Experiments and results of a mmW transport platform to enable 5G cloud RAN lower layer splits

This paper will present the performance results of a 5G millimeter wave (mmW) Fast Forward (FF) 70 GHz solution deployed as part of the European 5G-Crosshaul H2020 5G-PPP project. The Fast Forward solution was one of several different transports used to showcase Next Generation technologies on a unified Fronthaul and Backhaul data plane. 5G technologies such as Radio Access Network (RAN) split options were evaluated on a multi-transport network. Performance metrics such as throughput, packet loss and latency were recorded in-house and off-site for presentation in this paper. InterDigital provided two mmWave (mmW) solutions for the 5G-Crosshaul test bed at 5TONIC, an EdgeLink™ 60 GHz transport and a Fast-Forward 70 GHz transport to verify the feasibility of the RAN higher layer and lower layer splits respectively. With the Fast Forward technology, we were able to confirm two important goals: 1. The mmW transport can meet the stringent latency requirements of less than 250 μs for the MAC/PHY lower layer split requirement. 2. A mmW transport in certain circumstances is a comparable alternative or backup for fiber. Note that the performance results for EdgeLink™ [5] were captured as part of our previous participation in the 5G-Crosshaul experiments conducted on the 5G Berlin testbed in 2016 and have been published in a separate paper. Therefore, this paper will focus on the trial results related to the Fast Forward solution on the 5TONIC testbed.