Design of a Fronthaul Interface Based on Functional Split Option 7-2

Legacy C-RAN (Centralized RAN) architecture is based on the functional split Option 8 [3], but this option is not practical in 5G or 6G which requires much higher fronthaul capacity [5]. To relax this, various split options ranging from higher layer splits to lower layer splits have been considered in the standardization organizations [2]. This paper proposes a design of a fronthaul interface based on the functional split option 7–2 which has less overhead compared to the existing functional split 7-2x used by the O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) fronthaul interface.