HSUPA/HSDPA systems: Capacity and Dimensioning

Abir Baroudy and Salah Eddine Elayoubi

France Telecom, Research and Development Division
38-40 rue du Gnral Leclerc
92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
{abir.baroudy, salaheddine.elayoubi}@orange-ftgroup.com
Abstract
In this work, we develop an analytical model for the
integration of real time and elastic traffic in a system
supporting both UMTS R99 and HSDPA/HSUPA
channels. We first develop models for the powers and
throughputs, and then use them to study the dynamic
evolution of the system by a Markovian model. We also
study the impact of the interaction between uplink and
downlink caused by the TCP ACKs carried by
dedicated or shared channels. We apply our model to
dimension the system for different traffic scenarios. In
particular, we show how to determine the number of
carriers that must be assigned to a base station in
order to meet some blocking requirements, and
whether they will be shared between R99 and HSPA or
dedicated to one system.

1. Introduction
Mobile operators are now taking another step in the
development of their broadband networks by launching
3G+ and providing customers with faster mobile data
services. 3G+, or mobile broadband, is a natural
evolution of the current (Release 99) 3G networks [1]
and promises much faster data speeds, based on
HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) in the
forward link [2] and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink
Packet Access) in the reverse link [3].
In this context, capacity calculations are needed in
order to dimension the system and determine whether
an upgrading of the existing UMTS base stations is
necessary, and, if necessary, is it better to add a new
carrier or to share the existing band between 3G and
3G+? In this paper, we present a capacity analysis of a
network carrying both real time and elastic traffic, over
classical 3G Dedicated Channels (DCH), or on
HSUPA Enhanced DCH (E-DCH) and HSDPA High
Speed Downlink Shared Channels (HS-DSCH).
While considerable attention has been directed
toward the study of the capacity of HSDPA systems

(e.g. [4-5]), few papers analyze the capacity of HSUPA

using simulations (e.g. [6-7]). In this paper, we present
a joint uplink/downlink capacity analysis when the
carrier (frequency band) is shared between 3G and
3G+ users. The original contributions of this paper are:
1) An analytical model for HSPA systems when
they share the same carrier with DCH, or
when they have dedicated carrier.
2) A joint uplink/downlink analysis taking into
account the impact of TCP ACK/NACK on
the capacity of the system. To the best of our
knowledge, this is the first paper studying this
impact.
3) A dimensioning study based on a Markovian
analysis of the capacity. In particular, we give
an algorithm that determines, for each mix of
voice/data traffic, whether it is necessary to
add 3G+ features to the actual 3G system, and
the number of carriers necessary to insure a
given performance (blocking probability).
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows.
In section 2, we develop the downlink model for R99
and HSDPA in the presence of voice and data traffic.
The uplink model is presented in section 3. Section 4
studies the impact of TCP ACKs for downlink data
calls on the uplink capacity, and vice versa. Section 5
presents an algorithm for capacity dimensioning.
Numerical results in section 6 illustrate the models and
show how to calculate the Erlang capacity of the
system. Section 7 eventually concludes the paper.

2. Downlink model
2.1. UMTS R99 model
In the downlink of WCDMA, the SINR achieved for
user u situated at distance r0 from the target cell base
station is given by:

SINRuD (r0 ) =

S D Pu,0 /q u,D0
I intD er,u + I intD ra,u + N 0

where SD is the spreading factor, Pu,0 is the power

received by user u from the target cell base station,

I intD er ,u =

Ptot ,l

l 0

q u ,l

is the inter-cell interference, with

Ptot,l the total power transmitted by the base station l

D

and qu ,l the path-loss between user u and base station

l,

I intD ra ,u =

Ptot , 0 Pu , 0
qu ,0

is

the

intra-cell

interference originated from the common channels and

from other users, with the orthogonally factor, and N0
is the thermal noise.
Differently from other works (e.g. see [4]) in which
the powers in the interfering cells equals the
instantaneous power in the target cell, here we consider
that such an equality holds only for the average power
and it is independent of the instantaneous fluctuations
of Ptot,0. Here the total power of the base station l can
be written as Ptot ,l =

D Pmax ,

where

D is

the

average load in a typical cell of the system and Pmax is

the maximal transmission power. Let us notice that the
3G mean load is defined as the ratio between the used
and the total power. As the inter-cell interference can
be expressed in terms of the well-known F-factor, the
SINR can be rewritten in the following way:

