Mobile networks from 3G to 3,5G and 4G

3G Services
   1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 2.

ITU approves international 3G standards with the denomination

International Mobile Telecommunications IMT-2000.

An extended set of technical specs for the terrestrial radio interface of IMT-2000 has been approved in november 1999, including: IMT-DS (Direct Spread) W-CDMA IMT-MC (Multi Carrier) CDMA2000 IMT-SC (Single Carrier) UWC IMT-FT (Frequency Time) DECT IMT-TD (Time Division) CDMA TDD TD-CDMA TD-SCDMA

4G Services


Fourth generation mobile cellular services (4G), that are engineered for delivering to mobile users data access at 100 Mb/s speeds or higher, were planned for year 2010. Some operators launched field trials starting in 2008, but the real deployment of so-called 4G started in 2011.

4G Services

4G Services


Even if it seems really new, 4G has been studied since more than 10 years; the first tests were run in Europe in the early 90s, they were trying to sort out the technologies with very high transmission speeds that could be used to satisfy mobile communications needs for the coming 2020 and following years. The most advanced european project was namedMobile Broadband System (MBS), a cooperative work between universities and industries stimulated by the European Commission.

MBS
 

MBS was supposed to be a cellular system with characteristics of lowlatency, guaranteed QoS and a speed of OC-3 (155 Mb / s). The prototype was built in 1995 and reached a speed of E3 (34 Mb / s), although by the aggregation of more links was possible to have an higher data rate; it was tested in indoor and outdoor environments, including driving a car at 60 km / h. The physical layer of MBS was based on a variation of TDMA, and the upper levels over ATM. The same proponents of MBS estimated that the transition from prototype to an actual commercial network would need at least 15 years. Meanwhile the specifications evolved towards the use of OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) instead of TDMA and IPv6 instead of ATM.

 

MBS


The prototype used the band of 60 GHz, where there is 'a wide availability of free spectrum not used, but the distances are limited to about 100 m. A national network would require millions of base stations, each at the center of a small "picocell". The European Wireless Strategic Initiative has also considered the spectrum at around 40 GHz, that would have larger cells, therefore reducing network costs. MBS was engineered as a system independent of the services offered, it was simply a big data channel, and the devices can use it for any application. Japan is the only country where the mobile data so far has proved popular and profitable, so it is not surprising that the Japanese operators are at the head of the race for 4G.

 

MBS


DoCoMo was the first operator installing LTE devices, calling the service Super 3G; they think that the future lies in the applications that are now difficult to implement, machine-to-machine, like cars driven by a central intelligence or self resupplying white goods. A 4G system has anyway the target of fully replacing the fixed network.

HSDPA


The 3.5 G technology that has the most 'advanced commercial use at this time is High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). HSDPA adopts improved modulation techniques , like what it does EDGE for GSM , to provide W-CDMA with access to a packet-switching networks with speeds up to 10 Mb / s. This capacity isdivided among all users of a cell, but in a very efficient way called extreme unfairness, granting more bandwidth to those in areas free from interference rather than trying to divide it among all users equally.

HSDPA


HSDPA is a packet switched data service for WCDMA downlink with speeds up to 8-10 Mb/s ( 20 Mb/s for MIMO systems) in a 5 MHz band. HSDPA used advanced techniques like:

1. 2. 3.

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Hybrid Automatic Request (HARQ)

HSDPA


In the standards of 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) the Release 4 provides an efficient support for IP, allowing you to run all the services through an all-IP core network. In Release 5 the specific focus is on the use of HSDPA for data transmission up to 10 Mb / s, capable of handling multimedia services with packet transmission. In Release 6 the attention is on MIMO systems, able to have effective speeds up to 20 Mb / s. HSDPA is anyway an evolution of, and is therefore backwards compatible with WCDMA Release 99 cellular systems.

 

HSDPA
 

AMC can adapt the coding and modulation schema according to the quality of the radio link. The spreading factor doesnt change, but the coding rate can change between 1/4 and 3/4 ; the HSDPA specification allows using 5,10 or 15 multicodes. In this way we can deliver the maximum allowed speed both to users with a good signal quality ( highercoding rate), tipically those nearer to the BS, and to the more distant users, at cell border (lower coding rate).

