LTE Networks: Design and Deployments

Ary Rahmadian Thala, CCIE#38344

Batam, 29 January 2015

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•  Ary Rahmadian Thala
•  Network Consulting Engineer at Jawdat Technology Indonesia
•  CCIE #38344 (Routing & Switching)

•  You can reach me at ary@jawdat.com

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1.  Mobile Broadband Dynamics
2.  LTE Networks Design

3.  LTE Network Deployments

4.  Summary & References

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Jawdat 2012 4
Understanding from others and Making right assumptions
•  Apps and content providers

•  Social Media – P2P, Presence, Video sharing

•  Following experience from other LTE providers

Understanding user expectations – Seamless mobility & services

•  Maintaining same user experience in home and roaming networks

•  Providing different services, uninterrupted access to OTT

Service Provider Expectations

•  Monetizing the capacity

•  Optimizing investment and managing Total Cost of Ownership

•  Building simple, scalable and future proofing the network

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•  Asia Pacific and Western Europe will account for over half of global mobile traffic by 2016
•  Middle East and Africa will experience the highest CAGR of 104 percent, increasing 36-fold
by 2016
•  Mobile traffic projection is following natural population growth i.e. More mobile traffic in East

•  Though mobile traffic projection is higher in East, roaming traffic will put equal stress in other
regions
•  LTE deployments started with Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD), however LTE using
Time Division Duplexing (TDD) technology is growing significantly.

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IP Traffic
In Indonesia, IP traffic will grow 5-fold from 2013 to 2018, a compound annual growth rate of 37%.
In Indonesia, IP traffic will reach 1.1 Exabytes per month in 2018, up from 234 Petabytes per month in 2013.
Indonesia's IP networks will carry 37 Petabytes per day in 2018, up from 8 Petabytes per day in 2013.
In Indonesia, IP traffic will reach an annual run rate of 13.5 Exabytes in 2018, up from an annual run rate of
2.8 Exabytes in 2013.
In Indonesia, IP traffic will reach 4 Gigabytes per capita in 2018, up from 1 Gigabytes per capita in 2013.
In 2018, the gigabyte equivalent of all movies ever made will cross Indonesia's IP networks every 5 hours.
Source: http://www.cisco.com/web/solutions/sp/vni/vni_forecast_highlights/index.html

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Jawdat 2012 9
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MME
13 – Mobility Management Entity, SGW – Serving Gateway, PGW – PDN Gateway
LTE radio frame has fixed length of 10 ms . LTE radio frame is divided into 10 sub-frame (1 ms each)
•  Each sub-frame is further divided into two slots of .5 ms each

•  Each OFDM symbol carry either user or control information.

•  Different modulation techniques is used to send information in each symbol

•  Cyclic Prefix is precede each of symbol so that inter-channel interference is reduced

FDD is paired band for downlink and uplink

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•  LTE radio frame has fixed length of 10 ms

•  LTE radio frame is further divided into two half-frames of 5 ms each

•  Each half-frame is divided into 5 sub-frames of 1 ms each

Two special sub-frames for signaling, Eight ordinary sub-frames for data

•  Data sub-frame is further divided into slot of .5 ms each

•  Symbols are put inside each sub-frame to carry user information

•  Downlink and Uplink resources blocks are configurable 15

EUTRAN interface is very spectral efficient
•  Downlink: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in downlink

•  Uplink: Single Carrier – Frequency Division Multiple Access. Sub-carrier are still orthogonal

•  Variable modulations (QAM, 16 and 64 QAM)

•  Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology to boot signal or send more bits

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Number of states for UE (RRC states) are reduced from five to three
•  UTRAN (DETACHED, IDLE, URA_PCH, CELL_FACH, CELL_DCH)

•  EUTRAN (DETACHED, IDLE and CONNECTED)

UTRAN has two additional states CELL_FACH and CELL-PCH to optimize signaling
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3GPP Access

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     Traffic  Types     Characteris/cs     Design  Strategy    
Control  plane,  security,  high  latency  will  affect  
1   S1-­‐MME     Separate  VLAN  or  VPN  towards  MME    
Mobility  Management.    
User  plane,  sensi/ve  to  delay,  packet  loss.  
2   S1-­‐U     Separate  VLAN  or  VPN  towards  SGW    
Different  QoS  requirements    
3   eMBMS     Mul/cast  control  and  user  traffic     Routed  through  1st  layer-­‐3  hop    
4   X2     Layer-­‐3  X2  handover  traffic     Routed  through  Pre-­‐agg/Agg    
5   Clock     Clock  and  synchroniza/on,  Delay  sensi/ve     Normally  global  routed  towards  Grand  Master    
6   O&AM     eNodeB  OAM  traffic     Separate  VLAN/VRF      

•  Based upon radio vendor different types of traffic combined into few VLAN’s
•  Mobile backhaul design should support further segregation of traffic

