supervisory control of the access ring optical fiber breakdown, etc. BBU-RRH wireless
signal transport directly on the access ring, whose CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface should also, provides
similar management ability and fit into unified optical fiber network management.
Cost Requirements
Finally, in terms of cost, the high speed optical module necessary for the CPRI/Ir/OBRI optical
interface will be amongst the important factors affecting the C-RAN economic structure.
Compared to traditional architecture, the wireless signal transmission data rate on C-RAN is
more than 100-200 times higher than the bearer service data rate after demodulation. Building
the fiber transportation network in developed city is very hard. This is less of an issue for
operators that already deploy optical fiber and particularly for operators own their own optical
network.
Although the cost of the optical fiber employing CPRI/Ir/OBRI for high speed wireless signal
transmission doesn't need to increase, the high speed optic module or optical transmission
equipment costs must compare to traditional SDH/PTN transmission equipment in order to
make C-RAN architecture more attractive on the CAPEX and OPEX fronts .Therefore, how to
achieve a low cost, high bandwidth and low latency wireless signal optical fiber transmission will
become a key challenge for realization of the future LTE and LTE network deployment by C-RAN.
For the above problems and corresponding technical progress trend, we will analyze and put
forward ideas for solving these problems.
4.1.1 Data Compression Techniques of CPRI/Ir/OBR Link

In view of the above LTE/LTE-A BBU-RRH wireless signal transmission bandwidth problems,
several data compression techniques that can reduce the burden on the OBRI interface are
being investigated to deal with the inevitable bandwidth issue, including time domain
schemes (e.g. reducing signal sampling, non-linear quantization, and IQ data compression)
as well as frequency domain schemes (e.g. sub-carrier compression).
For LTE system with 20MHz bandwidth, the BBU uses 2048 FFT / IFFT but the effective
number of subcarriers is only 1,200, so if the FFT / IFFT is implemented in the RRH, then
the Ir interface between BBU and the RRH only has to transmit effective data subcarriers,
such that the Ir interface load can be reduced about 40%, However,
frequency domain
compression leads to an increase in IQ mapping complexity, which would increase the

interface logic design and processing complexity. Meanwhile, the RRH needs to process
16
parts of the RACH, Therefore, RRH cannot treat different RACH configurations transparently,
instead RRH needs to process RACH based on configuration. Since there are hundreds of
different configurations, each has to be controlled by different timing algorithms in the RRH,
which could greatly increase the complexity of system design. Therefore, considering the
implementation complexity and cost, such frequency domain compression is not feasible at
the moment.
DAGC time-domain based compression technology is a method used for IQ compression.
The basic principle of DAGC is to select the average power reference based on the best
baseband demodulation range, normalize the power of each symbol, and reduce the signal
dynamic range. DAGC compression will adversely affect system performance. The receiver
dynamic range of the uplink will be reduced, which leads to deterioration of the signal to
noise ratio.
At the same time, the EVM indicators will worsen on the downlink. With
increased compression ratio, the system performance will deteriorate even more. Currently,
we still need to investigate the impacts caused by different compression schemes.
Table 2 lists the advantages and disadvantages of various compression schemes. As
indicated, there is no ideal OBRI link data compression scheme. More studies in this area
are required.
Table 2. Comparison of Pros and Cons for Various Data Compression Techniques
Bandwidth
Compression
Schemes
Reducing signal
sampling
Non-linear
quantization
Pros
Low complexity;
Cons
Severe performance loss.
Efficient compression to 66.7%;

Less impacts on protocols.
Improve the QSNR;
Some impacts on the OBRI interface
Mature algorithms available, e.g. A law
complexity.
and U law;
High compression efficiency to 53%.
IQ data
Compression
Potential high compression efficiency;
High complexity;
Only need extra decompression and
Difficult to set up a relativity model;
compression modules.
Real-time and compression distortion

issues;
No mature algorithm available.
High compression efficiency to 40%
Increase the system complexity;
~58%;
Extra processing ability on optical chips
Easy to be performed in downlink.
and the thermal design;
Sub-carrier
Compression
High device cost;

Difficulty for maintenance;
RACH processing is a big challenge; More
storage, larger FPGA processing
capacity.
4.1.2 Transmission delay and jitter of CPRI/Ir/OBRI link

As mentioned previously, CPRI/Ir/OBRI link have strict demands on transmission delay,
jitter and measurement. However, because the link round trip delay requirements (5 us) of
the user plane data (IQ data) in CPRI/Ir/OBRI link do not include the transmission medium
round-trip time (i.e. delay in optical transmission), this requirement can be satisfied by the
existing technical conditions. At the same time, because CPRI/Ir/OBRI optical fiber routing
generally does not change with time and delay jitter caused by transmission is relatively
small, it is easy to meet the corresponding requirements.
17
On the other hand, because LTE/LTE-A has strict requirements about physical layer
treatment delay, CPRI/Ir/OBRI total transmission delay on the link should not exceed a
certain level. The physical layer HARQ process places the highest demand on processing
delay. HARQ is an important technology to improve the performance of the physical layer,
its essence is testing the physical layer on the receiving end of a sub-frame for correct or
incorrect transmission, and rapid feedback ACK/NACK to the launching end physical layer,
then let launching physical layer to make the decision whether or not to send again. If sent
again, the receiver does combined processing for multi-launching signal in the physical
layer, and then provides feedback to the upper protocol after demodulation success.
According to the LTE/LTE-A standard, the ACK/NACK HARQ on uplink and downlink process
should be finished in 3 ms after receiving the signals in the shortest case, which requires
that sub-frame processing delay in the physical layer should be generally less than 1 ms.
Because the physical layer processing itself takes 800-900 us, then CPRI/Ir/OBRI optical
transmission delay may be 100-200 us at the most. According to the light speed(200,000
kilometers per hour) estimated in the fiber, CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface maximum transmission
distance under the C-RAN framework is limited from 20 km to 40 km. Specific value is
related to delay margin the physical layer treatment itself.
4.1.3 Optical Transmission Technology Progress and Cost Reduction

As mentioned above, BBU-RRH wireless signal connection supporting LTE and LTE-Advance
creates new challenges to optical transmission network rates and cost. The rapid
development of the optical transmission technology provides more economic solutions to
solve the problem. A single fiber capacity of current commercial WDM system can be up to
3.2 T.10 Gpbs optical transmission technology applies generally and become fundamental
40 G system is mature and gradually being commercialized, 100 G technology is still not
mature and costs too much, there is still 2-3 years
until the telecommunication
commercial level, but along with coherent technical breakthroughs,
promoting of
standardization has already become a now advantage. 10GE standardization and

industrialization will
greatly improve
the
relevant
market
capacity
of the
optical
transmission module, which will help to reduce the cost of 10 Gbps optical modules. 40GE
technology is still in the research process. On the other hand, at the access network level,
1.25 G,2.5 G EPON is already widely used in solving FTTX access, 10G PON technology can
be commercial in one or two years, the future PON technological development have several
directions like WDM-PON, Hybrid PON and 40G PON.
Similar to what the Moore's Law is doing in the transformation of the semiconductor
industry, the field of optical communication has a similar trend: Every year, the speed of
optical transmission increases while the cost of the said module declines. Transceiver
modules that are capable of supporting multi-wavelength WDM have emerged in the
market place. Since commercial LTE deployment has just begun, we can safely predict that
it will take about 5 years before the commercial LTE-A multi-carrier system deployment is
needed. By then, if the optical module advancement and cost reduction has reached an
acceptable level, then the RRH-BBU bottleneck will be effectively removed.
Figure 11 shows the 2.5G SFP and 10G SFP / XFP / XENPAK optical modules pricing trends.
We can deduce that optical modules pricing has dropped by 66% to 77% in nearly 3 years,
and the trend will continue in the coming years, further reducing the cost of optical
transmission network. If this price trend continues, it would greatly help to reduce CAPEX
of a C-RAN network.
18
2500
2000
1500
66.7%
1000
54.2%
500
0
Aug-07
62.2%
Feb-08
10Km
Aug-08
40Km
Feb-09
Aug-09
Price history of 10G modules (RMB).
Price history of 2.5G modules (RMB).
10000
3000
9000
8000
35.2%
7000
6000
5000
4000
61.5%
3000
60%
2000
1000
0
Aug-07
Feb-08
550m
80Km
Aug-08
10Km
Feb-09
Aug-09
40Km
Fig. 11 Price history of Commercial 2.5G/10G Optical Modules

4.1.4 BBU-RRH Optical Fiber Network Protection
Although BBU-RRH direct transmission under C-RAN framework does not provide a ring
network protection function like traditional SDH/PTN, the CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface rate
standards provide a similar ring network protection function, and are supported by
manufacturers. At the same time, in order to avoid having every RRH fully occupy two
optical fibers on a physically routed pair the RRHs can be connected to each in a cascaded
manner according to the CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface specification. This permits two different
routing trunk cables to form a ring and be connected to the same BBU, as shown in Figure
10. As long as the CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface rate is high enough, the BBU-RRH ring network
protection technology can save the use of many optical fibers and ensure a short round trip
delay. Taking a TD-SCDMA system for example, a 6.144 Gpbs CPRI/Ir/OBRI link can
support 15 TD-SCDMA carriers of 8-antenna RRH and a typical TD-SCDMA macro station
with 3 sectors, 5/5/5 configuration at most. The IQ data of a RRH with three sectors
connected to the same BBU machine through two different physical routing backbone
optical cables. When a trunk cable fails, three RRHs will connect to the BBU through
another trunk cable under less than 40ms protection rotated time to guarantee that all
business does not interrupt. For lower-rate GSM system, it is even simpler to connect six or
more RRHs through such a CPRI/Ir/OBRI annular link and achieve the same functions.
However, according to LTE/LTE-A system with higher wireless signal transmission rate, it is
necessary to introduce WDM technology to realize a similar loop protection function.
Radio remote
head
Trun
kc
able
Optical
switching box
Transmission ring
Trunk c
a
ble 1
Central apparatus
room
Fig. 12 RRH Ring Protection Loop
19
4.1.5 Current Deployment Solutions