SINRuD (r0 ) =

S D Pu,0
(Ptot,0 Pu,0 ) + D Pmax Fu + N 0 q u,D0

hence, after defining the -factor of user u:

SINRuD
, we obtain:
u = D
S + .SINRuD
Pu , 0
u =
D
.Ptot , 0 + Pmax Fu + N 0 quD, 0

(1)

MD

1 v M

i =1

Ptot ,0 =

c =1

1 ( c M iD,c )
c =1

where M i ,c is the number of class-c UMTS users in

D

region i, for i=1n, Fi and qi are respectively the

average F-factor and path-loss for region i, and c is
the required -factor of class c.
The constraint on the maximal transmission power
gives the constraint on the number of users
n

(Pmax + D Pmax Fi + N 0 q iD )( c M iD,c ) Pmax PCom

i =1

c =1

Let A be the space of states M = ( M i ,c ) , i=1n,

D

c=1C, where this condition is verified. The steadystate probabilities are then given by solving the set of
linear balance equations, obtained by writing the
transition rates:
R D (..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c ,..., M nD, c ,... ..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c + 1,..., M nD, c ,...) = c S i
R D (..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c ,..., M nD, c ,... ..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c 1,..., M nD, c ,...) = M iD, c

Tc
, NRT depart.
E[ ]

R D (..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c ,..., M nD, c ,... ..., M 1D, c ,..., M iD, c 1,..., M nD, c ,...) = M iD, c c , RT departure

where c is the arrival rate of class-c calls and Si the

surface of region i, Tc is the throughput of NRT calls of
class c (e.g. 64 Kbps for a 64 Kbps bearer),
and 1

is the mean duration of a RT call.

PCom + ( D Pmax Fu + N 0 quD,0 ) u

u =1

We define the load of the UMTS network by the

ratio of the emitted power to the available power:

If there are MD UMTS users in the cell, the total

power used from the base station in the target cell is

Ptot , 0 =

PCom + ( D Pmax Fi + N 0 q iD )( c M iD,c )

Here PCom is the power of the Common Channels.

Differentiating n regions in the cell and considering
C classes corresponding to the nature of the DCH
bearer (e.g. voice calls with 12.2 Kbps, and packet
switched calls carried over channels of 64, 128 or 384
Kbps), this expression of the power becomes:

D =

PCom + c ( D Pmax Fi + N 0 qiD ) M iD,c

Pr(M D )
(1 v M D ) Pmax
and the blocking probability of class-c calls is equal to:
i =1 c =1

MD A D

bcD =
i =1

Si D
bi , c , where biD, c is the class-c blocking
Stot

rate in region i:

biD =
M

Pr(M

) , AiD, c being the subspace of

AiU,c

A where any new class-c arrival in region i will be

blocked.
2.2. R99/HSDPA model
When both HSDPA and R99 calls share the same
bandwidth, the power that is not used by R99 users is
used for HSDPA. The SINR of an HSDPA user in
D

region j in the presence of the vector M of R99 calls

is given by:

SINR (M ) =
DH
j

S DH Pmax PCom c (Pmax + PmaxFi + N0qiD )MiD,c

i=1 ch

PmaxFj + N0qDj + PCom + c (Pmax + PmaxFi + N0qiD )MiD,c

i =1 ch

The throughput of a HSDPA call in region j is then:

Ti DH (M D ) =

1
n

D
d DH SINR DH
j (M )

DH
j

where d

(SINR ) are

the link level throughput

DH

curves for HSDPA and M i is the number of

HSDPA users in region i.
The transition matrix is constructed as for R99, by
adding the departure rate of the HSDPA class:

Ti

DH

(M )
.
E[ ]
3. Uplink model

M iDH

for c= 1C; where c =

E c Rc

is the required
N0 W

SINR for calls of class c.

Ec/N0 is the minimum allowed ratio between the bit
energy and the interference plus noise density, which
guarantees the target quality of service in terms of bit
error probability; W/Rc is the processing gain, i.e., the
ratio between the chip rate and the source bit rate; N0 is
the background noise, and Iintra,0 and Iinter,0 are the total
power received from other mobiles within the
considered cell and all its neighbours.

