Designing Better Indoor Wireless Networks

RanPlan Brings Indoor Design to New Service Levels

According to recent surveys from DoCoMo, more than 60% of voice and 90% of data services now take place
indoors. This is maybe not that surprising as we tend to spend more time inside and tend to watch videos and
surf the web on our tablets and smart phones sitting down, rather than on the move. Traditionally, operators
have designed their indoor networks using external cell sites to penetrate into buildings, believing this to be
more cost effective than installing separate, independent indoor systems. While this may have been OK in the 2G
era, as we move to higher frequency bands with 3G and 4G/LTE, penetrating walls and delivering capacity from
the outside in, becomes more difficult.
Large complex building
structures and the vast variety
of materials used to build them
also make it impossible to ensure
a signal penetrates evenly using
external transmitters. And small
cells on lampposts will not work

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with tall 50-floor buildings.

Seven stories is considered
as a reasonable maximum for
outdoor signal penetration. The
problems of in-building wireless
design are further compounded
when it comes to combined

indoor-outdoor facilities such as

campuses, CBDs (Central Business
Districts), stadiums, airports and
stations.
As we move to small cell
architectures, the lower costs

involved in deploying indoor

small cells contrast strongly
with outdoors and make a
more compelling business case.
For example, the units can be
physically less robust because
they operate in less harsh,

January - February 2014

supervised environments; they

can be more easily installed and
connected for power; and they
dont need wireless backhaul. In
addition, RF power levels used by
metrocells can be anything up to
5W, but anything larger than 1W
is often too bulky and unsuitable
for lamppost mounting due to
their size and environmental
impact. This compares to indoor
small cells that are often 250mW,
with 1W as a typical maximum.
So, the combination of increasing
demand for indoor network
capacity, the problems of relying
on external cell sites and the
cost benefits of special indoor
installations means that there
is a growing need for new
radio planning, design and
optimisation tools to determine
the most effective locations,
configuration and parameters for
indoor systems.
Telecom Review recently visited
with Paul Kenworthy of RanPlan
to give our readers a good
perspective on indoor network
design. RanPlans design tools
cover both DAS and small cell
indoor deployments so they are
a very good reference point for
proper indoor network design.
Paul told us, We have quite a bit
of advanced functionality on the
radio side. When planning indoor
networks we cover many areas
but some of the most important
include coverage and capacity.
Bandwidth needs are certainly
driving the introduction of small
cells for indoor use.
Whereas outdoor radio network
planning tools take a map of an
area as an input and normally

include a GIS module and

outdoor radio propagation
prediction engine, typically with
20 to 100 meter resolution, this is
not detailed enough to evaluate
in-building network performance.
Radio planning for inside
buildings needs to start with
precise 3D modelling in order
to support accurate network
design and optimisation. The
building has to be defined in
as much detail as possible,
which can be a time-consuming
process. Fortunately, there are
new software aided 3D methods
that can automate the process by
importing two dimensional floor
plans such as AutoCAD files, free
style drawings or photographic
images to create accurate 3D
building models.
The materials used in the
construction of a building also
play an extremely important role
in the propagation of indoor radio
signals. Different materials can
have wildly different effects on
the transmission, reflection and
diffractions of radio waves. This
can be achieved by importing
a detailed materials database,
which includes all their properties.
Indoor Planning
Once the 3D model is completed,
it is possible to start the RF
planning process and look at the
signal distribution throughout
the building on each floor.
This is especially important for
high floors where there is often
more interference from outdoor
macrocells.
The good design of signal
strength near the windows in

particular reduces the chance

of ping-pong handover to
macrocells where the handset
toggles repeatedly between
indoor and outdoor cell sites.
Lower floors in buildings also
have to control the signal leakage
from the building to outdoors,
otherwise there is a higher
chance of outages and handover
failures can arise. A useful target
distance would be that at 10
meters from the building, 95% of
the area would have a signal level
of -95dBm.
With up to 80% of data traffic
already being consumed indoors,
Ranplan has launched iBuildNet
and iBuildNet-Fi for in-building
wireless network design,
simulation, optimisation and
deployment.
The new Ranplan tools
revolutionize the design of
2G/3G/4G(LTE) and Wi-Fi
networks, along with Tetra
and PMR systems for single
buildings such as hotels, offices
and shopping centers, as well
as combined indoor-outdoor
facilities including campuses,
CBDs (Central Business Districts),
stadiums, airports and stations.
With powerful 3D modelling,
advanced algorithms and
highly-automated processes,
Ranplan delivers a 50% increase
in productivity for system
integrators compared with using
currently available tools and
typical CAPEX/OPEX savings for
operators of 20-30%.
RF planning for indoor
installations is far more complex
than outdoor deployments
and has to take into account

issues such as signal distribution

throughout complex building
structures made of different
materials and possible
interference from outdoor
cells. With fast and accurate 3D
modelling and signal coverage
prediction techniques, iBuildNet
can be used to design and
simulate a wide range of wireless
networks from microcells,
repeaters and distributed antenna
system to heterogeneous
networks with femtocells and WiFi. It also supports passive, active
and hybrid signal distribution
as well as multi-standard and
frequency band solutions.
Ranplan is Leading the Way for
Indoor Mobile Network Design
China Mobile, the largest mobile
carrier in the world, has selected
Ranplans iBuildNet software
tools for in-building wireless
network design, simulation and
optimization. They will also use
iBuildNet to investigate channel
modeling for MIMO for LTE and
LTE-Advanced, along with vital
3GPP standardization work.
Ranplan is a wireless technology
company that produces software
tools for in-building wireless
network design, simulation,
optimization, radio propagation
modeling, and 3D building
modeling. Ranplan also provides
consulting and training services
and is at the forefront of research
and development for indooroutdoor radio propagation,
femto/small cell, automatic RAN
planning and optimization,
3D building modeling, smart
building and heterogeneous
networks (HetNets). Ranplan has
participated in many research
projects in these areas that have

