• 5G
• Cloud RAN
• fronthaul
• functional splitting options
• 3GPP
• OpenAirInterface
• bandwidth
• latency

As promising paradigm for 5G wireless communication systems, cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) has been shown to provide high spectrum and energy efficiency. The fronthaul defined as the transmission link between a baseband unit and remote radio head in C-RAN, requires high capacity and low-latency, but is often constrained. In this thesis, we propose an alternative approach for the fronhaul functional split. We design, study and analyze four different experiments that emulate 5G networks. For research performing OpenAirInterface software was used as a realistic experimentation platform. For each experiment, we measure the traffic between user equipment and a base station with the full protocol stack and compute traffic capacity requirements for the proposed potential splitting points evaluating one way fronthaul latency. The important research issue of the following experiments is to understand which proposed functional splits can optimize performance and meet the requirements for the future 5G fronthaul in terms of traffic capacity and low-latency.