Differentiated radio-over-fiber-based backhauling for dynamic LTE capacity provisioning Transport différencié basé sur la radio-sur-fibre pour une gestion dynamique de la capacité radio dans les réseaux 4G LTE

It is today widely admitted that existing cellular backhauling needs to be redesigned to cope with radio mobile traffic increase. We have proposed in recent papers an alternative solution called GeRoFAN (Generic Radio-over-Fiber Access Network) exploiting both the benefits of optical transparency and Analog-Radio-over-Fiber (A-RoF). Thanks to A-RoF and reflective modulators used at network terminations, it is possible to mutualize most of the radio equipment at the head of the infrastructure. In this paper, we propose an innovative Control Plane called GeRoFAN-CP aiming at a flexible Radio Frequency (RF) resource allocation according to the time-space fluctuations of the traffic matrix. This control plane relies on two tools. A Quality of Transmission analytical model evaluates the capacity of each cell. A decision support tool defines a set of engineering rules to mitigate the impact of physical layer impairments on this capacity. Supported by the tools mentioned previously, GeRoFAN-CP exploits an iterative algorithm called Differentiated Backhauling Service (DBS) that optimizes the mapping of RFs onto optical channels to achieve a fluid management of LTE radio capacity during stable states of the traffic matrix. Numerical results outline that DBS facilitates a more efficient usage of RF resources to the benefit of radio operators.