eCPRI is short for enhanced Common Public Radio Interface, it is published after CPRI. eCPRI standard defines specification which connects eREC and eRE via fronthaul transport network. It is an important technology for understanding 5G systems, LTE-Advanced and LTE-Advanced Pro.
Benefits of eCPRI
Following are the advantages of eCPRI:
- It complies with IEEE 802.1 CM standard, with reducing jitter and latency for high priority traffic.
- Ethernet and other traffic types can be carried by eCPRI simultaneously
- eCPRI traffic from different vendors can also be carried simultaneously over Ethernet
- The same Ethernet OAM can be used for the Operational and Maintenance of the eCPRI interface.
- Simple troubleshooting, since the base station architecture, is divided into BBU (Baseband Unit) and RRH (remote radio head).
- eCPRI has reduced this bandwidth requirement to a great extent. Required bandwidth can scale as per user plane traffic.
- The interface can be software upgradable and easy for the future system upgrade
Drawbacks of eCPRI
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of eCPRI:
- People think that eCPRI is an enhanced CPRI, however, it is not backward compatible
- Other disadvantages of the intra-PHY split are as follows. A fronthaul network with “high capacity” and “low latency” is needed compare to upper layer splits.