= M Pc , M being the number of class-c

U
c

c =1

calls in the uplink, and Pc is the constant power

received by a base station for class c calls to avoid
near-far effect.
U
I int
er ,0 =

Ncell

i, j

i =1

( 0)
i, j

qi(,0j)

is the ratio of emitted

power by a call in other cell j to the path loss between

him and BS 0. Knowing that the transmission is powercontrolled in the uplink in order to avoid the near-far
effect, all calls of class c are received at their own base
station with the same power Pc. In average, the intercell interference can then be approximated by:

U
int er , 0

= E[ M

U
c ,i

Ncell

Pc ] E [
i =1

q i(,i j)
q i(,0j)

Pc
~
SINRcU =
c
U
U
N 0 + I int ra , 0 + I int er , 0 Pc

U
c

Pi e, j

where M c,i is the number of calls of class c in cell i.

In the uplink, the SNIR received from a c-class mobile

at the base station BS of a given cell 0 must be greater
than a given constant to guarantee the reception of the
signal at the BS:

Pi ,ej

Ncell

c =1

3.1. UMTS R99 model

U
int ra , 0

U
int er , 0

i =1

j =1

DH

the Central Limit Theorem. This assumption is not

very genuine as the interference from other cells does
not vary according to the number of users in the target
cell, but following the load of these interfering cells.
We use the following analysis to calls this interference:

where Pi,j is the power emitted by call j in cell i. The

authors in [8] made the assumption that the other-cell
interference is proportional to interference from own
cell by some constant f. This ratio estimated by f is
characterized with a Gaussian distribution by invoking

Let f = E[

Ncell

q i(,i j)

q
i =1

(0 )
i, j

] be called the interference factor

in the uplink. P = E[

U
c ,i c

P ] is the average

c =1

received power by a base station in the system.

Considering the minimal power that can achieve the
target SIR, we obtain:

~
c =

Pc
C

N 0 + M mU Pm + P . f Pc
m =1

~
c
Defining c =
~ , we can obtain:
1 + c
C

Pc = c ( N 0 + P . f + M mU Pm ) .

Leading

to:

m =1

U
m

Pm =

( N 0 + P . f ) M mU m
C

m =1

1 M mU m

m =1

m =1

and Pc =

( N 0 + P . f ) c
C

1 M m
m =1

(2)

U
m

For each mobile, a constraint on the transmission

power Pmax is to be fixed, leading to:

M c < 1
U
c

c =1

q00, j ( N 0 + P . f ) m

(3)

Pmax
0

A call, characterized by a path loss q0, j can not been

accepted if this condition is not verified. This is the
coverage condition. If we divide the cell into n
concentric zones, and suppose that the path loss is
uniform for each zone, this condition is replaced by:
C

U
c

c < 1

c =1

q j ( N 0 + P . f ) m

(4)

Pmax

for each new call of class m, in zone j.

Another constraint, this time on the load of the cell
must also be fixed. Note that the load of the cell is
defined by:

I tot
, where Itot is the overall
I tot + N 0

power received by the base station. This leads to:

C

=
U

U
m

Pm + P . f

m =1

N 0 + M mU Pm + P . f

N 0 M m + P. f
U
m

m =1

N0 + P. f

m =1

A condition on the maximal value of this load is to be

imposed:

U
< max
, leading to the condition:

U
max
( N0 + P . f ) P . f

c =1

N0

M cU c <

(5)

Conditions (4) and (5) must be verified when

accepting a new call.

2.2. R99/HSUPA model

HSUPA aims at offering high data rates on the
uplink (up to 5.76 Mbits/s) using key techniques
implemented in HSDPA such as fast scheduling, link
adaptation and hybrid ARQ. Unlike HSDPA, HSUPA
does not use a shared channel for delivering the data
calls. By structure, it is considered more as an add-on
of UMTS R99 standard than a replacement. The study
of HSUPA performance will, consequently, be based
on the study for UMTS R99 uplink model.
For the admission control, the condition
concerning the maximum load value (5) won't change.
This condition will then be used to allocate the
available resources to the pool of the HSUPA users,
knowing that there is a larger number of possible
throughputs. Moreover, the data rate offered to one
user is no more constant over the time: It depends on
his SINR. Let N be the number of throughput levels
and k the corresponding to level k=1,,N, with
level 1 corresponding to the highest throughput.
The packet scheduler, the "fair scheduler", tries to
provide the same average throughput for all HSUPA

users. At first, it tries to provide all users with the

highest data rate possible. If this is not possible, it
seeks for the maximal throughput level all UEs can
adopt, taking the load condition into consideration. Let
k be this level. Once this data rate level is found, the
scheduler tires to privilege the largest possible number
of the UEs by giving them the level k+1. In the final
distribution, users differ with at most one throughput
level. This is illustrated in the following algorithm,
when M

UH

HSUPA calls are present in the cell:

1) Assign to all users throughput level k=1.

