Performance Analysis of Fog-Based Radio Access Networks

For the new generation of cellular networks, new architectures are being examined to improve performance. Fog communication is a new paradigm that has been presented to exploit the power of edge computing in regards to throughput and latency. In this paper, we introduce a mathematical model to examine the performance of such proposals. Specifically, the delay, power consumption (PC) and energy efficiency (EE) of fog radio access networks (F-RANs) are tested in comparison with those of traditional cloud radio access networks (C-RANs). Although the literature has shown that F-RANs provide enhanced delay performance, this paper shows that they also consume a large amount of power, degrading their EE in comparison with their traditional cloud counterparts. However, the level of degradation depends on the number of deployed fog devices, which directly influence the PC. This paper also shows that improving the delay performance by using a fog architecture is not a straightforward process but rather requires particular care in terms of choosing the appropriate mode when placing/installing fog functions in fog devices.