Employing MEC in the Cloud-RAN: An Experimental Analysis

Abstract

5G network access is expected to deliver high performance with low-latency network connections for the end-users, suitable for a plethora of different applications, as well as add up to the network flexibility and manageability from the operator's perspective. In order to achieve low-latency, Multiple-access Edge Computing (MEC) is considered, whereas for achieving flexibility, the disaggregation of the base station elements and moving parts of their functionality to the Cloud is proposed. In this paper, we consider the case of disaggregated base stations based on the CU-DU paradigm, able to provision MEC functions in a per-packet and per-client basis, over real networks. We evaluate the placement of the MEC functions over the fronthaul interface or collocating them with the Core Network. We employ the OpenAirInterface platform and evaluate our MEC solution with dynamically adaptive video streams. Our results show significant gains for the service-to-UE path latency, complying with the requirements set for the 5G MEC operation.