A Review on Cellular Network Infrastructure Evolution: Challenges and Opportunities

Last few decades have witnessed tremendous growth in terrestrial communication. This has happened with improved technologies at both the physical layer as well as network layer level. This paper surveys some of the key technological advancements implemented towards the fulfilment of ever increasing demands. Basically, this paper provides a comprehensive review of the applications and challenges associated with different generation of communication system and technological enhancement towards their fulfilment. In addition, we discuss main features of next generation cloud radio area network architecture along with the cooperative transmission schemes. Further, it is shown that Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) is the most suitable alternative for next generation architecture.