I. Introduction
Mobile networks are evolving rapidly in terms of coverage, capacity and new features, continuously pushed by new requirements related to latency, traffic volumes and data rates [1]. The operators are seeking for promising ways to increase the flexibility of cellular infrastructures so as to simplify the deployment and management of the network integrated with different communication technologies, e.g. mm Wave, Li-Fi, coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP), etc. [1]. Cloud-based Radio Access Network (C-RAN), referring to the virtualization of base station functionalities by means of cloud computing, results in a novel cellular architecture that cost-efficiently enables centralization and cloudization of large-scale cooperative signaling processing in a network-wide manner [2], and thus reducing the overall network complexity [3] in respect of management and deployment.