Midhaul Performance Modelling Using Commodity Hardware C-RAN Testbed

Midhauls introduce new characteristics to wireless networks. We study implementation performance behaviour to make appropriate network and algorithm design decisions soft–real-time midhaul-based radio access network implementations. A model is developed based on data obtained using a testbed, which can be used to estimate midhaul latency as a function of the number of communicating nodes. The testbed comprises one central unit (CU) controlling a variable number of distributed units (DU) synchronized over Precision Time Protocol (PTP). Average reporting latencies of 266 s were observed with 16 DUs. Typical jitter performance was 99.99