Capacity Planning Service for Radio Access CDMA Networks

Doru Calin (1), Andrew Mackay (2), Tom Morawski (1), Hardy Zhang (1) (1) Bell Labs, Alcatel-Lucent, Holmdel, New Jersey, U.S.A (2) Alcatel-Lucent, NZ Ltd, Wellington, New Zealand

Abstract The paper describes a holistic capacity planning methodology for radio access networks and presents a case study focusing on the CDMA technology. It addresses the complex problem of how the Radio Access Network (RAN) should be optimally equipped to accommodate traffic growth (and fluctuations in traffic patterns in broader terms) over time, while fulfilling the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of a Mobile Network Operator. A bottom-up approach is used, i.e. first it evaluates the required resources over the air-interface; then the base stations hardware resources, and finally, the transport/ backhaul domain dimensioning. This methodology provides the rapid and repeatable dimensioning, which is required to implement just-in-time provisioning processes, and support the network cost modeling an operator requires to quickly model quality of service and call plan strategy. The approach has been largely tested with field data and is being used by several mobile network operators.

I. INTRODUCTION Wireless service providers face complex and difficult problems when it comes to deciding how and which segments of their wireless networks should grow while keeping the cost of investment to a minimum. One of the fundamental questions addressed by this paper is: how to evolve a RAN CDMA network so that the Quality of Service target can be met without network over-provisioning?. This constraint creates a complex network planning task, which in order to be solved requires to: (1) Understand the traffic forecast at the network level and (2) Translate realistically and accurately the traffic forecast information into specific requirements for network equipment that should precisely match the fluctuations in traffic over time. In real networks, although the overall traffic tendency is usually for growth, some regions may grow faster than others, while other regions may actually experience a reduction in traffic. Additionally the mix of wireless services (2G/3G Voice, 2G circuit data and 3G data packet) is constantly changing. The capacity planning methodology proposed by this paper has the capability to model different growth scenarios, i.e. it can accommodate both increases and decreases in traffic forecast per service type. Traffic forecast information is processed in order to render it meaningful at the sector level of the RAN. It allows the timely identification of needed equipment for each set of forecast data: where

additional Hardware (HW) is needed, what HW is needed, where equipment is in excess and by how much for a given QoS target. In order to achieve the just-in-time equipment goal, an economically viable process is required that must: - Accurately identify network segments that are subject to growth or downsizing - Allow for fast capacity planning cycles which can be coupled with just in time network provisioning processes. This approach for network planning was developed to cope with changes in traffic patterns; it uses a generic process in order to enable its applicability to any CDMA network and has enjoyed recent interest from multiple service providers. The remainder of this paper contains two sections which give a detailed description of the approach for CDMA RAN evolution and another section that presents a set of typical output results generated by this network planning service. The paper concludes with a set of concluding remarks. II. BOTTOM-UP APPROACH FOR RAN EVOLUTION The capacity planning process begins at the lowest level of the network, the RF carrier level, and gradually moves up to the network transport/backhaul domain (the packet pipes level). The bottom-up approach is illustrated in Figure 1 and focuses on three separate segments of the RAN: (1) Airinterface domain (the segment that links the wireless mobile terminals/devices to the serving base stations); (2) Base station hardware (channel cards); and (3) Backhaul (Packet Pipe) capacity. The dimensioning process in each of these three domains can become complex, depending on the traffic mix composition. The key module to this process is a RAN growth engine (Figure 2). The CDMA 3G-1X network is configured with mixed 2G/3G Voice and Data carriers The RAN growth engine takes as inputs current service measurements of the RAN configuration, traffic mix and loading. Specifically, the input traffic measures are: 2G&3G Primary Erlangs, 2G&3G Total Erlangs, 2G/3G Traffic Proportion, Peak Forward Power, Channel Code Usage, and Forward & Reverse activity. These traffic measures are collected per antenna face for the busiest hour of the busiest day within a week. For instance a month will result in 4

