173
A Tool to Calculate Erlang Capacity of a BTS Supporting 3G UMTS System
bY
Vijay K. Garg, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL.USA
and
Ramakrkhna V. Yellapantula, Motorola Inc., Harvard, E. USA
e-mail: vgarg@eecs.uic.edu
A6STRACT
The second-generation (2G) wireless systems are
primarily designed for voice services. The cell capacity is
obtained by simulation for the given mobile environment.
The cell capacity is used in network planning. The
proposed 3G wireless systems mainly address data
services. A 3G system allows users to use multimedia
services. Therefore, there can be several different
combinations of the voice and data services that may
occur at a base station transceiver (BTS). This will require
major time-consuming simulations to obtain the Erlang
capacity of the BTS for all possible combinations of the
services and will complicate the network planning
process.
The objective of this paper is to present a simple tool that
analytically models a BTS. We do not have to depend on
major simulations to obtain the BTS capacity for the
given set of services. We develop the Erlang capacities of
a BTS for voice services, real-time (circuit-switched) and
non-real-time (packet-switched)data services. We use the
capacity figures of the uplink and downlink with the link-
budget to calculate the maximum cell radius for each
service type in an urban environment. We show the effect
of uplink and downlink information bit rate on the cell
radius.
1. INTRODUCTION
The wireless network planning includes detailed capacity
and coverage analysis, and network optimization. In the
dimensioning phase an approximate number of base
station (BS) sites, BTSs and their configurations and other
network elements is estimated, based on the service
providers requirements and the mobile environment. The
dimensioning has to satisfy the service providers,
. requirements for coverage, capacity and quality of
service. Capacity and coverage are closely related in
wireless networks, and therefore both are considered
simultaneously in the dimensioning of a wireless network.
In detailed planning, real propagation conditions and
service providers traffic estimates in each area are
required. The BS locations and network parameters are
selected by the planning tool andor the network planner.
Capacity and coverage are obtained for each BTS after
the detailed planning. We present a simple analytical tool
to calculate the Erlang capacity and radius of a BTS (cell)
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to support the European Telecommunication Standard
Institute (ETSI) and DoCoMo information bit rate for
UDD64, UDD144 and UDD384 [l, 21 services.
The CDMA system is interference-limited system in
which link performance depends on the ability of the
receiver to detect signal in presence of interference. For
the satisfactory performance of CDMA link, a frame error
rate (FER) is specified. Based on field trials, the required
( E f l d values on the reverse (up) link and various
channels of the forward (down) link to maintain the
specified FER are established. The key issue in a CDMA
network design is to minimize multiple access
interference. Power control is critical to reduce multi-
access interference. The interference from other cells in
the system must be included to determine the actual reuse
factor in the CDMA system.
The maximum number of mobiles that can be supported
on the downlink and the uplink of a CDMA system are
different. The capacity of a CDMA system normally
depends upon the uplink capacity. The downlink capacity
is governed by total transmitted power of the BTS and its
distribution to traffic channels and other overhead
channels. If the power amplifier cannot provide enough
power to the downlink traffic channels, the system
capacity may become downlink limited. Soft handoffs
improve the capacity of the uplink, however, they affect
the capacity of the downlink. The amount and types of
soft handoffs reduce the downlink capacity.
2. CAPACITY AND COVERAGE MODEL
2.1 Uplink Capacity
The same-cell interference at the BTS receiver on the
uplink is the superposition of signals from other mobiles.
The total interference can be modeled as band-limited
white noise. Almost all the noise at the BTS receiver is
due to interfering mobile signals. Due to propagation
mechanism, the signal received by the BTS receiver from
a mobile close to the BTS will be stronger than the signal
received from another mobile located at the cell
boundary. Therefore, the close mobile will dominate the
distant mobile. To achieve a considerable capacity, all
signals irrespective of distance, should arrive at the BTS
receiver with the same mean power. A solution to this
problem is dynamic power control, which attempts to
achieve a constant received mean power for each mobile.
 174
In addition to the same-cell interference, signal received
from other CDMA sectors and other CDMA cells act as
interferers to the receiver. The interference power from
other cells tends to fluctuate due to variation in traffic
load in the cells. We express the average other-cell
interference, I,, as some fraction j3 of the total received
same-cell power.
The CDh4A system is an interference-limited system. The
CDMA link performance depends on the ability of the
receiver to discem signal in presence of interference. For
satisfactory performance of the CDMA link, a frame error
rate (FER) of about 1% is recommended. Field trials were
conducted to establish the required E D 0 value on the
uplink and various channels of the downlink to maintain
the recommended FER. The link budget is established to
achieve the value of E D o . The required value of E D o
depends upon propagation environment and speed of the
mobile. Based on field trials the values of E D o suggested
for voice services are: low speed mobiles, speed 5 mph:
5 dB, medium speed mobiles, speed 5 to 40 mph 7 dB,
and high-speed mobiles, speed > 40mph: 6 to 6.5 dB. We
use Viterbi equation for uplink to calculate (EdNd [5]
1 which is wider than the ideal sector and overlaps the
(1)
Where q = N& i.e., the noise to interference ratio, B, is
the spreading bandwidth, vf is the channel activity factor,
U p is the Erlang capacity. We can vary this factor
resulting in a variation of the capacity and consequently
change in the (EdNd value.
The link budget calculations (of up or down link) for a
particular cell provide the maximum allowable path loss,
(Lp)max.Since path loss is proportional to distance, the
value of maximum path loss implies a maximum distance
for the link. This is the effective radius of the cell or
sector in the particular direction. We use the COST 231-
model [3] for the path loss in dB as a function of distance
given other system parameters such as frequency, antenna
heights, cable losses etc. The maximum achievable path
loss can be found using:
L, = e,,,+ G, - L,, + G, - (NF), - L,,
(3)
- olOgaEb l N o NO 1
Where L, = allowable path loss (dB), P,,,,= mobile
transmit power (dBm), G,,, = mobile antenna gain (dBi),
L,, = mobile antenna feeder cable loss (dB), R =
information rate (bps), G b = base station antenna gain
(dBi), (NF) h = base station noise figure (dB), L,h = base
station antenna feeder cable loss (dB).
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The result of varying q is to vary the maximum
attenuation achievable and hence a graph of capacity
versus maximum cell radius is obtained (typically qis
varied from 0.01, resulting high capacity and low cell
radius to 0.99, resulting in low capacity and high cell
radius). However, several problems arise from Eq. (1).
Equation (1) results in maximum path loss as q tends to
1, this is clearly against the reasonable expectation. Also,
the maximum cell radius achievable is a function of grade
of service. Therefore, we use slightly modified approach
to determine ( E a " ) . We use the following equation:
Where,
F, is a sectorization factor which is a factor by which
capacity is increased due to sectorization but takes into
account non-ideal antenna pattem. Real antenna pattems
are converted into an equivalent perfect sector but one,
adjacent sector by a number of degrees. The sectorization
factor is given as:
The typical antenna pattems used in IS-95 give an
equivalent overlap of 12 degree. Another altemative
approach is to include the two effects of interference from
adjacent sectors and cells into a single value of the
interference ratio p. Typically for a 3-sector antenna
system j3 is 0.85 compared to 0.55-0.60 for an omni-
directional antenna system.
2.2 Downlink Capacity
An important feature of CDMA that contributes to the
added capacity on the uplink is soft handoff [4]. In a
CDMA network, multiple cells can serve a mobile
simultaneously. However, the same feature puts an
additional burden on the downlink. Since multiple cells
have to provide service to the same mobile, additional
resources on the downlink are allocated. The downlink
performance differs vastly from that of the uplink because
of the following reasons:
Access is one to many instead of many to one
Synchronization and coherent detection is facilitated
by use of a common pilot channel, and ,the
interference is received from a few Eoncentrated lafge
source (cell) rather than many distributed small ones
(mobiles).
 175

