Analysis of control and management plane for hybrid fiber radio architectures

This paper presents the existing Radio over Fiber (RoF) architectures and focuses on the control and management plane of the Remote Antenna Unit (RAU). Broadband wireless standards, such as WiMAX and LTE, incorporate optical technologies following the distributed base station concept. The control and management of the RAU becomes a critical task, since it can facilitate allocation of resources, configuration and upgrade of the remote unit and constant monitoring of its performance. In the case of baseband over fiber, two protocols (OBSAI and CPRI) introduce a well-defined control and management plane. In the case of intermediate/radio frequency over fiber, this paper presents a simple approach, which can provide configurability and real-time monitoring of the RAU over the same optical link. This is realized by multiplexing high frequency user data with baseband frequency control data at the Central Office (CO) and demultiplexing them at the RAU. The advantage of this approach is the add-on flexibility and simplicity of its implementation. The limitations concern mainly the extra development and integration needed to take place in the RAU.