As Step 1 of the PoC, we measured the level at which O-RAN KPIs can be met when an APN device is inserted into the mobile fronthaul between RU and DU.

We demonstrated that the application of the APN solution to the mobile fronthaul is viable as a business use case.

Based on the results obtained from this PoC, when inserting Nokia’s APN device in the mobile fronthaul section in the network, it added an additional latency of approximately 10μs compared to the latency without the insertion. Assuming a latency of 5μs per 1km for the fiber optic distance, C-RAN implementation over a broad area of up to 28km is still possible, even though the total maximum fiber length is reduced by 2km. During the POC verification, we confirmed that call connections and throughput were possible without issue for distances of up to 25km between APN-G and a combination of APN-G or APN-I extensions. The resulting latency was 132.647μs, leaving a margin of 17.353μs up to 150μs, which indicates that a distance extension of up to 3km based on fiber distance is possible.