•  Implement transport QoS to ensure proper routing of traffic

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En/ty     Placement  Considera/ons    
Moderate  distribu-on    
Latency  <50ms  from  eNB  to  MME  (S1-­‐MME),  
MME    
Faster  signaling/call  setup  
Use  MME  pooling  -­‐  scaling  &  geographical  redundancy    
Distributed,  close  to  edge  
SGW/PGW     Latency  <50  ms  from  eNB  (S1-­‐U),  be`er  user  experience    
Co-­‐locate/Co-­‐host  SGW/PGW  if  design  permit    
Centralized/Moderate  distribu-on    
Latency  <100  ms.  Latency  impact  default  bearer  set-­‐up    
HSS    
Par//on  HSS  as  front  end  and  backend  if  design  permit  
Front-­‐end  co-­‐locate  with  MME  if  possible  
Centralized  
Latency  <100  ms.  Latency  impact  database  query,  sync    
Database  SPR    
Replicate  database  at  mul/ple  loca/ons  
Co-­‐locate  with  HSS  backend  
SPR Subscriber Profile Repository , Database Entity
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Entity Placement Considerations
Centralized
PCRF,
Latency <100 ms. Latency impact policy download, updates
Balance Manager,
Can share database with HSS
OCS/OFCS
Balance Manager, Online Charging co-located with PCRF
Tracking  Area/APN  DNS  –  Used  by  MME,  co-­‐locate  with  MME    
Mobile  DNS  –  Used  by  UE,  distributed.  Co-­‐located  with  PGW    
Internet  DNS  –  Used  for  inbound  query,  Centralized  
DNS
Roam  DNS  –  Used  by  roaming  partners,  Centralized    
Infrastructure  DNS  –  Used  by  internal  infrastructures,  Centralized    
 
Centralized
AAA Used for ePDG (3GPP) – centralized
Infra. device authentication - centralized
Centralized
DHCP
DHCPv6 for IP address allocation
OCS – Online Charging system, OFCS – Offline Charging System
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•  ︎eNodeB has multiple active S1-MME links to MME’s in pool ︎
•  Number of MME’s clustered in pool across geographical area

•  ︎MME in pool is identified by Code & Group Identifier ︎

•  All MME in pool will have same Group identifier

•  ︎eNodeB decide MME based upon weight, load etc.

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•  Enables geographical redundancy, as a pool can be distributed across sites
•  ︎Increases overall capacity, as load sharing across the pool

•  ︎Converts inter-MME Tracking Area Updates (TAUs) to intra-MME TAUs for moves between
the MMEs of the same pool.
•  Reduces signaling load & transfer delay

•  ︎Easy introduction of new MME in pool.

•  ︎Eliminates single point of failure for eNodeB and MME.

•  ︎Increase MME availability

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Three main states for mobility – IDLE, ACTIVE, DETACHED

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Jawdat 2012 38
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Prepare and Design

Assess network readiness for LTE. This will help operationalizing LTE quickly ︎
Radio planning – Spectrum, bandwidth, re-farming existing spectrum
︎Base station planning - Reuse existing UTRAN, new sites
︎Backhaul planning – major upgrade to IP/MPLS based backhaul
Assess & Develop IP Skill set. Skill gaps among RF, BTS & Core engrs reduced ︎
Training staff in LTE, IMS, IP Routing etc.
Business Planning
︎Service plan, New Applications, New Subscribers
End-to-end LTE/EPS Design
︎Designing whole network aligning with business objectives
Radio, Transport, Gateways, Datacenter, Applications

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Test and Validation

︎Lab integration and testing – vendors facility, SP facility

︎System level IOT- All vendors, All related elements, All Apps
︎I-RAT testing - 2G/3G; Offload – WiFi, Femto
︎Device ecosystem testing – Different devices and Apps testing
︎Roaming testing with other LTE, UMTS networks
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Field Trials and Deployment
︎Market by market field trials with real users
︎Develop and customize LTE KPI, correlate KPI across multiple devices/vendors
︎Develop operations troubleshooting tools, process and guide
︎Integrate new infrastructures with existing NOC, OSS/BSS - Support structure
︎Monitor and optimize as necessary
︎

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 VAS, G I H Network

HLR
/AuC
IN EIR SMSC HSS

Um
BTS
AbisoIP

BSC

AoIP Sigtran MSc in Pool

GboIP
MSC-S MSC-S
Uu
Sigtran Sigtran
IuBoIP
NodeB IuCSoIP
RNC
NboIP MGw in Pool
MGW MGW
IuRoIP

Uu IuCSoIP
NodeB
IuBoIP S6a

RNC Gn Gi
Internet
SGSN/MME GGSN

3GDT SGi
S1 X2
S1-MME S11

eNodeB S1/X2 RAN S1-U S5/S8

eNodeB
Backhaul S-GW P-GW
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 Inter-VLAN Routing
FHRP, WAN

Inter-AS Routing vrf S6a

Internet

HSS

SGSN
MME MGW
vrf S11

IP Core MPLS Backbone

RAN Backhaul
MetroE/DWDM

NodeB
eNodeB
MSC-S

Data Services Network

RNC BSC GGSN

vrf S5/S8
SGW PGW
VLAN Trunking VLAN Trunking MPLS as a New Transport MPLS as a New Transport
Spanning Tree Protocol Spanning Tree Protocol Static Routing Static Routing
Dynamic Routing, OSPF, BGP Dynamic Routing, OSPF, BGP

RAN Mobile Backhaul Transport & Core Networks PS Core Network Internet
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