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3 Years, 20 Companies, 18 Groundbreaking Experiments: 5G-Crosshaul Successfully Concludes Most Ambitious 5G Transport Network R&D Effort to Date
[May 17, 2018]

3 Years, 20 Companies, 18 Groundbreaking Experiments: 5G-Crosshaul Successfully Concludes Most Ambitious 5G Transport Network R&D Effort to Date


LONDON and WILMINGTON, Del., May 17, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A consortium of twenty industry-leading companies, including InterDigital Europe, today announced the successful completion of a nearly three-year European Union Horizon 2020 project aimed at developing a 5G integrated backhaul and fronthaul transport network. After nearly three years, the project, 5G-Crosshaul, is now the de-facto concept for the 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul transport network.

The 5G-Crosshaul consortium was selected in 2015 to develop a 5G integrated backhaul and fronthaul transport network that enables a flexible and software-defined reconfiguration of all networking elements in a multi-tenant and service-oriented unified management environment. The transport network flexibly interconnects distributed 5G radio access and core network functions hosted on in-network cloud nodes. This is achieved through the implementation of a control infrastructure using a unified, abstract network model for control plane integration and a unified data plane encompassing innovative high-capacity transmission technologies, as well as novel deterministic-latency switch architectures.

“It has been truly an honor to oversee one of the most ambitious 5G transport network research and development efforts to date,” said Arturo Azcorra, Director of IMDEA Networks, Co-founder of 5TONIC, and Project Coordinator of 5G-Crosshaul. “The successful results of the 5G-Crosshaul project have advanced scientific knowledge and international standardization of 5G systems, and ultimately contributed to an increase in Europe’s 5G global competitiveness.”

The 5G-Crosshaul solution was demonstrated and validated through 18 experiments integrating multiple technology components from the partners. Real-world trials took place at sites in Berlin, Madrid, Barcelona and Taiwan, and delivered sub-millisecond latency, tens of Gbps throughput, and proven energy and cost savings up to 70%, depending on the deployment scenario. The trials also demonstrated fast service deployment time in the order of minutes, taking advantage of SDN and NFV concepts.

“The 5G-Crosshaul project has delivered a novel transport network that rovides overall resource optimization and brings the CAPEX and OPEX investments to a reasonable ROI range,” said Xavier Costa, Head of 5G Networks R&D and Deputy General Manager of the Security & Networking R&D Division, NEC Laboratories Europe, and the Technical Manager of the project. “This project’s major innovation has set the stage to deliver on the huge increased available bandwidth and ultra-low-latency required by the fifth generation of network technologies.” 



Following its final project review by independent experts appointed by the European Commission, the 5G-Crosshaul project was declared to “have fully achieved its objectives and milestones and delivered exceptional results with significant immediate or potential impact.” The EU experts report highlighted “Significant results linked to dissemination, exploitation and impact potential,” in particular:

  • 91 papers - in several prestigious journals;
  • 74 presentations/panels/webinars, and 14 (Co-)organized workshops;
  • 28 demonstrations including at flagship events such as MWC'16 and MWC'17;
  • 35 normative contributions feeding into key standardization specifications of eCPRI, G.metro, IETF CCAMP, IETF DETNET, and ONF; and
  • 25 contributions for information purpose in several standardization bodies and fora such as NGMN, ITU-T, FSAN, ETSI, IEEE, BBF, and ONF.

The EU experts report continued to note that “several key innovations have been identified, and some of them have been mapped to products for exploitation. The project has so far registered five patent applications. Future exploitation plans are expected to emerge by the partners, outside the project umbrella and based on these innovations.”


“Throughout its lifetime, the 5G-Crosshaul project has successfully delivered 60-plus technological and informational contributions to the advancement of 5G standards,” said Paola Iovanna, Ericsson, and the Innovation Manager of the project. “The project produced radical technology innovations, several directly mapped to products, setting this project as one of the most groundbreaking and unique projects to date.”

“Not long ago, a fusion of fronthaul and backhaul was merely a topic of discussion to meet the requirements of 5G. Now, the 5G-Crosshaul project has delivered the architecture to deliver this fusion – the integrated 5G transport network,” said Alan Carlton, Vice President, InterDigital Europe. “We are honored to again be a part of the leaders driving the latest wireless innovation. This milestone project underscores InterDigital’s commitment to delivering technologies and solutions that benefit the entire industry, as well as the enterprises and consumers who benefit from those capabilities.”

For more information on the 5G-Crosshaul project, please visit http://5g-crosshaul.eu/

About InterDigital®

InterDigital develops mobile technologies that are at the core of devices, networks, and services worldwide. We solve many of the industry's most critical and complex technical challenges, inventing solutions for more efficient broadband networks and a richer multimedia experience years ahead of market deployment. InterDigital has licenses and strategic relationships with many of the world's leading wireless companies. Founded in 1972, InterDigital is listed on NASDAQ and is included in the S&P MidCap 400® index.

InterDigital is a registered trademark of InterDigital, Inc.

For more information, visit: www.interdigital.com.

InterDigital Contact: 
Patrick Van de Wille 
Email: [email protected] 
+1 (858) 210-4814 

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