1. C-RAN: the Next Big Thing after LTE
China Mobile Research Institute
Welcome Mr. Botka to China Mobile Research Institute. I’m honored to represent C-RAN team to give a brief introduction about C-RAN and collaboration proposals with Agilent.

2. Agenda Challenges in mobile internet era
China mobile’s solution: C-RAN
C-RAN progress
Our introduction will include these four parts in order to give a general idea about C-RAN’s background and progress.
Proposals for collaboration with Agilent

3. Challenges in Mobile Internet Era
Fast increasing data traffic but slow capacity growth
Mobile network capacity will only increase by 10 times
Mobile data traffic will increase by 26 times
Gap
1 Exabyte = 1018 Byte
Mobile operators will face great challenges in the coming mobile internet era.
Cisco predicted that the mobile data traffic will increase by 26 times but the mobile network capacity will only increase by 10 times. There is a large gap to meet the customers’ demand.
*Source: Cisco VNI Mobile, 2011

4. Challenges in Mobile Internet Era
LTE
In order to increase network capacity, more and more LTE base-stations are required for better coverage. However, the construction cost is high. Furthermore, the inter-cell interference is serious.
GSM站间距：900M/1800M，实际应用统计，密集城区站间距大约600m，普通城区大约1200m。
TD-SCDMA站间距：一般密集城区的平均站间距在430m左右，普通城区的站间距在700～900m左右。
TD-LTE 站间距：2.6G频段 200米左右。
Construction Cost !
Inter-cell Interference !

5. Challenges in Mobile Internet Era
BS cell site is the major source of power consumption.
The base-station cell site accounts for most of the total cost.
Surprisingly, the air-conditioners in the site rooms consumes a large amount of the total power.
Simply, if we can reduce the cell site rooms, we can save a lot of expenditures.
*Source: Base on China Mobile survey on commercial networks

6. Agenda Challenges in mobile internet era
China mobile’s solution: C-RAN
C-RAN progress
A green evaluation path is needed to achieve
high capacity,
high power efficiency.
low cost.
C-RAN, also called cloud-RAN, is China Mobile’s solution.
Proposals for collaboration with Agilent

7. C-RAN: Road towards green radio access network
RRU
Virtual BS Pool
Optical
Network
Centralized baseband pool
real time Cloud computing
Collaborative radio
In fact, C-RAN includes 4 Cs:
We centralized several base stations to a central processing pool and use real-time cloud computing technique to process different standards.
The distributed radio remote units could collaborate with each other to reduce interference.
Clean system target

8. Traditional macro base-stations
C-RAN——Centralized Baseband Pool
Traditional macro base-stations
In the traditional macro base-stations or distributed base stations, many cell sites rooms will cost heavily. We can use high-capacity optical fibers to connect remote units to a centralized baseband pool to reduce site rooms.
Distributed
base-stations
C-RAN Centralized
baseband pool

9. C-RAN——Collaborative Radio
interference
signal
signal
interference
signal
signal
In the traditional base stations, each station processes signal separately. So the signals from other stations will interfere the users, especially on the cell-edge.
C-RAN puts the baseband units in a processing pool, and support data exchange. Different base-stations can share information and process jointly, so as to reduce interference.
Separately processing
Joint-processing

10. C-RAN——Real-time Cloud Computing
TD-LTE
App Service
TD-SCDMA
TD-LTE
TD-SCDMA
GSM
GSM
In the traditional base-stations, different BBU are separated, each BBU could only support their own RRU.
C-RAN adopts general-purposed processors to replace conventional closed hardware system. Each type of baseband signals are processed through software-defined-radio based on a virtualized cloud platform.
Furthermore, we can also provide different application services on this platform. The mobile-phone users could download videos, pictures directly from the base stations. This could greatly reduce the transmission load of the optical networks.
Software Defined Radio
based on
Virtualized Cloud Platform
Traditional baseband equipments

11. C-RAN——Clean System Target
Construction cost per site
reduced by 1/3
Power consumption
reduced by at most 71%
We have done many surveys in the commercial networks, and found that C-RAN could reduce about one third of the construction cost and reduce the power consumption by at most 70 percent.
*Source: Base on China Mobile field trial surveys

12. Agenda Challenges in mobile internet era
China mobile’s solution: C-RAN
C-RAN progress
Proposals for collaboration with Agilent

13. C-RAN Roadmap We are here C-RAN Research Data traffic analysis
Long Term:
Address the real-time cloud challenge
C-RAN Research
Data traffic analysis
BBU pool research
Virtual BTS on real-time Cloud
Commercial product development
Mid-Term:
Address the SDR and Collaborative Radio challenge
Multi-mode and Collaborative Radio
Drive CoMP research and field trial, pre-commercial product
Near Term:
Address the fiber resource and management challenge
Since we formally started C-RAN project in 2010, we have achieved many fruits.
In this road map, we hope to develop the pre-commercial C-RAN product in mid-2013, and commercial product by the end of 2014.
Centralization Deployment
Expend C-RAN
to 2G/3G/4G
networks
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015

14. Prototype Development
In collaborations with IBM, Intel, ZTE, Huawei, Datang and other partners, we have developed a three-mode C-RAN prototype which could support voice calls and data services for GSM\TD-SCDMA\TD-LTE.
Based on the existing equipments, ZTE and Huawei have developed their own large-scale baseband pools based on the inter-connection architecture proposed by China Mobile. The baseband pool could support more than one thousand TD-SCDMA carriers and more than 100 TD-LTE carriers.
Multi-standard
GPP prototype
Large-scale
Baseband pool

15. C-RAN Field Trial C-RAN Trials in China Jilin Beijing Baoding Changsha
Dongguan
TD-SCDMA
Zhaotong
GSM
Changsha
Baoding
Jilin
Guangzhou
G/T/L (on going)
Beijing
C-RAN Trials
in China
Zhuhai
We also deployed several C-RAN networks in the commercial networks, including 4 GSM networks and 2 TD-SCDMA networks. In Beijing and Guangzhou, the three-mode C-RAN network constructions are on going. Especially, the GPP platform is applied in Beijing trial.

16. International Collaboration
C-RAN has received world-wide attentions from vendors to operators.
China mobile has initiated a program on C-RAN in NGMN, attracting 14 operators and 7 vendors.

17. Agenda Challenges in mobile internet era
China mobile’s solution: C-RAN
C-RAN progress
Proposals for collaboration with Agilent

18. System Measurement SDR Research
Collaboration with Agilent
System
Measurement
SDR
Research
Baseband verification
RF specification testing
Channel simulation
Physical layer acceleration
L2/L3 signal scheduling
Real-time operating system
Agilent is the leading measuring instrument company in the world. In the past year, Agilent has given a lot of help in C-RAN prototype development, especially help support the ITU C-RAN exhibition, which was a great success.
We hope that Agilent could continue supporting C-RAN development, including baseband signal testing and radio signal measurement.
Meanwhile, Agilent is strong in the area of software-defined radio. We hope to have further exchanges in LTE SDR research, including physical-layer accelerating and real-time operating system, and etc.

19. C-RAN PoC Test (with GSM/TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE)
Uplink signal sensitivity
EVM/Freq. offset/ phase noise of downlink signal
Consistency of multi-port signals
Beam-forming test
CPRI signal test, e.g. time synchronization
channel simulation ……
Test Requirements

20. Collaboration makes win-win!
Summary
C-RAN is to address the challenges in the mobile internet era.
Agilent could play an important role in C-RAN test.
Collaboration makes win-win!
Thank you!