a practical look at lte backhaul capacity requirements

A Practical Look at LTE Backhaul Capacity Requirements

Esteban Monturus Backhaul Market Analyst

esteban@maravedis-bwa.com January 13th, 2011

Agenda !  Backhaul Capacity

Requirements of LTE !  Backhaul Capacity Discussion !  How Microwave meets Backhaul

Capacity Needs of LTE !  Backhaul Trends among LTE

Operators !  Q&A

Backhaul Capacity Requirements

Mobile Data Trends

Operator Country Traffic/User

TeliaSonera (LTE)

Sweden and Norway 14 GB

Yota (WiMAX) Russia 13 GB

Packet One Networks (WiMAX)

Malaysia 10 GB

Clearwire (WiMAX) US 7 GB

SK Telecom (HSPA) Korea 7 GB

CSL (HSPA) Hong Kong 6 GB

Average Monthly Data Consumption Source: 4GCounts Service

Mobile broadband subscriber base Monthly data consumption

Princing plans Network capacity, new deployments Source: 4GCounts Service

Deployment Trends !  147 LTE committed

operators at the end of 2010

!  Long Term HSPA Evolution as alternative

!  Currently 11 LTE networks in commercial operation

!  Main uses of LTE

!  High capacity overlay

!  Rural Internet access

Operator Country Commercial Launch

Channel bandwidth

TeliaSonera Sweden 12/2009 2 x 20 MHz

TeliaSonera Norway 12/2009 2 x 20 MHz

TeliaSonera Finland 11/2010 2 x 20 MHz

TeliaSonera Denmark 12/2010 2 x 20 MHz

Telenor and Tele2 Sweden 11/2010 2 x 20 MHz

Vodafone Germany 12/2010 2 x 10 MHz

MetroPCS USA 09/2010 From 2 x 1.4

MHz to 2 x 10 MHz

Verizon USA 12/2010 2 x 10 MHz

Telekom Austria Austria 10/2010 2 x 20 MHz

NTT DoCoMo Japan 12/2010 2 x 20 MHz

CSL Hong Kong 11/2010 2 x 10 MHz

Source: 4GCounts Service

LTE Site Capacity Requirements !  Operators are currently deploying 3GPP Rel. 8

!  10 or 20 MHz (2x2 downlink MIMO) !  3-sector cell sites

!  Peak rates never achieved due to !  Interference !  Network load

!  Final objective: IMT-Advanced (LTE-A)

Direction Peak efficiency Peak 10 MHz Peak 20

MHz Average efficiency

Average 10 MHz

Average 20 MHz

Rel. 8 Downlink 5 bps/Hz 50 Mbps 100 Mbps 1.73 bps/

Hz/cell 17.3 Mbps

35.6 Mbps

Rel. 8 Uplink 2.5 bps/Hz 25 Mbps 50 Mbps 1.52 bps/

Hz/cell 15.2 Mbps

30.4 Mbps

LTE-A Downlink* 15 bps/Hz 150 Mbps 300 Mbps 3 bps/Hz/

cell 30 Mbps 60 Mbps

LTE-A Uplink*

6.75 bps/Hz 67.5 Mbps 135 Mbps 2.25 bps/

Hz/cell 22.5 Mbps 45 Mbps

* Spectral efficiency for indoor coverage, the most demanding situation

Microwave for Aggregation !  Current microwave

technology allows aggregation

!  Statistical multiplexing increases aggregation capability in practice

!  Bringing rings closer to last mile enhances multiplexing

!  Service-aware routing doubles capacity

METRO AGGREGATION LAST MILE

TDM+packet

packet

Source: Maravedis’ Wireless Backhaul from an All-IP Perspective Report – October 2010

Backhaul Capacity

Discussion

LTE Backhaul Trends

Commercial LTE in Europe !  Europe: traditional microwave domain.

!  TeliaSonera group !  LTE in urban areas, fiber available. !  New LTE markets depend on backhaul

availability. !  100-150 Mbps capacity per site. !  Microwave not discarded.

!  Vodafone Germany !  Only rural deployment so far. !  49,800 kilometer of fiber optic cable. !  Partnership with utility company RWE

to use its fiber deployment.

!  Telekom Austria !  500 million euros investment to

connect 4,000 BSs by fiber (AirToFiber marketing campaign).

Operator Country Backhaul type

TeliaSonera Sweden Fiber

TeliaSonera Norway Fiber

TeliaSonera Finland Fiber

Telenor and Tele2 Sweden Fiber

Vodafone Germany Fiber

Telekom Austria Austria Fiber

Commercial LTE in North America Operator Country Backhaul

MetroPCS USA Fiber + microwave

Verizon USA Fiber + microwave

!  North America: traditional copper and fiber domain.

!  Verizon !  Verizon Global Wholesale

provides fiber links for +3,500 cell sites (25 states).

!  +100 Mbps fiber + microwave links from alternative carriers (CenturyLink, Conterra Broadband, Duke Net, FiberTower, PalmettoNet, Paradigm Telecom, Qwest, Telecom Transport Management and USCarrier).

