Balancing backhaul load in heterogeneous cloud radio access networks

Inspired by the explosive growth of mobile data traffic, the severe inter-tier interference, and the fierce competition between the total cost of ownership and revenues for mobile operators, the heterogeneous cloud radio access network (H-CRAN) has been proposed as one of the most prominent ways to handle these challenges. The key idea of the H-CRAN is incorporating cloud computing into a heterogeneous network (HetNet) to enhance coordinated multipoint transmission and reception, cooperative radio resource management, and self-organizing networks, which improve both spectral and energy efficiencies of cellular systems. One of the most critical challenges that hinder the implementation of the H-CRAN is the high transmission demand on the backhauls between the baseband unit (BBU) pool and remote radio heads (RRHs). In this article we suggest that we can balance the workload of different RRHs to alleviate the pressure on the transmission links. Our proposed method is different from but compatible with existing compression techniques that have been widely investigated in the literature to lighten the transmission burden of the backhauls. We also describe the technical challenges in existence during the implementation of our proposal and give preliminary ideas of how to address them.