3G RF Design: Selva Cromwel Wireless Network Engineering

3G RF Design
Selva Cromwel
Wireless Network Engineering
Introduction
• Designing a UMTS radio network needs to take into

account the UMTS specificities:
— UMTS is a Wideband CDMA system
– Coverage and capacity are closely correlated (Cell breathing)
— UMTS is a multi-service system
– Voice and different data services share the same radio resource
with different QoS
• Before starting the UMTS network design, the design

objectives should be clearly stated:
— Services to be offered
— Multi-service network capacity
— Multi-service coverage areas
— Quality of coverage of each service
UMTS RF Planning Activies - AGENDA
1. Assumptions
2. Radio Dimensionning
3. Radio Design
UMTS RF Planning Activies
3 steps :
1. Assumptions
3. Radio Design
Service area definition and parameters
Different Service Areas are defined over

the UMTS Areas with :
UMTS Areas
 Services to provide
 Different areas with different qualities
of service
 Indoor/Outdoor Coverage
 Penetration factors
 Propagation conditions
Traffic to carry
Knowledge of the traffic

amount to carry :
 per service
 per phase
 per geographical micro-zones
(elements of the geomarketing
database)
Micromarketing Concept
BUSINESS AREAS
COMMERCIAL AREAS
RESIDENTIAL AREAS
OBJECTIVE
DEFINE CONSUMER POTENTIAL IN RELATION TO AREAS
TRAFFIC LOCATION AND TRAFFIC ASSUMPTIONS
Geomarketing
Methodology
LICENCE APPLICATION
 Define coverage policy
 Population covered
 Area covered
 Locate traffic
 Anticipate the traffic
 ...
Market Segmentation / Area
CONSUMER
MARKET
REGULAR OCCASIONAL
USERS USERS
FIELD
BUSINESS
MOBILE
MARKET
MANAGERS WORKERS
Third Generation Services / Bearer Services
USERS APPLICATIONS
• Incoming multimedia mails BEARER SERVICES

(included location based info)
• Outgoing multimedia mails SPEECH
PS64
• Files download
PS128
(video, music, games, reports...) PS384
• Video calls PS2048
• Web sessions CS64
CS128
CS384
CS2048
Traffic Model / Segment / Subscriber / Month
Business - Mobile Managers Unit 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
Speech (min/month/sub) 306,03 309,09 312,18 315,30 318,46 321,64 324,86 328,11 331,39 334,70
UDD64 (MByte/month/sub) 142,06 155,04 169,27 184,87 201,98 220,75 241,38 264,02 288,87 316,14
LCD64 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD144 (min/month/sub) 6,25 7,94 9,78 11,79 13,98 16,35 18,93 21,72 24,75 28,02
LCD384 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD2048 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Business - Field Workers Unit 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
LCD64 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD144 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 1,88 3,01 4,26 5,62 7,11 8,73 10,50 12,43
LCD384 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD2048 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Consumer - Regular Unit 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
LCD64 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD144 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD384 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD2048 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Consumer - Occasional Unit 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
LCD64 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD144 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD384 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
LCD2048 (min/month/sub) 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00 0,00
Key Advantages of 2G Operators moving to 3G
• Knowledge of existing Traffic distribution @busy hours
— More accurate data traffic maps
• Knowledge of Performance for individual sites
— I.e: eliminate tall & uncontrollable sites
• Knowledge of areas with excessive GSM multiple servers
— I.e: minimize potential Soft Handoffs problems in 3G

Design assumptions
• All of the design assumptions are correlated
— Services (PS64, Speech,…)
Design targets
— Coverage types (Indoor, Incar, …)
— Service areas of coverage
— Capacities
— Quality of coverage
Radio network design results are highly dependant of the

design assumptions :
Any change of one of the assumptions implies to redo the
design work !
3 steps :
1. Assumptions
3. Radio Design
3 steps :
1. Assumptions
3. Radio Design
WCDMA system
• Cell range & cell capacity are limited by :

— Power in downlink
— Interference in uplink
• Cell breathing phenomenon

Radio dimensionning targets
Radio dimensionning : Global estimation of the

number of sites required for the network
 Based on the Link Budget tool
 Set of Link Budget for each

areas
Link Budget
BTS MS Site
PA Power PA Power Cable losses
diversity (Tx, Rx) diversity (Tx, Rx) antennas
Eb/No Eb/No site configuration
Processing Gain
Service (bi, tri-sectorial…)
Processing Gain
... ... ...
margins
propagation
Cell Range/Surface Traffic offered per cell/Area