1-4244-0264-6/07/$25.00 2007 IEEE

service measurement data points. These data points are then rolled up into an average to come up with a 'baseline' value. Every week we drop the oldest weeks busy hour and pick-up the latest week traffic measurements, hence every week has a new "rolling" 4 week average value. In this way peaks are normalized and average growth can be trended on a weekly basis. The RAN growth engine gradually processes all three major segments indicated according to capacity engineering rules that are specific to each segment: - II.A). Air-Interface Dimensioning: At the lowest level, the air-interface is dimensioned to meet the required utilization level specified by the QoS objectives. To achieve this, the dimensioning of each sector (antenna face) is done at the RF carrier level. This is the step 1 indicated in Figure 1. The Operator can reflect their air-interface QoS requirements by specifying generic voice Erlang capacity and data throughput thresholds. The Operator has the ability to specify 5 air-interface capacity values: 2G Voice 8k (EC2G8), 2G Voice 13k (EC2G13) and 3G1x Voice Erlangs (EC3G) and 3G1x Forward and Reverse aggregate throughput (kbps). Deriving these values is not a function of this engine, as established guidelines and field tracking of load versus performance targets has allowed these to be network customised over time. Consideration also needs to be given for the technologies deployed on mixed carriers. For example if certain minimum voice quality constraints are placed on 2G (IS95) mobiles where they co-exist with 3G1x mobiles on the same carrier, the overall loading (voice and data) should be kept at 2G limit levels. The values used in the sample results (see Table 2), are those from one operators derived critical trigger guidelines. The measure of predicted Erlang voice capacity is calculated based on the measured and predicted 2G/3G traffic mix using the following formula: 1 ECapacity = %2G voice 8k %2G voice 13k %3G + + EC 2G 8 EC 2 G13 EC 3G where %2G-voice-8k and %2G-voice-13k represents the percentage of the 2G voice traffic generated by mobiles using 8Kbps and 13Kbps vocoders, respectively. %3G represents the percentage of the 3G voice traffic on the same RF carrier. EC2G8, EC2G13 and EC3G represent the air interface capacity limits at the desired QoS per carriersector in mixed 2G/3G carrier system for 2G voice at 8 kbps, 2G voice at 13kbps, and 3G voice, respectively. The measure of predicted packet data capacity is given as aggregate, overall average throughput. The total traffic load (voice Erlangs and data throughput) obtained from averaging over the measurement interval on all antenna faces. The forecast traffic change is then applied per antenna face, and compared to the calculated capacity value to give

an estimate of air-interface utilisations. In this model, a reasonable approximation of the total utilization is considered to be Voice Air Interface Utilization + Maximum{Packet Data Forward Air Interface Utilization & Packet Data Reverse Air Interface Utilization}. %UtilVoice + Max(%Util DataFwd ,%Util Data Re v ) Min # Carrs sec t = AIFutil _ threshold In other words, if in a growth scenario the offered voice traffic corresponds to 75% of the available voice air interface capacity (with zero data traffic), and the offered data traffic corresponds to 75% of the available data air interface capacity (with zero voice traffic), the total air interface demand would be 150%. Where the utilization value becomes >100%, the number of carriers required for that face is calculated as Utilization/100% rounded up. (i.e. a utilization of 101%, requires 2 RF carriers for that antenna face). - II.B). Base Station Hardware: This segment computes the number of Channel Elements (CEs) and CDMA Channel Units (CCU) so that the CCU utilization is kept under a CCU utilization threshold specified by the QoS requirement. It is marked by step 2 in Figure 1. A CE is associated with one traffic channel and performs baseband processing as defined in IS-95 and IS2000 standards [1]. A channel can be designed as a traffic channel, a paging channel or a pilot/sync/access channel. As far as the CCU capacity is concerned, there are three types of CDMA cards that are being used for capacity planning. A CCU 20 supports 20 forward link logical CEs, was originally used for 2G CDMA systems and is still being used in 3G-1X networks to carry mainly the 2G-voice traffic. A CCU 32/ECU 32 supports 64 forward link logical CEs, out of which 32 are for voice, Fundamental Channel (FCH) & Reverse Supplemental Channels (RSCH) data, paging, quick paging, access and pilot channels and the other 32 are used for forward SCH data bursts and the sync channel. On the reverse direction a CCU32/ECU32 has 32 logical CEs. A CCU 64 (or CCU-II) can support 128 forward link logical CEs and 64 reverse logical link CEs. The following simple steps can be used as guidelines for computing the number of CEs and help deciding on the type and number of required CCU cards: A measure of utilization is broken up for 2G, 3G FCH (Fundamental Channel), and 3G SCH (Supplemental Channel). For 2G it is the 2G Total Predicted Traffic CE usage. For 3G FCH, it is the 3G Total Predicted Traffic CE usage. Since CEs are pooled resources, the CE usage is added for all the faces in the same cell for a carrier. The measure of capacity is determined in the following manner: For 2G this would be the number of CEs from CCU20 boards converted to Erlangs, plus the number of Erlangs available from CCU32 boards (of those not being used for 3G voice) minus

