Final Definition of iJOIN Requirements and Scenarios

This deliverable presents the final set of reference scenarios and system requirements derived by the iJOIN project, focusing in dense small cell deployments as a way to respond to the increasing data rate demand, but always with realistic backhaul limitation in mind. Relying on the progress in cloud computing, iJOIN introduces the concept of “Radio Access Network as a Service” (RANaaS) to deploy functionalities, which are usually processed within a small cell, partially or fully in a cloud platform. This allows to benefit not only in computing power but also in centralisation coordination gains. In particular, this deliverable presents an overview of the activities carried out by the Work Package 5 (WP5) during the second year of the project. The report gives an overview of the current status of iJOIN activities, definitions and system concepts, while specific aspects are contained in deliverables D2.2, D3.2 and D4.2 coming from the respective technical work packages. This report provides the final set of reference scenarios and system requirements considered in iJOIN based on the output of WP2, WP3, WP4 and proof-of-concept work in WP6. For each scenario, a RAN/Backhaul and a RANaaS deployment is proposed which is suitable for the specific scenario characteristics. Furthermore, the different hardware limitations that will affect the RANaaS implementation are analysed. These limitations together with the requirements imposed by 3GPP LTE and with the proposed candidate technologies are used to define the preferred functional split options. A similar analysis is performed for the joint radio access and backhaul network optimisation. Finally, metrics are defined that are used to evaluate candidate technologies and to analyse operating points of the iJOIN system.