Reverse Coverage (1/4)
Max TxUE +/- Hardware Amplifications/Losses

-Max Reverse Path Loss – Margins >SensibilityBS
UE
BTS
Max Reverse Path Loss 

Tx  G - Cableloss - Slantloss G - S
UE UE BS BS
Between 2 and -2 dBi Feeder (7/8’’) loss/UMTS

= 6.5dB/100m
LB Assumption Feeder loss = 4dB (h=40m)
Antenna gain = 0 dBi = 3dB (h=30m)
= 2dB (h=20m)
Feeder (15/8”) loss /UMTS
=4dB/100m
Power Class Maximum output power Tolerance
1 +33 dBm +1/-3 dB
2 +27 dBm +1/-3 dB
3 +24 dBm +1/-3 dB
4 +21 dBm ± 2 dB
UE UE BS BS
Losses due to
crosspolar propagation
Results of measurement : 1.5 dB
Tested in field trials
Huber & Suhner
- dual band DCS/UMTS, xpol, 17 dBi
- tri-band GSM/DCS/UMTS, xpol, 16 dBi
Racal
- UMTS, xpol, 18,5 dBi
Kathrein
- Eurocell Multiband xpol, 17.5dBi
Cellwave
- UMTS, xpol, 17bBi
- DCS/UMTS, xpol, APX206516 19dBi
LB Assumption
Antenna gain = 18dBi
UE UE BS BS
Nth = -174+30+10 x Log(B) Nortel Node B NF = 3.3dB

with B = 3.84MHz
Nth = -108.2 dBm
 Ec 
S  N  NF
e th   

Sensitivity at the antenna connector  No 
(relating to chip energy)
f(environment, service, channel coding)

Results of signal processing L1 simu
Ec  Eb x 1 Spreading_ Bandwidth
PG 
No No PG Max. User Data Rate
Nortel Eb/No
• As a function of :
— service
— implementation of the service
— signal processing : equalizer, power control algorithm, MUD, metarake
— quality target
— fading model
— UE speed
Rural SubUrban Mean Urbain Dense Urban
Outdoor to Indoor B Outdoor to Indoor B Outdoor to Indoor B Processing
Considered Eb/No (dB) Vehicular B 120 km/h 50 km/h 3km/h 3km/h Gain (dB)
Speech (7,95kbps) 5.63 5.53 5.72 5.72 25.29
Coded BER = 10-3 Speech (12,2kbps) 6.44 6.35 6.30 6.30 23.91
Circuit Data 32 kbps 5.27 5.72 5.20 5.20 20.35
Coded BER = 10-6 Circuit Data 144 kbps 4.44 4.56 4.44 4.44 14.20
Packet Data 64 kbps 2.93 3.15 3.21 3.21 17.34
Global BLER = 10-1 Packet Data 144 kbps 2.65 2.66 2.77 2.77 13.94
Packet Data 384 kbps 2.30 2.70 2.60 2.60 9.75
Penetration/Capacity Losses
Available Reverse PathLoss 
Max Reverse PathLoss - Margins
Margin = Shadow Margin Rural: 6dB
Suburban: 10dB
+ Building/Car Penetration Factor Mean urban: 15dB
Dense urban: 21dB
+ Body Loss
+ Interference Margin Speech: 3dB
Data:0 dB
LB Assumption
Interference margin = 3.0dB
1
 for 50% load
1 - Loading Factor
Shadow Margin
Available Reverse PathLoss 
Max Reverse PathLoss - Margins
Margin = Shadow Margin M such as:

Proba(receive level+M)
+ Building/Car Penetration Factor over site hexagonal surface
> cell area reliability QOC
+ Body Loss
+ Interference Margin
Function of s :
s s 2
T xPower
 s 2
Propa outdoor
 s 2
Propa indoor
 s 2
Pene
if indoor is guaranteed
s s 2
T xPower
 s 2
Propa outdoor
if not
Cell radius
Cell radius  PropagMode l(Available Reverse PathLoss )
COST 231 modified HATA
With adapted environment correction factors :
•Rural = -22 dB
•Suburban = -12 dB
•Urban = - 3 dB
•Dense Urban = 0 dB
Cell Radius (km) Macro cell Macro cell Macro cell Macro cell
Outdoor Outdoor to Outdoor to
Outdoor to
vehicular 120 indoor indoor Dense
indoor Urban
km/h Suburban urban
Speech (12,2kbps) 6.83 1.86 0.75 0.50
LCD64 5.74 1.51 0.63 0.42
LCD144 4.69 1.27 0.51 0.35
LCD384 4.48 1.16 0.48 0.32
UDD64 6.27 1.67 0.67 0.45
UDD144 5.09 1.39 0.55 0.37
UDD384 3.94 1.05 0.42 0.29
DCS - H2D (5MHz) 5.39 1.56 0.63 0.42
Parameters
DCS - H4D (10MHz) 4.38 1.28 0.51 0.35
Reliability 90% 90% 90% 90%
Load 50% 50% 50% 50%
Penetration factor (dB) 5 10 15 18
Shadow margin (dB) 7 10.7 10.7 10.7
Antenna height (m) 40 30 30 30
Coverage Limits
Cell radius for a 50% load

Dense Urban
SF = 128
SF = 32
SF = 4
Speech 12.2 kbps Data 64 kbps Data 384 kbps

BTS
280 m
420 m
460 m
Cell count (1/2)
Area 1 Area 2 Area 3
N1 sites N2 sites N3 sites
N sites au
total
Cell count (2/2)
LB @ X% load
Design assumptions
Cell size Cell capacity adjust

load
# sites for coverage # sites for traffic
Comparison
Decision
Final number of sites

Multi-service
• Multi-service share the single radio resource
Resource of the BTS # links vs BTS Resource

Service 1
# links vs BTS Resource

Service 2
Why performing a Cell Count ?
Knowledge of :
 Limitation : coverage or traffic

 Potential issues (Wrong/Over-estimated marketing
input …)
 Estimated number of sites for the network
 Budget !
Design strategy & Budget...

3 steps :
1. Assumptions
3. Radio Design
3 steps :
1. Assumptions
3. Radio Design
Global Process
Design Assumptions
Service Areas Site Constraint

Link Budget
(Design Thresholds)
Coverage Analysis
UMTS Simulations Traffic Assumptions

(per service)
RF Design Optimisation
Radio Design Strategy
PILOT POLUTION
MAXIMISE THE SIGNAL INSIDE THE BEST SERVER
MINIMISE THE ENERGY OVERSHOOT TO THE NEIGHBOR CELLS WITH SOME

RF CONSIDERATION (TILT, AZIMUTH, …)
If the signal level is not controlled and the BTSs are moved closer and closer to each other, the
out-of-cell interference will increase drastically
DOMINANT SERVER
If there are too many different signal components with similar strength appear
in one area, the composite signal level will be high but the SIR (Signal
Interference Ratio) of any one of these signals will be poor => CALL DROP
EVEN IF THE SIGNAL IS STRONG !
SOLUTION
IMPOSED A DOMINANT SERVER WITH SOME RF DESIGN

CONSIDERATION (TILTS, AZIMUTH, …)
DOMINANT SERVER


   
 


  
  
 
 

Good Design Bad Design
Signals from far BTSs have line of sight
No Dominant
Server !
Signal from near BTSs are blocked by terrain

CONTROL SOFT HANDOFF LEVEL
High soft handoff percentage
– Waste of resources and no channels availability for more UE
– Access failures caused by soft handoff
IF SOFT HANDOFF   FORWARD LINK CAPACITY 
Excessive Soft-Handoff Solution : adding

Area due to lack of a new site
dominant server
KEY WCDMA PLANNING ISSUES
 WCDMA performance is hard to predict
 Cell range and capacity are dynamically linked, coverage reduces under
heavy loading (Uplink interference)
• Cell Breathing - taken into account in design
 Downlink interference management is critical
 All cells interfere with each other
 No frequency plan to overcome bad sites
 GOOD SITE CONFIGURATION IS KEY :

 Design as much as possible a regular network
 Sites of similar Height
 Sites following a regular pattern / size
 Sites as close as possible to traffic hot spots
EXAMPLE OF A GOOD DESIGN
From QOS to RF Design Objectives
PERCEIVABLE QOS OBJECTIVES
A Indicated Service Availability