HSDPA


The scheduling of packet transmission on the radio interface is not any more made by the RNC but by the BS, based on the quality of the channel, the capability of terminals, the QoS class and the availability of power and codes. Thats a fast scheduling because is carried out more closely as possible to the radio interface and because we use short frames. In the case of errors on the connection, for example due to interference, the mobile terminal requires quick retransmission of data packets; in existing WCDMA networks such requests are processed from the RNC, while in HSDPA this function is delegated directly to the BS. In addition to the fast retransmissions, we also use incremental redundancy: this technique selects the bits correctly received from the original transmission and from the retransmissions in order to minimize the number of further repetitions in the case of multiple errors.

 

HSDPA


WCDMA normally carries user data on dedicated channels DCH, that are more efficient in the case of an uninterrupted flow of data; the various DCH are combined in space of the code on a single radio carrier. The scenario for future use will be probably formed by large volumes of data that will be of impulsive nature and therefore will require high speed . HSDPA introduces a new type of transport channel, the 'High Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH); it shares among many users multiple access codes, the transmission power and hardware infrastructure. This allows to better serve a large number of users accessing bursty data, by multiplexing in time the access to the high speed data channel.

HSDPA

HSDPA delivers a peak of 10 Mb/s in a radio channel width of 5 MHz; but what is really higher is the throughput in packets/second. Another relevant characteristic is the reduced downlink transmission delay variance, that allows us to implement in a very efficient way the 'interactive' e 'background' QoS classes as specified by the 3GPP; that is very important for interactive application like real time games.

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSDPA

HSUPA


High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a data access protocol for mobile networks that has very high speeds (up to 5,76 Mb/s) in the uplink. HSUPA is a 3,75G technology, while HSDPA is a 3,5G technology. The specifications for HSUPA are included in the 3GPP Universal Mobile Telecommunications System Release 6.

HSUPA


Tycal values for End-to-End delay in milliseconds for HSUPA, UMTS e GPRS

HSUPA


Typical values of uplink speed for HSUPA, UMTS ed EDGE; but the maximum verified value for HSUPA in a public trial has been 1,4 Mbit/s

HSUPA


HSUPA uses an uplink enhanced dedicated channel (E-DCH) over which it employs adaptive connection protocols like the ones of HDSPA, in detail:


A shortened transmission time interval, in order to have a quick adaptation to link characteristics; HARQ (hybrid ARQ) with incremental redundancy to raise retransmission efficiency.

HSUPA


Like HSDPA, HSUPA uses a packet scheduler, but it works with a request-grant principle in which the UE ask for permission to send data and the scheduler decides when and how many UE can do it. For this purpose the requests contain UE transmission buffer stats and related queue status, as well as the margin of available power. In addition to scheduled mode the HSUPA standard also allows an autonomous transmission mode called nonscheduled, that can be used for instance in VoIP services, where the improved performance is not enough to guarantee a very short delay time and a constant bandwidth.

HSUPA


Every MAC-d flow (that has a given QoS) can be configured to operate in scheduled o nonscheduled mode; the UE regulates independently the speed of scheduled e non-scheduled flows. The maximum speed of the non-scheduled flow is set during the call setup phase, and rarely changed. The power of scheduled flows is dynamically controlled by the BS.

HSUPA


At level 1, HSUPA introduces some new physical channels:

     

E-AGCH (Access Grant Channel) E-DCH Relative Grant Channel F-DPCH (Fractional-DPCH) E-HICH (E-DCH Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel) E-DPCCH (E-DCH Dedicated Physical Control Channel) E-DPDCH (E-DCH Dedicated Physical Data Channel)

E-DPDCH is used for the data channel EDCH , while E-DPCCH for the associated control channel.

HSUPA


HSUPA defines various classes, based on the available uplink speeds:

     

Category 1 : 0.73 Mbit/s Category 2 : 1.46 Mbit/s Category 3 : 1.46 Mbit/s Category 4 : 2.00 Mbit/s Category 5 : 2.93 Mbit/s Category 6 : 5.76 Mbit/s

LTE


Long Term Evolution (LTE) is the 3GPP Project for the evolution of 3G UMTS radio standards. Starting from W-CDMA UTRA with HSUPA and HSDPA (HSPA) , even if updated in Release 8, we switch to the EUTRA, that is OFDM based : E-UTRA ( also named LTE) promises higher speeds, less latency, a simplified all IP network and a very high spectral efficiency. LTE has been studied since 2004; a large number of options made the full completion of the standards quite an achievement, but the core specifications has been terminated together with the compliance test benches at the beginning of 2009, and the field trial immediately started.

