Ricerc@Sapienza

Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) or centralized RAN could be seen as a promising solution to deal the 5G requirements. Traditional C-RANs are organized as a three-element network, that contains Base Band Unit (BBU) pool, Radio Radio Remote Unit (RRU) and the network interconnecting BBUs and RRUs called fronthaul. The BBU provides baseband signal processing functions and the RRU provides Radio Frequency signal transmission and reception functions.

In this paper we propose and investigate an OTN/WDM network architecture for the transport of Ethernet/CPRI flows in 5G scenario. The proposed solution allows for a dynamic bandwidth resource allocation dependent on the current traffic. The network is composed by OTN/WDM rings interconnecting Access Switches and interconnected to an OTN/WDM Hub. We introduce an analytical model for the dimensioning of wavelengths of the optical rings.