Midhaul — F1 interface transport requirements

The F1 Interface Between O-DU and O-CU

The F1 interface connects the O-DU distributed unit to the O-CU centralized unit in a disaggregated gNB architecture. F1 is defined at the higher-layer split point — Option 2 in 3GPP terminology — where the O-DU handles the RLC, MAC, and physical layers while the O-CU manages PDCP, RRC, and SDAP. The F1 interface has two components: F1-C for control plane carrying RRC messages over SCTP and F1-U for user plane carrying PDCP PDUs over GTP-U tunnels. Because processing up through RLC is completed at the O-DU, midhaul bandwidth is proportional to actual user throughput rather than antenna…