The presence of a super high rate, but also cost-efficient, easy-to-deploy,and scalable, backhaul/fronthaul framework is essential in the upcomingfifth-generation (5G) wireless networks \& beyond. Motivated by the mountinginterest in the unmanned flying platforms of various types including unmannedaerial vehicles (UAVs), drones, balloons, andhigh-altitude/medium-altitude/low-altitude platforms (HAPs/MAPs/LAPs), which werefer to as the networked flying platforms (NFPs), for providing communicationsservices and the recent advances in free-space optics (FSO), this articleinvestigates the feasibility of a novel vertical backhaul/fronthaul frameworkwhere the NFPs transport the backhaul/fronthaul traffic between the access andcore networks via point-to-point FSO links. The performance of the proposedinnovative approach is investigated under different weather conditions and abroad range of system parameters. Simulation results demonstrate that theFSO-based vertical backhaul/fronthaul framework can offer data rates higherthan the baseline alternatives, and thus can be considered as a promisingsolution to the emerging backhaul/fronthaul requirements of the 5G+ wirelessnetworks, particularly in the presence of ultra-dense heterogeneous smallcells. The paper also presents the challenges that accompany such a novelframework and provides some key ideas towards overcoming these challenges.
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