Hierarchical Ethernet Transport Network Architecture for backhaul cellular networks

Abstract

Cellular traffic has been going through major changes in recent years. With the introduction of broadband services in 3G/4G and the continuously increasing provided data rates in high-speed packet access and Long Term Evolution (LTE), a broad range of cellular applications has emerged, changing the characteristics of cellular traffic. The traditional circuit-switched voice traffic has been taken over by packet-oriented data traffic. This shift in traffic has driven operators to prefer packet-oriented network technologies over circuit-switch technology when implementing their cellular networks. The current offered technologies, including PBB-Traffic Engineering and MPLS-TP, lack important functionality required for LTE such as automation (simple management), traffic engineering, protection, Quality of Service, and scalability. We propose a scalable Hierarchical Ethernet Transport Network Architecture (HETNA), a layer 2 transport technology that addresses these issues and brings a viable solution for cellular networks. The suggested architecture can handle streaming, real-time, multicasting, and other applications. Both connection-oriented transport services and connectionless-oriented services are supported. HETNA was simulated and prototyped, showing significant improvements over regular Ethernet in terms of buffers and control messages that enable this network to function.