B Voice Quality
C Access Failure Rate
D Call Drop Rate
E Blocking
— No more than X% of calls attempts shall fail to complete for reasons A .. E
— Data Session Packet Delay and Throughput Shall meet required
objectives for Y% of Network Wide Session Attempts
Coverage reliability is implied in A,B,C and D

X & Y has to be defined with Customer
From QOS to RF Design Objectives
DESIGN OBJECTIVES & ACHIEVED QOS AFTER BUILD (EXAMPLE)
RF Design Objectives
1 Area Reliability 90%(Sprint) 95%(Telstra) for in building coverage
2 Ec/Io > -12dB at rated Traffic Load
QOS Achieved
1 Access Failure Rates < 2%
2 Call Drop Rates < 2%
3 Cluster Average Frame Erasure Rates 1 - 2% (>2% if pushing capacity)
4 Voice Quality Very Good if FER < 5% and in Short Bursts
Radio Design Tool
NORTEL 2G/3G TOOL : iPLANNER
• PC Windows2000/NT
• GSM/GPRS technologies
• CDMA (IS95, 1xRTT,…) technologies
• UMTS (WCDMA) technology
— Multi-service UMTS
Cell
– Speech Planning
Coverage Service
– Data: Tool
Avalability
Maps
– CS64, CS144, CS384
– PS64, PS128, PS144, PS384
— Multi-carriers
— Different user types
2G/3G Planning
— Advanced propagation model tool
Radio Design Tool
• Coverage prediction Cell Planning
Tool
— Pathloss calculations (link budget)

— Coverage based on design thresholds
Coverage Maps Service Availability
• UMTS simulations
— UL/DL Eb/N0 targets
— Power allocation Call drops,
— Power control Uplink noise rise,
— Soft HO
HO regions,
Statistics, …
— Traffic Forecast
— UMTS parameters
Digital databases
 multi-layer
 resolution
 accuracy
Propagation Model
• Hata cost 231 model

Prx = PTx + K1 + K2.log(d)+K3.log(Heff)+K5.log(Heff).log(d) - K4.Diffraction+ Kclutter
• with diffraction (Deygout) correction
• Ki and Kclutters are calibrated using

measurements@2GHz
• 1800 MHz calibrated models are often shifted

to 2GHz
Maps
Coverage Maps
Pilot best server
Pilot Ec/Io
Required Reverse Mobile EIRP
Hand-off status
Reverse load
Radio Design
User input
COVERAGE ANALYSIS
EIRP
Height Clutter Antenna pattern
database database Frequency
Design thresholds
Received power at each bin
• Design Thresholds
— based on maximum allowable path loss for the most constraining service
(given by the Link Budget Tool).
— The required mobile received signal is calculated based on BS EIRP and on
Maximum Path Loss.
Design threshold=BS EIRP-Maximum Path Loss

Radio Design
COVERAGE MAP
iPlanner UMTS
BTS MS Site
PA Power Cable losses
Loss in Tx/Rx chains PA Power Antenna diagrams
Noise figure Noise figure site configuration
Eb/No Eb/No Site contrainsts
Processing Gain Service
Processing Gain (existing site reuse)
... ...
Geographical database
Propagation model
Monte-Carlo simulations
Statistics Maps
(rejected calls, hand-offs, (Reverse Required Mobile EIRP,
Cell loading…) Site location & configuration Pilot Ec/Io, Cell loading…)
Radio Design
DISTRIBUTION OF USERS
• Users are randomly

generated
• Successive shots
Radio Design
PILOT Ec/Io-Displays the best server pilot-to-interference ratio over the coverage area. Ec/Io
> -12dB
Radio Design
UL Required Mobile EIRP- Displays the required mobile ERP that gives a received
Eb/No that is equal to the reverse required Eb/No
Radio Design
SHO Status- Displays the different type of Handoff areas (Softer, Soft, …)
Radio Design Optimisation (1/2)
• Standard optimisation after UMTS results analysis (Maps &

statistics)
— Antenna re-orientation,
— antenna downtilt,
— site re-location, …
• Site densification
— increase capacity
— increase the level of interference
Continuous process
• Carrier overlay
• Code planning
• Benefit from conducting early tests to optimise the RF
configuration before launch
Radio Design optimisation (2/2)
• Analysis of the prediction and simulations results

