5G Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN)

Cloud RAN, also called Centralized RAN (C-RAN), is a new network architecture for the next-generation 5G mobile network infrastructure and has attracted a great deal of attention as one possible way to efficiently centralize computational resources:

• In C-RAN, multiple sites are connected to a central data center where all the baseband processing is performed.
• C-RAN has the capacity to carry out the optimization, configuration and adaptation of the network with software control and management through software-defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV).
• C-RAN helps to bring down operational costs and improve network security, flexibility and controllability.