Wednesday, September 26, 2012

WHY there is No-Edge Networks? what is Multi-Stream Aggregation (MSA)?


The following is from Huawei press release:


The LTE-Advanced Multi-Stream Aggregation (MSA) technology standard is capable of increasing data rates at the cell's edge. A key component of Huawei's "No-Edge Networks" concept, MSA technology coordinates macro cells to improve user data rates at the cell's edge and also between heterogeneous networking scenarios to improve peak rates and simplify mobile management to ensure a consistent user experience.

With the development of mobile broadband, operators are mostly concerned about user experience. With mobile coverage, should able to enjoy the same quality of services no matter where they are. However, with mobile communication systems, the most challenging issue is system performance at the cell's edge.

The concept behind Huawei's MSA technology is that the user is always able to receive downlink data and aggregate downlink data streams from a cell or cell group with the best signal quality. A similar method applies to uplink data, where the user always transmits uplink data to a cell or cell group with the best signal quality. The uplink data streams are aggregated on the network side.

Huawei's MSA technology reduces the number of handovers, lowering device power transmission and increasing device standby time. These advantages are in accordance with the concept of delivering a "borderless network" and "green" wireless communications. It's expected that MSA technology will improve system performance at the cell's edge by almost 30%.

MSA technology is especially suitable for macro-micro HetNets. In hotspot area, macro cells provide basic LTE coverage while the micro cells provides capacity enhancement. The use of MSA technology allows users to receive controlled signaling from macro cells and services from best quality HetNet cell. Users at any location within the network can then enjoy fast and stable data services with ultra broadband, zero waiting and ubiquitous connectivity. MSA technology brings users high speeds and high quality as well as a simple service experience.

The advanced MSA technology proposed by Huawei is set to become a key feature of the evolution to 3GPP LTE-Advanced standards. Huawei has contributed 293 core standards to the 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced standardization process, 20% of the global total and the most of any other company.



What is LTE, M2M Device Addressing and IMSI


I was made aware of the following statement on the Verizon wireless brochure:

LTE’s inherent support for IPV6 addressing and IMSI-based telephone number identifiers makes mass deployments over LTE more easily achievable. The deployment of large numbers of mobile devices (think tens of thousands) becomes much more feasible because of LTE’s use of 15-digit IMSI telephone number identifiers for large-scale deployments, such as M2M or embedded wireless applications. 3G network technologies were limited by their use of 10-digit telephone number identifiers, which made large-scale deployments more difficult. With LTE, mass deployment of wireless services and applications, such as VoIP, smart metering, vending, and telematics, is now practical.

Now we know about the much touted 50 Billion connections by 2025 of which the majority would be M2M devices. So how are we going to handle the issue of addressing these many devices.

10 Billion out of 50 Billion - The Connected World


Remember the mantra of 50 Billion connected devices (blogged here and here) but 202x, apparently 10Billion are already here. The above slide is from a latest presentation by Chetan Sharma Consulting (embedded below). There are already 7 Billion mobile devices (phones + dongles) and 3 Billion others. The number of others will increase with M2M being the main focus and is touted as the next big thing, especially with LTE. 3GPP is focussing very heavily on standardising the MTC and is working on new features in upcoming releases.

Coming back to the topic of connected world, the presentation is embedded below and is a good read.

In the earlier presentation here, there was a mention of the direction for the solution as below:






The IMSI structure is as shown above. So depending on how it is used this can help alleviate the number shortage problem. 3GPP TR 23.888 gives the following information:


5.13      Key Issue - MTC Identifiers

5.13.1    Use Case Description

The amount of MTC Devices is expected to become 2 orders of magnitude higher than the amount of devices for human to human communication scenarios. This has to be taken into account for IMSI, IMEI and MSISDN. Regulatory bodies indicate shortages of IMSIs and MSISDNs.
The MTC Feature PS Only in TS 22.368 [2] includes a requirement that PS Only subscriptions shall be possible without an MSISDN. In principle an MSISDN is not used in any of the PS based signalling procedures. However, it will have to be assured that all PS procedures indeed work and subscriptions can be uniquely identified without providing an MSISDN. Furthermore, TS 22.368 [2] specifies that remote MTC Device configuration shall be supported for PS only subscriptions without an MSDISDN assigned. Current remote MTC Device configuration solutions (i.e. Device Management and Over-the-Air configuration) are based on SMS, which assumes the use of MSISDNs. So a solution to support remote MTC Device configuration that does not require the use of MSISDNs is needed.
The identifiers can be categorised into:
-     Internal Identifiers: used within the 3GPP system to identify a UE using a subscription (or the subscription itself e.g. when the UE is not registered).
-     External Identifiers: used from outside the 3GPP system (e.g. at the MTCsp interface), to refer to a UE using a subscription (or the subscription itself e.g. when the UE is not registered).

