LTE Design improvement

with

advanced features

Volker Hoehn, VF-TSO-A

1 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
LTE Design Standard on LTE Advanced to improve
the LTE Radio Network Performance

1. Coordinated Multipoint Transmission (CoMP)

Intra-eNodeB in the Uplink
2. 4 x 2 MIMO:
a) Single User SU- 4x 2 MIMO
b) Multi User MU- 4 x 2 MIMO NEW !
3. 4 x 4 MIMO
4. Carrier aggregation

2 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
LTE Design Standard on UL Intra-eNode B CoMP
Principle & gain
• The Uplink signals are received by two co-sited
cells/sectors and diversity combined like Softer
Handover in 3G UE
• Uplink cell edge throughput improvement from
0.5Mbps to 1.2Mbps per single user

eNode B hardware capabilites (HW): Requirements

• Number of active users increase of +30%:
520 (10MHz), 780 (15MHz), 1040 (20MHz) on
eNode B Software capabilites (SW): eNode B
• Software feature to support Intra-eNode B Uplink CoMP &
User Equipment (UE) capabilites:
• No specific UE requirement to support User Equipment (UE)
for Intra-eNode B UL CoMP

Availability and status on testing

• Huawei with eRAN2.2: Q3_2011 already available
• ZTE: Q3/2011
• Ericsson: Q2/2013
• NSN: 2013 onwards
Æ Huawei field performance test in Madrid: Jan. 2011
Æ Next step OPCO type acceptance
3 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
LTE Design Standard on DL Single User 4x2MIMO

Principle & gain

• Transmission of two MIMO streams (layer) through
4 antenna branches (Dual cross polar antenna) in DL
Receiption with two antennas on the UE side
• Dual cross polar antenna at LTE2600 already installed due
to design requirement on 4-way RX Diversity
• Cell throughput increase from 30Mbps to 35Mbps(20MHz)
• The cell edge throughput from 1Mbps to 1.2Mbps per
single user

LTE Design Standard on UL Multi-User 4x2MIMO*

Principle & gain
• Two/ four UE to simultaneously share the same
time and frequency resources
• 50% more users in Uplink
• Means also Uplink cell throughput increase from
8Mbps to 12Mbps (10MHz) and 16Mbps to 24Mbps(20MHz)

UEs share same resources

* DL Multi-user 4x2MIMO at a later stage in frequency & time domain
Othogonality in spatial domain
4 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
 LTE Design Standard on 4x2 MIMO of LTE2600
eNode B hardware capabilites (HW):
• Two additional TX paths: Requirements
4TX/4RX RRU or additional 2TX/2RX RRU on
• Dual cross-polar antenna per sector already eNode B
available due to 4-way-RX diversity at LTE2600
&
• Captured with current Base Band Unit capacity
of DL=450Mbps and UL=150Mbps User Equipment (UE)
• Increase the number of active users by 50%:
600 (10MHz), 900 (15MHz), 1200 (20MHz)

eNode B Software capabilites (SW):

• Software feature to support SU/MU- MIMO4x2
User Equipment (UE) capabilites:
• UE category 3 supporting 4x2MIMO

Availability & status on testing

• Huawei: eRAN 2.0, already available
• NSN: Q4/ 2012
• Ericsson: Q3/2013 onwards

Æ VF-R&D trial on field performance with Ericsson done with

Æ to be tested by VF
Dual-cross polar antennas
5 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
LTE Design Standard on 4 x 4 MIMO on LTE2600

Principle
• Four MIMO streams are transmitted through four
antenna branches (Dual cross polar antenna) in DL
Receiption with four antennas on the UE side
• Dual cross polar antenna at LTE2600 already installed
due to design requirement on 4-way RX Diversity

Expected improvement/ gain

• Peak rate: 100% increase versus 2x2MIMO
from 120Mbps to 240Mbps, in DL and
60Mbps in UL with 64QAM
• Cell throughput increase versus 2x2MIMO
Æ 50% from 30Mbps to 45Mbps in DL ,
Æ 35% from 16Mbps to 22Mbps in UL,
• Cell edge throughput increase vs 2x2MIMO
Æ 80% from 1Mbps to 1.8Mbps per single user,
Æ 50% from 0.5Mbps to 0.75Mbps per single user
UL 4-way RX Diversity + 64QAM

