3

Indoor Radio Planning

There are numerous challenges, both from a business and a technical perspective, when designing and implementing indoor coverage solutions. Indoor radio planners carry a majorresponsibility for the overall business case and performance of the network. In manycountries 80% of users are inside buildings, and providing high-performance indoor coverage, especially on higher data rates, is a challenge.

3.1 Why is In-building Coverage Important?

In most cities it is very interesting to note that typically a few important buildings (hot-spots)will produce the major part of the traffic. In some cities more than 50% of the traffic originatesfrom about 10% of the buildings. These buildings are referred to as the hot-spots. Thesebuildings will typically be shopping malls, airports and large corporate office buildings. There are many reasons for the mobile operator, both technical and commercial, forproviding sufficient in-building coverage. The technical motivations are typical; lack ofcoverage, improvement of service quality, need for more capacity, need for higher data rates and to offload the existing macro network. In 3G (UMTS) networks, the need to offload theexisting macro network is an especially important parameter.

Before considering any indoor coverage solution, you must carefully evaluate the value of the proposed solution. You will need to answer these questions:
1. Will the investment make a positive business case? 2. When will the investment begin to pay back? 3. Is the selected solution optimum for future needs: _ Higher data rates. _ New services. _ More operators. _ More capacity? 4. Can the selected solution keep up with the future changes in the building: _ Reconstruction. _ Extension? And , Will the solution offload the macro layer, and free needed capacity? This must be part ofthe business case for the indoor solution; it is added value if you free up power or capacityon the outdoor network that can service other users. 5. Are there strategic reasons for providing the IB Coverage Solution: _ Competitive edge over other operators. _ Increased traffic in other parts of the network. _ International roamer value (airports, harbors, ships, ferries, hotels, convention centers)? 6. Can dedicated corporate buildings be covered, in order to secure the business for thewhole account:

_ Better coverage. _ Better quality. _ Better capacity. _ Higher data rates. _ More loyalty from the users?

3.2 Indoor Coverage from the Macro Layer

In a typical suburban environment you need to rely on a very tight macro grid with aninter-site distance of no more than 12 km, depending on the services that are offered. Inurban environments the inter-site distance can be down to 300500 m to provide the deepindoor penetration needed for GSM and UMTS. In many cases even this tight a site grid isnot sufficient to provide the higher-data-rate EDGE coverage on GSM, and is not sufficientfor providing higher data rates on UMTS (64384 kps). In most or all cases the resulting signal at the receiver will be a result of the multipath radio channel a mix of different signals with different delays, amplitudes and phases. So Macro sites rely mainly on reflections in urban and suburban environments to provide indoor service

Figure 3.1 Macro sites rely mainly on reflections in urban and suburban environments to provide indoor service

3.3 The Indoor UMTS/HSPA Challenges

The same 5 MHz (3.84 Mcps) UMTS RF channel can in some cases carry high data rates, in excess of 2Mbps, provided that the users are in line- sight to the of- serving cell, and only if a minor portion of the signal is reflected energy. This is the typical indoor scenario, with a dedicated indoor coverage solution. In that case the orthogonality can be as high as 0.850.90, so the channel is very efficient in carrying high-speed data efficiently

However when covering UMTS indoor user from the macro layer in an urban or suburban environment, the RF channel relies on many reflections, diffractions and phase shifts a multipath channel. This will degrade the efficiency of the radio channel, and under these circumstances the orthogonality can be as low as 0.55. The orthogonality is directly related to the production cost per Mb, and thus directly related to the business case of the operator. In addition to the less efficient radio channel, there are other negative effects, including higher power load per user due to the high penetration loss into the buildings.

Figure 3.4 [ Orthogonality affects the efficiency of the UMTS RF channel ]

The degradation of the UMTS channel, and power load when servicing indoor users fromthe macro layer

Figure 3.3 The degradation of the UMTS channel, and power load when servicing indoor users from the macro layer

The Soft Handover Load :

As we know, all serving cells in UMTS are on the same frequency, only separated by codes. Therefore UMTS has to use soft handover (SHO), as shown in Figure 3.6; this is the only way to shift the calls smoothly when the user roams from one cell to another. Soft handover is a main feature of UMTS, securing the traffic transition between the cells, but it comes at a cost. During soft handover the mobile takes up resources on all the cells engaged in soft handover. Typically, with two to three cells, one mobile in soft handover will load the network with a factor of 23. However, one must distinguish between softer handover, which occurs within the cells on the same site, and soft handover between cells on different sites. The latter takes more resources due to the need for double backhaul to the RNC/RNCs.