In order to meet the high bandwidth transmission between RRH and BBU, operators can
use different solutions based on their current transmission network resources. In China
Mobile, the current backhaul is mainly an optical transport network with three layers of
transmission network: the core transmission layer, the convergence transmission layer and
the access transmission layer. All the layers are using ring topology to provide fail safe
protection. The optical resources of different layers are similar to the following: at the core
transmission layer, each optical route has 144 to 576 fibers; at the convergence
transmission layer, each route has 96-144 fibers; while at the access transmission layer,
each route has 24-48 fibers. If the Baseband pool is located in the transmission
convergence equipment room, the optical fiber resource to and from the equipment room
determines the coverage of the baseband pool.
According to the resourcing of the optical transmission network, especially the fiber
resource in the access transmission network, there are four different solutions to carry
CPRI/Ir/OBRI over it: 1. Dark fiber; 2. WDM/OTN; 3. Unified Fixed and Mobile access like
UniPON; 4. Passive WDM. These solutions have different advantages and disadvantages,
and they are each suitable for different deployment scenarios. From the trials conducted,
for a BBU pool with less than 10 macro BSs, it is preferred to use a dark fiber solution while
other solutions still need more field tests and verification, because they may introduce new
transmission devices and associated O&M issues.
The first solution is Dark fiber. It is suitable when there is plenty of fiber resource. It is easy
to deploy if there are a lot spare fiber resources. The benefits of this solution are: fast
deployment and low cost because no additional optical transport network equipment is
needed. The concerns of this solution are: it consumes significant fiber resource, thus the
network extensibility will be a challenge; new protection mechanisms are required in case
of fiber failure; and it is hard to implement O&M, therefore it will introduce some difficulties
for optical network O&M. However, there are feasible solutions to address such challenges.
For fiber resources, if there is already a channel route available, it is fairly inexpensive to
add new fiber cables or upgrade existing fibers. To address fiber failure protection, there
are CPRI/Ir/OBRI compliant products available now that have the 1+1 backup or ring
topology protection features. If deployed with physical ring topology that provides
alternative fiber route, it will be able to provide similar recoverability capability as SDH/PTN.
For the O&M of the fiber in the access ring, we are considering introducing new O&M
capabilities
in
the
CPRI/Ir/OBRI
standard
to
satisfy
the
fiber
transport
network
management requirement.
The second solution is WDM/OTN solution. It is suitable for Macro cellular base station
systems when there is limited fiber resource, especially where the fiber resource in the
access ring is very limited, or adding new fiber in existing route is too difficult or cost is too
high. By upgrading the optical access transmission network to WDM/OTN, the bandwidth of
transporting CPRI/Ir/OBRI interface on BBU-RRH link is largely improved. Through
transmitting as many as 40 or even 80 wavelength with 10Gpbs in one fiber, it can support
a large number of cascading RRH on one pair of optical fiber. This technology can reduce
the demand of dark fiber, however, upgrading existing access ring into WDM/OTN
transmission network means higher costs. On the other hand, because the access transport
network is usually within a few tens of kilometers, the WDM/OTN equipment can be much
cheaper than those used in long distant backbone networks.
The third solution is based on CWDM technology. It combines the fixed broadband and
mobile access network transmission at the same time for indoor coverage with passive
20
optical technology, thus named as Unified PON. It can provide both PON services and
CPRI/Ir/OBRI transmission on the same fiber [5]. In this solution, an optical fiber can
support as many as 14 different wavelengths. In the UniPON standard, the uplink and
downlink channel are transmitted on two difference wavelengths, thus other free
wavelengths can be used for CPRI/Ir/OBRI data transmission between the BBU and RRH.
Because of sharing the optical fiber resources, it can reduce the overall cost. It is suitable
for C-RAN centralized baseband pool deployment of indoor coverage.
4.1.6 Summarize
Based on the above analysis, fully centralized C-RAN architecture requires a high
bandwidth, low latency, high reliability and low cost optical solution to transmit high speed
baseband signal between BBU and RRH. Its promising to find feasible solutions emerging in
the near future. However, there are still many challenges in the current solutions. For
example, current data compression schemes fail to satisfy OBRI transmission in the LTE-A
phase. The rapid development of high-speed optical modules and the associated cost
reduction is heading in the right direction but we still need a breakthrough in optical devices.
Failure protection schemes for BBU-RRH connection are able to provide similar functions to
SDH/PTN in case of fiber cut, but we still need to find solutions for unified O&M with
traditional transmission networks. UniPON based on passive WDM technology is a promising
solution for certain deployment scenarios but it must be designed to be competitive in cost.
In conclusion, we have various directions to solve the high-speed baseband signal
transmission requirement of C-RAN but we still need to explore new technology or a
combination of existing technology to find a more economical and effective solution.
Considering the technical challenges as well as the limitation in current optical network
resources, it is clear that C-RAN can be widely applied in a short time frame. Instead, a
stepped plan should be used to gradually construct the centralized network: first,
centralized deployment can be applied in some green field or replacement of old network in
a small scale. Dark fiber can be used as the BBU-RRH transmission solution. One access
ring that connects 8~12 macro sites can be centralized together, with a maximum ring
range of 40km. In the future, a larger number of macro BS in various deployment scenarios
can be further tested.
21
4.2 Dynamic Radio Resource Allocation and Cooperative

Transmission/Reception
One key target for C-RAN system is to significantly increase average spectrum efficiency and
the cell edge user throughput efficiency. However, users at the cell boundary are known to
experience large inter-cell interference (ICI) in a fully-loaded OFDM cellular environment, which
will cause severe degradation of system performance and cannot be mitigated by increasing the
transmit power of desired signals. At the same time, in view of the analysis, single cell wireless
resources usage efficiency is low. To improve system spectrum efficiency, advanced multi-cell
joint RRM and cooperative multi-point transmission schemes should be adopted in the C-RAN
system.
Cooperative Radio Resource Management for multi-cells

The multi-cell RRM problem has been addressed in various academic studies.
Many uses
various optimization techniques in trying to determine the optimal resource scheduling and the
power control solutions to maximize the total throughput of all cells with some specific
constraints. To reduce the complexity incurred in the C-RAN network architecture and the
scheduling process, the joint processing/scheduling should be limited to a number of cells
within a cluster. The complexity of scheduling among the eNBs clusters is determined by the
velocity of mobile users and the number of UEs and RRHs in the cluster. Thus, choosing an
optimal clustering approach will require balancing among the performance gain, the
requirement of backhaul capacity and the complexity of scheduling.
As shown in Fig.13, UEs will be served by one of the available clusters which are formed in a
static or semi-static way based on the feedback or measurements reports of UEs. In this
scenario, a subset of cells within a cluster will cooperate in transmission to the UEs associated
with the cluster. To further reduce the complexity, it is possible to limit the number of cells
cooperating in joint transmission to a UE at each scheduling instant. The cells in actual
transmission to a UE are called active cells for the UE. The active cells can be defined from the
UE perspective based on the signal strength (normally cells with strong signal strength are
chosen among cells within the supercell). The activation/de-activation of a cell can be done by
a super eNB, which is the control entity in cell clustering and can adjust the sets scope based
on the UE feedback.
22
Cell cluster 1
Cell cluster 2
Cell cluster 3
Fig. 13 The UE assisted network controlled cell clustering
23
Cooperative Transmission / Reception

Cooperative transmission / reception (CT/CR) is well accepted as a promising technique to
increase cell average spectrum efficiency and cell-edge user throughput. Although CT/CR
naturally increases system complexity, it has potentially significant performance benefits,
making it worth a more detailed consideration. To be specific, the cooperative transmission /
reception is characterized into two classes, as shown in Fig.14:
Joint processing/transmission (JP)

The JP scheme incurs a large system overhead: UE data distribution and joint
processing across multiple transmission points (TPs); and channel state information
(CSI) is required for all the TP-UE pairs.
Coordinated scheduling and/or Coordinated Beam-Forming (CBF)

With a minimum cooperation overhead, to improve the cell edge-user throughput via
coordinated beam-forming: No need for UE data sharing across multiple TPs; Each TP
only needs CSI between itself and the involved UEs (no need for CSI between other
TPs and UEs).
Fig. 14 JP scheme and CBF scheme

In this section, the performance of the JP scheme with intra-cell collaboration, and performance
with inter-cell collaboration in C-RAN architecture are evaluated in a TDD system. We assume
that full DL channel state information (CSI) can be obtained ideally at the eNB side. The
downlink throughput and spectrum efficiency results with different schemes in both 2 antenna
and 8 antenna configuration are shown in Fig.15. Detailed simulation parameters can be found
in [6-9].
24
3GPP Case 1 (TDD)
Ave. cell spectrum efficiency (bps/Hz)
SU-MIMO
MU-MIMO
SU-MIMO
6.58
5.466.15
2.813.01
1.9 2.47
0
2Tx (X)/2Rx
MU-MIMO
0.078
0.056
0.101
0.047
2Tx (X)/2Rx
8Tx(XXXX)/2Rx
0.266
0.227
0.183
0.098
8Tx(XXXX)/2Rx
ITU UMi (TDD)
Ave. cell spectrum efficiency (bps/Hz)

SU-MIMO
Intra-site CoMP
MU-MIMO
C-RAN CoMP
1.44 1.8 1.931.97
5.35
4.54
3.78
1.97
2Tx (X)/2Rx
8Tx(XXXX)/2Rx
2
0
0.1
2.54
Cell-edge spectrum efficiency (bps/Hz)
0.2
0.3
0.3
Cell-edge spectrum efficiency (bps/Hz)
SU-MIMO
MU-MIMO
0.2
0.1
0
0.07
0.041
0.039
0.075
2Tx (X)/2Rx
0.202
0.161
0.092
0.052
8Tx(XXXX)/2Rx
Fig. 15 Compare of Downlink Throughput and SE