2) Verify CAC conditions (4) and (5). If not
verified, let k=k+1.
3) Repeat iteration 2 until the CAC condition is
verified. If k=N and the CAC conditions are
not verified, the call is blocked.
4) Assign to l = M

UH

1 HSUPA calls the

throughput level k-1.

5) Verify the CAC conditions. If not, let l=l-1.
6) Repeat 5 until CAC conditions are verified.

3.3. Load calculation

In the above sections, we showed how to calculate the
performance measures of a 3G/3G+ system. However,
the steady-state probabilities in the target cell are
calculated using the loads in the interfering cells, due
to the inter-cell interference. In a homogeneous
network, where the load is the same in each cell, we
can suppose that the interference generated by the
target cell on one of its neighbours is equivalent to the
interference that a neighbouring cell generates in the
target cell. E.g., in the uplink, the average power
received by the target base station from its own
mobiles is equal to the power received by other base
stations, and P = E[

U
c ,i

Pc ] can be obtained

c =1

from

averaging
C

= E[

M
c =1
C

U
c

Eqn.

(2).

Defining

1 M c

] , we have:

U
c

c =1

P=

N0
1 f

(6)

For the downlink, the load in the target cell can be

calculated as in section 2.1, and will be equal to the
load of interfering cells.
We then propose the following iterative algorithm to
calculate the loads and powers in the interfering cells:
1. Set the initial values for the iterations, e.g.
with taking loads equal to 0.5.

2.
3.

Calculate the steady-state probabilities using

these initial values, and deduce the load and
the power (Eqn. (6)).
Use the new value of the loads into the
transition matrix and repeat the iterations until
the values converge.

4. Impact of TCP ACKs

The TCP ACKs signalling takes care to indicate
to the Node B (resp. terminal) whether the data frame
was correctly received or not by terminal (resp. Node
B). TCP ACKs signalling could thus take place in the
uplink as well as in the downlink. These ACKs share
the resources with the voice and data connections and
have an important impact on the capacity of the
system. In this section, the impact of this signalling is
analyzed.
In the uplink, a channel (DCH or E-DCH) must
be reserved for the signalling of each downlink data
call. The choice of this channel must take into account
that the rate of the signalling data is proportional to the
rate of the corresponding downlink connection. This
correspondence x=

ACK Throuphput
depends on
DL Throuphput

the TCP version implemented in the network (e.g TCP

Reno or SACK) and, for a given version, x is known.
Two cases are to be studied:
1) For UMTS R99, the DL throughput being
constant and equal to Rd, a DCH is reserved in
the uplink with the smallest rate grater or
equal to x R d . This channel must then be
taken into account when performing
admission control (Eqn. (8) and (9)).
2) For HSPA, the DL throughput being variable,
the corresponding uplink signalling has a
variable throughput, and the E-DCH channel
must be reallocated following this rate.
Note that a similar analysis can be performed for
the downlink, with the difference that when HSDPA is
implemented, more flexibility is possible to obtain the
exact demanded rate for the signalling.

1) Evaluate the performance for one band, with

DCH only.
2) If blocking is larger than the target, evaluate
the performance if adding HSPA.
3) If, even with HSPA, the performance is not
acceptable, add a new band, dedicated to
HSPA.
4) If blocking is still large, share the second band
between DCH and HSPA: Find the smallest
proportion of voice calls directed to the
second band so that blocking is acceptable.
5) If blocking is still large, add a third band, etc.

