ngmn_mbmm_final_report_v1.0.pdf

NGMN Project Report: Multiband Multimode

Requirements - Multiband Multimode Technology Evolution and Global Roaming

by NGMN Alliance

Version: 1.0

Date: January 4, 2013

Document Type: Final Deliverable (approved)

Confidentiality Class: CN - NGMN Confidential

Authorised Recipients: (for CR documents only)

Project: MBMM (Multiband Multimode Requirements) Editor / Submitter: Javan Erfanian (Bell Mobility), LOU Feifei (China Mobile),

Walter Grethe (Deutsche Telekom), Franck Emmerich (NGMN)

Contributors: Approved by / Date: NGMN Board For all Confidential documents (CN, CL, CR): © 2012 Next Generation Mobile Networks Ltd. This document contains information that is confidential and proprietary to NGMN Ltd. The information may not be used, disclosed or reproduced without the prior written authorisation of NGMN Ltd., and those so authorised may only use this information for the purpose consistent with the authorisation. For Public documents (P): © 2012 Next Generation Mobile Networks Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from NGMN Ltd.

The information contained in this document represents the current view held by NGMN Ltd. on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. This document is provided “as is” with no warranties whatsoever including any warranty of merchantability, non-infringement, or fitness for any particular purpose. All liability (including liability for infringement of any property rights) relating to the use of information in this document is disclaimed. No license, express or implied, to any intellectual property rights are granted herein. This document is distributed for informational purposes only and is subject to change without notice. Readers should not design products based on this document.

(22) NGMN Project Report : Multiband Multimode Requirements, Version 1.0, 04-January-2013

Document History Date Version Author Changes 31/07/2012 V 0.1 Franck Emmerich, NGMN Created based on OC/Board and

Industry Conference presentations 16/08/2012 V0.7 Franck Emmerich, NGMN Updates after comments from

MBMM leads 29/08/2012 V0.8 Javan Erfanian, Bell Mobility End to end review & completion 04/01/2013 V1.0 Klaus Moschner, NGMN Final Updates for Publication


Contents 1 Background ................................................................................................................................................................. 4 2 Aims and Objective of the project .............................................................................................................................. 5 3 Overall approach ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 4 Analysis and findings .................................................................................................................................................. 7

4.1 Requirements ................................................................................................................................................... 7 4.1.1 Band Support Requirements ...................................................................................................................... 7

4.2 Analysis ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 4.2.1 The Current Landscape .............................................................................................................................. 9 4.2.2 Components situation ............................................................................................................................... 10 4.2.3 Chipset situation ........................................................................................................................................ 12 4.2.4 Feedback from Vendors – General Views ............................................................................................... 12

4.3 Technology Feasibility & Challenges ............................................................................................................ 12 5 Conclusions and recommendations ........................................................................................................................ 14 6 Appendix ................................................................................................................................................................... 15

6.1 NGMN Operator requirements ...................................................................................................................... 15 6.2 Survey to Vendors ......................................................................................................................................... 18 6.3 The Board Letter to Device Ecosystem ........................................................................................................ 19


1 BACKGROUND The Multiband Multimode project was initialized to address two issues for global operators when the LTE technology evolved from 3GPP standardization to real deployment:

(1) UE chipset and implementation economy of scale: LTE has adopted or targeted virtually all the possible radio frequency bands available to all operators globally, resulting in over 41 new band definitions including both FDD and TDD bands, and growing. If each operator only adopts its own frequency bands, then the UE vendors will need to develop 10s of product implementations, generally lacking the benefits of economy of scale.

(2) Global roaming support: If each operator only implements its own frequency bands for LTE UE deployment, then majority of those UEs will not be able to roam on global, and possibly regional, scale due to the difference in band frequencies. This not only limits the global LTE roaming, which is a must to a healthy global LTE ecosystem, but also scales down the level of common product implementation platforms which would otherwise support both economy of scale and the global LTE roaming.

Therefore the project investigated the possibilities to reach a common UE product implementation platform that supports all global operators’ near term LTE deployments scenarios including both FDD and TDD, and plus necessary legacy network support for needed fall-back mechanisms. The goal of the project was to create a better understanding of the practical possibilities and technology feasibility roadmap,, while creating realistic expectations, driving requirements and alignment, and communicating a common message to the ecosystem. To reach the goal and create full industry participation the NGMN Alliance has collaborated with the IWPC organisation1 where many of the RF and component vendors are active.

