Impact of Packetization and Scheduling on C-RAN Fronthaul Performance

Being considered as a key enabler for beyond 4G networks, Cloud-RAN (CRAN) offers advanced cooperation and coordinated processing capabilities and brings multiplexing gains. The high capacity and low latency fronthaul (FH) links requirement in the CRAN architecture can be reduced by a flexible functional split of baseband processing between remote radio units (RRUs) and Baseband units (BBUs). Under the wide adoption of Ethernet in data centers and the core network, we consider the Radio over Ethernet (RoE) as an off-the-shelf alternative for FH link in this work. Moreover, the packetization process that packs each sample into Ethernet packets transported over the FH link will impact the CRAN performance. To this end, we investigate the impact of packetization on the proposed CRAN network and provide a packetization algorithm over the FH links. Furthermore, we also survey and analyze various packet scheduling policies applied at the aggregated RRU gateway in order to increase the multiplexing gain. Finally, the simulation results provide more in-depth insights on the potential multiplexing gains in terms of the maximum number of RRUs that can be supported over the Ethernet-based FH network.