5.13.2    Required Functionality

-     It shall be possible to uniquely identify the ME.
NOTE 1:   This requirement relates to the ME which is generally identified by the IMEI.
-     It shall be possible to uniquely identify the UE using a subscription or the subscription itself.
NOTE 2:   The two requirements above also apply to human-to-human communications. However, for Machine-Type Communication identifiers will have to be able to cater for a number of identifiers up to two orders of magnitude higher than for human-to-human communications.
-     It shall be possible to use the following identifiers:
1.       IMSI, for internal usage within the 3GPP operator domain, and either
2.       E.164 MSISDN, for usage outside the 3GPP operator domain, or
3.       Unique identifier (e.g. FQDN), other than E.164 MSISDN, for usage outside the 3GPP operator domain.
NOTE 3: Use of IMSI outside the 3GPP operator domain is an operator option (i.e. not subject to standardization)
-     If no (unique or common) MSISDN is assigned to a PS only subscription, the Internal Identifier (IMSI) shall be used as charging identifier.
-     It shall be possible to associate one or more External Identifiers to the same Internal Identifier (e.g. several MSISDNs associated with the same IMSI).
-     Globally unique External Identifiers shall be supported for identifying UEs used for MTC that must be globally reachable (i.e. irrespective of which mobile operator owns the subscription)
-     Operator specific External Identifiers (e.g. based on a private numbering plan) may be supported for identifying UEs used for MTC that have to be reachable only from the operator domain to which they are subscribed.
-     The Internal Identifier shall be globally unique.
-     Remote MTC Device configuration shall still be supported for subscriptions without an MSISDN.
NOTE 4:   Current remote MTC Device configuration solutions (i.e. Device Management and Over-the-Air configuration) are based on SMS, which assumes the use of MSISDNs.

what is Semi persistent scheduling in LTE?


Every VoIP packet is received / sent every 20ms when the user is talking whereas in silence period, discontinuous transmission (DTX) is used to reduce the transmission rate. Also, in order to sustain voice quality, silent insertion descriptor (SID) packet arrives every 160ms. The frequent arrival/transmission of VoIP packet means large control overhead for lower layers (L1/L2) in the radio protocol stack. To deal with this issue, semi persistent scheduling plays an important role.

Scheduling is a mechanism where UE requests eNB for the resource allocation during each transmission time interval (TTI). If UE has some data that it needs to transmit continuously, it will request eNB every TTI for the resource allocation. This scheduling type is dynamic scheduling. The advantage of dynamic scheduling is flexibility and diversity of resource allocation but as mentioned, this results in huge L1/L2 load which in turn means inefficient use of scarce radio resources.

In case of semi persistent scheduling, eNB can assign predefined chunk of radio resources for VoIP users with interval of 20ms. Therefore, UE is not required to request resources each TTI, saving control plan overhead. This scheduling is semi-persistent in the sense that eNB can change the resource allocation type or location if required for link adaptation or other factors.

What is the Master Information Block (MIB) in LTE?


The very first step for UE to gain initial access to the network after completing initial synchronization is to read the Master information block (MIB) on BCCH (Logical channel), BCH (Transport channel) and PBCH (Physical channel). Resource elements used by MIB are the first 4 OFDMA symbols of second slot of first subframe of a radio frame. On frequency domain it occupies 72 subcarriers. MIB carries very little but most important information for UE initial access. The content of MIB includes
·         Downlink channel bandwidth in term of resource blocks (RBs)
·         PHICH configuration (PHICH duration and PHICH resource)
·         System Frame Number
New MIB is broadcasted every radio frame for which SFN mod 4 = 0 (40ms repetition) while its copies are broadcasted in the middle 10ms radio frames as shown in the figure below

what is ICIC( Inter-cell interference coordination) and eICIC (enhanced Inter-cell interference coordination)