LTE
Evolution of mobile radio networks

LTE
Evolution of mobile radio networks

LTE


Yet the HSPA devices require an high computing power for a mobile device; to go up to 7,2 Mb/s thay need an additional power source. This explains why PC powered devices can get more performance than purely portable devices. LTE with increased speeds pushes further the needed computing speed, particularly in the baseband where we must perform:
   

Codice and channel ciphering interleaving Coding and adaptive modulation among QPSK, 16QAM e 64QAM Hybrid-ARQ (HARQ) at physical level, with retransmission management, incremental redundancy and chase combining Discrete Fourier transform (DFT)

LTE


From a radio point of view 3GPP TR 36.803 defines 11 coupled FDD bands and 6 TDD bands. All those frequency ranges are already allocated for GSM ed UMTS; there arent now any bands dedicated to LTE. Some experiences that can help us evaluate the most useful frequency bands can be had from WiMAX, that uses a downlink OFDM very similar to LTE, even if the uplink is quite different. LTE uses an SC-FDMA (single carrier FDMA) uplink to reduce PAPR ( peak-to-average power ratio). Another specific characteristic of LTE UE is the dynamically variable channel bandwidth; all the other 3GPP systems have a fixed bandwidth, while LTE can vary from 1,4 up to 20 MHz

LTE



In downlink:
OFDM with subcarrier spacing of 15 kHz, with a max of 2048 subcarriers Mobile devices must be able to receive all subcarriers, and transmit at least 72. The transmission is divided into 0,5 ms slots and 1 ms subframes; a radio frame is 10 ms long The supported modulations are QPSK, 16QAM, 64 QAM

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

In uplink: SC-FDMA multiplexing Modulation QPSK o 16QAM ( 64 QAM optional)

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE

LTE
 

The LTE cell target dimension is 5 km Reasonable performances can be obtained up to 30 km We can push with acceptable speeds the cell radius up to 100 km Mobility management has been optimized for speeds up to 15 km/h ; we can have high performances up to 120 km/h, but the system can operate up to 350 km/h

LTE

  

LTE layer 2 has been split into the following sub-layers:

Medium Access Control (MAC) Radio Link Control (RLC) Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP)


        

The layer 2 functions are:

Mapping between logical and transport channels Mux/demux of RLC Packet Data Unit (PDU) Traffic volume measurement HARQ error correction Priority management Transport format selection Segmentation and re-segmentation of retransmitted PDU Compression and decompression of headers Ciphering of user data and control informations

LTE
LTE layer 3 includes the following sublayers:
  

Radio Resource Control (RRC) Mobility Management (MM) Call Control (CC)

Layer 3 manages the main communications services:

    

broadcast of paging and system informations Setup, management and release of RRC connections Radio signalling bearers configuration Security functions like ciphering Mobility functions like cell reporting , UE cell selection and reselection, cell selection control QoS management

LTE

Major technical challenges at layer 2 are:



Ciphering of huge data volumes at PDCP sublayer MAC tunaround time that is at 2 milliseconds 6 times quicker than HDSPA

LTE

 

LTE targets are:

50 Mb/s uplink 100 Mb/s downlink with only 1 antenna, that become 170 Mb/s when using MIMO 2x2

Those values are the project upper limit; the most critical factor we must consider is the throughput at cell border. It is forecast that LTE will be deployed as a single frequency network; but in order to minimize adjacent cell interference it is highly probable that we will use some kind of frequency reuse.

LTE

 

LTE cells will have a peculiar structure:

At cell center we will use all available frequencies At cell border we will use a subset of frequencies, with a reuse policy

The users near the center will have a large bandwidth thanks to the physical separation from adjacent cells. The users at cell border could have a good C/I over a subset of channel bandwidth thanks to reuse and separation policy

LTE


To obtain the peak speed it is mandatory to use MIMO; the specifications define 2 types:


Single User MIMO (SU-MIMO) : 2 or more flows are allocated to a single users to have an higher peak speed ; it works only if the radio channel has non correlated paths Multiple User MIMO (MU-MIMO): it always needs non correlated radio paths, but the purpose is to raise cell capacity and not the speed of a single user

MIMO requires multiple receivers and transmitters, due to UE cost constraints it is mandatory to have only 2x2 SU-MIMO in downlink, that needs 2 receivers in theUE, and 2x2 MU-MIMO in uplink. 4x4 MIMO has been specified too , but it is probably only feasible with notebook type devices for dissipation and power reasons.

