Fronthaul Cell Outage Compensation for 5G Networks

5G networks are expected to bring the gigabits per second throughput level per user to reality by 2020. This is done using a combination of new and well known technologies such as C-RAN, self-organizing networks, ultra dense networks, massive MIMO, and millimeter waves. In new RAN architectures, C-RAN has been viewed as a promising 5G architecture that centralizes base-band processing units and virtualizes them into a resource pool. The baseband units are connected to the remote radio heads via high speed fronthaul links. Failure of any 5G cell site fronthaul means the loss of hundreds of gigabits, or even terabits. In this article, we present a novel cell outage compensation approach using new SHRs added to each cell site in the 5G network. These SHRs operate only in case of fronthaul/backhaul failure of any cell site in the network. A new software defined controller is introduced to handle the self-healing procedures. The article also introduces a high-level simulation study that is carried out to assess the proposed approach. The simulation results confirm the advantages of the proposed approach in terms of the degree of recovery from failures.