Experimental Evaluation of Multi-Vendor Virtualized RAN using Non-Ideal Fronthaul

In this paper, we present the recent research findings of our experimental investigation into virtualized Radio Access Networks (vRAN) based on non-ideal fronthaul transport. The experiments are conducted in a Telecom Infra Project (TIP) community lab hosted in BT Labs at Adastral Park; BT’s global research and development headquarters. A wide range of testing and measurements has been executed to characterise the functional behaviour and performance of vRAN based on a low layer functional split with a focus on using G.fast as the fronthaul link. The performance evaluations reveal that the solution operates well in the presence of transport impairments in excess of typical G.fast requirements, thus proving that G.fast can be a suitable transport option for fronthaul. Testing is carried out on two different multi-vendor systems. The more recent of these systems is built in line with the O-RAN fronthaul specification. It is shown that the solution demonstrates promising throughput performance and is robust to a wide range of fronthaul packet loss rates. What is most significant about these experimental results is that it is real evidence of progress of industry efforts to develop an open, best-of-breed, disaggregated, multi-vendor RAN ecosystem that is envisaged for next-generation RAN. In addition, the fact that non-ideal fronthaul can be supported can significantly improve the business case for a number of deployment scenarios.