overhead channels. It is assumed that the overhead channels are always on the CCU32 boards, and that there are 2 overhead CEs per face per carrier. For 3G data, the Predicted DataAvgChannelUsage% is determined the following way: SumofDataA vTP( kbps) forallface s DataAvgChannelUsage% = 9.6kbpsperCE New CEs/CCU cards need to be added if the computed CCU utilization is above the CCU critical utilization trigger. - II.C). Backhaul Packet Pipes (PP) Dimensioning: The logical transmission entities which link the cell sites to the Core domain (represented in Figure 1 by the 5ESS-DCS (Digital Cellular Switch)) are called Packet Pipes. This analysis segment determines the number of packet pipes and their widths so that the PP utilization is kept under a PP utilization threshold that is specified by the QoS objectives. A CDMA PP is characterized by a variable width from 1 to 16 DS0s, where DS0 stands for Digital Signal Level 0. The DS0s may use either 56 Kbps or 64 Kbps transmission rates. Results shown in this paper consider a transmission rate of 64 Kbps for a DS0. Thus a DS0 is a single 64 Kbps time slice on a transmission line of type T1and/or E1. The following simple steps can be used to dimension the PP links: The baseline numbers of the PP capacity are determined from configuration data obtained from RAVS[2]. The voice utilization is the Predicted Total Erlangs for 2G Voice plus the Predicted Total Erlangs for 3G Voice divided by the packet pipe capacity converted into Erlangs. The PP measure of capacity is obtained by converting DS0s in a carriers PP to PPCU (Packet Pipe Channel Unit). Based on a 64kbps data rate on an E1 transmission facility, a 9DS0 wide PP is equal to 48 PPCUs. This number is then converted to Erlangs. A Packet Pipe Loading Coefficient (PPLC) of 1 is used for the 8Kbps/EVRC calls in the market, and 1.42 for Data calls. New DS0s to PP or even new transmissions lines (PPs) are added if the computed PP utilization is above the PP critical utilization trigger.