25

been funded predominantly by

EU FP7 and TSB. The company
employees have also contributed
to some of the earliest and/
or most widely cited work in
interference control and SON for
femto/small cell and HetNets.
China Mobile has selected
iBuildNet to evaluate third-party
network design and deployment
as well as for the frequency
planning of small cell and
heterogeneous networks. One of
the key features for China Mobile
is the ability to analyze and
minimize radio signal leakage.
Ranplans iBuildNet-Fi is a
powerful carrier grade WiFi network planning and
optimisation tool designed
especially for high-capacity,
combined indoor/outdoor
venues. It features advanced 3D
modelling techniques; automatic
allocation for Access Point (AP)
sites, Tx power and channel for
Wi-Fi networks with thousands
of APs; intelligent interference
control; throughput distribution
and capacity analysis; along
with joint Wi-Fi and LTE network
deployment.
In the 2G era, operators
have traditionally designed
networks using outdoor cell
sites to penetrate into buildings,
believing this to be more cost
effective than installing separate,
independent indoor systems,
said Professor Jie Zhang, Principal
Consultant at Ranplan and
Chair in Wireless Systems at the
University of Sheffield. But as we
move to higher frequency bands
with 3G and 4G, penetrating walls
becomes more difficult, while
at the same time the volume of
indoor traffic is predicted to grow
exponentially. This means that
in-building solutions become

26

more important, to serve high bit

rate services and reuse spectrum,
particularly for high capacity
venues. iBuildNet and iBuildNetFi represent a new generation of
highly-automated tools to deliver
optimised in-building networks
with advanced 3D building
modelling, intelligent algorithms
for cell location, antenna and
channel optimisation and
the ability to work alongside
small cell SON (Self Organising
Networks) technology.
The Ranplan tools can be used to
assess where problems may arise
such as handover failures due to
signal leakage from in-building
systems; and where antennas
and trunking are hidden inside
ceilings, below floors or other less
accessible places, the design can
be validated before installation
to avoid costly modifications.
Ranplan tools also co-ordinate
between indoor and outdoor
environments such as campuses,
stadiums and airports with high
resolution typically within 20
cubic centimetres along with
interference analysis and control,
user throughput and network
capacity analysis as well as
optimisation for 2G, 3G and LTE.
Another factor to recognise is
that 2G/3G/LTE and Wi-Fi, at both
2.4GHz and 5GHz, often co-exist
within the same building and
sometimes even at the same
antenna. Its therefore important
to be able to balance the uplink
and downlink levels for all of
these signals. Further complexity
arises where MIMO (Multiple
Input/Multiple Output) and
polarised antennas are used to
enhance network capacity. Where
antennas are hidden inside
ceilings or other less accessible
places, it is important to validate
the design before installation

to avoid costly modifications

afterwards. An operator can also
use an in-building RF planning
tool to manage their indoor
networks electronically in a
central repository, while proper
planning tools make the system
design and trunking/installation
easier and reduce the chance of
remedial corrections later.
How LTE/LTE-Advanced Affects
RF planning
There are a number of planning
issues involved as we progress
from 2G/3G/HSPA to LTE/LTEAdvanced. Firstly, deploying
LTE at 2.6GHz has a radically
different coverage footprint from
900MHz or 1800MHz used for
2G/3G. The indoor penetration is
much worse and handover time
for LTE is shorter, reducing the
room for error. Secondly, MIMO
has to be modelled, which adds
network complexity, particularly
indoors. Then, when you move
to full HetNets (Heterogeneous
Networks), there is a much
more complicated interference
scenario to be considered.
Traditional interference coordination wont work, which is
why eICIC (enhanced Inter-Cell
Interference Co-ordination) was
developed. Finally, when many
small cells are deployed within
the same coverage area, mobility
management will be much more
complicated. There will be greater
loss of handover if the system is
not designed well, resulting in
outages, dropped calls or poor
quality of service for users.
Paul noted, A common
problem in LTE indoor small cell
deployments is that you need
to avoid interference with the
existing macro network to avoid
leakage between networks.
Studies of the use of higher order

MIMO, particularly for in-building

scenarios, evaluate which are
the best MIMO configurations
for maximum performance. Its
a very complicated issue. For
some in-building situations, there
appears to be little benefit from
using more than 2x2 MIMO. From
a practical point of view, it could
be expensive if using a passive
DAS distribution system indoors
and would mean a lot of extra
cables.
Tightly co-ordinated HetNets
using CoMP (Co-ordinated
Multi-Point) can bring significant
performance improvements at
the edge of the cell coverage.
This feature will be expensive to
install, requiring closely aligned
and co-ordinated remote radio
head equipment rather than
small cells. This extra cost may
be justified in a few specific
use cases where it wouldnt be
easy to install small cells. For
example, imagine a very large
public square with antennas
surrounding the area but most
of the traffic at the centre. These
features should work very well in
such a scenario. Football or soccer
stadiums are also appropriate for
this approach.
It is clear that the greater use of
in-building small cells is creating
the need for a new generation
of RF planning tools such as
Ranplans new iBuildNet that
can coordinate views across
both indoor and outdoor
environments. The adoption of
SON (Self-Organizing Networks)
will also help to optimise the
systems after installation, with RF
planning tools used to identify
specific problem areas between
indoor/outdoor coordination.
The alternative is to encourage
everyone to spend more time
outside!