Background

  • LTE is designed for frequency reuse 1 (To maximize spectrum efficiency), which means that all the neighbor cells are using same frequency channels and therefore there is no cell-planning to deal with the interference issues
  • There is a high probability that a resource block scheduled to cell edge user, is also being transmitted by neighbor cell, resulting in high interference, eventually low throughput or call drops (see figure) 
  • Traffic channel can sustain upto 10% of BLER in low SINR but control channels cannot. Neighbor interference can result in radio link failures at cell edge.
  • Heterogeneous networks require some sort of interference mitigation, since pico-cells/femto cells and macro-cells are overlapping in many scenarios

ICIC (Inter-cell interference coordination)

  • Inter-cell interference coordination is introduced in 3GPP release 8
  • ICIC is introduced to deal with interference issues at cell-edge
  • ICIC mitigates interference on traffic channels only
  • ICIC uses power and frequency domain to mitigate cell-edge interference from neighbor cells 
  • One scheme of ICIC is where neighbor eNBs use different sets of resource blocks through out the cell at given time i.e. no two neighbor eNBs will use same resource assignments for their UEs. This greatly improves cell-edge SINR. The disadvantage is decrease in throughput throughout the cell, since full resources blocks are not being utilized.
  • In the second scheme, all eNBs utilize complete range of resource blocks for centrally located users but for cell-edge users, no two neighbor eNBs uses the same set of resource blocks at give time
  • In the third scheme (probably the preferred scheme), all the neighbor eNBs use different power schemes across the spectrum while resource block assignment can be according to second scheme explained above. For example, eNB can use power boost for cell edge users with specific set of resources (not used by neighbors), while keeping low signal power for center users with availability of all resource blocks (see the figure)
  • X2 interface is used to share the information between the eNBs

eICIC (enhanced Inter-cell interference coordination)

  • eICIC introduced in 3GPP release 10
  • eICIC introduced to deal interference issues in Heterogeneous Networks (HetNet)
  • eICIC mitigates interference on traffic and control channels
  • eICIC uses power, frequency and also time domain to mitigate intra-frequency interference in heterogeneous networks
  • eICIC introduces concept of "Almost blank subframe" (ABS). ABS subframes do not send any traffic channels and are mostly control channel frames with very low power. If macro cell configure ABS subframes then UEs connected to pico/femto cells can send their data during such ABS frames and avoid interference from macro cell (see the figure)
  • ABS configuration is shared via OAM or x2 interface

Type of Duplexing in LTE? Why TD-LTE ? what is FDD LTE?

Operators are spending millions of dollars just on the license only. It is expected that TDD spectrum will be sold at lower price as compared to FDD spectrum and secondly the TDD spectrum is also available in many countries. So certainly there is emerging interest in TD-LTE. Some of the main advantages of TD-LTE over FDD-LTE are as follows


In FDD LTE (Frequency division duplex)

  • duplexing scheme requires paired spectrum which in other words means that the downlink and uplink transmission should be on different frequency spectrum
  • There is wastage of frequency resources in up-link if most UEs in the cells are using downlink spectrum most the time or vice versa (For example if most users in he cells are watching YouTube or downloading some files)
  • Since different range of frequencies are used in uplink and downlink, therefore channel characteristics are different in both directions. UE needs to report the downlink channel characteristics to the eNB on its uplink channels
  • Additional hardware required on UE and eNB side to separate uplink and downlink frequencies which adds extra cost to the terminals and base stations
Now in TD-LTE (Time division duplex) ? 
  • Paired spectrum is not required and both downlink / uplink communication occurs on single frequency channel
  • Channel characteristics are same for both uplink and downlink channels
  • Hardware cost is low, no need of diplexer in UE and eNB
  • Spectrum is efficiently utilized since UEs can use all the slots for downlink traffic if there is no uplink traffic
TD-LTE frame structure is shown in the figure below
Subframe 0 and 5 carries synchronization signals and system information blocks
Subframe 1 is special subframe that is used to carry information for switching between uplink and downlink for 10ms switching period
For 5 ms switching period both subframe 1 and 6 are used

What is Policy charging and Rules Function (PCRF)? entity in LTE

PCRF is an important entity in the LTE core network domain, initially introduced in 3gpp rel 5. It is mainly responsible for making policy and control decisions. In simple words, if a user needs better quality of service (lets suppose in case of VoLTE ) then it is the responsibility of PCRF to initiate QoS with instructions from IMS. The functionality is listed below
  • Provide QoS information to packet gateway 
  • Dynamically manage and control data sessions. Example: For VoIP session, PCRF will initiate dedicated bearer dynamically
  • Enforce minimum QoS parameters
  • Determine charging policy for packets