1. An apparatus for fronthaul signal compression, the apparatus comprising: a receiver configured to receive one or more signals comprising complex samples, the complex samples including real and imaginary parts; signal processing circuitry configured to: construct vectors representing at least a portion of the complex samples according to a vectorization or grouping method that separates the real and imaginary parts of the complex samples; map the vectors to codeword indices in a vector quantization codebook; and process the codeword indices into an output signal; and a fronthaul interface configured to transmit the output signal via a fronthaul communication link of a wireless network.