A flexible X-haul network for

5G and beyond
Jörg-Peter Elbers and Jim Zou
OECC/PSC 2019, Fukuoka, Japan

This work was supported by the European Union’s

Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program
under Grant Agreement No. 762057 (5G-PICTURE).
5G is more than a new radio …

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

• 1000 times higher cell capacity
• 100 times higher peak data rates
• 10 times lower latency
• 10 times better reliability

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… and offers very different services

eMBB

mMTC URLLC
source: ITU-R M.2083-0

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5G standardization timeline

Source: Xiang Liu, Huawei, OFC 2019

5G features are covered by 3GPP Release 15 and 16 specifications
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From 4G to a new (5G) RAN architecture

Source: ITU-T G.Sup66

Decomposition into central unit, distributed unit and radio/remote unit
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Latency determines location of RAN functions

Ultra low latency Very low latency Low latency

~1ms round-trip time ~5ms round-trip time ~10ms round-trip time
~1000 ~100 ~10 ~1000 ~100 ~10 ~1000 ~100 ~10
sites sites sites sites sites sites sites sites sites

RU: radio unit RU: radio unit RU: radio unit

DU: distributed unit DU: distributed unit DU: distributed unit
CU: central unit CU: central unit CU: central unit
MEC: multi-access edge computing MEC: multi-access edge computing MEC: multi-access edge computing
UPF: user plane function UPF: user plane function UPF: user plane function

Source: NGMN Overview on 5G RAN Functional Decomposition

There will not be a one-size-fits-all configuration

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The CPRI fronthaul challenge

[Nokia White Paper „Evolution to Centralized RAN with Mobile Fronthaul“, 2016]
CPRI option 10 already defined (V7.0): 24 330 240 Mb/s.

CPRI requires 13-17x higher bitrate than user data rate and very accurate timing
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Introducing new functional splits in 5G RAN
~1-2x ~1-2x >10x
user rate F1 rate user rate

Source: China Mobile Research Institute, 2016

Backhaul
Higher layer split (HLS) Lower layer split (LLS)
Similar timing requirements as backhaul Similar timing requirements as CPRI

RRC: radio resource control, PDCP: packet data convergence protocol, RLC: radio link control
MAC: medium access control, PHY: physical layer, RF: radio frequency

Agreement on higher layer split (F1), but no agreement yet on lower layer (Fx)
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New standards for 5G fronthaul
3GPP IEEE P802.1CM eCPRI O-RAN

Higher layer Ethernet Lower layer

functional split TSN for fronthaul transport functional split (LLS):
(HLS) requirements O-RAN 7.2x

Ethernet becomes convergence layer for 5G transport

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Illustrative throughput comparison
Radio Interface Cell peak rate @ Mean cell rate Aggregate tri-cell rate
configuration quiet time @ busy time (peak + 2x mean)

100MHz carrier, F1 4.7Gbit/s 2Gbit/s 8.7Gbit/s

8 MIMO layers,
64T64R

100MHz carrier, Fx 13.1Gbit/s 2.6Gbit/s 18.3Gbit/s

16 MIMO layers, (ORAN 7.2x) (20% of peak)
64T64R

100MHz carrier, CPRI 269.5Gbit/s 269.5Gbit/s 808.5Gbit/s

16 MIMO layers,
64T64R

Source: P. Sehier et al, JOCN, 04/2019

10Gbit/s and 25Gbit/s interfaces appear adequate for F1 and Fx transport

10
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 From CPRI to eCPRI

eCPRI leverages Ethernet transport & OAM and offers ~10x reduction in bandwidth
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eCPRI latency

Max. one-
Max. one-way
CoS Traffic way frame Use case
frame loss ratio
delay

High25 25µs Ultra-low latency applications

High100 100µs Full LTE or NR performance

User plane (fast) 10-7
High200 200µs Installations with long fiber links

High500 500µs Large latency installations

User plane (slow),

Medium 1ms All 10-7
C&M plane (fast)

Low C&M plane 100ms All 10-6

Frame delay includes fiber latency (approx. 5µs/km)

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Ethernet aggregator latencies – examples

Source: iCirrus paper “Fronthaul evolution: from CPRI to Ethernet“, OFT 2015

Rule of thumb: A few µs per network element

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 Ethernet TSN technologies for 5G

Strict priority queuing (IEEE 802.1p) Frame preemption (IEEE 802.1Qbu & 802.3br)
Part of IEEE 802.1CM