1 See WWW.IWPC.ORG

http://www.iwpc.org/


2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT In line with the motivation indicated above, the initial project objective was, “To develop requirements of multimode multiband UEs, and to study the feasibility from operators and vendors, such that a potential single UE platform supporting all feasible regional and global LTE/legacy bands could be produced“. This objective was further matured and thereby revised after the first workshop to align the continued work with the feasibility seen in the industry. The revised objective that guided the work in the final phase was, “To address the multiband multimode requirements, global roaming & feasibility of economy of scale and global UE platform, along with evaluation of technology feasibility roadmap in next 2-3 years.” Based on this the objective for the final workshop 7-8 June, 2012 was: – Study the feasibility of potential global UE platform supporting feasible regional and global LTE/legacy bands – Ensure support of global roaming, multiband multimode requirements and the economy of scale – Roadmap of technical feasibility within the next 2-3 years – Relative cost-performance with addition of a new band, or new capabilities such as bandwidth aggregation – Specific questions on singular items on generic device issues (e.g. Voice)


3 OVERALL APPROACH The project defined a milestone plan to reach the targets. This was revised in autumn 2011 as a result of the 1st workshop. The project used multiple methods to collect feedback and mature the analysis: Surveys amongst mobile network operators and vendors, discussions in open meetings and regular conference calls, and one to many sessions between each vendor and the operators. The project created a joint platform based on the combined band requirements, used as a baseline for the discussions with vendors. Three phases where used to address the objectives in the project: – Phase 1: Collection of NGMN operators’ input on their frequency bands for – LTE and legacy network deployment – Phase 2: Working with UE (component, platform, and a few device) vendors… to provide – detailed technical feedback on availability and feasibility challenges, opportunities and potential

roadmap, along with tradeoffs, to address these requirements – Phase 3: Detailed evaluation and feedback (from NGMN operators), – and publication of findings in the form of a whitepaper or – equivalent for clear industry engagement, alignment, and guidance The following key milestones where performed during the project: January 2011, Project start – The project was initiated and the operators started to identify what aspects of band requirements should be addressed and collect the input from all NGMN Operators June 2011, Operator Requirements – The operators band requirements where identified and approved by the NGMN Operating committee, and subsequently shared with the NGMN vendor community and the IWPC industry community. August 2011, Vendor Survey – Together with IWPC, the NGMN project created a survey to request feedback on the feasibility to comply to the NGMN Band requirements. The survey was distributed to the vendors within IWPC and used as input at the 1st workshop. October 2011, 1st Workshop – The first workshop was held, see conclusions in chapter 4.1.1. Agenda: http://www.iwpc.org/Workshop_Folders/11_10_NGMN_Multiband_UE/11_10_NGMN_Multiband_UE.htm December 2011, Board Letter – As a result of the first workshop, a board letter was distributed to LTE Device, Chipset, Platform and Component Manufacturers. March 2012, Vendor discussion – During the NGMN Partner Forum individual discussions where held with Device and Chipset vendors to prepare for the 2nd Workshop. June 2012, 2nd Workshop – The 2nd workshop was held to address the end to end questions as listed in chapter 4.1.1. Agenda: http://www.iwpc.org/Workshop_Folders/12_06b_NGMN/12_06b_Agenda_NGMN.html June 2012, Conclusions – Conclusions and learnings where communicated to NGMN Board, Operating Committee and at the NGMN Industry Conference. October 2012, Final Report – This report.

http://www.iwpc.org/Workshop_Folders/11_10_NGMN_Multiband_UE/11_10_NGMN_Multiband_UE.htm

http://www.iwpc.org/Workshop_Folders/12_06b_NGMN/12_06b_Agenda_NGMN.html


4 ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS The project has delivered output and results in the form of; requirements and an analysis at and after both the first and the final workshop. This report will focus on the analysis provided after the final workshop.

