CCIR: The Next Frontier in Mobile Network Evolution - Integrating Communication and Computing for Enhanced Services

The mobile RAN is the bridge and enabler between end users and application services, and fortunately, the computational capacity of base stations in RANs[1] has experienced tremendous growth accompanied by increasingly stringent service requirements from emerging applications such as AR/VR. These two trends imply an unprecedented opportunity that the abundant computing resources in base stations could be leveraged to host latency-sensitive applications if being managed properly, thereby giving rise to a new vision named Communication and Computing Integrated RAN (CCIR), where not only communication but also computing services are delivered by RANs in a coherent way[2]. In fact, CCIR implies an even more radical departure of designing future mobile networks— going beyond regarding the role of RANs as connecting links. This article provides an elaboration on the fundamental design philosophies and principles of CCIR, the logical architecture. We will explore further on key tech-nologies toward realizing our vision. Specifically, we provide a thorough view on what CCIR really means – it involves different integration granularities between communication and computing functions; meanwhile it keeps evolving until approaching real-time joint scheduling and holistic resource management based on one unified infrastructure. To assess the feasibility and advantages brought by CCIR, several field experiments were carried out where computing resources are migrated within different base stations. In conclusion, CCIR is a prospective evolution direction for future mobile networks dealing with communication-computation-converged requirements in new service use scenarios[3]. Using current infrastructure more intelligently and efficiently will facilitate better user experience, greener mobile networks as well as serve as better platform for future advancements in wireless technology.