Statistical Assessment of PLC Networking for Front-Hauling in Small Radio Cells

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the feasibility of using power line communication (PLC) for small cell back-hauling in cellular networks, considering recent capacity improvements and the need for high-density small cell deployments.

Contribution

It provides a statistical assessment of PLC as a back-hauling solution for small radio cells, addressing its potential and limitations in dense network scenarios.

Findings

PLC capacity has increased significantly, enabling potential use in small cell back-hauling.

Power line infrastructure's ubiquity makes PLC a promising solution for dense cellular networks.

Challenges remain in reliability and interference management for PLC in this context.

Abstract

The employment of power lines for communications (PLC) has been theorized almost a century ago; although the physical medium is not meant for data transmission, recent technical developments pushed the capacity boundary much higher than expected, allowing to consider PLC for new applications as the one considered in this contribution, i.e., as a solution for small cell back/front-hauling. In principle, back-hauling for cellular networks via PLC is very attractive given how pervasive the power line infrastructure is. Telecom operators are looking for solutions that can handle the traffic increase which is doublying every year. This calls for improvements of both cellular systems and front-hauling technologies that have to bridge the radio network with the core network. Small cells are currently advocated as the solution to spatially fragment the network and offer high capacity in densely populated areas; this is also due to the availability of spectrum at high frequency (mmWave links) which inherently offers large bandwidth but forces the cells to become smaller due to the short distance coverage. Therefore, it appears that mobile operators may eventually have to deploy an order of magnitude more (small) cells compared to existing networks having macro cells. This translates in a high density cellular network that poses more challenges for the back-haul.