LTE
UE types

The UE are classified according to maximum data speed (temporary classification according to TS 36.306 v8.0.0):

The category has the purpose of delimiting UE development.

LTE
2G/3G differences
There is no RNC which dealt with RRC, RLC and MAC elements RNC also dealt with packet scheduling (HSDPA Rel6 moved this to the node B), this is all moved to the eNB for LTE RRM functions have also moved to the e NB Radio Admission Control Connection Mobility Control Dynamic Scheduling of UE resources

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced
LTE-A requirements are documented in TR 36.913, V9.0.0 (2009-03) (Requirements for Further Advancements of E-UTRA (LTEAdvanced) 3GPP stated intention is to meet or exceed IMT-Advanced requirements LTE-A must support IMT-A requirements with same or better performance than LTE LTE-A solution proposals can be found in TR 36.814 Further Advancements for E-UTRA Physical Layer Aspects Specific targets exist for average and cell-edge spectral efficiency Similar requirements as LTE for synchronization, latency, coverage, mobility LTE-A candidate submitted to ITU September 2009

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced

TD-SCDMA


In all european countries and in most asiatic ones the mobile licenses include unpaired frequency bands that cannot be used for FDD-UTRA. That is very important in China, where during 2003 and 2004 there was a massive deployment of networks based only on unpaired frequencies.

TD-SCDMA


TDD is the optimized solution for this problem; uplink and downlink traffic can se sent over the same frequencies in diffent slots. A particular type of solution for unpaired bands is TD-SCDMA (Time Division a technology that combines TDMA and CDMA, together with other capacity optimization techniques.

Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access),

TD-SCDMA
  

TD-SCDMA is a 3G radio standard that has been approved by the ITU in the IMT-2000 family. 3GPP inserted in march 2001 TD-SCDMA in release 4 UMTS. With speeds up to 2 Mb/s, TD-SCDMA has enough bandwidth to handle data traffic for multimedia applications and internet. Its TDD operation allows it to handle asymmetrical services ( like Internet download) in a more efficient way than FDD technologies.

TD-SCDMA


TD-SCDMA can be easily adopted from a GSM operator, that has only to add the new Radio Access Network (RAN) and keep the GSM core network , including signaling and protocols, using the procedure called TSM.

TD-SCDMA


An UMTS operator that owns both FDD and TDD bands can use TD-SCDMA as complementary to W-CDMA ; this technique is called TDD-LCR and it is conforming to 3GPP release 4. TD-SCDMA includes as mandatory technologies like smart antenna, joint detection and dynamic channel allocation, that contribute to the minimization of intra and inter-cell interference; it is therefore suitable for use in densely populated areas. TD-SCDMA has been engineered by Siemens and the China

Academy of Telecommunications Technology (CATT).

TD-SCDMA


An effect of the interference reduction is surely a considerable decrease in the so-called cell breathing effect. In conventional 3G CDMA system as the number of users grows, the cell area shrinks and we must add new BS. With TD-SCDMA the traffic can increase without reducing coverage.

TD-SCDMA


To mitigate interference effects and have a better coverage at cell borders 3G systems use soft handover; but the concurrent additional connections that it needs add to the system operating costs and force to have an higher complexity in mobile terminals.. Thanks to its accurate synchronization specifications, TD-SCDMA can use a traditional handover like GSM, with a sensible cost reduction.

TD-SCDMA


In march 2001 release 4 of UTRA appears the radio interface of TD-SCDMA as the 1,28 Mchip/s option of TDD, called TDD LCR (TDD Low Chip Rate).

TD-SCDMA
 1. 2.