From the simulation results we can see, compared to the non-cooperative transmission
mechanism (MU-BF in LTE-A), the spectrum efficiency of intra-cell collaboration and inter-cell
collaboration under C-RAN architecture could achieve a 13% and 20% gain, respectively, while
the cell edge users spectrum efficiency, from the above two mechanisms can get 75% and 119%
gain respectively.
Technical Challenges
Cooperative transmission / reception (CT/CR) has great potentials in reducing interference and
improving spectrum efficiency of system. However, this technology has many problems that
need to be further studied before it can be applied to the practical networks. There are many
challenges listed as follows:
Advanced joint processing schemes
DL channel state information (CSI) feedback mechanism
User pairing and joint scheduling algorithms for multi-cells
Coordinated Radio resource allocation and power allocation schemes for multi-cells.
25
4.3 Large Scale Baseband Pool and Its Interconnection

Centralized Baseband Pool
There are many distributed BS products using RRH+BBU architecture in market. Some TEMs
products have realized dynamic allocation of carrier processing within one BBU to adapt to
dynamic workloads among different RRH connected to it. This architecture can be viewed as the
first step of centralized baseband pool concept, but in general a single BBU has limited
processing capability, typically only supporting about 10 macro BSs carriers.
Its not yet
capable of supporting dynamic resource allocation across different BBU, thus hard to resolve
the dynamic network load in a larger area. In the current RRH+BBU architecture, the RRH is
usually connected to a particular BBU by a fixed link, and it can only transmits its baseband
signal and O&M signaling to the BBU its connected to. This makes it difficult for another BBU to
obtain any uplink baseband data from that RRH. Similarly, any other BBU has difficulty sending
downlink baseband data to this RRH. Because of this limitation, the processing resources of
different BBUs can hardly be shared: the idle BBUs processing resources are wasted and it
cannot be used to help the BBU with a heavy workload.
The centralized baseband pool should provide a high bandwidth, low latency switch matrix with
an appropriate protocol to support the high speed, low latency and low cost interconnection
among multiple BBUs. In a medium sized dense urban network coverage (approximately 25 sq.
km in area), with an average distance between BS of 500m, a centralized baseband pool that
can cover the whole area needs to support about 100 BS. For a typical TD-SCDMA system with
3 sectors per macro BS and 3 carriers/sectors, it means that the centralized baseband pool
needs to support 900 TD-SCDMA carriers.
Imagine if the centralized Baseband pool coverage
is even larger, such as 15 km X 15 km, then the baseband pool would need to support up to
1000 macro BSs carriers. Because of the limitation in the high-speed differential signal
transmission, the traditional BBU architecture cannot scale up to support such capacity by
simply expanding the backplane dimensions.
Infinite Band technology can provide significant switching bandwidth (20Gbps-40Gpbs/port)
and very low switching latency. It is widely used in supercomputers. However, the cost per port
is very high (20,000RMB) and as such does not meet the C-RAN cost requirement. Inspired by
the data center networks distributed inter-connect architecture, the centralized BBU pool in CRAN can also use a distributed optic interconnection to combine multiple BBU into a scalable
baseband pool. Based on that, the RRHs signal can be routed to any one of BBUs in the pool.
Thus load balance according to dynamic network load among BBUs can be achieved, and
system power consumption can be reduced. It also makes the deployment of multi-point MIMO
technology and interference mitigation algorithms easier, which can improve radio system
capacity.
Dynamic carrier scheduling
26
The dynamic carrier scheduling of resources within baseband pools enhances redundancy of the
BBU and increases overall operational reliability of the baseband pool. When a baseband card or
a carrier processing unit fails, the work load can be promptly redistributed to other available
resources within the pool, and restore the normal operation. In addition, for areas that have
strong dynamic network load, the operator can deploy fewer baseband resources to meet the
demands of different sites that have opposite peak loads at different times. For example,
operator can use the same BBU pool with multiple RRHs to cover both residential areas and
office areas. Then dynamically allocates baseband resources to ensure basic coverage for both
areas. Remaining baseband resources can be dynamically allocated to cover the business area
during working hours and the residential area during after working hours. This will increase the
overall carrier resource utilization.
Large-scale BBU Inter-connection

A large scale baseband inter-connect solution should be able
to support 10-1000 macro BS,
with the following requirements:
Inter-connection between BBUs must satisfy the wireless signals requirements of low
latency, high speed, and high reliability. The requirements are similar to the CPRI/Ir/OBRI
interface, and should support real-time transmission of 2.5/6.144/10Gbps rate.
Dynamic carrier scheduling among BBUs to achieve efficient load balance within the
system and failure protection without service interruption.
Support multipoint collaboration (CoMP). It needs to consider the data flow between
different BBUs to support collaboration radio.
Fault-tolerance. Fiber inter connection should support 1+1 failure protection, BBU frame
and baseband processing board N +1 protection to achieve high system robustness.
High scalability: it can extend the system capability smoothly without services interruption.
4.4 Open Platform Based Base Station Virtualization

Current Multi-Standard BS Solutions
Nowadays, most major mobile operators in the world have to operate multiple standards
simultaneously. It is a natural choice to use multi-mode base stations for low cost operation.
Therefore, SDR based on a common platform to support multi-standards has become the
mainstream in TEMs products. The following are the two types of multi-mode base stations.
Unified BBU system platform supporting multi-mode by plugging in different processing

boards. The processing board which supports multi-standard (such as GSM, TD-SCDMA,
TD-LTE) has a unified interface and can be plugged in the same BBU system platform.
Operators can use one set of a BBU system platform to support multi-standard operation.
In this case, some modules of BBU system such as control module, timing module and RRH
27
I/O modules can be shared between BBU processing boards which support different
standards. However, this structure can't share processing resources between different
processing boards and usually need to replace or add new processing board hardware for
upgrades.
Unified BBU system platform and unified processing board hardware platform to support
multi-mode through the software re-configuration. Through software
upgrades or
configuration, the same processing board can support different standards (e.g. LTE or TDSCDMA). In some of the latest products, the RRH can also be SDR-enabled to support
different standards in the same spectrum band. This solution allows the base station to be
upgraded to a new standard without changing the hardware. However, current products
usually require the BBU to restart in order to download new DSP / FPGA software for
standards upgrade. This limits the sharing of hardware between different standards.
In
fact, this prevents the dynamic resources allocation according to real-time traffic load
without interrupt of services.
Current SDR base station products partially meets the requirements of multistandards
support, however, it does not satisfy the operator flexible operation requirement of dynamically
shared resources among multiple standards, load-balancing, etc.
Evolution of Software Defined Radio

Driven by Moore's law in semiconductor industry, Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and General
Purpose Processors (GPP) have made a lot of progresses in the architecture, performance and
power consumption in recent years. This provides more choices for SDR base stations. Multicore technology is widely used in DSP and 3 ~ 6 cores processors have been commercially
available. At the same time, DSP floating-point processing capacity is also improving at a fast
pace. The emergence of the DSP system based on SoC architecture combines traditional DSP
core and communication accelerator together has improved the BBU processing density and
improved the power efficiency. Moreover, real-time OS running on DSP pave the path to
virtualization
of
DSP
processing
resources.
On
the
other
hand,
DSP
from
different
manufacturers and even a same manufacturer cannot guarantee backwards compatibility. The
real-time operating systems are different from each other, and there is no de fact standard yet.
Generally BBUs based on DSP platform are proprietary platforms. And it is still difficult to
achieve smooth upgrading and resource virtualization.
Meanwhile, General Purpose Processors have progressed rapidly, and they are now capable of
efficiently processing wireless signals. Therefore, the telecom industry now has more choices
for software defined radio. Technology evolution in areas such as multi-core, SIMD (singleinstruction multiple data), large on-chip caches, low latency off-chip system memory are
facilitating the use of GPP in traditional signal processing applications such as baseband
processing in base stations. Traditional general processors usually have lower performance than
DSP in power efficiency; however, in recent years the general processor has made a lot of
improvements in this respect. Fig.14 shows the general processor technical progress in
28
processing performance and power consumption in nearly 6-7 years. It is can be seen that the
floating point computing capacity per watt improves very fast. These data points prove that the
evolution in GPP has made it an attractive solution for various data processing tasks in the base
station.
The advantage of GPP is that they have a long history of backward compatibility, ensuring that
software can run on each new generation of processor without any change, and this is
beneficial for smooth upgrade of the BBU. On the operating system side, there are multiple
OSs available on GPP that have real-time capability, and also allow the virtualization of BS
baseband signal processing.
Fig. 14: Compute performance evolution of GPP *
(CPUs in 50-65 watt power envelopes used as basis for comparison in graph)
Technical progress in DSP and GPP has provided more powerful signal processing with less
power consumption. This progress has made the SDR based BS solutions more attractive.
Traditional DSP has become matured solution for product, and will continue to evolve. The
advanced research on wireless signal processing on GPP has provided more choices for the base
station, and has the potential to become part of the future open, unified multi-mode BS
platform.
Base Station Virtualization

