Open RAN Fronthaul Testing Considerations - Automation Is Key
RCRWirelessNews, Monday, November 18th, 2024
End-to-end fronthaul testing, as well as isolation testing, provide the big picture and granular data needed to drive Open RAN adoption
Given one of the primary goals of Open RAN-providing architectural flexibility by breaking up the centralized unit (CU), distributed unit (DU) and radio unit (RU), and opening up the interfaces used to connect the different parts of the radio system-it's not surprising that fronthaul interfaces have been a focal point since the beginning. And in the 5G era when massive MIMO radios became key to optimizing capacity/coverage in mid-band spectrum, fronthaul became even more vital given the integration of radio, antenna and some of the intelligence usually associated with the baseband into one unit.