Huawei has released what it claims is the world's first fully outdoor wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) system to support common public radio interface (CPRI) services in mobile fronthaul networks. The product will help to drive down the costs of LTE/LTE-A network deployment, operations and maintenance, the company claims.
The product was unveiled at a seminar held by TDC and Huawei with the theme “Simplified Network for Better Experience”. In October 2013, Huawei was selected by TDC as a sole vendor to modernise the nationwide GSM/UMTS/LTE network in Denmark and provide managed services over a six-year period.
To reduce site leasing fees and manage base station resources from a central location, carriers are beginning to adopt cloud-based baseband units (BBUs) as the mainstream networking mode. BBUs are collectively deployed at the integrated central office, and remote radio units (RRUs) deployed at the coverage points. The BBUs then work with the RRUs through CPRI to extend the service transmission distance.
Conventionally, CPRI services are transmitted through optical fibres – one service per fibre pair – but this networking mode consumes optical fibre resources and has low reliability, coupled with no supervisory measures for managing fibres, thus making maintenance difficult.
The new Huawei WDM product replaces optical fibre connections with WDM technology. This results in a pair of optical fibres able to carry more than 100 pairs of CPRI services. Also, the Huawei product reduces network investment and shortens service deployment time, providing a highly reliable network by using a unique delay compensation technology.
With a fully outdoor-hardened design, the product supports 614Mb/s to 9.8 Gb/s (CPRI1-CPRI7) services on the client side, making it suitable for dense and large-capacity metropolitan areas, the vendor says. The product also offers remote performance monitoring and precise fault locating using a network management system.