Once the large scale BBU pool with high-speed, low-latency interconnection, plus the common
platform of DSP/GPP and open SDR solution could be realized, it has set the base for a a virtual
BS.
Virtualization is a term that refers to the abstraction of computer resources. It hides the
physical characteristics of a computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract
computing platform. If such a concept can be utilized in a base station system, the operator
can dynamically allocate processing resources within a centralized baseband pool to different
29
virtualized base stations and different air interface standards. This allows the operator to
efficiently support the variety of air interfaces, and adjust to the tidal effects in different areas
and fluctuating demands. At the same time, the common hardware platform will provide cost
effectiveness to manage, maintain, expand and upgrade the base station. Therefore, we believe
real time virtualized baseband pools will be part of the next generation wireless network, as
shown in Fig. 15. Within in given centralized baseband pool, all the physical layer processing
resources would be managed and allocated by a real time virtualized operating system. So, a
base station instance can be easily built up through the flexible resource combination. The real
time virtualized OS would adjust, allocate and re-allocate resources based on each virtualized
base station requirements, in order to meet its demands.
Physical Hardware
Processors
Processors
Processors
Processors
Base station Virtualization
Base station Instances
PHY Layer
(Signal processing)
resource pool
BS of standard 1
C
C
MAC/Trans. Layer
(Packet processing)
resource pool
A
A
M
M
P
P
BS of standard 2
Accelerator
(CODEC, cryto, etc.)
resource pool
C
C
M
M
P
P
BS of standard 3
C
C
Control & Manage

(O&M processing)
resource pool
A
A
A
A
M
M
P
P
Fig. 17 Baseband Pool

All the adjustments will be done by software only. With this mechanism, the base stations of
different standards can be easily built up through resource reconfigure in software. Also,
cooperative MIMO can get the required processing resources dynamically. In addition, the
processing resources can be assigned in a global view, thus the resource utilization can be
improved significantly.
Technical Challenges
Since wireless base stations have stringent real-time and high performance requirements,
traditional virtualization technique is challenged to solve the latency requirements of wireless
signal processing. In order to implement real time virtualized base station in a centralized base
band pool, the following challenges have to be solved:
30
High-performance low-power signal processing for wireless signals.
General purpose processor and advanced processing algorithm for real time signal
processing
The high-bandwidth, low latency, low cost BBU inter-connection topology among physical
processing resources in the baseband pool. It includes the interconnection among the chips
in a BBU, among the BBUs in a physical rack, and among multiple racks.
Efficient and flexible real-time virtualized operating system, to achieve virtualization of

hardware
processing
resources
management,
and
dynamic
allocation
of
physical
processing resources to each virtual base station, in order to ensure processing latency
and jitter control HW level support on virtualization in order to minimize latency.
4.5 Distributed Service Network

DSN builds the elastic high-capacity switch system adopting P2P technology, which ensures
high system reliability based on disaster tolerance and auto recovery technology in software
implementation. By using self-organization and self-adapting technology, in conditions of
capacity expansion, equipment failure or overload, the configuration can be completed
automatically with little manual work, thus reducing OPEX.
DSN can replace traditional carrier-class equipment with a general purpose server, and DSN
introduces virtualization technology, the DSN nodes are encapsulated in VM(Virtual Machine),
through VM live migration, when the traffic goes down, multi DSN nodes can aggregate to a
few physical servers, and other servers can be turned off, thus implementing energy
conservation and emission reduction.
Distributed Service
Network
DSN element
C-RAN element
BBU pool
BBU pool
Fig. 18 C-RAN Integrated with DSN
31
In a platform layer, DSN and C-RAN both encapsulate their network elements through
virtualization technology on general servers, so, it is possible to run DSN and C-RAN on the
same virtualized platform. But how to implement the resource management including the
dimension of time and the dimension of physical resource is the key issue in the research of
platform unification for DSN and C-RAN.
32
5 Evolution Path
The novel C-RAN architecture is a revolution of the traditional RAN deployment. It is impossible
to replace todays RAN overnight. Moreover, the technical challenges of C-RAN should be
carefully developed and tested in labs and field environments to ensure its reliability. This
naturally leads to a step-by-step evolution path of C-RAN to gradually replace traditional RAN.
The following is our vision on how the evolution could take place:
5.1 C-RAN Centralized Base Station Deployment

In the first step, Base Stations can be implemented by separating Remote Radio Heads (RRH)
and Baseband Units (BBU), and baseband processing resources between multiple BBUs in a
centralized Base Station can be scheduled in carrier level. The RRHs are small and light weight
for easier deployment. They receive/transmit digital radio signals from/to the BBU via fiber
links such as CPRI/Ir/OBRI. The BBU is the core of the radio signal processing. RRHs can be
deployed in remote sites far from the physical location of the BBU (e.g. 1~10km). The optical
fiber transmission network between RRH and BBU shall have the corresponding loop protection
and management functions. The fiber link between RRHs and BBUs can be standardized like
CPRI/Ir/OBRI so that RRHs and BBUs from multiple venders can be connected together.
The centralized BS has a high bandwidth, low latency switch matrix and corresponding protocol
to support the inter-connection of carrier processing units among multiple BBUs in order to
constitute a large-scale baseband pool. The signals from distributed RRH can be switched to
any BBU inside the centralized baseband pool. Thus, the centralized baseband pool can realize
carrier load balance to avoid some BBUs overloaded while some BBUs idle, and realize faulttolerance to avoid that the fault of single BBU affect the overall functions and coverage of the
wireless network. The above technologies can improve the usage efficiency of devices, reduce
power consumption and improve system reliability.
5.2 Multi-standard SDR and Joint Signal Processing

In the second step, on the basis of centralized BS deployment, the BBU baseband processing
functions can be fully implemented by Soft Defined Radio (SDR) based on a unified, open
platform. By moving the baseband processing to SDR, it is much easier to support multiple
standards, upgrade the SW/HW, introduce new standard and increase system capacity.
Meanwhile, with multiple RRHs attached to the centralized BBU pool, it is easier to implement
coordinated beamforming (CBF) and cooperative multipoint processing (CoMP) in this platform.
Multiple BBUs can coordinate with each other to share the scheduling information, channel
status and user data efficiently to improve the system capacity as well as reduce interferences
in system.
33
5.3 Virtual BS on Real-time Cloud Infrastructure

Once centralized baseband pool consisted of a lot of standardized BBUs is built on a unified,
open platform and the baseband processing is implemented by SDR, the virtual BS based on
real-time cloud infrastructure is the next step of C-RAN evolution.
The centralized baseband pool consisted of large-scale BBUs by a high bandwidth, low latency
network, combined with some system software, can constitute a large real time baseband
cloud, just like the cloud computing environment in IT industry. The difference is that the
baseband processing tasks are real-time computing tasks in a real time baseband pool.
Through the cooperation of BBU in the baseband pool and RRH to send and receive wireless
signals, it can be achieved that multi-standard wireless network functions in the same platform.
In the system software instructions of the baseband pool based on real-time cloud architecture,
CPRI/Ir/OBRI optical fiber transmission network and optical Internet architecture in large-scale
centralized baseband pool can send the baseband signal signals transmitted by RRH to the
virtual base station running on the designated BBU. Then virtual base station uses the
calculation resources of the designated BBU to finish the real-time processing of wireless
baseband signals. Moreover, in a C-RAN system which has several baseband pools,
CPRI/Ir/OBRI optical fiber transmission network should have the ability to forward the
baseband signals from RRHs to other baseband pools in order to improve system reliability and
realize load balance across different baseband pools.
34
6 Recent Progress
To accelerate the development and commercialization of C-RAN, China Mobile has been working
actively with industry partners. We have made good progress in field trial, large scale BBU pool
implementation, and baseband PoC based on IT platform. This chapter will first introduce the
advantages and disadvantages observed in C-RAN field trial, followed by discussion of large
scale BBU pool solution, up to 1000 carriers, based on current BBU device, and lastly the recent
R&D result of multi-mode PoC based on IT platform.
6.1 TD-SCDMA and GSM Field Trial

China Mobile conducted the first C-RAN trial with partners in 2010. It is a C-RAN centralized
deployment field trial within the commercial TD-SCDMA system in Zhuhai city, Guangdong
province. After that, there has been multiple GSM field trials conducted in multiple cities
throughout China, include Changsha, Baoding, Jilin, Dongguan, Zhaotong, etc. Rest of the
section discusses the pros and cons of the C-RAN centralized deployment solutions pros and
cons in different scenarios. For the ease of discussion, two typical cases, TD-SCDMA trial in
Zhuhai city and GSM trial in Changsha city are shown here.
Overall situation
The first trial in Zhuhai City only took 3 months to complete. The commercial trial has 18 TDSCDMA macro sites covering about 30 square km area. This trial has verified some centralized
deployment technologies feasibility. The construction and operation of a commercial clearly
highlighted the C-RANs advantage over tradition RAN in cost, flexibility and energy savings. At
the same time, it also exposed challenges on fiber resource, as well as transmission
construction.
After that, there have been several trials on centralized deployment solutions of GSM system.
The network layout is mainly consisted of replacing and upgrading existing sites. There are
total15 sites covering 15 square km in the trial, where only 2 of them are new sites. Compared
with TD-SCDMA network, GSM solutions have
unique features, for example, it could support
daisy-chain of 18 RRHs with only 1 pair of fiber. This could significantly reduce the number of
fiber resources needed in C-RAN centralized deployment with dark fiber solution.
The following sections will describe the network status before and after C-RAN deployment, key
technology introduced, field test results and challenges observed. .
Field Trial Area