!  Seeking tower and backhaul owners for rural deployment.

!  MetroPCS !  Ethernet services to cell sites

from FiberTower Corp.

FiberTower transport network

Commercial LTE in APAC

!  Japan, China, Korea and Hong Kong: traditional fiber domains.

!  NTT DoCoMo

!  Using fiber-connected Remote Radio Heads for improved indoor coverage (all outdoor and indoor versions).

!  Hong Kong CSL

!  One of the few operators currently using microwave for LTE backhaul.

!  100-170 Mbps capacity per site.

Operator Country Backhaul type

NTT DoCoMo Japan Fiber

CSL Hong Kong Microwave

Indoor rack

RRH RRH

Delay difference

40 km max.

Source: 4GGear Service

Why not Microwave for LTE backhaul?

!  LTE footprint still too small, so operators are finding fiber available within the initial coverage area.

!  Other backhaul means will be necessary to achieve the required quality of experience: !  Macrocell backhaul

!  Microwave links (including millimeter wave)

!  Free Space Optics !  Small cell backhaul

!  Non-line of sight wireless backhaul

!  Strand-mount (DOCSIS backhaul)

!  Remote Radio Heads (RRH)

LTE BACKHAUL REQUIREMENTS

A REALITY CHECK

P E T E R C R O Y, S E N I O R N E T W O R K A R C H I T E C T, AV I AT N E T W O R K S

LTE Cell: Single User Throughput Estimates

•  IP packet throughput rates vary with RF channel bandwidth and user distance from cell center

•  Majority of handsets in a cell/sector are located within medium & far distance from the cell center (>90% of cell coverage area)

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Estimating LTE Cell Backhaul Capacity

•  Typical macro cell tower hosts 3 LTE radio sectors •  Site backhaul capacity with overbooking factor (OBF) between 3 and 5 •  Capacity includes 15% dynamic range margin for QoS •  Figures are already LTE high-end estimates, higher capacities through

reducing overbooking factor to 1 from 3

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Backhaul Topology Comparison for LTE

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Backhaul Capacity Example: Ring Architecture

• Six cell backhaul in dense urban area @50Mbps • Multiple site packet capacity not simply sum of cell capacities • Network recovers from any single link failure

To/from core network

50Mbps

50Mbps 70Mbps

100Mbps

150Mbps

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The LTE Hype Cycle

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LTE Capacity Conclusions

• LTE backhaul capacity needs are regularly over-stated

• Capacity is fixed per site and only determined by base station technology

• The backhaul limit for a site will likely be ~150 Mbit/s for a 10MHz LTE radio channel

• Only way to add more network capacity: - Add more cell sites, upgrade to MIMO or increase the LTE channel

bandwidth

• Ring/Mesh topologies are best suited to cope with the high capacity requirements

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S T U A RT L I T T L E , D I R E C TO R O F M A R K E T I N G , AV I AT N E T W O R K S

HOW LICENSED MICROWAVE MEETS THE BACKHAUL CAPACITY NEEDS OF LTE

Uncertainty can lead to bad backhaul choices

• Backhaul discussion often in terms of hundreds of megabits or even gigabits of capacity

• Just one in four mobile operators have said that they understood the requirements for LTE backhaul

• This uncertainty could drive over-investment for backhaul capacity that is not needed within the foreseeable future

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LTE Cell-Site Capacity

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Why pay for capacity you may never need?

• The total cost of building or leasing fiber to the cell-site far exceeds that of a typical microwave connection

• Over-building capacity with fiber will waste an enormous amount of network investments

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The 3 Most Important Backhaul Decision Factors

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Microwave Capacity Expansion Options

• Native Ethernet transport • Adaptive Modulation • Adaptive Coding • Ethernet Frame suppression and compression

• Capacity-doubling through co-channel operation with XPIC

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Microwave techniques for high capacity

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Co-Channel link capacity doubling

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Getting even more wireless capacity

• Diverse path network topologies (rings/mesh)

• Lightly licensed and license free 60-90 GHz Millimeter wave bands

• Payload compression • Higher order modulation

schemes >256QAM • Multi-carrier operation • Multiple-in/Multiple-out (MIMO)

techniques

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Don’t let fiber break the bank!

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• Fiber is not the only answer for operators deploying HSPA+ & LTE

• Operators need to balance realistic capacity expectations with total cost

• Microwave transport meets the foreseeable capacity needs for mobile backhaul for several years to come

WWW.AVIATNETWORKS.COM

Audience Poll #1 How realistic are the current LTE user

throughput expectations?

Audience Poll #2 In the next 5 years, what proportion of new HSPA

+ and LTE cellsites will be connected by fiber?

About 4Ggear: The 4G Equipment Analysis Service

Contact Information 410 rue des Recollets, Suite 301 Montreal, QC, H2Y 1W2 CANADA

info@maravedis-bwa.com

www.maravedis-bwa.com

(305) 992-3196

(514) 313-5465

a practical look at lte backhaul capacity requirements

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