System-Level Analysis of a Self-Fronthauling and Millimeter-Wave Cloud-RAN

Abstract

In this work, we analytically study the performance of an in-band and self-fronthauling millimeter-wave Cloud-Radio Access Network (C-RAN). By considering a stochastic-geometry approach for the modeling of the position and number of Baseband Units (BBUs), Remote Radio Heads (RRHs), and mobile terminals (MTs), we provide the following three-fold contribution: i) We derive an analytical framework for the MT rate distribution for two types of wireless RRHs, namely half-duplex (HD) and full-duplex (FD); ii) Based on the derived framework, we prove that the maximum performance gain of the FD network over its HD counterpart is achieved for a substantially higher density of the wireless RRHs compared to the fiber-connected ones and an adequately small self-interference power level; iii) Finally, we compute an analytical expression of the total cost required to increase the density of the fiber-connected RRHs in a city that showcases the tradeoff between their density increase and the incurred cost. The aforementioned system-level trends are validated by means of Monte Carlo simulations.