The trial area in Zhuhai city is mainly consisted of a national high tech development zone, a
residential community, and a few college campuses. The data traffic in this area is growing
rapidly, as the customers here are well-educated and early adapters of new services. Part of
35
the trial areas has demonstrated tidal effect of traffic loading, with predictable traffic loading
pattern associated with time, location or event. For example, the national high tech
development zone has most people during working hours. The same group of customers usually
returns to nearby community after work. Students in colleges tend to stay away from using
wireless devices during school hours, while they tend to make a lot of calls in night.
Traditionally, network planning must support the peak traffic load at each individual site, which
is usually 10 times higher than the down time This results in a very low average utilization rate
of the BTS devices. It also introduces difficulties in network planning, construction and
optimization. It is suitable to adopt baseband pool with dynamic carrier allocation. In the trial
field, there will be 9 sites co-located with existing GSM site, while another 9 sites is new. All
these 9 sites have to be connected with new fiber channels and they are spread in 30 square
km. This is a challenge for fiber construction.
The trial area in Changsha city is consisted of a few campuses near Yuelu Mountains. The traffic
load and traffic density is quite high here. In addition, there is a lot of dormitories, and local
residential apartments. The propagation environment is very complex and the coverage KPI still
has room to be improved. This makes it suitable to verify C-RANs capacity in urban city
environment. Finally, since most of the trial sites are reusing or upgrading existing ones, there
is plenty of fiber resources.
Overall Solution
The solution starts with planning of system capacity in centralized deployment. In the Zhuhai
trial, each TD-SCDMA sites configuration is 4/4/4, which means that there are 3 sectors in
each site, and every sector has 4 carriers. Overall, the 18 trial sites need 216 carriers. When
considering the BBU pool capacity, the total BBU pool can be planned to support the maximum
co-current traffic for the same area.
There are two kinds of TD-SCDMA carriers, R4 carrier is mainly used for voice traffic, and
HSDPA carrier is mainly used for data traffic. Based on China Mobiles planning requirements,
every sites traffic load should not exceed 75%. As a result, each R4 carrier supports up to 203
voice users, and each HSDPA carrier can support up to 93 users. There are total 17,000
effective users in the trial area. When BBU pool is deployed, 160 carriers will be able to support
20,000 effective users. This means the C-RAN centralized deployment can save the BBU
capacity by roughly 25%, compared with traditional deployment method.
Similarly, the trial in Changsha also has used the co-current capacity to decide the total
capacity of the BBU pool.
The second part of the solution involves dynamic carrier allocation. In TD-SCDMA system, each
RRH/sector can support maximum 6 R4 and HSDPA carriers. In the idle situation, each
RRH/sector has only one R4 carrier and one HSDPA carrier. There are different carrier allocation
decision criteria whether more R4 and HSDPA carriers should be added. Whenever the existing
36
R4 carriers loading rate is above a threshold, there should be more R4 carriers allocated in this
site. For HSDPA carrier, similar rule applies. Where there is not enough load in multiple R4 or
HSDPA carrier, it is also possible to reduce the number of R4 and HSDPA carriers in one sector.
For GSM system similar rule also applies but the criteria is the utilization rate of each GSM
carrier.
The third portion of the solution involves RRH daisy chain and fiber failure protection
technologies. These technologies are derived from the distributed BBU-RRH deployment
method which usually uses point-to-point dark fiber connections. When BBU-RRHs are
separated by significant distance, it is important to consider the saving of fiber resource and
protection against unpredictable fiber failure caused by external factors. In TD-SCDMA, each
fiber link can handle up to 6.144Gpbs transmission, enough to support 15 TD-SCDMA carriers.
Thus, one pair of fiber is able to support one site with 3 sectors and maximum carrier of 15. In
the Zhuhai trial, each access ring has 9 sites and used 9 pair of fibers to support the 9 sites
connected to the ring.
On the other hand, GSM has far less baseband requirement due to its narrow band nature;
therefore it can support more capacity in daisy-chain configuration. There are commercial
products that can support 18 to 21 RRH daisy chained on one pair of dark fiber. We can
calculate the fiber resource required per access ring as following: usually, each access ring has
8~ 12 physical sites and each site has 3 sectors, and has 900M and 1800M dual bands. This
means, each access ring may has up to 16~24 logical sites, which is 48 to 72 sectors/RRH. To
connect all the RRH in daisy chain, we would need 4~5 pair of fibers in the ring.
Lastly, the field trial has also verified key technology for outdoor deployment, like power supply
for remote sites. In the Zhuhai Trial, there is no BTS equipment room in the 9 new sites. Thus
the traditional DC power supply is not available. External power booth is used instead. Existing
outdoor power solution met the need of network deployment: with sufficient operation
temperature range, -40+70, C-level anti-flash capacity and theft-proof solution to ensure
the safety of device without on-site attendance. GSM and TD-SCDMA remote site both can
apply this outdoor power solution.
Technical Performance
This section will outline the technical performance data from selected test cases in the trial,
starting with the dynamic carrier allocation procedure. The following figure illustrates the total
number of carriers allocated to one sector in a typical day on one site in Zhuhai trial. The blue
curve represents this sectors total carrier capacity, while the purple curve represents the actual
network load for this sector. It is clearly shown that the dynamic carrier allocation has adapted
effectively to dynamic load in network.
37
Fig. 19 Dynamic Carrier Allocation

We also collected KPI of radio performance for both dynamic carrier allocation and static carrier
allocation. We noted no KPI difference.
In the Changsha trial, the C-RAN centralized deployment has shown better radio performance
and improved user experience, due to the introduction of co-located multi-RRH per site
technology. With this technology, multiple RRH transmit and receive signals for the same cell,
just like fiber repeat does but provide additional receive combination gain. Multiple radio
performance is improved, include uplink receive quality improved by 2%~3%, drop call rate
was reduced and nearly eliminated in some sites. In addition, since inter-site handover has
become an internal procedure in one BBU pool, the handover delay has been reduced. Finally,
the fiber protection was in place
when the access fiber ring was cut accidently, the BBU-RRH
traffic will be automatically switched to another unaffected route in the ring. The switching
delay during the failure protection is comparable to normal cross-BTS or cross-MSC. Thus the
failure protection has very limited effects to network KPI.
In summary, C-RAN centralized deployment does not have negative effect on radio
performance. On the contrary, it may provide extra gains on radio performance. Moreover, RRH
daisy chain could reduce the dark fiber resource needs, while out-door units meet the power
requirement of out-door remote sites. Now dark fiber transportation solution has been well
verified, and other transmission technologies are in testing.
Economic analysis
The trial in Zhuhai city shows that, compared with traditional RAN deployment method, C-RAN
centralized deployment can reduce the TD-SCDMA networks CAPEX and OPEX significantly,
especially for new TD-SCDMA site which is not reusing existing GSM site. In the following figure,
it is shown that OPEX and CAPEX can be reduced by 53%, and 30% respectively for new cell
sites.
38
Fig. 20 Economic analysis for centralized deployment

On OPEX, the savings are mainly come from A/C power consumption, site rental fee, regular
on-site maintenance visit , and reduced human resource on repair and upgrade. The key factor
is C-RAN has only RRH in remote site and no BTS equipment room, the site rental fee is much
lower, and O&M cost is also lower. This is an important saving, as the site rental fee is a
significant portion of the Zhuhai system TCO.
On CAPEX consideration, the savings are mainly from: no new BTS room, reduced transmission
devices on each remote site, and eliminating of various supporting devices in remote site. In
addition, the adaption of BBU pool can reduce the BTS configuration and potentially lower the
CAPEX on RAN.
In GSM trial, similar CAPEX/OPEX savings have been observed. However, it is very clear that
the savings achieved in these two cases are different, due to the different fiber resources,
different deployment scenarios in different city.
All-in-all, the economic analysis has shown the benefits in different areas. It is able to reduce
RANs O&M. however, it may be important to take account of each individual case to better
calculate the saving of CAPEX and OPEX. In addition, RRH requires much less and power, it is
easier to find new site, and easier to move to different place, which largely reduces the risk of
cell sites being forced to relocate due to regulations or neighborhood complaints, and the cost
and service disruptions associated with these.
Construction Impact
The centralized deployment of C-RAN greatly simplifies the remote site selection and
construction requirements, construction time required for new base stations, which lead to
faster network deployment. Table 3 shows the comparison of the construction process between
traditional base station and C-RAN centralized approach in the China Mobiles TD-SCDMA
network deployment in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province.
From figure 17, C-RAN showcases the advantage of deployment time. The savings are mainly
from site selection/purchasing, base station equipment room construction and transmission
system debug, etc.
39
Table 3. Impact of C-RAN Centralization concept to construction cycle

Process
Traditional Base Station

Construction
Centralized Base Pool

Construction
site selection
Stringent,
flexible
Equipment room
Site rental and construction
No site construction for RRH
Power supply
equal
Site Equipment
Installation needed
No requirement
transmission
Installation and verification needed
Only verification needed
Equipment install
Radio system and BBU
RRH and centralized BBU
Verification
Distributed BBUs require higher

verification
centralized BBUs require less

verification effort
Fig. 21 Construction cycle comparison
Power Consumption Analysis

C-RAN RRH does not require on-site equipment room and associated air conditioner which
reduce electricity cost. Comparing to traditional base station, single RRH can save up to 75.3%
power consumption in the China Mobiles TD-SCDMA network deployment in Zhuhai City,
Guangdong Province. The itemized energy saving is listed in table 4.
Table 4. Power consumption comparison

RAN
architecture
Base
Station
equipment
Air
conditioning
Switching
Supply
Traditional
0.65 KW
2.0 KW
0.2 KW
0.2 KW
0.2 KW
3.45KW
C-RAN
0.55KW
0.2KW
0.10KW
0.85KW
Storage
Battery
Transmission
System
Total
Summary
C-RAN centralized commercial access network demonstrates several benefits including: 1)
simplified site selection and improve the speed of location selection negotiations; 2) reduced
base station construction and maintenance cost, improved network deployment efficiency; 3)
reduced supporting facilities of remote cell sites, led to construction cost reduction by 1/3 per
site.
40
In terms of network operation, C-RAN takes advantage of low cost, energy efficiency RRH.
Centralized BBU facilitates easy maintenance and flexible upgrade. The overall network
utilization can be improved due to virtualization technology and resource sharing which not only
increases
utilization
but
also
lowers
overall
power
consumption
thru
various
power
management schemes.
6.2 TD-LTE C-RAN Field Trial