4.1 Requirements The project developed these inter-related set of requirements: Multi-band Multimode Device Support Requirements (see chapter 6.1), and LTE Global Roaming Requirements, with Flexibility and Economy of Scale

4.1.1 Band Support Requirements The NGMN operators created a list of existing, planned and prospective LTE/Legacy bands (See chapter 6.1). It shall be noted that this list can be further fine-tuned and is not claimed to be exhaustive. The list should be seen as an indication of the broad needs from various operators to support a large number of bands/frequencies in order to fully comply with global roaming for LTE. The list below provides the frequency bands identified in the Spring of 2011 as those required to meet the global roaming demands of the NGMN member operators in terms of: LTE deployment band, Legacy network band co-deployed with LTE, and desired non-LTE roaming band.


It was clear in the first discussions with vendors those solutions available in commercial products in early 2011 were the early LTE products to support deployments and obviously far from meeting these requirements. However, during the autumn of 2011 and early 2012 several component and chipset vendors announced solutions to cater for a substantially increased portion of the requirements. Still some components such as filters, antennas and the cost of integrating the variants limited the feasibility of notable realization of these enhancements.. Based on the initial workshop in October 2011, there remained a number of questions to be addressed: Can the UE capabilities (bands & modes) in the current and future desirable form factors evolve to meet the

emerging global roaming needs? With what capabilities and by when? How would the option space for regional/global terminals look like in 2013/2014. What evolution steps could

we expect? Do the additional capabilities like higher order MIMO (4x4 or 8x4) and Carrier Aggregation impact the ability of

the solutions to meet these evolving needs? Positive impact, neutral impact, negative impact and how and to what magnitude?

Are there unique aspects that might become a roadblock in any particular view of the evolution? Based on the above questions, discussions were held during both the March 2012 vendor discussion and the June 2012 final workshop. Chapter 4.2 contains a summary and analysis of the feedback received from vendors and conclusions made based on these discussions.


4.2 Analysis

4.2.1 The Current Landscape The current ecosystem is defined by the set of core bands that are being used by a majority of operators and the more specific regional and local bands that operators will need to use to ensure capacity and coverage to their users as captured in the pictures below. The device manufacturers are strongly driven by the key factors: Time-To-Market, cost and performance, and in direct correlation with – driving and being driven by - business/market requirements. Time-To-Market is often a prevailing factor that potentially ensures high market uptake, and with high volumes drives down the manufacturing costs. The pictures below further illustrate a few points. First of all, in the UE platform there are core bands along with regional and additional bands. The OEMs that take this reference, have own wisdom in innovations, in leveraging what they select and from which source, architecting the hardware and responding to business requirements. Finally, important points with the simple illustration of Time-To-Market, Performance and Cost are the following: Adding new capabilities impact any of these attributes. Focussing on cost alone is not sufficient as performance can be negatively impacted. We must expect the Cost-Performance curve improvement, while adding new capabilities, either enhancing both or at least reducing cost without degrading performance. Similarly, it is highly noted that the cost depends on at what point in the Time-To-Market (early, engineering, realization) phases a new feasibility (such as adding a band or capability) is expected.

Different markets will have broadly different business presumptions, for example, in terms of market size and demands, traffic density, business performance and strategy, roaming priorities, and spectrum availability, timeline and conditions. The illustration below is also making a significant point. Although, the devices rightfully emerge out of incredible innovations on the one hand, and respond to business demands/opportunities and market realities on the other, this does not happen in isolation. There is a harmony or inter-dependency between the different aspects, such as technology feasibility roadmap, and innovations, or even market requirements that can be further understood and also influenced. Simple and potentially notable benefits of this work have been its focus and communication of common goals and requirements, creation of momentum, dialogue and alignment among different players, including component vendors, and understanding and highlighting technology feasibility roadmap to support MBMM, economy of scale and roaming.

Chipset /Platform Reference

OEM Architecture & Product

Feasibility

Time-To-

Market

Cost Performance


. As can be seen by the charts below, the number of bands can potentially create a spectrum fragmentation when LTE deployments are matured by 2015.

This multitude of bands must be put in the right context. They represent opportunities not problems. There is a great deal of focus and activities, linked to regulatory mechanisms, to spectrum acquisitions, and to leverage one’s inventory as operators find possible and suitable. It is also true that there is a broad set of approaches to roaming in the interim phase. However, within this broad range of LTE bands, it is important to understand and mobilize greater multi-band support, synergy, reuse and flexibility, global and semi-global band support, economy of scale including interim steps, and support of global roaming. It should be noted that in addition to the number of the spectrum bands, the technology to aggregate bands in different frequencies, Carrier Aggregation, will also add complexity for supporting the needed variants of bands. CA is a much needed component for operators to satisfy the ever increasing broadband consumption by their customers.

