Next Generation Radio over Fiber Network Management for a Distributed Antenna System

The present paper describes functions and procedures of FUTON Radio Over Fiber Manager to operate with upper (network) and lower (physical) layers used in the transport of the wireless signals between a Central Unit (CU) and Remote Antenna Units. Also, it presents some mechanisms and procedures to be used in case of failures, while enabling end-to-end service problem resolution and service quality management by the FUTON Middleware. An overview of current RoF Management solutions is initially presented. The paper then addresses some of the challenges identified in [1], namely the specification of Radio-over-Fibre (RoF) manager entity functions that controls FUTON optical infrastructure; definition of the interoperability with the FUTON Middleware and Radio Resource Management; and definition of RoF Management functions which are tightly correlated and integrated with the radio and optical interface, physical layer algorithms in place, and FUTON radio resource management algorithms.