6 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
 LTE Design Standard on 4x4 MIMO on LTE2600
eNode B hardware capabilites (HW):
• 4TX/4RX RRU already available due to 4x2MIMO Requirements
• Dual-Cross polar antennas also available on
• 4 x 20W in case of 20MHz bandwidth
• Reference signal power: 18.5dBm
eNode B
• Increased Base Band Unit capacity &
of DL=720Mbps and UL=180Mbps User Equipment (UE)
• Increase the number of active users by 100%:
800 (10MHz), 1200 (15MHz), 1600 (20MHz)

eNode B Software capabilites (SW):

• Software feature to support 4x4MIMO
User Equipment (UE) capabilites:
• UE category 5 (4x4MIMO + 64QAM in Uplink)
UE category 6 (4x4MIMO + 16QAM in Uplink)

Availability & status testing

• Huawei with eRAN2.1 already available
• Ericsson: after 2013
• NSN: after 2013
with
Æ Field trial experience from A1Telekom Austria with Dual-cross polar antennas
Huawei
Æ To be tested by VF
7 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
 LTE Design Standard on Carrier Aggregation of LTE Advanced
What is LTE Carrier Aggregation ?
Background

• Spectrum Allocations vary and are typically

distributed across several frequency bands. Inter Band
• LTE Carrier Aggregation Band A Band B

– is an “LTE Advanced” feature (i.e. from Rel-10). C1 C2

– refers to combining 2 or more LTE channels into a

single aggregated resource similar to WCDMA
Dual/Multi Carrier.

– 3GPP Rel-10 specifies up to 5 LTE Carriers

(maximum of100MHz) which can be aggregated in Intra Band
the same band or across different bands.
Band A Band A
– Specification of LTE CA using diferent Band
Combinations is spread across several Releases. C1 C2 C3 C4 C5

• Applicable Where?
– where overlapping LTE layers occur AND where the
same Baseband is used from which all RRUs across the
used Frequency Bands are connected.

Ref.: LTE Carrier Aggregation – Update, Sept. 2013, Brendan McWilliams, Natalia Olano
8 06 November 2014
 Many (potential) LTE bands, but which ones should be
aggregated and when?

Current & potential Aggregation of up to 5 carriers User benefits

spectrum assets (2 carriers max in current Standard)

700 FDD
800 FDD
900 FDD Improved data rate
consistency
1400 DL only
1800 FDD Improved average
2100 FDD speeds
2600 FDD
Improved peak
2600 TDD speeds
3500 TDD/FDD
Other upcoming spectrum
+ WiFi spectrum

Note: only downlink aggregation currently standardised

9 LTE CA - Update C3 –Confidentiality
Vodafone Confidential
level C2
VTN-A SRAN Product
 Benefits of carrier aggregation depend on the scenario

Low + High High+High & Low+Low Future Het Net

(e.g. 800 MHz + 2600 MHz) (e.g. 1.8 GHz + 2.6 GHz deployment
or 700 MHz + 800 MHz)
Small Cell
today
RRH

Future
Small Cell
No Carrier Aggregation
Carrier Aggregation within a macro base station
Carrier Aggregation between Small Cell & Macro

• Aggregation only where coverage
overlaps
• Increased signalling load under
mobility
• Most common initial configuration
– both bands must be on same BBU
• Aggregation in the full coverage • Aggregation only possible within
area macro-site today or within Small
Cell, but not across both
• Both bands must be on the
same BBU • Future evolution to allow
aggregation between macro and
small cells is challenging and
may require fibre

10 LTE CA - Update C3 –Confidentiality

Vodafone Confidential
level C2
VTN-A SRAN Product
 Carrier Aggregation already happening, mostly outside EU
Japan and Korea Samsung Launch Galaxy S4 LTE-A in Korea
• Operators driven by urgent capacity need
• In general they have less spectrum and more traffic,
driving early re-farming of 3G
• Korea: 850 + 1800, 850 + 2100, 900 + 2100
• Japan: 850 + 2100 Up to 150Mbps
850 +1800
US
• Verizon Wireless planning to launch 2014 (700 + 1700
to start, 700 + 1700 + 1900 in future)
• T-Mobile “will be rolling out LTE-Advanced features later
this year” – Dave Mayo, VP Technology Strategy, T-
Mobile

Europe
• No LTE capacity need today and announcements are
being driven more by “bragging rights”
• E.g. EE in UK announced Carrier aggregation trial plans
to evolve current “double speed” (20MHz) LTE

