Comparison of Optical Transport Technologies for Centralized Radio Access Network Using Optical Ground Wire

Abstract

Communication networks for wide-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) including photovoltaics (PVs), wind, storage and battery systems and electric vehicles (EVs) will be indispensable in future power grids. In this paper, we compare optical fronthaul networks using existing optical ground wires (OPGWs) for centralized radio access network (C-RAN) architecture to realize cost effective wireless communication network expansion including low population area. We investigate the applicability of optical data transport technologies of physical layer split (PLS), analog radio-on-fiber (ARoF), and common public radio interface (CPRI). The deployment costs of them are comparatively analyzed. It was shown that physical layer split and analog radio-on-fiber with subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) result in lower cost than other technologies.