NSN White paper

November 2013

Mobile broadband with

HSPA and LTE capacity
and cost aspects

CONTENTS
Radio capacity of mobile broadband

The cost of mobile broadband capacity

Summary

10

Abbreviations

11

The latest generation of smart devices and USB data modems for mobile
particular, mobile broadband via High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) has

challenge for operators who need to undertake careful planning of the

This paper analyzes the maximum radio capacity of mobile broadband
by adding macro sites in hot spots, deploying six sector sites and
Secondly, the paper gives a high level view of the cost of mobile
broadband services, taking into consideration the volume of data

average mobile broadband penetration is at least 500 subscribers per

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Tra c distribution
between base
station sites

Maximum capacity
per site from
CQI values

Tra c distribution
over 24 hour period

Usage
per subscriber
per month

Total network level capacity in Terabytes per month

Maximum number of subscribers

maximum number of supported

subscribers in the network

Radio capacity of mobile broadband

networks to estimate the maximum network capacity with HSPA and Long
for the maximum number of subscribers that can be supported by a

possible data rate that the terminal can receive with an error rate of
packet scheduling algorithms, but they can also be used to estimate the

%
20

%
100

18

Probability density

90

16

Cumulative density

80

14

70

12

60

10

50

40

30

20

10

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11

13

15
17
CQI

19

21

23

25

27

29

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System level packet scheduling gains can increase cell throughput slightly,

A margin in network dimensioning in the busy hour needs to be reserved

50% margin is not constant but depends on the targeted user data rates

capacity, this paper always assumes that it is those 15% of the cells that

Network capacity could be improved by adding cell sites to the congested

The busy

Share of tra c

50%

15%
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Share of cells

between cells
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Share of daily tra c

7%

0:00

06:00

Spectrum

12:00

Current

2600
(FDD 20 MHz)

18:00

24:00

Future
LTE 20 MHz

2100
(15 MHz)

HSPA

Multicarrier HSPA

1800
(15 MHz)

GSM

LTE 15 MHz

900
(10 MHz)

GSM

HSPA (5 MHz) +
GSM (5 MHz)

800
(10 MHz)

LTE 10 MHz

Now, lets make an example capacity calculation with 10,000 and 20,000
consumes an average of 5 GB of data per month in the downlink and uplink
The capacity is assumed to be downlink limited, while uplink use is

The maximum number of subscribers is estimated by the following

Subs =

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Cell_capa[Mbps]
8192Mbit/GB 3.8GB/sub

3(sectors) 3600s/hour 30days/month

50%(maxload)
7%(busy hour share)

Sites

15%
50%

(distribution)

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support up to 5 million data subscribers with HSPA and up to 22

Millions of subscribers
50
45
40

of the order of 20 million voice subscribers, while networks with

35

LTE
HSPA

30
25
20
15
10

overbooking factor can be used to take into account the fact that
only a small proportion of users will typically be downloading data

5
0

10000 sites

20000 sites

hour share corresponds to 20 kbps average data rate per subscriber

of broadband subscribers,
User expectations for data rates depend on the market, as well

(using spectrum allocation from

wireline broadband penetration tend to have higher expectations

for mobile broadband data rates, while users in markets with poor
Therefore, the dimensioning rules need to be adapted to market

The following solutions can be used to provide

even more capacity and to support more

the priority of heavy users when they exceed

percentage (less than 20%) of users takes

footprint and are fully deployable outdoors,

to small cells like micro or femtocells (home

compared to conventional base station

include a number of enhancements for

femtocells, including optimized architecture,
as well as two-way handovers between macro

capacity per site compared to 3-sector sites

All-in-one mobile site solution boosts 2G, 3G

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provides enhanced interworking between

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The cost of mobile broadband capacity

This section estimates the cost of mobile broadband capacity and

power consumption and radio network software and hardware

EUR/sub/month
10
10 GB/sub/month

5 GB/sub/month

2 GB/sub/month

1 GB/sub/month

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

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100

200

300

400

500
600
Average subs per site

700

800

900

1000

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EUR/GB
10
10 GB/sub/month

5 GB/sub/month

2 GB/sub/month

1 GB/sub/month

6
5
4
3
2
1
0

5%

10%

15%

20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Penetration of mobile broadband subscription

45%

50%

average number is, for example, 500 subscribers per site, there will

less than 2 GB and the subscriber density is very high, it is possible to

The cost of delivering a GB of data is highly dependent on the network

subscribers or to high use per subscriber, the cost per GB can be

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The mobile broadband cost depends on how the site and transport

spectrum has already been fully utilized and further HSPA capacity

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Summary
The advent of smart devices and mobile computers has generated

5 GB of data per month for every existing voice subscriber by using

further by deploying additional macrosites in hot spots, using 6-sector

provide up to 5 GB
of data per month
for every existing
voice subscriber by
radios in existing

subscriber over an eight-year depreciation period if average mobile

broadband penetration is at least 500 subscribers per site, and if

The cost of delivering a gigabyte of data per subscriber can be less

cost per bit, especially when HSPA spectrum is fully utilized, because

The continued growth in smart device and mobile computer data

depreciation period if average mobile broadband

penetration is at least 500 subscribers per site,
and if data use is below 2 GB per subscriber per

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Abbreviations

DSL

Digital Subscriber Line

GB

Gigabyte

HSDPA

High Speed Downlink Packet Access

HSPA

High Speed Packet Access

QoS

Quality of Service

WLAN

Wireless Local Area Network

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