Skip to main content

5G Fronthaul Transmissions with 25G Optics

Posted by Frank Yang on Nov 7, 2022

5G RAN Fronthaul on cell tower

We recently posted about 25G optics in applications of the 5G radio access network (RAN) fronthaul, and now we’ll take a look at one of our telecommunications (telco) customers’ use cases.

This telco provides voice, data, Internet, and wireless services to both businesses and consumers. The company is a publicly traded Tier 1 service provider in the market.

This customer adopted the Open RAN (Radio Access Network) architecture and deployed a leading RAN supplier’s baseband unit (BBU). This solution is equipped with up to 36 10/25G SFP28 ports, and the BBU equipment supports both Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and 5G in one box. This enables the telco to deploy CPRI 7 with 9.83Gb/s for 4G LTE fronthaul or CPRI 10 for 24.33 Gb/s for 5G fronthaul. The service provider deployed the BBU device at the place of O-DU shown below:

Chart showing Disaggregated Open RAN

This client deployed our industrial temperature rated 25GBASE-SRL and 25GBASE-LR optic solutions.

The 25GBASE-SRL runs on a pair of OM3 multi-mode fiber (MMF) for up to 150 meters, or OM4 MMF for up to 200 meters. It provides headroom for either optical power budget or length flexibility over multi-mode fiber – and in many cases it allows re-use of installed MMF from past LTE builds.

The 25GBASE-LR optic runs over a pair of single-mode fiber for up to 10km. The 25GBASE-SRL supports CPRI 10 while the 25GBASE-LR supports CPRI 7 and 10.

With this solution, our client was able to meet their fronthaul goals, streamline their optics with carrier-grade quality, and stay well within budget with the provided cost savings.

For more information on these optics, you can click the links below:

Related Products

10GBASE-LR XFP SMF 1310nm 10km DDM Transceiver 10GBASE-LR XFP SMF 1310nm 10km DDM Transceiver

25GBASE-LR SFP28 SMF 1310nm 10km DDM Transceiver 25GBASE-LR SFP28 SMF 1310nm 10km DDM Transceiver

40GBASE-LR4 QSFP+ SMF 1271-1331nm 10km DDM Transceiver 40GBASE-LR4 QSFP+ SMF 1271-1331nm 10km DDM Transceiver

Photograph
Frank Yang
Senior Product Management Leader
Approved Networks
Senior product management leader with extensive experience in strategic planning, product line management, product marketing, I.T. software and hardware engineering.