Solutions for future mobile fronthaul and access-network convergence

Abstract

The trend in broadband access services is shifting from the fixed to the mobile. Accordingly, the role of the optical access network systems is changing from the fiber-to-the-home/fiber-to-the-building infrastructure to a common access platform that supports both the fixed and mobile broadband services. It is expected that various virtual network operators will provide a variety of services on the common platform. In particular, the mobile fronthaul (MFH) using optical access is becoming more important in terms of supporting the massive deployment of small cells given the continuous speed increase in mobile access. This paper first reviews and discusses solutions for future MFH networks to address several issues in the evolution of the radio access network. It next discusses access-network convergence for the fixed and mobile services, and describes technologies and an architecture to realize this convergence. The overall motivation of these works is to reduce the total cost of access network ownership.