Point to Multi‐point, In‐band mmWave Backhaul for 5G Networks

Cost‐effective and scalable wireless backhaul solutions are essential for realizing the 5G vision of providing “Gbit/s anywhere”. Not only is wireless backhaul essential to support network densification based on small‐cell deployments, but also for supporting very‐low‐latency inter‐BS communication to deal with inter‐cell interference. Multiplexing backhaul and access on the same frequency band (in‐band wireless backhaul) has obvious cost benefits from hardware and frequency reuse perspective, but poses significant technology challenges. We consider an in‐band solution to meet the backhaul and inter‐BS coordination challenges that accompany network densification. Here, we present an analysis to persuade the readers of the feasibility of in‐band wireless backhaul, discuss realistic deployment and system assumptions and present a scheduling scheme for inter‐BS communications that can be used as a baseline and further improved upon. We show that an in‐band wireless backhaul for data backhauling and inter‐BS coordination is feasible without significantly reducing cell access capacities