capability of collecting cell inventory reports and determining equipment configurations at the RF carrier level. These are: (1) CCU type and number per RF carrier and (2) Packet Pipe configuration: number of Packet Pipes per RF carrier and the widths of each Packet Pipe Service measurements are collected from the customer in the form of peg counts using traffic collecting tools like in [3]; these are traffic type specific metrics, which are then transformed into meaningful traffic metrics that can be used by the capacity computation algorithms and processes. Such metrics are: (1) 2G voice traffic (in Erlangs); (2) 3G voice traffic (in Erlangs); (3) 3G packet data throughput (kbps); (4) 3G packet data average burst rates (kbps that is translated into average Channel Elements required per data burst). Service measurements are collected at the lowest measurement level, the RF carrier level. Traffic forecast provides information on how the traffic is likely to fluctuate over a period of interest. Typically the forecast period is represented in months and customers provide a monthly growth factor. This capacity planning service has the capability to accommodate traffic forecast scenarios per different traffic type (2G traffic, 3G voice traffic, 3G data) and per separate sectors/antenna faces (allows different sectors to grow at different rates). The three inputs from network inventory, service measurements and forecast information, respectively, are fed into the RAN growth engine that processes this information to determine various utilization factors and capacity limits. Variable capacity triggers are used at the air interface, channel elements, packet pipes and overhead channels. The RAN engine contains intelligent blocks with algorithms for dimensioning of RF carriers, CCUs and PPs. For example, the decision to add new RF carriers can be taken at the sector level and will depend on the air-interface utilization factors. For each network configuration, service measurements and traffic forecast input, the RAN Growth Engine generates a RAN Output report that contains detailed information for all the three segments of the analysis discussed earlier (e.g. number of RF carriers, and for each RF carrier, the number of CCU cards and the number of packet pipes and their widths, utilization factors).

III. ITERATIVE PROCESSING FOR JUST-IN-TIME

GROWTH To be able to model different growth scenarios in a meaningful way, the entire network planning process had to be rapid and repeatable and several tools linked as seamlessly as possible were required. Figure 2 illustrates the iterative approach that is used by this service. The network inventory configuration is obtained using inventory tools: Records and Asset Verification Service [RAVS] [2]. RAVS is a network management service that provides a centralized place to access inventory, and configuration data of the network elements. It has the

IV. SAMPLE RESULTS

A growth scenario has been simulated to generate a sample of results produced by this capacity planning service. It was created to show how the predicted network equipment/resources follow up the traffic fluctuations (increase/decrease) on each of the five traffic streams used by the traffic scenario file. The traffic forecast information is presented in Table 1 and represents the evolution of the global offered traffic at the mobile switching (MSC) level. New forecast data is typically available for well-specified time intervals (e.g. every N months, for example on a

monthly basis). This is indicated in Table 1 with a time stamp T-i (i is any integer between 1 and 9). The traffic is broken down per individual traffic type as follows: 2G voice traffic, 3G voice traffic, packet data on the Forward link (base station to mobile) at Busy Hour (BH), packet data on the Reverse link (mobile to base station) at Busy Hour (BH) and the burst rate of the Forward Supplemental Channel (FSCH). In order to render the traffic evolution more meaningful, both absolute traffic and percentage of traffic growth with respect to the previous iteration are illustrated. For example, 110% 2G traffic growth at T-1 (second column in Table 1) means a 10% increase in traffic (corresponds to the absolute value of 1,362.05 Erlangs) with respect to the initial value 1238.23. The CDMA 3G-1X RAN configuration used in this paper contains 210 cell sites. Base stations are a mixture of modular cells or micro cells. Each cell site in this configuration has up to three sectors for a modular cell and up to 6 sectors for a micro cell. The total number of sectors is 548, the maximum number of RF carriers per sector was 2 and there were a total number of 590 sector-RF carriers at the beginning of the analysis.
Network Growth (MSC Level)
Primary Traffic Initial T-1 Growth % T-2 Growth % T-3 Growth % T-4 Growth % T-5 Growth % T-6 Growth % T-7 Growth % T-8 Growth % T-9 Growth % 2G Voice BH (Erlangs) 1238.23 1,362.05 110% 1,906.87 140% 1,906.87 100% 1,906.87 100% 1,906.87 100% 1,906.87 100% 476.72 25% 47.67 10% 119.18 250% FSCH 3G Voice Packet Data Packet Data Average CE BH Fwd BH Rev BH Usage per (Erlangs) (Kbps) (Kbps) Burst (CE) 3241.24 281.57 160.40 4720.26 3,565.36 309.72 176.44 5,192.28 110% 110% 110% 110% 3,565.36 309.72 176.44 5,192.28 100% 100% 100% 100% 4,991.51 309.72 176.44 5,192.28 140% 100% 100% 100% 4,991.51 464.59 176.44 5,192.28 100% 150% 100% 100% 4,991.51 464.59 317.59 5,192.28 100% 100% 180% 100% 4,991.51 464.59 317.59 10,384.56 100% 100% 100% 200% 2,495.75 162.61 95.28 2,596.14 50% 35% 30% 25% 1,871.82 81.30 90.51 3,894.21 75% 50% 95% 150% 4,679.54 203.26 226.28 9,735.53 250% 250% 250% 250%

