Efficient transport of enhanced CPRI fronthaul over PON [Invited]

Passive optical networks (PONs) facilitate small-cell deployments. Back- and midhaul over PON is being deployed today. As opposed to point-to-point optics, PON extends the aggregation gain into the access domain. We explain the steps taken in the mobile and PON industries to enable efficient eCPRI fronthaul over PON. We explain how fronthaul has evolved into a bandwidth-efficient eCPRI and what mechanisms are in place to enable coordinated scheduling decisions of the mobile and PON systems. The recent end-to-end demonstration of coordinated scheduling helps pave the way towards future industry adoption.