PeterNet: an emergent technology based radio access network architecture for next generation cellular wireless systems

For next generation wireless cellular networks, the radio access network (RAN) component is destined to evolve into a high-capacity, flexible and reconfigurable network architecture supporting smaller cell sites and newer technologies. Based on the well-known Petersen graph, in this paper we propose a RAN architecture, named PeterNet, that interconnects the network elements in a mesh topology. Focusing on optical wireless as the underlying transmission technology, we analyze our architecture on two key indices - carrier-class network reliability (99.999%) and infrastructure cost - providing comparative performance analysis with existing tree/star and regular grid networks. Furthermore, we generalize our architecture to what we call, the GPeterNet, which allows dynamic reconfiguration and redesign of the access network while leveraging the underlying salient features.