Towards Smart Fronthauling Management: Experimental Insights from a 5G Testbed

TL;DR

This paper presents experimental insights into wireless fronthaul management in 5G networks, demonstrating a testbed setup, validating a theoretical model, and evaluating a stabilization strategy for reliable C-RAN connectivity.

Contribution

It introduces a real 5G mmWave wireless fronthaul testbed, validates a theoretical model, and assesses a dynamic reconfiguration strategy for improved reliability.

Findings

Fronthaul utilization aligns with the theoretical model.

The stabilization solution proves viable in real deployment.

Experimental data supports the effectiveness of the proposed management approach.

Abstract

The fronthaul connection is a key component of Centralized RAN (C-RAN) architectures, consistently required to handle high capacity demands. However, this critical feature is at risk when the transport link relies on wireless technology. Fortunately, solutions exist to enhance the reliability of wireless links. In this paper, we recall the theoretical fronthaul model, present a dynamic reconfiguration strategy and perform a conclusive experiment. Specifically, we showcase the setup of a wireless fronthaul testbed and discuss the resulting measurements. For this task, we leveraged the commercial hardware provided by the High-Frequency Campus Lab (HFCL), a private 5G network with millimeter wave (mmWave) radio access interface. Our experiments provide original data on the fronthaul utilization in this real deployment, demonstrating both a good accordance with the theoretical model discussed in [1] and the viability of one stabilizing solution.