With the evolution in radio technology the imminent requirement that crops up is growing increase in the bandwidth requirement at the cell sites. While the TDM backhaul infrastructure will just not be fitting to the new network requirements there needs a serious look into modernization of the packet network. This modernization includes expansion (sites and throughput), and providing converged access for enterprise/residential as well as mobile traffic. Additionally a high capacity, stable and resilient backhaul is going to be a very important driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The importance of mobile backhaul comes with the continuing success and development of mobile broadband, a well-integrated transport solution will exponentially increase in operator importance. Enhancing macro sites places new and increased requirements on transport infrastructure. Densifying macro sites put these requirements on more sites. Adding small cells will again increase the backhaul share of an operator’s expenditure.
Few areas to take care while working to overhaul the mobile backhaul while making the transmission network ready for the future are;
Protocol flexibility: Transport protocols used in mobile backhaul are varied and their popularity changes based upon scale, ease of provisioning and operational complexity. Therefore it’s important to have a flexible solution which will accommodate most or all of the available transport options. Transport protocols options are wide enough to suit nearly all operators’ needs including IP, Ethernet, and MPLS-TP and IP/MPLS. For example, operators have differing views about the use of MPLS in the access and metro parts of their backhaul infrastructure, so it’s important to be able to support all scenarios.
Network synchronization : Synchronization has become very important, and several options exist. Some scale better than others, and some are more cost efficient. Now that support of frequency and phase/time synchronization are a mandatory requirement for LTE, then it’s important to have a solution which can support this. With LTE, the synchronization can be provided either by local GPS or by IEEE 1588v2 via the transport network.
Backhaul media: Mobile backhaul has always comprised three main physical backhaul types – microwave, fiber and copper (DSL). In terms of trends, copper-based backhaul has decreased in popularity for macrocell backhaul, leaving microwave and fiber as the predominant media. Microwave has always been very popular, and although fiber popularity had been increasing in recent years, microwave and copper are expected to dramatically increase as they will be used in small cell deployments.
Mobile Backhaul solution needs to be designed to meet these operator needs, keeping operators up to speed with capacity and throughput demands. State-of-the-art and cost-effective new products such as cell site nodes, aggregation nodes combined and new microwave platforms are designed to be future-proof, and integrate tightly with the radio systems.
Some of the other challenges which needs to be dealt in backhaul upgrade are as follows;
Ensuring a smooth and successful migration from existing deployed infrastructure Operators may not know which networks elements to replace, upgrade or maintain, and which network topology changes would be beneficial in terms of cost effectiveness, performance and resilience.
Managing multi-standard radio network backhaul Many/most operators’ networks are multi-standard with 2G and 3G typically, and 4G increasingly common. Some are moving from CDMA to LTE. In most cases, a number of different technologies need to co-exist and the backhaul solution must comfortably accommodate each RAN type. Small cells and WiFi provide further challenges, so taking care of each access technology and traffic can be complex. Handling the multitude of backhaul technologies Many operators are challenged when trying to decide which of the backhaul transport technologies to choose, and which will handle each of their traffic types the best. Simplifying service provisioning is particularly concerning for operators and is directly related to the backhaul technology choice. Configuration and fault management are also directly.
Many operators have rather limited resources in these areas. A solution vendor won’t address each of these challenges in isolation, but find solutions which unify RAN, transport and subscriber demands, and migrate the backhaul as a whole. This provides seamless user experiences because everything has been taken into consideration, including a smooth implementation
The operator value in a solution (rather than individual products) is in bringing a combination of network elements and services together to meet a complex requirement in a dependable and cost-efficient way. The vendor takes responsibility for the integrity of the solution design and guarantees to support it