— UL/DL coverage quality
– Based on design threshold
– Ec/Io for DL coverage
– Mobile EiRP for UL coverage
— QOS
– UL load factor per cell (<75%)
– UL noise rise
– Hand-over
– Call drops
• RF design optimisation
— Coverage optimisation
— Capacity optimisation
Example of RF Optimisation: FRE & lOAD (1/2)
The load and FRE (frequency reuse efficiency) must be considered at the same time
in order to determine if the cell is loaded due to :
1. Some interference from the mobile of the others cells
2. Some interference from the mobile of the same cell

Example of RF Optimisation: FRE & lOAD (2/2)
FRE (Frequency Reuse Efficiency) DEFINITION
N sc
FRE 
N sc  N oc
where
Noc is the external interference
Nsc is the intra-interference
Conclusions
• UMTS network radio design is highly dependant of the

designs assumptions
• Optimum network radio design requires accurate design

assumptions in terms of services, coverage, capacity, and
quality of service
• UMTS network radio dimensioning is a very complex task,

the multi-service capacity and coverage should be treated
together, since they share the single and the same radio
resource.
Conclusions
• UMTS radio design is a very complex process, an efficient
planning tool becomes very helpful.
• UMTS network radio design is a continuous optimisation
process :
– BTS
– Sites
– Carriers
– Services
– Coverage
– Capacity
– Quality of service
– Performance

3G RF Design: Selva Cromwel Wireless Network Engineering

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3G RF Design

• Designing a UMTS radio network needs to take into

• Before starting the UMTS network design, the design

Different Service Areas are defined over

Knowledge of the traffic

• Incoming multimedia mails BEARER SERVICES

• Knowledge of existing Traffic distribution @busy hours

— More accurate data traffic maps

• Knowledge of Performance for individual sites

— I.e: eliminate tall & uncontrollable sites

• Knowledge of areas with excessive GSM multiple servers

— I.e: minimize potential Soft Handoffs problems in 3G

Radio network design results are highly dependant of the

• Cell range & cell capacity are limited by :

• Cell breathing phenomenon

Radio dimensionning : Global estimation of the

 Based on the Link Budget tool

 Set of Link Budget for each

Cell Range/Surface Traffic offered per cell/Area

Max TxUE +/- Hardware Amplifications/Losses

Max Reverse Path Loss 

Between 2 and -2 dBi Feeder (7/8’’) loss/UMTS

1 +33 dBm +1/-3 dB

2 +27 dBm +1/-3 dB

3 +24 dBm +1/-3 dB

Nth = -174+30+10 x Log(B) Nortel Node B NF = 3.3dB

f(environment, service, channel coding)

Margin = Shadow Margin M such as:

Cell radius for a 50% load

Speech 12.2 kbps Data 64 kbps Data 384 kbps

Area 1 Area 2 Area 3

N1 sites N2 sites N3 sites

Cell size Cell capacity adjust

# sites for coverage # sites for traffic

Final number of sites

Resource of the BTS # links vs BTS Resource

# links vs BTS Resource

 Limitation : coverage or traffic

Design strategy & Budget...

Service Areas Site Constraint

UMTS Simulations Traffic Assumptions

MAXIMISE THE SIGNAL INSIDE THE BEST SERVER

MINIMISE THE ENERGY OVERSHOOT TO THE NEIGHBOR CELLS WITH SOME

IMPOSED A DOMINANT SERVER WITH SOME RF DESIGN

Good Design Bad Design

Signals from far BTSs have line of sight

Signal from near BTSs are blocked by terrain

IF SOFT HANDOFF   FORWARD LINK CAPACITY 

Excessive Soft-Handoff Solution : adding

 No frequency plan to overcome bad sites

 GOOD SITE CONFIGURATION IS KEY :

A Indicated Service Availability

Coverage reliability is implied in A,B,C and D

— Pathloss calculations (link budget)

Coverage Maps Service Availability

• Hata cost 231 model

• with diffraction (Deygout) correction

• Ki and Kclutters are calibrated using

• 1800 MHz calibrated models are often shifted

Received power at each bin

Design threshold=BS EIRP-Maximum Path Loss

• Users are randomly

• Standard optimisation after UMTS results analysis (Maps &