Figure 3.4 [ Three UMTS cells from the macro layer provide excellent indoor service, but most of thebuilding is in soft handover ]

UMTS/HSPA Indoor Coverage Conclusion : From the topics just covered, it is clear that it is very costly to cover indoor UMTS users from macro base stations because of the impact of power drain of the macro layer, the degraded RF channel due to low orthogonality, the pilot pollution in high-rise buildings and the load increase due to soft handover (lack of dominance) when more macro cells are servicing users inside a building.

3.4 The Basics of Indoor RF Planning

Isolation is the Key: Isolation is defined as the difference between the IB signal and the outdoor network, and vice versa. Users in office buildings are typically close to the windows; therefore the dominance of the indoor system must be maintained throughout the building, even right next to thewindows.

The High-rise Problem In some high buildings, typically older buildings with normal windows (no metallic coating), you can experience very high interference levels from the outside macro network; even strong signals from distant macro bases will reach indoor users at surprisingly high signal levels. This is mainly due to the low (or no) attenuation from the windows, providing onlylimited or no isolation between macro base stations and the area inside the building along the windows. The traditional approach would be to deploy omni antennas in the walkways near the core of the building but this can cause an unwanted side effect. These central omni antennas must radiate high RF levels, in order to overcome the high signal from the nearby macro base stations, and make the indoor cell also dominant along the windows of the building. The unwanted side effect of this strategy is that the high power from the indoor system will leak high levels of signal from the indoor cell into the macro network, increasing thenoise, and degrading the quality and capacity in the outside macro network.

Figure 3.5 A well-designed indoor solution will be dominant throughout the building, but not leak access signal to the surrounding network

What Level of Isolation is Needed? (1) GSM:

When planning GSM voice, the co-channel isolation must be more than 11 dB in order to secure thequality well, this is the theory, but in reality it depends very much on the actual fading environment, so it is advisable to add a margin of 610 dB. When planning for GSM data,EDGE MCS-6, you will need a co-channel isolation of more than 17 dB plus a margin!

(2)UMTS/HSPA :
You must make sure that this base station is dominant throughout the building; the less dominance, the higher probability there is of soft handover. As a general guideline, you should make the indoor cell 1015 dB more powerful inside the building than any outside macro signal. However this is a fine balance; you must design the indoor solution in order to make sure that the indoor system does not leak too much signal outside the building, thus pushing the soft handover zone outside the building.

The Zone Planning Concept :

Owing to different levels of interference inside the building, it is wise to adjust design levels accordingly, dividing the building into different zones, each zone having individual designlevels; this can save cost and maintain RF performance

Figure 3.6 Owing to different levels of interference inside the building, it is wise to adjust design levels accordingly, dividing the building into different zones, each zone having individual design levels; this can save cost and maintain RF performance

(1)

Zone A: Coverage Limited Area:

The isolation to the outside network in this part of the building is really good, which is no surprise this part of the building is sub-ground level. Typical isolation is better than 7080 dB and the design level for the indoor cell can be relative low, because you do not need to account for macro interference affecting the performance. Typical design levels for zone-A are: -85 dBm for GSM BCCH level. -90 dBm CPICH level for UMTS.

(2)

Zone B: Coverage and Interference Limited Area :

This midsection of the building is often served by the nearby macro cells. The building is to some extent isolated from the interference coming from distant macro sites, by the

neighboring buildings. When planning indoor coverage for zone B, you need to overcome relative low interference coming from distant macro sites, and to insure that the indoor cell will be the dominant server, overpowering the coverage from the macro cells that currently cover this area. Typically a medium signal level is needed, to provide sufficient dominance/ isolation in order to avoid ping-pong handovers (GSM) and to limit the soft handover zones (UMTS). You must be careful with leakage from zone B, and make sure that the indoor DAS system does not service outdoor users near the building, pedestrians or nearby cars. Typical designlevels for zone-B are: -70 dBm for GSM BCCH level. -80 dBm CPICH level for UMTS. (3)

Zone C: Interference Limited Area

The topmost part of the high-rise building is typically above the local clutter of neighboring buildings. Users along the perimeter of the building at the windows will have clear line-ofsight to many distant macro sites. These distant base stations will cause co-channel interference and all the usual high-rise problems. In order to overcome the raised noise floor and pilot pollution due to the unwanted signals from all the distant macro sites, youneed a high planning level. Typically the users will experience high signal level in the display of the mobile, but suffer degraded service, bad voice quality, reduced data service, dropped calls or even totally lack of service, due to the high interference level. Typical design levels for zone C are: -60 dBm for GSM BCCH level. -70 dBm CPICH level for UMTS.