Latency and bit-error-rate evaluation for radio-over-ethernet in optical fiber front-haul networks

Nowadays several research projects are under progress to manage a soft migration toward the 5th generation networks. Radio over Ethernet (RoE) is one of recent topics that try to have a cost efficient and independent front-haul network. In this paper, we discuss the requirements of the 5G networks and analyze the conditions for the implementation of a RoE protocol.

For this purpose we digitalize radio frames that are taken from BBU or RRH and create RoE basic frames considering all the requirements of protocol. We then encapsulate RoE basic frames into an Ethernet packet and finally experimentally evaluate this Ethernet packet as a case of study for RoE applications.

The packet is transmitted through different fiber spans, measuring the BER and latency on each case. The system achieves BER values below the FEC limit and a manageable latency. These results serve as a guideline and proof of concept for applications on RoE, showing the viability of its implementation as part of the next generation of front-haul networks.