Medium-Transparent Packet-Based Fronthauling for 5G Hot-Spot Networks

In order to meet the traffic density requirement and cope with the technical challenges of hot-spot scenarios exhibiting extreme user density in very confined geographical areas, the fifth generation (5G) networks must undergo radical technological and architectural innovations that support a broad solution portfolio. This solution mix includes spectrum expansion to the millimeter Wave (mmWave) band, massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output antennas and network densification through remote radio head deployment. Since the current Common Public Radio Interface-based mobile fronthaul cannot cope with massive mmWave multi-Gbps traffic streams, it is imperative to introduce a novel converged 5G architecture, specifically designed to facilitate mmWave access to massive amounts of users. To this end, a Medium Transparent Medium Access Control (MT-MAC) protocol has been proposed, designed to operate over a converged mmWave analog Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) fronthaul. MT-MAC allows for fast and direct negotiation of wavelength, radio frequency and time resources between the base band unit and the mmWave users, while offering fast on-demand link formation. However, its performance has not yet been evaluated under 5G heavy-traffic scenarios, as the ones previously described. Hence, in this paper, we investigate the performance of an MT-MAC-enabled fronthaul and report on its suitability for mmWave hot-spot 5G access networks.