It combines 2 main technologies: An advanced TDMA/TDD system An adaptive CDMA components that operates synchronously

TD-SCDMA


TDMA uses a 5 msec frame divided into 7 time slots, that can be allocated to various users or only to one. TDD handles traffic in uplink and in downlink using different slots in the same frame When we have symmetrical services, like audio and video calls, the slots are split evenly in the two directions. Asymmetrical services like internet access can use more slots in downlink than in uplink

TD-SCDMA


Tha capability of balancing uplink/downlink in a single frequency band optimizes radio bandwidth usage.

TD-SCDMA


pooling.

In each slot we can use a maximum of 16 codes, with a chip rate of 1,28 Mchip/s and a bandwidth of 1,6 MHz. To have high speed connections ( 2 Mb/s) we use VSF and code

TD-SCDMA


In real CDMA the received spreading codes are not exactly orthogonal and therefore the correlation process in the receiver cannot be very efficient, producing a Multiple Access Interference (MAI); the interfering users produce as a result a rising background noise that causes a diminution of S/N ratio, limiting the traffic capacity of the radio channels.

TD-SCDMA


An efficient way for reducing MAI is using after the correlator a joint detection unit that is an optimal multiuser receiver that extracts all the signals in parallel.

TD-SCDMA
 

TD-SCDMA allows an efficient implementation of this kind of receiver both in the BS and in the UE. A training sequence in each slot allows an estimation of the radio channel characteristics; a specific algorthm extracts all CDMA codes in parallel and cancels out MAI. This allow an increase about 3 fold of transmission capacity per MHz of spectrum. This is essentially possibile because the splitting of users over more slots allows the limitation of codes to a maximum of 16, with an easy implementation of the Joint Detection principle. MAI cannot be so easily overcome with a RAKE receiver, that is suboptimal because its complexity grows exponentially with the number of codes.

 

TD-SCDMA


Another feature related to MAI elimination is the increase in the interval of detection of signals with a permissible difference between the levels of 20 dB. This can be compared with the requisites for a correct CDMA signal detection with a mutual level deviation of less than or equal to 1,5 dB. That forced to the usage of a fast power control built over many loops ; otherwise due to the nearfar effect a single terminal near the BS could blind the entire cell. A fast power control is obviously very expensive due to its complexity.

TD-SCDMA


To further optimize system robustness to interferences, TD-SCDMA BS are equipped with smart antenna, that use a beam forming concept. When using omnidirectional antenna the transmitted power is evenly distributed over the cells in all the directions, generating a mutual intercell interference. The smart antenna align signal transmission and reception to a specific terminal, raising the BS sensitivity by the directivity gain, minimizing therefore inter and intracell interferences.

TD-SCDMA


TD-SCDMA antenna arent diversity beam switching but matrixes of adaptive antennas with advanced beam forming and aiming characteristics. The directivity between BS and UE is obtained with a concentrical set of 8 antenna elements whose phase and amplitude relationship is digitally programmable. Terminal tracking is done via frequent arrival angle measurements ( every 5 ms).

TD-SCDMA


In this way we get an 8 dB improvement of C/N in both direction, and a reduction of interfcell interference of the same quantity. This allows a reduction of the needed cells in densely populated areas. In rural areas we get an improved coverage too, thanks to the high directivity. TDD mode offers an ideal environment for smart antenna implementation, thanks to the symmetrical uplink and downlink radio path, that operate over the same frequencies in both directions. FDD has an uncorrelated fast fading in the two directions, given the different frequencies, and it is difficult to get optimal results.

TD-SCDMA


A further reduction of intercell interference is achieved by Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA); TD-SCDMA can use all available multiple access techniques:TDMA, FDMA, CDMA e SDMA (Space Division Multiple Access). The following DCA methods are implemented: Time Domain DCA ( TDMA operation) : the traffic is dynamically allocated to the less interfered timeslots Frequency Domain DCA (FDMA operation) : the traffic is dynamically allocated to the less interfered radio carrier ( in 5 MHz there are three 1,6 MHz wide carriers ) Space Domain DCA (SDMA operation) : the smart adaptive antennas find the directive decoupling that is most favourable user by user Code Domain DCA (CDMA operation) : the traffic is dynamically allocated to the less interfered codes ( 16 codes per slot per carrier)

 1. 2.

3.

4.

TD-SCDMA

Like the other TDMA systems (like GSM) TD-SCDMA requires an accurate synchronization between BS and UE. Thanks to this synchronization TD-SCDMA systems dont use soft handover but conventional handover and reduce operational costs.