fulfill the diverse requirements. On this basis, to flexibly meet the different requirements of 5G services, different splits between CU and DU can be configured. In this context, each functional split may belong to a slice. Accordingly, the requirements provided by functional split can be guaranteed by the slice, and thus the features provided differ from slice to slice. A specific type of service is dedicated to an appropriate slice according to the application need. Resource allocations can be made in different ways. For instance, each slice might be assigned a set of resources statically to guarantee quality of service (QoS), such as latency, data rate, and reliability, for each of them. An alternative way is to dynamically allocate resources to slices according to the traffic load. Nevertheless, slicing should allow efficient resource utilization. In general, there is a trade-off between system performance and effective radio resource utilization. Figure 11.2 shows an example of functional split deploying RAN slicing. For instance, smart cars will require low-latency communication while smart cities would typically require high bandwidth and as such different slices may be configured to offer different requirements for latency and FH throughput helping to serve different types of services. This architecture provides Cloud-RAN the flexibility needed to support the diverse requirements of 5G services. 11.2 Fronthaul Reliability and Slicing by Deploying Multipath at the Fronthaul 11.2.1 Packet-based Fronthaul In traditional Cloud-RAN architecture, fiber has been defined as an ideal attractive solution to meet the strict requirements of high bandwidth and low latency of CPRI. However, there are situations where deployment of fiber is not possible or is not a good choice due to cost. To this end, packet-based FH can be considered as a promising alternative transport. This shifts the paradigm of fronthaul network design. This highly cost-effective solution allows sharing and convergence with Ethernet-based fixed n