• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.37 no.7B
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• pp.499-504
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• 2012

Recently, base stations composed of digital unit (DU) and radio unit (RU) have been widely used in 4G mobile networks. To connect DU and RU, CPRI (common public radio interface) is usually used as the interface standard. This CPRI link is considered as one of the application markets for WDM-PON. In this paper, we analyzed the required specification of WDM-PON for the CPRI link of the 4G LTE-Advanced base station composed of DU and RU. This analysis is important to set a target goal of the development of WDM-PON system for 4G mobile networks.

• The Journal of the Korea institute of electronic communication sciences
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• v.9 no.8
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• pp.915-919
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• 2014

Since smart phones are widely used globally, the demand for high-speed mobile communications are increasing. To accommodate the increased communication demand, the next-generation mobile communication services such as LTE-Advanced are deployed. In the LTE-Advanced base stations, the base station schemes of Digital Unit (DU) and Radio Unit (RU) are widely used. Here, the link between DU and RU is called fronthaul link. In the current fronthaul link, a digital optical communication interface is used, which is called Common Public Radio Interface (CPRI). However, the CPRI link cannot support the increased mobile traffic efficiently. Therefore, in this paper, we investigate an alternative technology based on the Radio over Fiber (RoF) to accommodate the increased mobile traffic economically.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.106-114
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• 2013

과거 이동통신용 기지국은 기저대역 처리부와 안테나를 포함하는 RF부가 일체형으로 제작되었으나, 4세대 이동통신에서는 기술/경제적인 이유로 BBU(Base Band Unit)와 RRH(Remote Radio Head)로 분리하여 구성되는 분산형 기지국 구조를 택하는 추세이다. BBU와 RRH 간 인터페이스로 널리 사용되어온 OBSAI, CPRI외에 2010년 ORI가 출현하여 표준화가 한창이다. ORI는 시장에서 널리 사용되는 CPRI(Common Public Radio Interface)의 Vendor Specific 부분으로 인해 제조사간 호환성이 보장되기 어려운 문제를 보완하기 위하여 탄생한 인터페이스 규격으로써, CPRI를 기반으로 하면서 표준으로써의 완성도를 높인 표준이라 할 수 있다. 또한 관련 표준으로는 유일하게 IQ 데이터 압축알고리즘의 표준화를 고려하고 있다. 본고에서는 ORI의 표준화 현황과 기술적인 이슈를 소개하고, 국내의 대응 현황을 알아본다.

• Electronics and Telecommunications Trends
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.1-10
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• 2022

Traditional centralized radio access network architecture used for 4G is based on Option 8, a functional split between PHY and RF. This option is commonly used with a fronthaul interface based on common public radio interface (CPRI) specifications; however, the increased data rates in 5G make this option impractical because of the fronthaul interface's high bandwidth requirement. Since CPRI specifications have many vendor-specific options, achieving multi-vendor interoperability becomes challenging. Open RAN (O-RAN) Alliance is developing novel open fronthaul interface specifications based on the functional split Option 7-2x, one of the intra-PHY split options, to relax the bandwidth requirement of the fronthaul interface and achieve multi-vendor interoperability. This article provides a brief overview of the various functional split options for 5G fronthaul that have been reported so far and existing fronthaul technologies. Further, the technological trends in the 5G open fronthaul interface is discussed, focusing on the O-RAN Alliance specifications under standardization.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.12 no.10
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• pp.4618-4639
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• 2018

One of the most innovative paradigms for the next-generation of wireless cellular networks is the cloud-radio access networks (C-RANs). In C-RANs, base station functions are distributed between the remote radio heads (RHHs) and base band unit (BBU) pool, and a communication link is defined between them which is referred as the fronthaul. This leveraging link is expected to reduce the CAPEX (capital expenditure) and OPEX (operating expense) of envisioned cellular architectures as well as improves the spectral and energy efficiencies, provides the high scalability, and efficient mobility management capabilities. The fronthaul link carries the baseband signals between the RRHs and BBU pool using the digital radio over fiber (RoF) based common public radio interface (CPRI). CPRI based optical links imposed stringent synchronization, latency and throughput requirements on the fronthaul. As a result, fronthaul becomes a hinder in commercial deployments of C-RANs and is seen as one of a major bottleneck for backbone networks. The optimization of fronthaul is still a challenging issue and requires further exploration at industrial and academic levels. This paper comprehensively summarized the current challenges and requirements of fronthaul networks, and discusses the recently proposed system architectures, virtualization techniques, key transport technologies and compression schemes to carry the time-sensitive traffic in fronthaul networks.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.135-149
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• 2016

Cloud radio access network (C-RAN) refers to the virtualization of base station functionalities by means of cloud computing. This results in a novel cellular architecture in which low-cost wireless access points, known as radio units or remote radio heads, are centrally managed by a reconfigurable centralized "cloud", or central, unit. C-RAN allows operators to reduce the capital and operating expenses needed to deploy and maintain dense heterogeneous networks. This critical advantage, along with spectral efficiency, statistical multiplexing and load balancing gains, make C-RAN well positioned to be one of the key technologies in the development of 5G systems. In this paper, a succinct overview is presented regarding the state of the art on the research on C-RAN with emphasis on fronthaul compression, baseband processing, medium access control, resource allocation, system-level considerations and standardization efforts.