4.2.2 Components situation

Device

Foundational Requirements

Technology Feasibility

Innovation Regulatory

Business Requirements

Though these attributes are distinct and ultimately reflected in business requirements, they have fundamental connection & directional harmony – Growing operator /

market requirements for MBMM, roaming & economy of scale CA


The transfer of the requirements from operators to OEMs to component vendors was achieved in the NGMN/IWPC workshop on October 25/26, 2011. At the workshop it was concluded that RF components and architectures are generally feasible today and available to facilitate the needed amount of bands to ensure the requirements. Of course this is a current and emerging prospect that can be leveraged, above and beyond chipset constraints and OEM design approach, and itself matures further in capabilities, flexibility, and cost-performance curve, within the next 2-3 years, the scope of this project. Innovations and current R&D fronts will ease the bridge to addressing the needs. Specifically; - It was noted that the components are/will be available (Filters, Power Amplifier, Switches, Antennas,

Modules) , and that - The limits in volume are mainly due to capacity and cost but not technology availability Based on the observations above, it is obvious that performance enhancements coupled with cost reduction will drive evolution further in the right direction. For digital components the development and innovation resembles Moore’s law where the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every 18 months (over 100 times in 10 years). For analogue components, like filters, this development is less prevailing and significantly slower. Antenna development in the next 5 years will be evolutionary and the existing limits on space will improve over time. The relatively larger size of (though light and thin) smartphones and tablets ease the feasibility to include multiple antennas, but the cost and performance issues due to placement and combination with non-optimal bands will remain. Obviously, the size of antennas for lower frequency bands, the number of bands, the separation needed, and groupings in low, mid and high frequency bands, are factors, along with whether an LTE band is already supported by another mode (3G/3G+).

The above chart shows the 2 tendencies to reduce the volume needed for antennas in a device over time. Indication A shows a scenario where the volume reaches an optimum due to physical limits of the frequencies covered. Indication B shows a scenario where the antenna is able to cover multiple bands but where performance might be reduced due to non-optimal antenna length for the used frequency.


In the long term, software-define / tuneable/ reconfigurable antenna technologies can provide a solution that significantly reduces the number and size of antennas needed, while potentially efficient in cost and energy. However, there are no commercial solutions for UEs expected within the next 3+ years.

4.2.3 Chipset situation Chipsets are generally available to support 10 or more bands for multimode terminals. This number is expected to grow substantially for chipsets in 2-5 years from now. There are a number of challenges, including number of ports, power/current management and performance, and also R&D streams to address these very concerns. The chipset support for voice solutions also exists.

4.2.4 Feedback from Vendors – General Views In the discussions with vendors several aspects where noted. The following points are summary of the analysis done based on these discussions Feasibility has been growing every 6-9 months – one additional band per year was cited as a trend. – There is an expectation that the current support of 3-4 LTE band will be enhanced to a support of 10 or more

LTE and/or HSPA bands (in total) by 2014-15. – It was noted that since not all bands can be supported in same device, band groupings and roaming

candidates must be considered. – Examples

Synergy among bands 1-4 (AWS, 1800, 1900, 2100) Strength in global support of band 5 (850 MHz), 7/40 (2600 MHz), and bands 1-4 cluster Synergy in band overlap (Bands 1 + 3 = 4; Band 26 includes some other bands)

The general view from both operators and vendors is that with the growing FDD/TDD deployment requirements in the coming years, the bands as required by NGMN for TD-LTE will rise in importance. This will further strengthen the required global TD-LTE bands and roaming requirements. There is a general support for the required bands, but currently the feasibility for combined TD-LTE and FDD bands are regional and operator-specific due to distinct RF & operator requirements, global TD-LTE bands and roaming requirements.

4.3 Technology Feasibility & Challenges The assessment of the technical feasibility and the challenges to implement the much needed solutions shows short, mid and long term challenges as well as prospects. The main technical challenges are: - Number of ports available on chipsets. In the short- and

mid-term the number of ports will be limited reducing the number of overall bands supported.

