Performance Evaluation of Multiterminal Backhaul Compression for Cloud Radio Access Networks

In cloud radio access networks (C-RANs), the baseband processing of the available macro- or pico/femto-base stations (BSs) is migrated to control units, each of which manages a subset of BS antennas. The centralized information processing at the control units enables effective interference management. The main roadblock to the implementation of C-RANs hinges on the effective integration of the radio units, i.e., the BSs, with the backhaul network. This work first reviews in a unified way recent results on the application of advanced multiterminal, as opposed to standard point-to-point, backhaul compression techniques. The gains provided by multiterminal backhaul compression are then confirmed via extensive simulations based on standard cellular models. As an example, it is observed that multiterminal compression strategies provide performance gains of more than 60% for both the uplink and the downlink in terms of the cell-edge throughput.Comment: A shorter version of the paper has been submitted to CISS 201

Wireless Communications in the Era of Big Data

The rapidly growing wave of wireless data service is pushing against the boundary of our communication network's processing power. The pervasive and exponentially increasing data traffic present imminent challenges to all the aspects of the wireless system design, such as spectrum efficiency, computing capabilities and fronthaul/backhaul link capacity. In this article, we discuss the challenges and opportunities in the design of scalable wireless systems to embrace such a "bigdata" era. On one hand, we review the state-of-the-art networking architectures and signal processing techniques adaptable for managing the bigdata traffic in wireless networks. On the other hand, instead of viewing mobile bigdata as a unwanted burden, we introduce methods to capitalize from the vast data traffic, for building a bigdata-aware wireless network with better wireless service quality and new mobile applications. We highlight several promising future research directions for wireless communications in the mobile bigdata era.Comment: This article is accepted and to appear in IEEE Communications Magazin