Radio sites are not static! They evolve over time.
To cope with the ever-increasing user demand for more bandwidth, service providers are investing billions of dollars on buying more spectrum and deploying 5G New Radios (NR). Equipment providers continue to introduce innovative features to increase the network performance. Mobile traffic shifts from LTE to 5G as users upgrade to new mobile phones. In fact, by the end of 2027, worldwide 5G subscriptions are expected to reach 4.4 billion, and in North America over 95% of the subscriptions will use 5G.
With all these changes, the radio sites must adapt accordingly. Sites that had basebands initially configured to support multiple radio access technologies at the same time, may be optimized to a site with a dedicated baseband supporting LTE and another dedicated baseband supporting 5G. Traditionally radios are “hard-wired” to a baseband, thus any changes require sending a costly crew out to the site to reconnect the radios to another baseband.
Mobile subscriptions
5G | LTE | WCDMA/HSPA
Smartphones
Year 2022 – 2027
Worldwide
Mobile subscriptions
5G | LTE | WCDMA/HSPA
Smartphones
Year 2022 – 2027
North America
Cloud RAN evolution
Another development is the evolution towards Cloud RAN (Radio Access Network) which uses a generic compute platform instead of a purpose-built hardware platform to realize the RAN functions. In this scenario the virtual distributed unit – vDU could run on a generic compute platform, while the virtual centralized unit – vCU could be in a centralized edge compute location. Compute platforms tend to have shorter life cycles and a lower reliability compared to purpose-built hardware. In addition, the server network interface card (NIC) interfaces may evolve from 25Gbps and 100Gbps interfaces. Radios, on the other hand, tend to remain in the tower for many years and use 10Gbps to 25Gbps interfaces. You want the flexibility to aggregate many lower speed radio interfaces into a faster server interface and have the capability to connect any radio to any compute platform.
The midnight maintenance window
Service affecting work on sites is done during the maintenance window, typically between midnight and 4am, during which most people are vast asleep (as they should). Night crews have a short window to finish rewiring connections on a particular site. This in contrast to the day crew who have twice the time for non-service interrupting work on the site. As a result, the crew efficiency of the day shift is twice that of the night shift. Multiplied by tens of thousands of radio sites result in a difference of operational expenditure (OpEx) of millions of dollars.
The solution against burning midnight oil
What if you could reprovision any radio connection to any baseband or vDU – remotely? This means that day crews can prepare sites in advance and that the night crew simply reprovisions multiple sites with automated tools – at the same time – remotely. This allows operators to roll-out innovative technologies and spectrum at twice the speed at a much lower cost. To do this we need a new type of product called a Fronthaul Gateway with an integrated switch fabric.
Fronthaul gateway as flexible RAN connect
Radio sites are seldom greenfield or homogenous, they may have low-band radios using the CPRI common public radio interface and, massive MIMO mid-band radios using the new packet eCPRI (evolved CPRI) interface. The site may also use a mix of LTE purpose-built basebands and 5G vDUs running on compute platforms.
A fronthaul gateway has the capability to convert all the traffic coming from the CPRI radios into eCPRI and merge it with other native eCPRI radio traffic. This effectively creates a single unified eCPRI fabric for all radio traffic. Other functions it does is connecting radio on one side and basebands/vDUs on the other side, effectively decoupling the physical radio interfaces from higher capacity baseband/vDU interfaces. It also connects all intra-site traffic and aggregates all inter-site traffic into a single aggregated network interface. A fronthaul gateway provides the following benefits:
- Connect any radio to any baseband or vDU
- Connect existing CPRI radios to Cloud RAN vDUs
- Separate LTE and 5G traffic and connect to different basebands/vDUs
- Decouple radio interface speeds from faster baseband/vDU interfaces
- Aggregate radio traffic and optimize baseband/vDU efficiency
- Increased resiliency by allowing to switch traffic to another baseband/vDU
- Easy migration from distributed D-RAN to centralized C-RAN architectures
Figure 3 Fronthaul Gateway as flexible RAN connect
Being flexible; the secret to a good night’s rest
Deploying a fronthaul gateway allows you to seamless adapt your radio site as traffic and technology evolves. It gives you the capability to connect any radio to any baseband or Cloud RAN vDU. The best part is that you can do it remotely using automated tools allowing for a faster roll-out at a much lower cost.
No one can predict the future – but we can prepare for it. Ericsson with over 133 live 5G deployed is at the forefront of the latest radio access network developments. This gives us a keen insight on the shifting requirements as networks evolve.
Give us a call and let’s talk on how using a fronthaul gateway as a flexible RAN connect can give you a better night’s rest today, and in the future!
More reading from Ericsson
For more information on how Ericsson can help you create an optimized solution for flexible radio sites, please refer to the links below.
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