Parameters
Voice Grade of Service (Loss Probability) Data Grade of Service (Queuing Delay) (sec) AIF Capacity Pole Point AIF Critical Utilization Threshold/Trigger CCU Critical Utilization Threshold/Trigger PP Critical Utilization Threshold/Trigger Peak SCH Rate Reduction at Full Rate 2G Voice (EVRC) Capacity Limit EC2G8 (Erlangs) 2G Voice (13kbps) Capacity Limit EC2G13 (Erlangs) 3G Voice (EVRC) Capacity Limit EC3G (Erlangs) 3G-1X Fwd Capacity Limit (kbps) 3G-1X Rev Capacity Limit (kbps)

Value
2% 4 55% 100% 100% 100% 100% 13.2 7 18.4 84 84

Table 2: System Parameters - IV.A). Air Interface Dimensioning and Analysis: The RF carrier design algorithm employed in this paper uses a conservative assumption that the service provider does not remove air-interface equipment found in excess, as the airinterface is usually the most important bottleneck segment of the RAN. Figure 3 shows how the number of cumulative sector-RF carriers across the entire network evolves over time. The notion of sector-RF carrier links an RF carrier to a particular sector and is the most appropriate way to specify the spectrum requirements at each sector of the RAN. There were 590 sector-RF carriers initially. At the baseline this number is corrected to 618. Overall, 134 sector-RF carriers have been added by the end of the study
Cum ulativ eN umber of sector-RF Carriers 800 700 600 590 500 400 300 200 100 0 Initial T-1 T-3 T-5 T-7 T -9 618 627 657

717 722 724 724 724 724 724

Table 1: Traffic Forecast information

At the baseline, the optimal just-in time equipment is determined by comparing the computed utilization factors at the air-interface, CCU and PP with pre-determined utilization thresholds. The addition of new elements happens when the utilization factors gets above the threshold values. Table 2 contains the engineering parameters and their values (they should be interpreted as settings in agreement with one operators derived critical trigger guidelines) used to generate the results discussed in the following sections:

Figure 3: Cumulative number of sector-RF carriers

IV.B). CCU Cards Dimensioning and Analysis: The initial network equipment consists of CCU 20 and CCU 32 cards only. As the traffic grows, new CCU cards will be added to accommodate the growth, thus multiple options are possible depending on which type of cards the growth is directed to. Growing into CCU

20 and CCU 32 allows for a finer granularity but on the other hand, requires more slots to support the added cards.

the incoming traffic. Initially there were 306 packet pipes cumulating a total number of 2238 DS0s. Also, only one packet pipe per RF carrier existed. At the baseline, 12 RF carriers require an additional packet pipe. Then the number of packet pipes and their widths gradually increase until the iteration T-6, to cope with the continuous increase in the incoming traffic. At the sixth iteration, when the peak traffic is experienced, a total number of 470 packet pipes (a total of 4920 DS0s) were required, 164 more than at the initial configuration. Out of these 470 packet pipes, 387 were PP1 and 83 were PP2 (83 RF Carriers require two packet pipes). Iterations T-7 and T-8 show a reduction in the number of required PPs and DS0s since the traffic demand was smaller according to the traffic forecast scenario. Both T-7 and T-8 require the same number of PPs (387) and only one packet pipe suffices per RF carrier. One can notice that the number of PP1 was actually the largest number across all the simulated scenarios and it is exactly the number of PP1 required at the peak traffic (T-6). This is because all the RF carriers require at least one PP and since the RF carriers in
excess were not removed when the traffic decreased, the traffic continues to be distributed across all the existing RF carriers and all the 387 continue to be used. However their utilization factor is much smaller at T-7 and T-8 than at T-9. Traffic increased again at iteration T-9, but since the overall incoming traffic is smaller than the one offered at iteration T-6, only 21 PP2 (3994 DS0s) will be required compared to 83 (4920 DS0s) at iteration T-6.