11 LTE CA - Update C3 –Confidentiality

Vodafone Confidential
level C2
VTN-A SRAN Product
LTE Design Standard on Carrier Aggregation of LTE Advanced
Basic Aggregation Requirements & gain in the
Downlink:
• Aggregation of LTE800 10MHz with LTE2600 15/20MHz
ÆPeak rate: 180Mbps; Cell throughput: 45Mbps
• Aggregation of LTE1800 10MHz with LTE2600 15/20MHz
Æ Peak rate: 180Mbps; Cell Throughput: 45Mbps
• Aggregation of LTE800 10MHz with LTE1800 10MHz
ÆPeak rate: 120Mbps; Cell throughput: 30Mbps

Design requirements on deployment

• Co-located and overlaid
• Combination of DL LTE2600 with UL LTE800
to extend the LTE2600 DL footprint

UL + DL @ 800 MHz
UL @ 800 MHz
UL + DL @ 2600 MHz DL @ 2600 MHz

12 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
LTE Design Standard on Carrier Aggregation of LTE Advanced
eNode B hardware capabilites (HW): Requirements
• RRUs available can be re-used
• Mult-band antennas or braodband
on
antennas can be re-used eNode B
• Increased Base Band Unit capacityfor Downlink
of DL=540Mbps &
• Number of active user kept due to aggregation of User Equipment (UE)
Bandwidth for the user

eNode B Software capabilites (SW):

• Software feature to support carrier aggregation Transport Design rules
of the corresponding bands and bandwidths • Aggressive scenario already available
• To be applied according to the aggregated
User Equipment (UE) capabilites: bandwidth (see table below)
• UE category 6 with aggregation feature(see annex),
available in 2014 Traffic cases for
Rural Urban Dense
Access
Bandwidth
(MHz) (10+20) (10+20) (10+20)
aggregated
Availability & Testing status (1 Peak (2 Peak
data rate data
• Huawei, Ericsson, NSN: 2014 1 Peak +1 rate + 1
Aggressive
Æ To be tested by VF scenario:
data rate average average
per site data data
rate) per rate) per
site site

13 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
 Mobile World Congress 2013 – LTE Carrier Aggregation (1)

LTE Carrier Aggregation Demo

• Spectrum Used
– 20MHz @2600
– 10MHz @800 225Mbps

• Distributed RAN Scenario

– 2 x Regular Macro RRUs
– 1 x L800 RRU at low power due to Regulation

– 1 x L2600

– Both using the same BBU

– MIMO 2x2 & 64QAM

• Maximum Achieved Tput: 211Mbps

14 06 November 2014
Confidentiality level C2
 LTE UE Categories
LTE UE CATEGORY

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

3GPP Release 8, 9, 10 3GPP Release 10 Only

Peak Rate
10 50 100 150 300 300 300 3000
(Mbps)

DOWNLINK DL Layers
1 2 4 Signalled Separately
(MIMO/SIMO)
Modulation
64QAM
Scheme

Peak Rate
5 25 50 50 75 50 150 1500
(Mbps)
UPLINK
Modulation
16QAM 64QAM 16QAM 64QAM
Scheme

First LTE CA Devices

Today
expected in H1 2014.

15 06 November 2014
Confidentiality level C2
 Carrier aggregation adds complexity to devices

• All CA devices will suffer some loss of radio sensitivity

(additional losses of 0.4 – 2.4 dB in all LTE bands).
• Initial devices will aggregate across 2 bands only and
Low | High suffer lower losses
distributor
(Diplexer)
• Aggregation across >2 bands will incur additional
Switch Switch losses
• Aggregation across bands which are “close” to each
Filters
other in frequency is more challenging
(Quadplexer)
– But still likely to be pushed by operators with assets at
1800 and 2600 (for example)
800 900 1800 2600
– Not an issue intra-band (e.g. EE at 1800 MHz)

Performance implications need to be addressed

through network planning guidelines and terminal
requirements / engagement with device vendors

16 LTE CA - Update C3 –Confidentiality

Vodafone Confidential
level C2
VTN-A SRAN Product
 LTE Design Requirements on LTE Advanced Features

Coordinated Combining of LTE Uplink transmission streams

Multipoint intra-site like in case of Softer Handover in UMTS
(CoMP)

Recommended for LTE2600 to improve the

capacity based on the 4-way Rx diversity
4x2 MIMO
implementation in traffic hot spots with current
UE class 3
Aggregation of bandwidths of 800MHz plus
Carrier 2600MHz, 1800MHz plus 2600MHz and 800MHz
aggregation plus 1800MHz like in HSPA+ with UEs available in
2014
Recommended for LTE2600 after transition from
4x4 MIMO 4x2MIMO if corresponding UE classes will be
available

Adaptation of the Transport Network

17 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014
18 Confidentiality level C2

06 November 2014