RF Chaining: Mumbai

28th Oct’2019
RF Chaining in SRAN
• FXEB To FXEB & FHDI To FHDI RF chaining at SRAN Site is being done in Mumbai Circle
due to Free Port unavailability in FODA
• FODA card has 12 Ports available – 6 TDD, 1 3G, 1 L900, 2 FDD/2G, 2 Twin Beam or
additional sector
• To cater L2100 or add new RF Module, we need additional FODA which is not being ordered
due to OPEX planning
• Hence, RF Chaining Feature (RAN1881/LTE977: RF Chaining) is being used at sites

Flexi Fiber Optical Distribution Unit (FODA) operation:

Flexi Fiber Optical Distribution Unit (FODA) is a
stand-alone outdoor product which can be used for
cable routing between the RF Module and System
Module. Together with the combination of jumper
cables and different length of feeder cables, it
simplifies site installation. The FODA provides up
to 12 outputs for RF Modules or RRHs. The FODA
supports different installation options with
mounting brackets. It can be assembled to a 3U
casing together with the 2U PDU. It can also be
mounted directly on a pole/mast or wall.
RF Chaining in SRAN

• It is allowed to chain any two RF cell sets with

OBSAI optical links or up to four RF cell sets
with Nokia CPRI links if it is technically
feasible. Possibility of combining the
supported SBTS cell sets depends only on the
HW limitations of the radio modules used in
configurations, the number of optical ports in
the radio modules and the number and
capacity of OBSAI or Nokia CPRI optical
links (links between SM and 1st radio and
links between radio modules).

• If OBSAI cable goes faulty or any Fault

Maintenance activity is being done on Master
RF Module so that it takes restart, we will
observe outage on both cells connected to
master and slave RF Modules due to RF
chaining being used.
RF Chaining in SRAN

Common Airscale Site Connectivity Diagram:

Above Fig. is the common Airscale site connectivity with following Cells configuration:
TDD20 & TDD10 – 3 Cells (4x4 MIMO) + 1 Twin Beam Cell (4x4 MIMO) – 2X6GBPs SFP and CPRI are
connected to each RFM
FDD – 3 Cells (2X2 MIMO)
L900 – 3 Cells
WCDMA – 3 Cells

All the 12 ports of FODA is occupied and there is no port left for new CPRI cable connectivity incase L2100 is
integrated or new TDD/FDD/L900 Cell is integrated

L2100 – Need additional CPRI connectivity between existing WCDMA RFM and ABIA
New Cells – Need CPRI connectivity between new RFM and ABIA
RF Chaining in SRAN

Airscale Site Connectivity Diagram with RF Chaining:

RF Chaining is illustrated in above Fig. (Black Lines)

1. CPRI for 2nd FDD1800 RFM has been removed from FODA and RFM is chained through 1 st RFM
2. Additional CPRI is connected to Freed input port of FODA from L2100 configured ABIA card
3. Freed Output Port of FODA is now used to Connect additional CPRI to L2100 RFM
4. Same Free Port of FODA can be used for additional FDD/L900 Cell to be integrated instead of L2100
5. All 3 Sectors of FDD1800 will work 2X2 MIMO with RF Chaining
6. If 1st RFM goes Faulty, all 3 sectors will go down due to RF chaining
7. Without RF Chaining, Cell operation degrades but Cell doesn’t go faulty
RF Chaining in SRAN

Solution to overcome RF Chaining:

Instead of using 2X6GBPs SFP for TDD RFM connectivity, we can use 1X10GBPs SFP thereby reducing the number of CPRI cables
in TDD
4 Ports can be Freed by using 10GBPS SFP in TDD which can be utilized for New cell addition or L2100 integration
As shown in above figure, Additional CPRI for L2100 or New Cell is connected to Free Port of FODA