Total Cost of Ownership of Digital vs. Analog Radio-Over-Fiber Architectures for 5G Fronthauling
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2020

The article analyzes the total cost of ownership (TCO) of 5G fronthauling solutions based on analog and digital radio-over-fiber (RoF) architectures in cloud radio access networks (C-RANs). The capital and operational expenditures (CAPEX, OPEX) are assessed, for a 10-year period, considering three different RoF techniques: intermediate frequency analog RoF (IF-A-RoF), digital signal processing (DSP) assisted analog RoF (DSP-A-RoF), and digital RoF (D-RoF) based on the common public radio interface (CPRI) specifications. The greenfield deployment scenario under exam includes both fiber trenching (FT) and fiber leasing (FL) options. The TCO is assessed while varying (i) the number of aggregated subcarriers, (ii) the number of three-sector antennas located at the base station, and (iii) the mean fiber-hop length. The comparison highlights the significance that subcarrier aggregation has on the cost efficiency of the analog RoF solutions. In addition, the analysis details the contribution of each cost category to the overall CAPEX and OPEX values. The obtained results indicate that subcarrier aggregation via DSP results in high cost efficiency for a mobile fronthaul network, while a CPRI-based architecture together with FL brings the highest OPEX value.

5G

total cost of ownership (TCO)

operational expenditure (CAPEX)

common public radio interface (CPRI)

operational expenditure (OPEX)

radio-over-fiber

optical fronthaul

cloud radio access networks (C-RAN)

Författare

Aleksejs Udalcovs

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Marco Levantesi

Politecnico di Torino

P. J. Urban

West Pomeranian University of Technology

D. A. A. Mello

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

Roberto Gaudino

RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Oskars Ozolins

Politecnico di Torino

Paolo Monti

Chalmers, Elektroteknik, Kommunikation, Antenner och Optiska Nätverk

IEEE Access

2169-3536 (ISSN) 21693536 (eISSN)

Vol. 8 223562-223573 9293022

Smarta stadskoncepter i Curitiba - lågkolhalt transport och rörlighet i det digitala samhället

VINNOVA (2019-04893), 2019-12-01 -- 2023-05-31.

Ämneskategorier

Datorteknik

Telekommunikation

Kommunikationssystem

DOI

10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3044396

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Senast uppdaterat

2021-04-30