Reduces peak delay

variation

Reduces average frame delay variation, but neither peak

delay variation nor worst case latency

Scheduled traffic (IEEE 802.1Qbv) Gap preservation (FUSION)

Further measures

Deterministic latency for

high-priority traffic
without central
scheduling
Can in principle eliminate packet delay variation,
but requires network-wide flow scheduling

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eCPRI timing accuracy
Maximum time error |TE| at UNI Maximum
time
T-TSC in radio equipment alignment
T-TSC in Typical LTE Typical 5G NR
Category error TAE
T-TSC with transport applications applications
T-TSC with between
|TEmax|=70ns network antenna
|TEmax|=15ns
(Class B) ports
MIMO or TX-diversity transmission,
A+ (relative) n/a n/a 20ns 65ns
at each carrier frequency
Intra-band Intra-band
contiguous contiguous
A (relative) n/a 60ns 70ns 130ns
carrier carrier aggregation*
aggregation (450 MHz – 6 GHz)
Intra-band non- Intra-band
contiguous or contiguous
B (relative) 100ns 190ns 200ns 260ns
inter-band carrier carrier aggregation*
aggregation* (24.25 – 52.6 GHz)
Intra-band non-
contiguous or inter-
Time-division
band carrier
C (absolute) 1100ns 3µs duplex (TDD),
aggregation*,
dual connectivity
TDD, dual
connectivity
*With or without MIMO or transmitter (TX) diversity

Requirements holds for clock synchronization, not user or C&M data transport
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5G transport layer stack

Backhaul Fronthaul
Fx CPRI
S1 NG F1
OAM & Service assurance
eCPRI IEEE1914.3
802.1 CM
Timing & Sync

Ethernet
FlexE2.1 or OTN

Optical underlay

TDM-PON grey optics WDM

Fiber

Ethernet is simplest; TDM-PON, FlexE and OTN add additional protocol layers
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Converged 5G X-haul architecture
Fx fronthaul F1 fronthaul NG backhaul

RU RU RU+DU

RU RU+DU CU Core

RU+DU

RU RU

Ethernet-based network with WDM underlay option

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Low-latency Ethernet aggregation
ECOC 2018 Best Demo Award

Central Office NETCONF/YANG Remote Node

Controller Fronthaul traffic
GNSS

IEEE 1588v2 PTP IEEE 1588v2 PTP

(1522 Byte MTU)
(grand master) Service Configuration slave (probe)
and Monitoring RRH
• <3.1µs agg+deagg latency
RoE RoE

1G
1G

10G 10G
(1µs from MAC/PHY)
Traffic Emulator

Traffic Analyzer
PTP PTP
10G 10G
100G 100G 100G 100G • <0.6µs transit node latency
…
…

…
…
10G 10G
10G 10G
RoE
10G SM
10G
BH
• 5µs per fiber-km

10G
10G
…
GST 100GbE ingress
treated as GST

IEEE 1588v2 PTP traffic

BBU FH bounded delay aggregation Backhaul 100G Transport Node (time sensitive)
Dagg = Store-fw MTU@10G +
serve all other streams Traffic
(F  1) MTU@100Gbps +
transmission of packet
MTU@100Gbps
Generator
100G 100G PHY MAC
FUSION MAC 100G PHY 100G
• <±75ns time error
IP Core

100G Aggregator Node (time sensitive) (w/o additional means)

1G PTP 1G PHY MAC

MAC

MAC
…
10G FH 10G PHY MAC FUSION
MAC 100G PHY 100G …
IP Core

PHY

PHY
10G

10G
x4
…
…

…
…

10G FH 10G PHY MAC

10G BH x6…8

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G.metro – passive WDM for mobile fronthaul

Optical line terminal Passive Optical network units Standards

(head-end) remote node(s) (tail-end)
G.694.1 DWDM grid
DWDM
filter G.694.2 CWDM grid
1G-10G

G.698.1 Multichannel DWDM

...
...
with single channel
OLT Linear add/drop optical interfaces
CU/DU

... G.698.4 Multichannel bi-

RU
(G.metro) directional DWDM
applications with
Transparent l-services C-band filters Remotely controlled port agnostic single-
channel optical
λ-control and -tuning Single-fiber ops Hardened T-SFP+ interfaces

Low-cost, auto-tunable transceiver modules are key to operational simplicity

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Summary: With 5G, radio transport goes Ethernet
Ethernet/IP connectivity Precision timing delivery

NFV and edge compute Passive WDM and fiber monitoring

…

Different solutions depending on fiber infrastructure and network requirements

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Thank you
jelbers@advaoptical.com

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