Fronthaul — eCPRI and O-RAN 7.2x split

From CPRI to eCPRI

Traditional CPRI carried digitized radio samples as a constant bit-rate stream over dedicated fiber, consuming enormous bandwidth — a single 20 MHz LTE carrier with four antennas required approximately 2.5 Gbps. Enhanced CPRI was developed to reduce fronthaul bandwidth by moving some physical layer processing to the radio unit. eCPRI is packet-based rather than circuit-based, enabling statistical multiplexing over standard Ethernet networks. The eCPRI specification defines message types for IQ data transport, real-time control, and one-way delay measurement. By transporting partially…