In previous sections many benefits that C-RAN can bring to network deployment have been
demonstrated in terms of TCO cost reduction, speed-up of site construction and power
consumption saving. However, just as every solution has its own pros. and cons., some
disadvantages of C-RAN are also revealed through field trials. In particular, centralization of CRAN requires very high fiber consumption, thus imposing heavy burden on fiber resources.
Take TD-LTE systems with 8 antennas, which is the most common scenario in CMCCs network
for example. The CPRI data rate between BBU and RRU is as high as 9.8Gbps. To transmit one
such carrier requires 2 pairs of fiber, i.e. 4 fiber cords when using 6G optical modules. As the
number of carriers increase, the consumption on fiber resource will increase dramatically.
Therefore, dark fiber solution will be no longer viable in the near future when centralization
scales expands and more carriers are introduced into the networks. Other solutions are needed
to further reduce fiber consumption and make it feasible for large-scale centralization.
CMCC has been conducting TD-LTE C-RAN field trial in the city of Chengdu, Fuzhou and
Guangzhou since the 2nd half year of 2012 with the target to demonstrate efficient fronthaul
solutions which can help reduce fiber consumption. More concretely, two technologies, i.e. CPRI
compression and Single Fiber Bi-direction (SFBD) are tested in the trials
Lab tests have already shown that lossless CPRI compression can be achieved with 2:1
compression ratio. In other words, the number of fiber needed for the centralization could
be saved by half with compression implemented.
SFBD is a technology to allow simultaneous DL and UL transmission within the same

fiber cord. That is to say, half of the fiber can be further saved with SFBD technology.
When combining CPRI compression and SFB together, fiber resource could be saved by 4-folds
with lossless performance.
41
These field trails in Chengdu, Fuzhou and Guangzhou have centralization scale of 6~12 sites
centralized, i.e. 18 ~ 36 8-antenna TD-LTE carriers. Similar configuration is adopted as shown
in the table below while commercial eNBs and EPCs are used together with test UEs.
Table 5: The system configuration in the C-RAN field trials.
Frequency
2.85GHz
Bandwidth
20MHz
UL/DL configuration type 1
Normal CP
Special Subframe configuration type7

DwPTS:GP:UpPTS=10:2:2
DwPTS for data transmission
Frame
structure
CPRI
2:1 compression
Optic module
Single Fiber Bi-direction
UL
SIMO
DL
Adaptive MIMO
QCI
Scheduler
PF
Extensive test cases have been carried out including total system throughput, end to end delay,
protection switching etc. to demonstrate comprehensively the performance with compression
and SFBD. We also compared system performance with and without the usage of those two
technologies. Test results verified that compression (with 2:1 compression ratio) and SFB are
mature enough and the system performance is almost the same as without the adoption of the
technologies.
Despite the fact that combination of compression and SFBD can save fiber resource to 1/4, it is
still far from enough for future C-RAN large-scale deployment. Therefore now CMCC is actively
exploiting other more efficient and cost-optimized fronthaul technologies. So far WDM-based
schemes, which carry dozens of carriers on a single (pair of) fiber seem to be the most
promising fronthaul solutions to C-RAN large-scale deployment. Several tests on WDM solutions
are now undergoing. Initial results are quite promising. Being transparent to CPRI transmission,
the WDM solution can be easily implemented in 2G, 3G and LTE networks. Moreover, using
DWDM, it can transport more than 15 8-antenna TD-LTE carriers with just a pair of fiber, which
greatly saves the fiber consumption. It also has various topology support including ring, tree,
star etc., which makes it flexible for network deployment. In addition, it supports either 1+1 or
1:1 protection with low-latency link reversal. The whole results would be presented in the
upcoming version of this WP.
42
In addition to pure WDM solution, there is another WDM-based solution called WDM-PON, which,
targeting at low-cost implementation by the nature of PON technology, is now under discussion
and development stage within ITU-T.
6.3 Large Scale Baseband Pool Equipment Development

In the first half of 2011,
China Mobile Research Institute (CMRI) and its C-RAN partners
developed large scale Baseband Pool supporting more than thousands of carriers. The
innovation includes the IQ data routing switch method designed by CMRI, using existing
equipment. Several C-RAN partners have made breakthrough progress to expand the scale of
Baseband Pool beyond thousands of carriers.
The large scale of Baseband Pool is based on
distributed multilayer switch architecture, with high serviceability, low maintenance and flexible
capacity expansion. This section describes the key technology for large scale baseband pool
development -- IQ data routing switch, and its adaptive improvement for telecommunication
equipment. Finally, it briefly highlights the key technical characteristics of the equipment.
IQ Data Routing Switch Architecture
IQ data routing switch is the core unit of the large scale baseband pool. It is capable of
switching any RRH data to any baseband processing unit for data processing. This data switch
architecture is based on the Fat-Tree architecture of DCN technology. The advantages of this
architecture include:
-
Fault-tolerance and disaster-tolerance (high reliability)
Better switch capability
Less requirement to each switch node
The objective of Fat-Tree Network topology is to implement a non-blocking connecting data

communication network. When a computer networks use a single root node and binary tree
structure, the data communications between the computers that connect to separate trees will
go through the same root node. The switch capacity of the root node becomes the bottleneck.
The Fat-Tree topology introduces multiple nodes switch architecture with the load-balance
capability. With the benefit of two or multilayer of the switch architecture, any one high node
maintains connectivity to multiple low nodes. Then several high nodes can act as backups for
each other, and have the same capability of switch and connection.
Under this structure, each
switch node has the same number of switch ports, and maintains the same required
transmission bandwidth. Therefore reduces switch capability requirement for each node. There
is at least one connection between any lower processing node and other processing node. If
one connection is out of service, redundant connections can play a backup role, which results in
a highly fault tolerant networks. As shown in the following figure:
43
Fig. 22 Multilayer Rout/Switch Architecture

Current commercial BBU equipment primarily used stack of baseband processing units, plus a
backplane with switching capability. It switches the RRH baseband IQ data to a specified
baseband processing unit, thereby creating a pre-planned processing capability of baseband
pool.
The limitation of this approach is the amount of data flow from the interconnection
between any two equipments is limited by the capability of the backplane of single equipment.
So todays design can only support connection between 2 sets of equipment. Consequently
upgrading a single equipment capacity by adding more baseband process units will demand
higher switch capability of the backplanes. To combat this limitation, China Mobile Research
Institute proposed to apply the Fat-Tree structure into existing wireless BBU equipment.
Without significant changes to the existing equipment, the proposal adds a set of high layer
switch unit to form Fat-Tree Topology to gain higher switch and baseband pool processing
capacities. Similar to how the Computer network works, at this network structure, each
baseband processing Board, through the high layer network, can transfer its data to other
baseband board that is in lower utilization state.
Furthermore having several redundancy
boards in the baseband pool will increase redundancy, and achieve real-time protection, thus
improving the reliability of the equipment.
However, contrasting to the computer network, IQ data routing switch has additional
characteristics.
First of all, Baseband signals require real time processing, and bound by its frame structure of
GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE protocols. Each frame has strict timing requirements. IQ data routing
switch cannot send a data packet belonging to a single carrier, over different connections to the
receiver. Otherwise it will require the receiver to rearrange the received data packet, which will
generate additional delay. The End-to-end transmission cannot be routed multiple times,
which .causes delay and jitter at the received end. China Mobile Research Institute has
proposed a Pre-distribution Routing technology to solve this problem. Its principle is to pre-
44
allocate resource before connection is established, making each switching node setting aside
adequate resources and identifying of the next routing port.
Secondly, IQ data transmission requires relatively large bandwidth, it is important to consider
transmission path load balancing, otherwise it could easily cause the route blockage during
overload. Therefore China Mobile Research institute has proposed the Load Balanced
technology. The principle is that: for a routing node receiving a data flow, the data flow with
the source address of Src, the object address of Dst, the flow (each data spread sent of is 1 or
multiple carriers) data numbered the Num, routing node finds the routing table based on Dst. If
the routing table includes multiple suitable next jumps, the routing node will generate a
random number according to (Src, Dst, Num), then determining the address of next Jump
based on the random number. This has resulted in path selection of randomization. With the
Path selection of randomization, even if the Src and Dst are same, the difference of the carrier
number (Num) will generate different path/route, so as to achieve the load balancing.
Distributed Architecture
In addition to IQ data routing, we need to consider implementation of resource management,
signal processing functions and so on, for a large scale baseband pool. China Mobile Research
Institute has introduced the Distribute Architecture. Use ZTE equipment as an example, a single
baseband processor BBU module can handle the Iub interface signaling and servicing
processing, based on the largest capacity in a network with 108 carriers. A distributed
framework can solve the problem of large scale processing, retain service processing unit for
each box. At the same time, a separate Ethernet switch handles dynamic resource management.
Each box has separate and independent Iub ports; it logically becomes independent network
elements of NodeB. In addition, one extra master network element manages entire resource of
the rack, and controls redistribution of individual physical resources. This approach is simple to
implement, adding a box means gaining one more independent NoteB network element,
without any impact to other network elements. Also, when a baseband processing unit fails, the
failed unit, under the master redistribution mechanism, can redistribute its original signaling
information to other box over the Ethernet.
6.4 C-RAN Prototype Based on General Purpose Processor

China Mobile, in collaboration with IBM, ZTE, Huawei, Intel, Datang Mobile, France Telecom
Beijing Research Center, Beijing University of Post and Telecom, China Science Institute, jointly
developed the C-RAN prototype supporting multiple air interfaces, entirely using platform based
on general purpose processor. The prototypes supporting GSM and TD-SCDMA have
successfully completed interoperability with commercial end user devices, while the TD-LTE
version has gone through testing with UE simulator. The prototypes have proved the feasibility
of implement GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE physical layer signal processing on general purpose
processor based platform, and a step closer to achieve greater software implementation and
upgrade flexibility.
45
The following sections will describe hardware and software architecture of the prototype.
As shown below, the PCI Express interface is connected to CPRI/ir interface converter, which
then carries GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE signals to commercial RRHs. IQ samples of all three
standards are processed by the commercial server in real time.
Fig. 23: IT Server Platform Topology