Figure 4: Cumulative number of CCU20 & CCU32

Certainly, CCU 64 cards provide more room for growth and take less slots, however they are more expensive than CCU 32 and CCU 20. In absolute, the decision on what is recommended to use takes into account the card filling rate (that is dependent on the traffic forecast information) and cost. This paper presents the output of the growth algorithm into the CCU20 and CCU32 cards. Figure 4 displays the evolution of CCU20 and CCU32 over the study period. - IV.C). Packet Pipes (PP) Dimensioning and Analysis: Packet Pipes widths can use any value between 1 and 16 DS0s in the algorithm used in this case. Figure 5 shows the total number of PPs per iteration.
Total # of PP1 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 Initial T-1 T-3 T-5 T-7 T-9 306 306 313 337 380 385 387 387 387 387 387 0 12 23 20 40 40 39 0 0 Total # of PP2 83 21

V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
One of the main goals of the Capacity Planning Service for CDMA RAN Evolution is to offer a cost effective solution that will support the wireless service providers in their efforts to optimally evolve/grow their CDMA RAN. Optimality refers to meeting the QoS target required without over-provisioning the network. This goal led to the notion of just-in-time network provisioning, which creates attractive opportunities for service providers such as: - Model multiple scenarios to help understanding the impacts of optimal versus less than optimal network configurations. This offers flexibility to the service providers to determine multiple network configurations for the same traffic forecast input, to know the anticipated performance of each projected network configuration and to select consciously suitable configuration(s) - Use network growth modelling to support financial modelling in order to help service providers to plan network expansions and new service introductions - Achieve cost saving reductions proportional to the gap between over provisioning cost and what is actually needed to fulfill the QoS targets The flexibility introduced by multiple variable triggers and the automation described above allows for quick processing of a set of what-if scenarios. This is extremely important when assessing the trade-off between cost and network performance in a multitude of scenarios that can be envisaged to grow a CDMA RAN network. This service has the capability to model the growth of both voice and data traffic and is currently extended to other wireless systems that use access technologies other than CDMA, primarily to the UMTS networks and their evolutions.

Figure 5: Total number of Packet Pipes per Iteration

Up to two PPs per RF carrier may be required to support

REFERENCES [1] 3RD Generation Partnership Project 2 3GPP2, Introduction to cdma2000 Standards for Spread Spectrum Systems Release C, 3GPP2 C.S0001-C Version 1.0, May 28, 2002. < http://www.3gpp2.org/public_html/specs/C.S0001-C_v1.0.pdf>.

[2] Lucent Worldwide Services, OfficeReality Asset Verification Services - Records & Asset Verification Service (RAVS). [3] Watchmark Prospect, http://www.watchmark.com [4] Lucent Technologies, System Capacity Monitoring and Engineering Guidelines (SCME), Augusat 2003.

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B S C o n g e s tio n : Add CEs A d d C C U cards

1 A I F C o n g e s t io n : A d d R F C a r r ie r s

Figure 1: Bottom-Up Approach for RAN Growth

Run Iteratively for many What Ifs?to define alternative configurations

RA N Configuration at (t+ T)

Variable C apacity Triggers

AIF Critical Triggers O verhead Channel Critical Triggers CE Critical Triggers PP Critical Triggers Output R eports for CO RE Growth Engine

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To C ore E ngine

G rowth - E !s required

Traffic Forecast

Traffic (T)

Traffic Distribution per RA N elem ent at (t+ T)

Figure 2: Iterative Approach for RAN Growth