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Table 3 Transport technologies for fronthaul

From: Realizing 5G vision through Cloud RAN: technologies, challenges, and trends

Transport technology

Advantages

Issues

Optical networks

High-capacity

Expensive optical devices

 

Reduced fiber resources

Requires previous infrastructure

 

Passive (in the case of passive optical networking)

Challenging network extensibility

CPRI-over-Ethernet

Efficient

Packetization introduces overhead and latency

 

Cost-effective

Ethernet is an asynchronous protocol, while fronthaul has strict synchronization requirements.

 

Universal availability of interfaces

 

Millimeter-wave frequencies

High scalability and capacity

High path loss

 

High frequency reuse

Low penetration

 

Small form factor

Line-of-sight requirement

 

Underutilized spectrum

 
 

Point-to-multipoint links

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