The C-RAN proof of concept focuses on baseband processing feasibility on IT server, therefore,
the software develop does not cover any core network functions. The baseband processing
software is developed on Linux, and has implemented Layer 1, 2 and 3 on GSM and TD-SCDMA,
and Layer 1 processing on TD-LTE, with plan to add MAC scheduling in the near future. As a
result, the system currently only supports single UE. In the future, the TD-LTE system will
support MAC, L2, L3, LTE-A features like CoMP, and completes interoperability with commercial
devices.
Signal processing carries stringent real time requirements which pose challenges to the IT
servers. GSM protocol requires each frame being processed within 40ms; TD-SCDMA frame is
5ms, while TD-LTE protocol requires every frame has to be completely processed within 1ms.
Typical IT operating system is not designed to meet telecom grade real time requirements,
therefore subframe scheduling delay, resource management are not typically guaranteed to
complete fewer than 1ms. In addition, IT platform generally lacks the stringent timing required
by base station. Lastly, traditional signal processing algorithm is typically designed to be
implemented on ASIC, FPGA and DSP. Therefore, many believe that IT server is not capable of
handling complex signal processing such those of LTE.
However, the C-RAN trial has so far proved that IT server can meet the aforementioned
challenges with technology innovations. First step is to expand the real time capability on IT
server to meet the subframe processing timing and accuracy demand. In addition, by adding
46
hard real time and synchronization on the CPRI/Ir interface card, we can separate the RRH
hard real time CPRI/Ir functions from the IT signal processing tasks which only require soft
real time.
Finally, significant effort had been spent to optimize LTE algorithm on general purpose processor,
fully utilizing every available instruction set and memory to the maximum advantages,
therefore significantly increases the CPU processing efficiency. We were able to implement 3GPP
release 8 TD-LTE physical layer entirely on software running on general purpose processor and
meeting all the timing and delay benchmarks. The TD-LTE implementation parameters are:
20Mhz bandwidth, 2x2 MIMO downlink, 1x2 SIMO uplink, 64QAM/15QAM/QPSK modulation,
Turbo decoder with adaptive early termination. Under peak throughput, every subframe was
being processed under 1ms TTI, meeting the most stringent HARQ processing latency
requirements in TD-LTE. As expected, GSM and TD-SCDMA processing met the timing
requirements with flying colors.
Based on trial results to date, we can conclude that CPU is capable to process baseband signal
processing work load and associated real time requirements. Cycle counts of certain modules
take up higher proportion of the overall processing time, such as turbo decoder, convolution
decoding, FFT processing etc. By introducing co-processing of such tasks, we can expect to
increase overall efficiency by 5 times or higher. In the not too distant future, general purpose
CPU implementing BBU functions, combining with DSN, will be the foundation of an open
platform that serves a large scale dynamic baseband pool, evolving into a virtualized, cloud
computing C-RAN solution.
6.5 Progress on C-RAN Virtualization

Cloudization is the core feature of C-RAN and virtualization is a key foundation to realize it. By
introducing server virtualization technology, C-RAN system can run multiple independent
isolated instances of virtual BBU on one physical server and enjoy the benefits such as effective
server integration, hardware resources saving and cost reduction. In addition, a BBU running
in the virtual machine (VM) can adjust processing resources dynamically according to traffic
variation between busy and spare time. Moreover, BBUs with low traffic can be centralized onto
fewer physical servers through VM live migration. By shutting down the idle servers, the overall
system power consumption can be reduced. Teaming up with industry partners, China Mobile
Research Institute has been extensively researching on the implementation solutions of cloud
and virtualization based C-RAN and has achieved lots of achievements so far.
System architecture of C-RAN virtualization

The system architecture of a virtualization based C-RAN is shown in figure 25.
47
GSM VM
TD-S VM
TD-L VM
Service VM
L2/L3
L2/L3
L2/L3
CDN, Web
Cache...
RT-GuestOS
RT-GuestOS
RT-GuestOS
GuestOS
RT-Hypervisor/VMM
RT-Hypervisor/VMM
CPRI adaptor
Hardware
Hardware
L1 Acc. card
L1 Acc. card
Physical server
Physical server
Pool
Management
RT Mngm.
CPRI adaptor
Storage
Fig. 25 C-RAN system virtualization architecture

The Remote Radio Unit (RRU) located in the remote site is connects through fiber with the
baseband resource pool in the data center. The baseband resource pool could be built on a x86/
ARM server clusters which are deployed with server virtualization. Each physical server runs
several VMs. Each VM can be configured as the baseband unit (BBU) to run different mobile
communication standards (GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE) according to the network operation plan,
or as user-level application such as CDN and web cache to support service on edge.
C-RAN aims to migrate the traditional base station to general-purpose servers and implement
virtualization. Toward this end, the correspondence between traditional BBU and VMs, i.e. the
granularity of virtualization is worthy of study and analysis. The figure above is just an example
in which one VM is assigned to process an original BBU. In practical deployment, it is possible
that a virtual machine can handle only one carrier within the BBU or even smaller units. On the
other hand, there is another layered approach in which a virtual machine handles
just one
layer such as L1, L2 or L3 ,or even a certain part of a layer.
Due to the difference of the communication protocols, the requirements of processing resources
for GSM, TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE are quite different in terms of compute capability and realtime performance. In practice, different virtualization granularity should be considered
accordingly. In the case of TD-LTE which has the highest demand for the processing resources,
a virtualization granularity as figure 26 showed could be adopted.
48
BBU1
VM
BBU2
BBU1 L3
VM
BBU2 L3
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
VM
Cell 1
L2/part L1
Cell 2
L2/part L1
Cell 3
L2/part L1
Cell 4
L2/part L1
Cell 5
L2/part L1
Cell 6
L2/part L1
Hypervisor/VMM
Hardware
Acceloratorpart L1
Physical Server
Fig. 26. An example of virtualization granularity for TD-LTE system
Solutions for real-time constraint

While C-RAN tries to migrate the traditional communication equipments to general-purpose IT
platform and implement virtualization, the biggest challenge lies on the real-time constraint of
wireless signal processing. The most strict real-time demand of wireless signal processing
comes from the physical layer (L1). One feasible solution is to introduce the physical layer
hardware accelerator so that part or all of the L1 signal processing with high real-time
requirement can be dealt with by the accelerator with
dedicated chipsets, e.g. DSP, FPGA
(ASIC when commercial), SoC, GPU, etc.
Compared with L1, the real-time requirement of L2/L3 is relatively low, which makes it possible
to be placed in the virtual machine and processed by the CPU. However, certain technical
solutions for the hypervisor and the guest-OS of VM are still needed to ensure the real-time
signal processing, i.e., the so-called real-time cloud and real-time virtualization. A real-time
operating system is the basis of real-time virtualization. Taking into account openness,
versatility and overall system cost, we are now mainly using Linux as the operating system for
C-RAN. The research so far has shown that Linux kernel integrated with real-time patch is
suitable and effective for C-RAN virtualization. By introducing Linux real-time preemption patch
(PREEMPT_RT), conducting a series of parameter configuration and optimization, supporting
preemption and hard interruption, improving locking mechanism, the kernel can immediately
respond and process correspondingly when receiving an interrupt request for signal processing,
so as to ensure the real-time performance.
Hypervisor also needs to leverage a similar real-time solution. By integrating the real-time
49
patch into the hypervisor or its host-OS and making parameter adjustment, the real-time
problem could be solved. In addition, the hypervisor needs to be further optimized to minimize
the overhead introduced by virtualization and the impact to the VMs real-time performance.
As for the selection of the type of hypervisor technology, in addition to the requirements of CRANs openness and versatility, whether it can provide solutions to meet the real-time demands
is the basic requirement. Currently, China Mobile Research Institute, together with partners,
has proposed a series of real-time solutions based on KVM and ESXi, and kept continuous
research on the performance optimization.
Virtualization management functions should also fulfill the real-time constraints. Taking VM live
migration as an example, the service interruption time of traditional live migration cannot fulfill
the real-time constraints of mobile networks. If utilized in C-RAN directly, it might happen that
the VM could not accomplish the migration process normally. So certain technical solutions
must be taken into account. China Mobile Research Institute is now working with partners to
research the appropriate technology solutions.
I/O virtualization
As mentioned above, C-RAN requires the use of L1 accelerator to solve part of the real-time
problems. The data exchange between L1 and L2/L3 raises very high requirements for the I/O
performance between the accelerator and the VM. In a traditional virtualization environment,
due to the introduction of the hypervisor, the data communication between VM and the
underlying hardware needs the hypervisors intervention, which brings additional overhead,
thus resulting in degradation of I/O performance. Therefore, I/O virtualization technique should
be introduced to improve the system I/O performance.
In the case of an accelerator serving only one VM, PCI passthrough technique is competent. But
in the case of one accelerator serveing multiple VMs, SR-IOV technique should be adopted.
Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) is an I/O virtualization technique for single physical
server, which is based on PCI-E specification and relatively mature. By dividing the physical I/O
channel of PCI-e interface into multiple virtual I/O channels, the system can assign one or more
virtual channels to a VM when creating it. Each virtual machine's virtual channel is independent
and the data exchange between accelerator and its connected VMs is done through their
separate virtual channels. Without the intervention of hypervisor, the system I/O performance
is greatly improved. A server virtualization architecture applied with SR-IOV is shown in figure
27.
50
VM
Cell 1
L2/L3
VM
Cell 2
L2/L3
VM
Cell 3
L2/L3
Hypervisor/VMM
Hardware
Accelorator
Server
Fig. 27. C-RAN virtualization architecture with SR-IOV