To maximize the capacity of the downlink, it is essential where L,, = uplink allowable path loss (dB), P,b = BS -
to control the power of the BTS as to allocate the power transmit power (dBm), (NF),,, = base station noise figure
to individual mobiles according to their needs. More (dB), pc =power control improvementfactor.
power is provided to those mobiles that receive highest
interference from the neighboring cells. Mobiles on the
boundaries may be in soft handoff, in which case they 3. RESULTSOF CAPAClTV/COVERAGE
also receive signal power from two or more cells. Power
control on the downlink is accomplished by measuring the
MODELS
mobile power received from its serving BTS and the total The results obtained using the models defined in section
received power. The information about these two power 2, are shown in Figures 1-8. Table 1 and 2 provide the
values is transmitted to the serving BTS. parameters used in obtaining the results. The data services
correspond to ETSI standard services LCD32, LCD144,
The downlink budget is used to c o n f i i that there is LCD384, UDD144 and UDD384. It should be noted that
sufficient margin for the downlink to perform efficiently. the capacity is for the entire 3 sector BTS rather than per
The downlink capacity depends on the power that is sector. The characteristic that the downlink maximum cell
available for the traffic channels. The power allocation to radius remains unchanged whereas the uplink maximum
each overhead channel is determined from field tests. On cell radius becomes successively smaller as service bit
the downlink extra traffic channels are required for the rate increases is clearly seen. Also the capacity
mobiles in various types of soft handoffs. The percentage achievable for high rate circuit switched services - is
of the coverage area in handoff is a design criterion. The relatively low.
extra number of traffic channels in handoff can be related
to the area in handoff.
Grade of Service 0.02
The technique for determining maximum achievable
- Chip Rate 3.86 Mcps
Number of Camers 1
attenuation for the downlink is fairly similar to the uplink
apart from one critical factor. The amount of power
1 Number of Sectors 3
Overlap 12 degrees
available to a particular user is not known as each user
receives a share of the total BTS power. Simply dividing Base Station TX Power 43 dBm
Mobile Station TX Power 21 dF3m
the total BTS power by the number of users within the
Base Station Antenna Gain 17 dBi
cell is clearly pessimistic, as less power is needed to
achieve a specified (EJNJ at edge of the cell than at the Mobile Station antenna Gain 0 dBi
center of the cell close to the BTS. In order to overcome Base Station Feeder Loss 2 dB
Mobile Station Feeder Loss 0 dB
this problem we introduce an empirical factor, the 4

