Design and optimization of fiber-optic small-cell backhaul based on an existing fiber-to-the-node residential access network

C. Ranaweera, M.G.C. Resende, K.C. Reichmann, P.P. Iannone, P.S. Henry, B-J. Kim, P.D. Magill, K.N. Oikonomou, R.K. Sinha, and S.L. Woodward

IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 51(9), 2013

ABSTRACT

As the number of wireless users and per-user bandwidth demands continue to increase, both the vendor and carrier communities agree that wireless networks must evolve toward more dense deployments. So-called “heterogeneous networks” are a commonly proposed evolution, whereby existing macro-cellular networks are supplemented with an underlay of small cells. The placement of new small-cell sites is typically determined based on various location-dependent factors such as radio propagation calculations, user densities, and measurements of congestion and demand. The backhaul network, which can account for a significant portion of the total cost of the deployment, is then designed in reaction to the placement of small cells. In contrast, we describe a design method which first considers the locations of existing fibered and powered facilities that might be leveraged to provide inexpensive backhaul. Naturally, such a method is only feasible if the carrier has a legacy local fiber network. This paper describes an efficient fiber backhaul strategy for a small-cell network, which leverages facilities associated with an existing fiber-to-the node (FTTN) residential access network. Once potential small-cell sites are determined from among all FTTN remote terminals (RTs), optimization techniques are used to choose the most efficient subset of sites for maximum coverage, and to design the fiber backhaul architecture.


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Last modified: 30 September 2013

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