Traditional mobile backhaul won’t suffice for 5G

The transport infrastructure for 5G is just as important as the other elements of the 5G network, and transport technologies are having to be updated for this next generation of wireless. Shane McClelland, VP of transport products at Ericsson North America, says that the way mobile backhaul has been handled up until now, won’t suffice in the 5G era. “The industry has created new architectures for [Radio Access Network] RAN,” said McClelland. He said, “We used to have just a couple of simple interfaces in a distributed RAN world. We had [Common Public Radio Interface] CPRI, which connected our radios to our baseband over dark fiber. Then we had the S1 and X2 interface that went across the IP network back to the packet core location.” But 5G introduces more complexity in the transport network. It introduces new architectures such as Cloud RAN and virtual RAN. There are front-haul and mid-haul interfaces. And CPRI is evolving to enhanced CPRI.