6. Results

For our numerical results, we consider a homogeneous

network with a chip rate of 3.84 Mcps. Voice calls
have a rate of 12.2 Kbps, a target ERT/N0 of 4.1 dB for
the uplink and 10.0 dB for the downlink and an
average call duration: 1/v=120 s. Data FTP sessions
have an average size of 10 Mbits and, if transmitted
over R99, require rates of 128 Kbps for the uplink
(ENRT/N0=2.8 dB) and 144 Kbps for the downlink
(ENRT/N0=5.0 dB). The uplink interference factor is
f=0.73 and the downlink non-orthogonality factor
=0.4. We consider a variable arrival rate of calls, but
with equal proportions for RT and NRT calls
( RT = NRT ).

6.1. Impact of HSPA on the performance

As it can be seen from FIGURE 1 that plots the
blocking probability function of the overall offered
traffic, HSPA has a large advantage when compared to
the R99 in terms of lower blocking. This is due to the
fact that HSPA offers more flexibility and larger data
rates than R99, and enhances thus the capacity of the
system.

5. Capacity dimensioning
We are able to dimension the network. The
dimensioning process is launched when the blocking
rate exceeds a critical threshold. For a cell with only
R99 DCHs, the following actions are possible:
1) Add HSPA channels (HS-DSCH and E-DCH)
to carry elastic traffic, on the same carrier.
2) Add a new 5 MHZ carrier that could be
shared between 3G and 3G+ or dedicated to
3G+.
The traffic being known, the dimensioning algorithm
aims to find the best configuration with the lowest cost,
for attaining a given blocking:

Figure 1: Impact of HSPA on blocking.

6.2. Impact of TCP ACKs

As it is shown in section IV, the use of TCP ACKs has
some impacts on the performance of HSDPA/HSUPA.
This can be investigated by showing the blocking
probability when using or not the TCP ACKs. Figure 2
shows the blocking probability when the TCP ACKs
are taken into account, compared with the blocking
probability when neglecting their impact. We can see
that the TCP ACKs degrade the performance by
occupying a part of the capacity. This impact is larger
when the traffic increases because of the large resulting
number of ACKs, each with a minimal data rate,
especially in the uplink.

Figure 3: Blocking probability for different

capacity configurations.

7. Conclusion

Figure 2: Impact of TCP ACKs on the capacity.

6.3. Capacity dimensioning

The developed models are to be used in order to
dimension the network for a given offered traffic. In
Figure 3, we show for different arrival traffics, the
blocking probability considering consecutively one
carrier with R99 only, one carrier with R99/UMTS
sharing the same carrier, and two different carriers: one
carrying DCH only and the other HSPA. For instance,
if the aim is to have a blocking probability less than
5%, indicates that a cell with one carrier and DCH
channels only is sufficient for arrival rates less than
0.0175 calls per second. Introducing HSPA is then
necessary between 0.0175 and 0.025 calls per second.
For larger arrival rates, two bands are necessary to
inure the target blocking probability.

In this paper, we developed a model for capacity

dimensioning in 3G/3G+ systems. We first began by a
realistic analytical model for SINR and powers in both
uplink and downlink, and show how to introduce the
impact of HSDPA/HSUPA. We then develop a
Markovian model for the capacity in a dynamic setting,
and show how to calculate the load of the system and
the performance measures, such as the blocking
probability. We also study the impact of TCP
ACK/NACKs on the capacity and show that they use a
non negligible part of the capacity. We finally use the
developed model to elaborate a dimensioning
methodology of the system, based on determining the
number of carriers needed to reach a target blocking.

8. References
[1] H. Holma and A. Toskala, "WCDMA for UMTS: Radio
access for third generation mobile communications",
John Wiley & Sons, 3rd Ed. (2004).
[2] 3GPP TR 25.855, "HSDPA; Overall UTRAN
Description"; Release 5.
[3] 3GPP TS 25.309-640, "FDD Enhanced Uplink, Overall
Description, Stage 2, Release 6, 2005.
[4] T. Bonald and A. Proutire, "Wireless Downlink Data
Channels: User Performance and Cell Dimensioning",
ACM Mobicom'03, San Diego, September 2003.
[5] P. Zanierand D. Soldani, "A simple approach to HSDPA
dimensioning", IEEE PIMRC'05, September 2005.
[6] T. Chen, M. Kuusela and E. Malkamaki, "Uplink
Capacity of VoIP on HSUPA", IEEE VTC-spring'06,
April 2006.
[7] M. Bertinelli and E. Malkamaki, "WCDMA enhanced
uplink: HSUPA link level performance study", IEEE
PIMRC'05, September 2005.