power-control-improvementfhctor. This factor is the

ratio of power available to a mobile at the edge of the cell Mobile Station Noise Fi
(when all mobiles are assumed to be uniformly 11.6 dB
distributed) over the power available to mobile if all users Soft Handoff Gain
were located on an equidistant from the base station.
Morphology Type
t
*I
Path Loss Model
Base Station Antenna Height
Mobile Station Antenna Height
Frequency of Operation 2000 MHz
Where h is the orthogonality factor, g is the ratio of Downlink Orthogonality Factor
mobiles in soft handoff and Q is the average ratio of Standard Deviation of Power
power used in soft handoff links to simplex links. Control Error
Overhead for Soft Handoff 35%
Next we find the maximum allowable path loss using the Overhead for Softer Handoff 30%
following equation: Out of Cell Interference ratio Uplink 0.55
Out of Cell Interference ratio Downlink 0.44
Power Control Improvement Factor 3.8
- -
- 10log{@, / N o)RN, >- - (7)
10log[K:]
versus maximum cell cadius.

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176

Service Uplink Downlink Service Activity traffic and statistically averaged over a range of different
bitrate EDo EOo Type Factor traffic levels of ,circuit mode traffic. The tool can be
(kbps) (dB) (&) effectively used for determining the total cell loading
8 5.3 7.9 circuit 0.5 under the combination of voice, circuit andor packet data
13 6.1 8.5 circuit 0.5 services.
32 4.3 6.6 circuit 1
144 3.1 4.8 circuit 1
circuit 1
1114
60.8 I
1.1
3 1
5.5
5.2 I packet I 1
"r
243.2 I 2.4 I
4.3 I
packet I 1
Table 2: @,,/NO)
requirements for the graphs of
capacity versus maximum cell radius.

The UMTS air interface supports multiple bearers

simultaneously. A difficulty arises in trying to model the
traffic capacity of the system using conventional queuing
approach as different bearers require different GoSs and
CoIlSume different amount of system resource. In fact, we
need different Erlangs to measure voice and data traffic
due to the fact that they have different data rate.

We can use multidimensional queuing network to

characterize the traffic system provided during the A

lifetime of a call there is no traffic type or more

specifically no bearer type changes. In multidimensional
queuing approach, single dimensional queuing represents
each service type.

For circuit switched services it is important to note, in the

multidimensional queuing network, that the congestion
point in a single type traffic model becomes a congesting
surface as all the traffic types share the same network
resource pool.

For mixed circuit and packet mode applications, it is

reasonable to assume that the circuit mode traffic will be
treated with higher priority over packet mode applications
as the packet switched service can wait while circuit f---
switched can't. This implies that circuit switched traffic in
8 I 10 (2
a mixed circuit and packet mode traffic scenario can be mC.pdl(M0)-
handled as a single service type. The packet mode traffic
can be calculated based on a given level of circuit mode
Figure. 4
 177

- .
Figure. 5 Figure. 8

4. REFERENCES
1. Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
(UMTS), Requirements for UMTS Terrestrial
Radio Access System (UTRA), ETSI Technical
Report, UMTS 21,Ol version 3.0.1,November
1997
2. Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
(UMTS), Selection Procedures for the choice of
Radio Transmission Technologies (RTT) of the
UMTS, ETSI Technical Report, UMTS 30.03
version 3.1.0,November 1997
3. Garg, V.K., CDMA IS-95 and cdma2000,
Prentice Hall Inc., 2000
4. Lee, J., and Miller, L., CDMA System
EngineeringHandbook, Artech House, 1998
5. Viterbi, A., CDMA: Principles of Spread
Spectrum Communication,, Addison- Wesley,
1996