Mobile Ubiquity

eRelay simplifies wireless backhaul

eRelay simplifies wireless backhaul

As small cells gain industry momentum, their backhaul has become an ever more pressing issue, until now; Huawei answers the call with its eRelay solution, which delivers robust performance and ease of deployment, all at a cost that will help operators breathe easier.
By Li Wenqi

n July 20, 2012, the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour took place at Madrids L a s Ve n t a s s t a d i u m , Spains largest bullfighting arena. To meet the communication needs of the more than 32,000 spectators, a local operator deployed small cells to cover the arena. This, in and of itself, was not challenging. The rub was that the backhaul wiring had to remain inconspicuous at this historic site; eRelay, Huaweis wireless backhaul solution, was the answer.

Small cell promise

Small cells are already in widespread 33
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use for data offload and improved indoor coverage. When clustered, they create a new capacity layer on top of the macro cells, forming a heterogeneous network. The benefits are straightforward, as they enable enhanced capacity over existing spectrum. ABI Research predicts that the global small cell market will hit USD14.4 billion in 2017, but their backhaul is a growing concern. There are currently three major small cell backhaul options on the market fiber, xDSL, and microwave. Fiber delivers large capacity with little delay, but there are tradeoffs in terms of proximity and cost; xDSL can meet the needs of basic backhaul, but it proves inadequate in high-capacity scenarios,

while microwave supports line-of-sight (LOS) transmission only. For non-lineof-sight (NLOS) scenarios, additional nodes are needed to convert NLOS propagation paths into multiple LOS paths, which inevitably increases the total cost of ownership (TCO).

eRelay has your back

According to ABI Research, OFDM NLOS will become the most popular backhaul technology for small cells in 2017, thanks to its NLOS properties and Point-to-Multipoint (PtMP) huband-spoke architecture. Based on this technology, Huawei has introduced a wireless backhaul solution, eRelay.

Huawei Communicate

Through its mix of economy, timeliness, and performance, this solution tackles the small cell last-mile backhaul challenges seen with hotspots, indoor scenarios, and suburban areas. Huawei eRelay consists of base stations and remote radio nodes (RRNs), connected through the air interface and centrally managed via the M2000 management system. And whats more, its base stations can be upgraded to support LTE TDD through a simple update, protecting the initial investment. Easy deployment Base stations can be colocated with macro base stations. Thanks to its advanced distributed structure, an eRelay base station is divided into baseband units (BBUs) and remote radio units (RRUs). BBUs can be placed in indoor cabinets or in Huawei outdoor integrated power cabinets (APM30H) with power supply in place, while RRUs can be mounted on poles, towers, or walls, and installed near antennas to reduce feeder loss and increase backhaul distance. Similarly, RRNs can be mounted on poles or walls near small cells, and powered via Ethernet (PoE). PtMP Featuring PtMP technology, eRelay base stations use directional sector antennas for increased coverage and can each support multiple small cells via corresponding RRNs. The air interface can be shared and scheduled dynamically between multiple RRNs, based on service priority and data throughput, making for most efficient usage. RRNs for one base station can forward data directly amongst one another, enabling small cells to exchange service data at the local level. NLOS propagation Huawei eRelay supports NLOS propagation, meaning that angular adjustment requirements for base stations and RRN antennas will be less strict, making for simplified installation/commissioning, lower O&M costs, and more flexible deployment in complex environments. Higher transmission bandwidth MIMO and 64-QAM improve air interface throughput, increasing the transmission bandwidth for a single sector to 80Mbps for downlink and 50Mbps for uplink. Simple O&M management The M2000 system can be utilized for centralized maintenance and upgrade of eRelay base stations and RRN software, reducing O&M costs. Besides sending alarms, M2000 can also analyze and display channel quality, as well as throughput, for base stations and RRNs. RRNs also have LED indicators that aid fault diagnostics.

Technical highlights
L2 transmission As eRelay supports L2 transmission, there is no need to reserve IP addresses for base stations or RRNs, nor do additional IP routes need to be configured. Small cells are connected to RRNs via FE cable, without the need for further configuration, which reduces the IP routing for the overall network and simplifies network configuration. VLAN Huawei eRelay controls broadcast packets within each VLAN to reduce unnecessary overhead and improve overall transmission performance, while also enhancing data security through transmission isolation between different ones. The M2000 enables packet capture of source IP addresses, destination IP addresses, or VLANs, specified at the Ethernet port of the eRelay base station. The captured packets are buffered at the base station level and can be downloaded to local workstations for further analysis. Base stations can also facilitate routine maintenance via loopback check for transmission ports. Clock synchronization Synchronization is key to any wireless system. High-precision clock systems are critical to ensuring service integrity during handover, while 3G technologies such as TD-SCDMA and CDMA2000 also have strict requirements for phase synchronization; both methods are supported by eRelay, which uses GPS or IEEE 1588v2 as clock sources for its own synchronization, while supporting transparent transmission of IP clock packets so that UMTS and LTE frequencies are synchronized. End-to-end QoS Huawei eRelay implements the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) model for end-to-end QoS. Internal queuing methods include priority queue and weighted fair queue. Uplink and downlink data are mirrored on the queues, based on differentiated services code point (DSCP) and VLAN priorities. The system then schedules air interface traffic according to the mirroring relationship between internal queue and QoS class identifier. The Huawei eRelay solution ensures QoS through optimal capacity planning, as it is costly and wasteful to prepare backhaul capacity according to the peak throughput for each small cell; eRelay can strike the balance between cost and capacity by setting the baseline capacity to equal or double the average busy-hour throughput, ensuring service quality and reducing deployment costs in the process. Editor: Yao Haifei julia.yao@huawei.com
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