World’s Largest 4G Network

Feb, 2106
BS Subscriber
~1.1M 4G BSs ~360M 4G Subscribers

~720K@2014 ~90M@2014

Terminal Coverage
Sales volume 210M+
Types 1000+, Price <50$ ~1.2B pop (~86%), Reach Villages

~100M@2014 ~330 Cities@2014

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5G Era: Rethink Fundamentals Green Communication Research
Center established in Oct. 2011,
initiated 5G Key Tech R&D.

Green To start a green journey of wireless systems

For no more “cells”

To make network application/load aware

Soft To make BS invisible

To enable wireless signal to “dress for the occasion ”

To enable Soft RAN via NGFI

Super Fast
To enable flexible configuration of diversified access points
and optimal baseband function split between BBU pool & RRS

“Towards Green & Soft: A 5G Perspective” IEEE Comm. Mag, Vol.52, Feb.2014
 5G New Requirements

Immersive
Seamless

Tactile Ultra Dense

Massive
Ultra Reliable

Seamless Coverage, Hot Spot High Capacity, Low-power Massive-connection, Low-latency Ultra-reliable

Pg 4 | New design principles, new key technologies, …

E2E 5G System Key Technologies
Green and Soft

Core Network SDN/NFV

PTN Transportation PON

network

SDAI (enabled by MCD)

RAN

Seamless wide-area Hotspot & Low-power & Low-latency &

coverage high data rate massive-connections high-reliability
 User Centric RAN (UCN): C-RAN a key enabler
Mobile mMTC
Internet

uMTC

HSS/AAA/PCC
Service Awareness
Smart Operation
CN Entity Internet/App

Autonomous CN-RAN Repartition

Network

Centralized
Radio Network Controller Radio Data Center
Network Slice Localized data,
Turbo Charged Edge service & forwarding
RAN Entity as a Service
Including C-RAN (Centralized and Cloud)

Signaling Data

Unified Access & Seamless RAN restructure

Next Generation Fronthaul Interface
Mobility 广覆盖通用信令层
(NGFI)
Macro signalling (data) 本地数据接入点
layer Local Data Access

Multi-Connectivity & Flexible

5G 4G WiFi Topology
D2D

Pg 6 | Framework of radio access network

 Fronthaul challenges surfaced with C-RAN (2011)
C-RAN CMCC has conducted extensive trials to seek cost-
•
effecitive FH solutions in LTE era
Centralized Control and/or Processing
• Collaborative Radio
• Real-Time Cloud
• Clean System Target
Distributed BTS
Distributed BTS

Traditional
Traditional BTS
BTS

Fronthaul used to be an issue for LTE C-RAN:

CPRI Compression and WDM
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 Traditional FH solutions must be revisited in 5G era

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 NGFI (xHaul)

• The key to achieve FH interface redesign lies in the function re-split

b/w BBU and RRU
• The new NGFI will further lead to re-design of underlined transport
networks with packet switching capability
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 Decoupling Ant./Non-ant. Related Processing

The evaluation of the existing FH Interface

(CPRI, OBSAI):
The FH bandwidth is proportional to the
number of antennas.
The FH bandwidth is at least 2 orders
of magnitude higher than BH bandwidth.
Considering the C-RAN centralized deployment and the
technologies of 5G, FH is facing a bandwidth explosion.
Decoupling antenna/non-antenna related processing:
The number of Carriers The number of FH BW based on the existing
in C-RAN antennas FH Interface It is proposed that antenna related functions should be
moved from the BBU to the RRH.
100 8 1Tbps FH bandwidth will decrease significantly if the BBU/RRH
100 128 16Tbps function split can decouple the non-antenna related
processing and the antenna related processing.
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 Decoupling cell/UE Processing
The existing FH interface is a constant bit rate interface, which is load
independent and does not match with the features of mobile traffic.

Decoupling cell/UE processing:

Cell processing is irrelevant to traffic load and is fixed no matter how many UEs are active.
FH bandwidth will be lower and load dependent.
In C-RAN Mode, cell/UE processing decoupling can further help reduce power consumption.
 When the traffic load is low, part of C-RAN cloud resource can be shut down.
 When there is no active UE, BBU software can be switched to a dormant state
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 Decoupling UL/DL Processing
Some symmetrical BBU-RRU function There are many different aspects between UL
re-split solutions
（ Taking LTE as an example ） and DL:
S1 Termination
Generally, the DL rate is not equal to the UL rate.
PDCP The bandwidth of UL and DL are not always in the
1"

RLC
same order of magnitude.
 The bit width of UL is usually larger than that of the
High MAC
DL.
1"

Low MAC
Decoupling UL/DL processing
2
Bit-level Bit-level
Processing Processing
 NGFI design should take into account the
3
IDFT &
Modulation
De-Modulation asymmetrical function split solutions.
Layer Mapping
& Precoding
Channel Estimation
& Equalization
For example, the function split solution 3 could be
4
Resource FFT &
used for UL while the solution 4 used for DL.
Mapping & IFFT Resource De-Mapping

5
To RRU From RRU

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 NGFI Progress
• Lead of IEEE 1914 (NGFI) WG in IEEE
• 1st NGFI WS held & NGFI WP released in June, 2015
- MoU signing with Broadcom, Intel, Alcatel-Lucent, HuaWei, ZTE,
Nokia, Xilinx & Altera
• Co-founder of IEEE 1904.3
• Leading the project of NGFI in CCSA
• NGFI as the key component in NGMN 5G WP, FuTURE 5G WP
• NGFI/FH promotion and study in ITU-T, IEEE and 3GPP
• NGFI Paper in IEEE Communication Magazine & GLOBECOM 2015
“Rethink Fronthaul for Soft RAN”, IEEE Comm. Mag. 2015
“NGFI, The xHaul”, GLOBECOM 2015

White Paper on NGFI released in June 2015

NGFI feasibility study with Xilinx
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 Challenges Ahead
 Mapping of FH to Ethernet packet, undergoing in IEEE 1904 WG
 Stage 1: CPRI encapsulation (applicable to 2G, 3G and 4G)
 Stage 2: NGFI encapsulation for 5G
 Latency
 To meet RT requirement of wireless communication
 Limited latency budget for FH (e.g. 250us defined in NGMN for LTE C-RAN)
 Synchronization
 LTE Frequency sync. of 0.05ppm & phase accuracy of +/-1.5us
 Higher in 5G
 Transport of FH packets
 Over IP, MPLS, etc.
 E2E QoS
O&M, protection etc.

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 IEEE NGFI (1914) WG
• Target: efficient & scalable FH for 7 Founding members
5G
• Officially approved: Feb. 2016
• Sponsor: IEEE COM/SDB
• 7 founding companies with more
than 50 subscribers so far from
~30 companies
• Scope of 1914.1 project:
- NGFI transport network
architecture
- Requirements
- Function split analysis for LTE

• http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1914/
• The first NGFI WG meeting, April 25-28,
San Jose, CA
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Contact: huangjinri@chinamobile.com
 Thank you
For more information, please contact
icl@chinamobile.com

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