- Band-dependent front end component constraints. Limitations in possible combinations of bands which restricts a full support for all needed bands.

- Antenna technology - size & separation requirements. - Trade-off & implications of using more than one RFIC, external switches, wideband components. To

support more bands more than one RFIC can be used, but this also implies that less space is available, the cost raises and that the design gets more complex.


Vendors noted the following cost relations and impacts to add additional bands to the current design: - There is a general dependence of feasibility on cost / performance /time-to-market. As noted previously

time-to-market often becomes a dominant factor, as expected from incredible innovations in devices and also broad range of immediate market requirements

- Vague feedback on cost of adding a band noting that there is not a linear relation between adding a band and the additional cost. Many factors contribute to the cost; the specific band to be added and the existing band combination and possible reuse of the existing design, at what point in the development cycle the band is added, verification, etc. There was a reference to improvements in cost curve, e.g. single digit cost of adding a band (at component level) compared to double digit indicated in the previous workshop

- A different mode at same band (e.g. LTE at HSPA band) does not add notable cost In the short- to mid-term timeframe the market demand gives an incentive to leverage current and emerging capabilities (e.g. chipset/ platform band support) or accelerate innovation (e.g. Carrier Aggregation). In other words, not all current and emerging capabilities are leveraged, market demands make use of these as a short to mid-term opportunity. Carrier Aggregation (CA) is seen as an innovation challenge, but will have general support. This support is initially driven by the North American requirements. CA will be market specific and not for roaming in first phase. The subsequent phases will also be driven by the global 20+ MHz requirements. It is expected that there is a higher feasibility of Downlink CA compared to the Uplink CA. In the mid- to long term timeframe, there is a positive development in such key areas as enhanced power efficiency, design flexibility, component / antenna reuse, increase in number of ports, etc. In the long term timeframe, R&D will bring advances and solutions with tuneable / reconfigurable antennas, device Software Defined Radio, flexibility in dynamic band pooling and management, and other innovation.


5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS During the work of the project our impression was that although component, platform and chipset vendors where well represented, a general lack of contributing OEM vendors existed. However, firstly we recognize the active presence of and feedback from a few OEMs, and secondly, the findings and analysis of this report, in addition to communication of requirements, have nonetheless been drawn with the broad discussions we have had with the device ecosystem players present. It is concluded that since support of all bands in one device is not possible in coming years, global and semi-global bands and roaming candidates can be identified. A support of 10 and more LTE and/or HSPA (FDD/TDD) bands has been indicated as possible for 2014 Technology feasibility and chipset/platform reference designs have greater capabilities than what is available in the current devices. The mobile network operators recommend leveraging this gap in the near future to address demands. Market requirements such as greater number of LTE band support (4 or 5 in 2012/13), CA, FDD/TDD, and regional/global roaming have driven innovations. Furthermore, streams of R&D on such areas as number of chipset ports, power management, and design flexibility soon have greater market push to further advance both feasibility and cost-performance curve. In addition, we emphasize on the significance of and recommend band grouping, synergy and reuse, and design flexibility across the design lifecycle to create economy of scale, and the related subsets and interim steps. This work has ultimately focussed on addressing operators’ key common requirements related to:

- Multiband Multimode Support - Economy of Scale, and - Global Roaming, along with - Technology Feasibility evaluation for the next 2-3 years (technologies, new capabilities such as

CA, dependencies, synergy, flexibility and interim steps, and cost-performance-TTM considerations) The project has aggregated and communicated common requirements, and has engaged, and to a remarkable and recognized extent helped align and energize, the device ecosystem players. We trust and recommend that multiple communications including this final report have been of value to the entire device ecosystem. The project has, moreover, taken an open look at, and analysis of, challenges and opportunities, and has drawn learnings and recommendations. The discussion and evaluation related to the significant question of MBMM support alone has been worthwhile, hoping they create further focus and greater advances, above and beyond those highlighted in here. While, we conclude this project, we recommend an update, within 18 months, on how these key requirements are met.


6 APPENDIX

6.1 NGMN Operator requirements


6.2 Survey to Vendors


6.3 The Board Letter to Device Ecosystem

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