Cost-aware fronthaul rate allocation to maximize benefit of multi-user reception in C-RAN

Aiming throughput enhancement in future mobile networks dense deployment of wireless access points (APs) is intended. Spectral efficiency on the uplink can be improved via joint processing of users located in areas covered by several APs. Thanks to centralized processing of such users offered by Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) architecture, low-latency multi-cell cooperation becomes possible. However, the price to pay for benefiting from its advantages is the cost of transferring data from distributed access points to the data-center through limited-capacity fronthaul links. A mobile network operator can achieve better benefits of C-RAN by maximizing transmission rates while using the lowest fronthaul rate possible. We consider in this work the optimal tradeoff between the amount of fronthaul allocated and the sum-rate of each user group in a multiple access scheme where we assign a wireless resource to each group without ensuring intra-group orthogonality. By performing low complexity joint reception of signals quantized according to attributed fronthaul rate, we can maximize the benefit of uplink transmission in C-RAN despite constrained fronthaul links.