White Papers

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6 | Whitepaper – Exploring Computing Platforms for Radio Access Networks
fewer handoff failures and less network control signaling, which can also be a potential savings
with less need for inter-base station networks.
As the concept of C-RAN evolved, the movement to virtualize workloads also pertained to this
area, and the term vRAN (Virtualized Radio Access Networks) was created. Also, in parallel, the
concept of disaggregated hardware and software led to principles such as SDN (software
defined networking), and along with that the term Cloud-RAN was born, and in some cases this
created confusion with the overloaded term C-RAN. However, of prime importance remains in
the ability to implement the radio access networks using software and standard enterprise
servers.
Figure 2: Radio access network employing centralized and distributed units
User traffic is growing exponentially as operators are forced to deliver these demands at lower
costs and faster deployments that scale and enable new applications. 4G has been successful
in delivering a data network, and 5G is expected to not only extend these capabilities but also
deliver a services network, promising to create an ecosystem that delivers a very wide range of
vertical markets and their respective applications. Which will have diverse requirements in terms
of data rates, latency, mobility, connection density, reliability, spectrum efficiency and energy
efficiency. An incremental improvement over 4G does not satisfy the expected degree of
flexibility and scalability needed. vRAN helps create a network that is flexible, scalable, achieves
lower overall cost and provides high service availability. It also allows for heterogeneous
networks, such as the convergences of fixed and mobile networks, to coexist more naturally. It
should also be noted that 4G and 5G cellular will coexist, so each architecture will be examined.