Published by Addison-Wesley Professional (June 29, 2022) © 2022
Syed Hassan | Alexander Orel | Kashif IslamTHE NETWORK PROFESSIONAL'S GUIDE TO PLANNING, DESIGNING, AND DEPLOYING 5G TRANSPORT NETWORKS
As 5G transforms mobile usage and services, network professionals will need to significantly evolve their transport network architectures towards greater sophistication and stronger integration with radio networks, and facilitate transition towards cloud-native 5G mobile core. Until now, however, most 5G guides have foregrounded RF/radio and mobile core innovations, not its implications for data networks. A Network Architect's Guide to 5G fills the gap, giving network architects, designers, and engineers essential knowledge for designing and planning their own 5G networks.
Drawing on decades of experience with global service providers and enterprise networks, the authors illuminate new and evolving network technologies necessary for building 5G-capable networks, such as segment routing, network slicing, timing and synchronization, edge computing, distributed data centers, integration with public cloud, and more. They explain how 5G blurs boundaries between mobile core, radio access, and transport, as well as the changes in the composition of a traditional cell site with the adoption of Open and Virtualized RAN resulting in a transition to mobile xHaul. Every chapter builds on earlier coverage, culminating in a “big picture” presentation of a complete 5G network design.
- Understand the evolution of mobile technologies over the generation leading to 5G's foundational concepts and principles.
- Explore 5G changes to Radio Access Networks (RAN), the Mobile Core, Mobile Transport, and the need for tighter integration between them.
- Use Segment Routing to architect simplified, SDN-capable networks, and enable network slicing for 5G.
- Rethink transport design to incorporate Far-Edge, Edge, and public-cloud based data centers augmenting centralized DCs to support distributed peering and Multi-access Edge Compute.
- Provide guidance to meet the criteria and requirements for various aspects of Fronthaul, Midhaul, and Backhaul architecture, such as transport protocol evaluation, latency consideration, routing design, QoS modeling, network device selection, and more.
- Forge a cohesive 5G network architecture by combining mobile communications principles with advanced transport technologies.
Introduction xx
Chapter 1: A Peek at the Past 2
Brief History of Pre-Cellular Mobile Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Very First Cellular Networks: 1G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Second Generation (2G) Cellular Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Generation Two and a Half (2.5G). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Third Generation (3G).. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 2: Anatomy of Mobile Communication Networks 28
Understanding Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Mobile Transport and Backhaul.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Mobile Core Concepts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Chapter 3: Mobile Networks Today 76
3GPP Releases and Evolved Packet System.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Evolved Packet Core (EPC) Architecture.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
RAN Evolution.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Modern Mobile Backhaul Networks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 4: The Promise of 5G 120
Emerging Trends and Expectations from Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . 121
5G Technology Enablers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
5G Service Offerings.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Chapter 5: 5G Fundamentals 138
5G Radio Access Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
5G Core Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5G Transport Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205
Chapter 6: Emerging Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Segment Routing 212
Complexity in Today's Network.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Introducing Segment Routing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Segment Routing Traffic Engineering (SR-TE). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Software-Defined Transport with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
5G Transport Network Slicing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Redundancy and High Availability with Segment Routing.. . . . . . . . . . . 238
Segment Routing for IPv6 (SRv6). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Chapter 7: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks:
DC Architecture and Edge Computing 250
Data Center Basics.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
From Centralized to Distributed to Cloud Data Centers. . . . . . . . . . . . 257
Deploying Data Centers.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Optimizing Compute Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Chapter 8: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Transport Services 274
What's a 5G Transport Service?.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
VPN Services.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Transport Services Across MCN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
Chapter 9: Essential Technologies for 5G-Ready Networks: Timing and Synchronization 302
Types of Synchronization.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Why Synchronization Is Important in 5G.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
Synchronization Sources and Clock Types.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Implementing Timing in Mobile Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
Chapter 10: Designing and Implementing 5G Network Architecture 334
5G Architecture Recap.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
5G Fronthaul Considerations.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
xHaul Transport Technology Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Designing the Mobile Transport Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Routing Design Simplification. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Transport Services for 5G MCN.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Taking MCN to the Cloud.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Automation in 5G Networks.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
Deciphering 5G Mobile Requirements.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
References.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Afterword: Beyond 5G 386
9780137376841, TOC, 4/14/2022