Analysis of backhaul networks for developing countries to support next generation communication systems

Abstract

In its most basic form, the target of fifth generation (5G) is to provide reliable and continued connectivity for the user despite obstacles and challenges. These obstacles and challenges vary depending on the scenario, whether it’s an urban or rural area in developed or developing countries. This thesis focuses on the 5G backhaul for standalone (SA) network and the im-pacts of backhaul technologies on the Quality of Service (QoS) and user experiences, in particular, end to end delay (E2E) and capacity planning requirements. In par-ticular, the aim is to facilitate the work of providers, developers, and investors when planning to introduce 5G technology to developing countries. This work looks into employing simulation-based approach to consider bandwidth aspects when design-ing/ upgrading current/ future cellular systems in developing countries. It presents a scheme to maximize the use of bandwidth considering both capacity and delay aspects and helps to identify major parameters that influence system design for different 5G use cases and scenarios. The result proves that the method to determine the required link capacity is by observing the traffic delay and users access statistics as well as by increasing the capacity incrementally by changing the factor for each link in the network, un-til optimal capacity is achieved. It also indicates that within the ”broadband in the crowd” scenario for 5G services and applications, the necessary bandwidth for last-mile network connections can vary depending on the service type. Specifically, bandwidth requirements can be lessened for ultra-low latency services and applica-tions, with even greater reductions possible for those that do not require such low latency. These adjustments are observed when the backbone link is operating at its full capacity. The finding shows that for developing countries, and by considering the cost of the bit per second, user down link/ uplink, and convenience of user terminals as more critical considerations for the adoption of one of the technologies for backhauling 5G traffic, a satellite and hybrid topology based on the existing networks, financial considerations will play an important role in determining the backhaul network topology with optimizing for the specific requirements.