Realities of LTE Deployment

1
Realities of LTE Deployment

• Bill Payne
• Head of Innovation Team
• CTO Office

2
Agenda
Long Term Evolution (LTE) Performance
Expectations
Deployment Case Study
Challenges
Conclusion
3
LTE Performance
Key Performance Metrics1 Infrastructure 20MHz TD-LTE Key Performance Metrics1 Infrastructure 20MHz TD-LTE
Single User Peak Throughput Downlink (Mbps) 172.8
Single User Peak Throughput Uplink (Mbps) 85.6
Round Trip Time for a 32 byte Ping lt10 ms
Handover Interruption Time (inter-eNB) 279.5 ms
Average Sector Throughput Downlink/Uplink (Mbps) 33.4/15.2
Connection Setup delay 11ms
VOIP capacity (Max Simultaneous Users) G.711 Codec 95 Users

• Exceeded early LTE Targets
• Results confirm LTEs value and leadership

1 Achieved results from network trials
4
Commercial Expectations
Capacity and Performance
Reliability and Security
Total Cost of Ownership
1Meet the demands of Mobile Broadband
2Unify and deliver subscriber data across
network and services
3Enable cost effective networks
Operators expect 66 of delivered services will
be video or video related applications1
Over half of all mobile operators expect security
to be a key component in their network
Operators expect up to 20 TCO savings annually
on their network by deploying LTE
1 Cisco Virtual Networking index
5
Network Case Study
Network Details 2.3GHz TD-LTE 20MHz Bandwidth
(DL 2X2 MIMO UL 1X2 SIMO) 9 Sectors _at_ 4W
(36dBm) Dense Urban outdoor coverage Full Evolved
Packet core with PCRF and HSS
Test Cases RF Test Control Plane/User Plane
Latencies HARQ Mechanism Call Continuity and
Handovers Applications LTE Manager Fail Safety
and MME Switchover
Trial Network Coverage Area - 1.87 by 1.42 Miles
6
Deployment Challenge Examples
Radio Access Network

• Quality of Service functionality
• Handover Delay
• Interference
• Overall Performance

Network Management

• End to End Management
• Configuration Management
• Performance Management
• Fault Management

Planning Optimization

• Network Configuration
• Performance e.g., Handover Optimization

User Equipment

• UL Tx Power
• Battery life

DL Application throughput in the drive test route
7
Sample Test Case Findings

• RF Path Balance Challenges
• Significant interference between sectors
  resulting in very low througput (DL and UL)
• Position 1 - Sector 95 interfering with Sector 98
• Position 2 Sector 95 interfering with Sector 96
  or 97

• Possible Actions
• Multi-frequency Network with inter-frequency
  handoff features
• UE Power Class
• ICIC Techniques
• Smaller cells with lower DL Tx power
• - AWT-like solutions

8
Sample Test Case Findings
Message Run 1 Run 1 Run 2 Run 2 Run 3 Run 3 Run 4 Run 4 Av (ms)
Message Time Delta (ms) Time Delta (ms) Time Delta (ms) Times Delta (ms) Av (ms)
PDN Connection Request 55727 318 02611 307 52773 282 55975 312 304.75
RRC Connection Request 55755 289 02639 279 52801 254 56003 284 276.5
Attach Complete 56044 56044 02918 02918 53055 53055 56287 56287 N/A
Control Plane Latency Measuring average network
registration time (ATTACH) under different RF
conditions Possible Actions - Medium RF
conditions for RSRP and SNIR
Table 1 Control Plane Latency
Network Performance Determining download
throughput performance as a function of the
Signal to Interference ratio (SIR) measurement
UL Application Throughput as a function of SIR
Measurement
9
Conclusions
User Equipment Introducing additional UE Power
Class with higher Max UL Tx power will allow
better mobile devices performance in an urban
environment (multi-path and/or indoor coverage)
Planning Optimization Solutions such as SON
can enable efficient deployments of 4G networks,
and optimize them to deliver better performance
Network Management End-to-end network visibility
and ability to check each UE activity status will
offer operators tremendous value in service
delivery
Radio Access Network Small cells and indoor
solutions will play a big role in addressing
network capacity improved subscriber experience
in densely populated area due to RF propagation
and lack of low TX power radios