o match the speed and bandwidth requirements of 5G fronthaul networks. The eCPRI specification was released in August 2017 that supports partitioning of base station functions. The main advantages of the eCPRI protocol include support of functional split option 7, flexible bandwidth scaling according to user-plane traf- fic, and the use of mainstream transport technologies, which makes it possible carrying eCPRI and other traffic simultaneously in the same switched network. The main difference between eCPRI and CPRI v7.0 can be summarized by looking at their respective characteristics [76]. CPRI characteristics It is intrinsically a point-to-point interface. There is a master port and a slave port connected directly by optical/electrical cable (s) as a hop. Networking functions are application layer functions and not supported by the CPRI interface itself. Supported topologies depend on REC/RE functions. Supported logical connections include point-to-point (one REC one RE) and point-to-multipoint (one REC several REs). Redundancy, QoS, security, etc. are REC/RE functions. eCPRI characteristics An eCPRI network consists of eCPRI nodes (eRECs and eREs), transport network, as well as other network elements including grand master for timing and EMS/NMS for management. There is no longer a master port/slave port classification at physical level. SAPs: master of PTP and synchronous Ethernet is not an eREC entity in general. SAPCM: some of management-plane entities may be managed by EMS/NMS. The eCPRI layer is above the transport networking layer. The eCPRI layer does not depend on a specific transport network layer (TNL) topology. The transport network may include local network and local switches provided by the eREC/eRE vendors. Supported logical connections include point-to-point (one eREC one eRE), point- to-multipoint (one eREC several eREs), multipoint-to-multipoint (eRECs eREs, eRECs eRECs, eREs eREs). Redundancy, QoS, security, etc. are mainly transport network functions; eCPRI nodes need to implement proper TNL