The application of SR-IOV also has its limitations, i.e., it can only support I/O virtualization
within one physical server. One of the objectives for C-RAN implementing virtualization is to
centralize the relatively idle VMs onto fewer physical servers through VM live migration, and
shut down the disengaged physical servers to reduce energy consumption. However, the
accelerator located on the physical server needs to be connected with the remote RRU and
cannot be shut off. So extra power supply for the accelerator is needed when servers are shut
down, which means that the servers need special customization. Furthermore, the physical
bonding of the accelerators and physical servers makes it very inflexible for system
maintenance.
Developing on the basis of SR-IOV, Multi Root I/O Virtualization (MR-IOV) supports I/O resource
sharing and virtualization among multiple physical servers. By separating the PCI-e devices
from the physical server and forming a resource pool, I/O virtualization could be done in a
resource pool range. Taking advantage of MR-IOV, the binding relationship between accelerators
and physical servers can be removed, so that the system could allocate and orchestrate the
resources uniformly and more flexibly. So far MR-IOV is still on the development stage. China
Mobile Research Institute hopes to promote the MR-IOV technology and push forward maturity
of ecosystem together with industry partners. By then its application in C-RAN would be
expected.
51
7 Conclusions
With the arrival of the mobile Internet era, todays RAN architecture is facing more and more
challenges that the mobile operators need to solve: mobile data flow increases drastically
caused by the popularity of smart terminals, spectrum efficiency bottleneck, lack of multistandard flexibility on the same platform, dynamic network load because of the tidal effect,
and expensive to provide ever increasing internet service to end users. Mobile operators must
aggressively consider the evolution of the RAN to a high efficiency and low cost architecture.
C-RAN is a promising solution to the challenges mentioned above. By using new technologies at
various stages of C-RAN, we can improve and simplify the network construction and
deployment, fundamentally change the cost structure of mobile operators, and provide more
flexible and efficient services to end users. With the distributed RRH and centralized BBU
architecture, advanced multipoint transmission/reception technology, SDR with multi-standard
support, virtualization technology on general purpose processor, more efficient way of dealing
with the tidal effect and service on the edge of the RAN, C-RAN will provide todays mobile
operator with a much more efficient, competitive, and profitable infrastructure in the dynamic
market environment.
Wed like to invite all the mobile operators, the telecom equipment vendors, the traditional IT
system vendors, and industry/academic research institutes who are concerned of the future
evolution of the RAN to devote their intelligence and resources in the research of C-RAN to
make it a reality.
52
8 Acknowledgement
We would like to thank IBM China Research Lab, Intel Cooperation and Institute of Computing
Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences for their valuable contribution to this white paper.
53
9 Terms and Definitions

This section provides the terms and definitions for this document.
3GPP
3rd Generation Partnership Project
AIS
Alarm Indication Signal
ASIC
Application Specific Integrated Circuit
ARPU
Average Revenue Per User
BBU
Base Band Unit
BS
Base Station
CAGR
Compound Annual Growth Rate
CAPEX
Capital Expenditure
CBF
Coordinated Beam-Forming
CDN
Content Distribution Network
CoMP
Cooperative Multi-point processing
C-RAN
Centralized, Cooperative, Cloud RAN
CSI
Channel State Information
CT/CR
Cooperative Transmission/Reception
DPI
Deep Packet Inspection
DSP
Digital Signal Processing
DSN
Distributed Service Network
eNB
Evolved Node B
FEC
Forward Error Correction
FTTX
Fiber To The X
FPGA
Field Programmable Gate Array
GGSN
Gateway GPRS Support Node
GPP
General Purpose Processors
GSM
Global System for Mobile Communications
HW/SW
Hardware/Software
ICI
Inter-cell Interference
IQ
In-phase/Quadrature-phase)
I/O
Input/Output
JP
Joint Processing
LTE
Long Term Evolution
LTE-A
Long Term Evolution - Advanced
MAC
Media Access Control
54
MIMO
Multiple Input Multiple Output
MNC
Mobile Network Controller
OBRI
Open BBU RRH Interface
OFDM
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
OPEX
Operating Expenditure
OTN
Optical Transmission Net
O&M
Operations and Maintenance
P2P
Peer to Peer
PA
Power Amplifier
PHY
Physical Layer
Pon
Passive Optical Network
QoS
Quality of Service
RAN
Radio Access Network
RF
Radio Frequency
RNC
Radio Network Controller
RRH
Remote Radio Head
RRM
Radio Resource Management
SDR
Software defined Radio
SFP
Small Form-factor Pluggable
SGSN
Serving GPRS Supporting Node
TCO
Total Cost of Ownership
TDD
Time Division Dual
TD-SCDMA
Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access
TEM
Telecom Equipment Manufacturer
TP
Transmission Point
UE
User Equipment
UL/DL
Uplink/Downlink
UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
UniPon
Unified Passive Optical Network
VNI
Visual Networking Index
VoIP
Voice over IP
WCDMA
Wideband Code Division Multiple Access
WDM
wavelength Division Multiplexing
XENPAK
10 Gigabit Ethernet Transceiver Package
XFP
10-Gigabit small Form-factor Pluggable
55
10 Reference
[1] Co-Platform Multi-Mode BTS (C-P MMBTS): Leading the Trend of Multi-Mode Network
Convergence, white paper from In-Stat, 2009.Multi standard
[2] Cisco Visual Networking Index, URL: www.cisco.com/web/go/vni
[3] Geza Szabo,Daniel Orincsay,Balazs, Peter Gero,Sandor Gyori,Tamas Borsos, Traffic
Analysis of Mobile Broadband Networks, Third Annual International Wireless Internet
Conference October 22-24, 2007, Austin, Texas, USA
[4] CPRI
Specification
V4.1,
Common
Public
Radio
Interface
(CPRI);
Interface
Specification. 2009-02-18
[5] F.-Joachim Westphal. Trends and evolution of transport networks. SL SI, IBU Telco, SSC
ENPS
[6] 3GPP, R1-093273, SRS feedback mechanism based CoMP schemes in TD-LTE-Advanced
[7] Q. H. Spencer, A. L. Swindlehurst and M.Haardt, Zero-forcing methods for downlink
spatial multiplexing in multiuser MIMO channels, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing,
vol. 52, pp. 461 471, Feb. 2004.
[8] L. U. Choi and R. D. Murch, A transmit preprocessing technique for multiuser mimo
systems using a decomposition approach, IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 3, no. 1,
pp. 2024, Jan. 2004.
[9] Jun Zhang, Runhua Chen, J. G. Andrews and R. W. Heath, Coordinated multi-cell MIMO
systems with cellular block diagonalization, Proc.41st Asilomar Conference on Signals,
Systems and Computers (ACSSC 07), pp. 1669 1673, Nov. 2007.
[10] Rajesh Gadiyar, John Mangan, Using Intel Architecture for implementing SDR in Wireless
Basesations, SDRForum, SDR09.
[11] White Paper of Distributed Service Network. China Mobile Research Institute.
56
2013 CMCC. All rights reserved.
Contact:
HUANG Jinri
DUAN Ran
Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
57

China Mobile CRAN White Paper v26 2014

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

China Mobile CRAN White Paper v26 2014

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

China Mobile CRAN White Paper v26 2014

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

C-RAN

The Road Towards Green RAN

China Mobile Research Institute

China Mobile Research Institute

China Mobile Research Institute

Improved spectral efficiency due to facilitation of advanced technology

Improved resource efficiency thanks to resource virtualization.

To leverage such benefits, however, three major challenges must be addressed.

A cost-effective fronthaul solution which minimizes fiber consumption while

Virtualization technology meeting the strict real-time constraints of wireless signal

China Mobile Research Institute

bring to operators. For example, compared to distributed TD-SCDMA networks, up to 15%

China Mobile Research Institute

1.2 Vision of C-RAN

Reduced cost (CAPEX and OPEX)

Lower energy consumption

China Mobile Research Institute

High spectral efficiency

Based on open platform, support multiple standards, and smooth evolution

Provide a platform for additional revenue generating services.

1.3 Objectives of This White Paper

1.4 Status of This White Paper

China Mobile Research Institute

2 Challenges of Todays RAN

Cell site, 72%

Fig.1 Power Consumption of Base Station

China Mobile Research Institute

2.2 Rapid Increasing CAPEX/OPEX of RAN

Fig. 2: Increasing CAPEX of 3G Network Construction and Evolution

Analysis of the TCO

China Mobile Research Institute

Fig. 3: CAPEX and OPEX Analysis of Cell Site

Fig. 4 TCO Analysis of Cell Site

China Mobile Research Institute

Table 1. Multi-Network Operation of Major Mobile Service Providers

GSM GPRS EDGE

2.3 Explosive Network Capacity Need with Falling ARPUs

These findings reflect the fact that the

Fig. 5 Mobile Broadband Data-rates/Traffic Growth

China Mobile Research Institute

2.4 Dynamic Mobile Network Load and Low BS Utilization Rate

Fig. 6 Mobile Network Load in Daytime

2.5 Growing Internet Service Pressure on Operators Core Network

China Mobile Research Institute

Fig. 7 Wireless traffic on a commercial 3G

China Mobile Research Institute

Fig. 8 Different Separation Method of BTS Functions

Fig. 9 C-RAN Architecture 1: Fully Centralized Solution

Fig. 10 C-RAN Architecture 2: Partial Centralized Solution

China Mobile Research Institute

3.1 Advantages of C-RAN

Energy Efficient/Green Infrastructure

Cost-saving on CAPEX &OPEX

Adaptability to Non-uniform Traffic

Smart Internet Traffic Offload

China Mobile Research Institute

3.2 Technical Challenges of C-RAN

Radio over Low Cost Optical Network

Advanced Cooperative Transmission/Reception

Baseband Pool Interconnection