RAN architecture components – final report

The main goal of 5G NORMA is to propose a multi-tenant multi-service mobile network architecture that adapts the use of the mobile network resources to the service requirements, the variations of the traffic demands over time and location, and the network topology, individually and concurrently for multiple tenants that share the infrastructure. This is the final deliverable of WP4 containing the findings of WP4 after the third 5G NORMA design iteration. Three options for RAN slicing, namely slice-specific RAN, splice-specific radio bearer and slice-aware RAN, are presented. Standardization relevance and potential of 5G NORMA innovations are discussed and a comparison with respective aspects of the 3GPP next generation architecture is made. Then, we show how the functionally decomposed c/d-layer can be adapted to specific services through suitable function selection and placement as well as how to use the functionally decomposed c/d-layer to realize a multi-service radio access. The c/d-layer function blocks are characterized and categorised into data layer, distributed and centralized control, respectively. Besides these architectural aspects, we introduce specific solutions for multi-tenancy RRM and admission control, for multi-connectivity support to increase reliability, integrate mm-wave and realize virtual cells, for signalling optimizations of mMTC and finally discuss the usefulness of geolocation DBs for mobile networks. Security considerations for both architecture design and specific solutions complete the 5G NORMA view on flexible RAN design