LG Uplus to use OTN for LTE-A CPRI backhaul

The transport systems vendor says LG Uplus was among the first to commercialize LTE-A and favors pooled baseband processing for distributed base stations on its LTE-A network to maximize bandwidth and spectrum efficiency, minimize interference caused by coverage overlap, and occupy less footprint. A centralized baseband processing pool in dense metro areas should connect to over 100 remote radio units (RRUs), Huawei estimates. In a traditional approach each RRUs is directly connected to the pool via fiber-optic cable. Such an approach requires a significant amount of fiber and does not support service protection configurations.

Conversely, the WDM/OTN approach LG Uplus has adopted with Huawei’s help requires only a single fiber pair to backhaul multiple CPRIs from RRUs to the baseband processing pool. Meanwhile, OTN ring protection for the CPRIs significantly enhances network reliability; OTN also offers accurate line performance monitoring and fault diagnosis fiber media converter.

"With the development of mobile broadband, high-speed WDM transport is no longer confined to the backbone. It has been extended to the metro core, and will be applied to the metro edge in the LTE-A era. LG UpLus and Huawei's innovation in LTE-A backhaul is a meaningful practice of WDM/OTN-to-the-edge," said Jack Wang, president of the Huawei transmission network product line.