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Wireless Access
KLAS JOHANSSON
KLAS JOHANSSON
TRITAS3RST0520
ISSN 14009137
ISRN KTH/RST/R--05/20--SE
Abstract
A cost efficient design of radio access networks is crucial for a continued growth
of mobile data services. In this thesis we study two opportunities that operators
have to lower their infrastructure costs; adapting network deployment to local
variations in traffic demand and multi-operator resource sharing.
With an increasing number of radio access technologies available, finding the
proper mix of systems is a critical issue for the operators. For this purpose,
we propose a model for estimating the total infrastructure cost as a function
of average traffic density. The main input parameters are the average cost,
throughput, and range per base station. Based on a log-normally distributed,
spatially correlated, traffic density map the network is dimensioned for a given set
of base station types. With this network cost model, we illustrate how the cost
depends on average traffic density for different single and multi-access network
concepts. Moreover, we identify how the respective subsystem in a multi-access
network should be improved in order to most effectively cut network costs.
Mobile infrastructure costs can also be reduced through network sharing
between multiple operators, and this has lately been put in focus during the
deployment of the third generations mobile systems. With a joint radio access
network, problems may arise in terms of free-rider effects, and there is a risk for
consciously misleading traffic forecasts with the objective to hide marketing plans
for competitors. This motivates a fair radio resource allocation between sharing
operators, in particular for cellular systems where over-dimensioning is quite
expensive. To avoid a reservation of radio resources, which decreases average
capacity utilization, we propose a load based priority queuing as an alternative
solution to this problem. Even without preemption of connected users, we show
that blocking levels can be sustained for operators with less than agreed load.
This comes, however, at the cost of increased call setup times during congestion.
Furthermore, roaming between overlapping mobile networks could be exploited to increase user data rates, in particular at the cell border. By means of
simulations with three similar cellular overlaid networks, we quantify the gain
with national roaming for an urban scenario. The gains are, thanks to increased
diversity against shadow fading, significant already with almost co-located base
stations.
iii
Acknowledgements
Half way through the doctoral studies, I would like to take this opportunity to
express my gratitude towards a number of persons who have contributed to this
work. To start with, the collaboration with Anders Furuskar, Johan Hultell, and
my supervisor Professor Jens Zander, as well as the previous work with Martin
Kristensson at Nokia Networks has been very rewarding. I could not wish for a
more professional and creative atmosphere!
Furthermore, the feedback from, and interesting discussions with, Magnus
Almgren, Bo Karlson, Peter Karlsson, Perttu Laakso, Jonas Lind, Professor
Contents
I
1 Introduction
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.2 Scope of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
1.3 Thesis Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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4 Concluding Remarks
4.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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References
59
Appendices
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vii
viii
Contents
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II
77
Paper Reprints
79
87
95
103
109
117
List of Tables
2.1
2.2
2.3
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27
30
3.1
50
ix
List of Figures
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
2.5
2.6
2.7
2.8
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3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
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List of Abbreviations
1G, . . . , 4G
3GPP
AP
ARPU
BS
CAPEX
CDMA
DCH
DSL
GSM
HSDPA
IEEE
IEEE 802.11a/b/g
MNO
MVNO
O&M
OPEX
QoS
RAN
RRM
S3G
SIR
SLA
UMTS
WCDMA
WLAN
xiii
Part I
Chapter 1
Introduction
In this thesis we treat two topics of relevance for a cost efficient capacity expansion of mobile data networks. More specifically:
1. How mobile network operators (MNO) could exploit various radio access
technologies in order to cut infrastructure costs.
2. The specific technical problems and possibilities that arise when multiple
operators (service providers) share the same radio access network (RAN).
Next we will outline the background to the study and a few underlying assumptions, and thereafter define and motivate the general problem addressed and
the thesis scope. More detailed problem descriptions and a review of previous
related work are included in Chapter 2 and 3 respectively, which also summarize
the included papers.
1.1
Background
Chapter 1. Introduction
the fact that packet switched transmission in principle allow users to always
be connected without allocating expensive network resources, and
an open network architecture which basically allowed anyone to provide
interesting services and applications.
Today the majority of the population in industrialized countries is connected
and penetration rates for residential access have more than doubled since the
millennium shift [2, 3].
In the mid 1990s, the business cases of mobile telephony and the Internet
merged into a common vision the Mobile Internet. The business logic seemed
obvious; mobile users could access a tremendous amount of useful and entertaining Internet based services wherever they where. This would clearly open up for
new revenue streams and the Mobile Internet was incredibly hyped. However,
while predictions at that time suggested that the average data traffic volumes
would reach 150MB per user in January 2004 [4], voice services are still prevailing
in most countries.
1.1. Background
with wide area coverage and support for mobile usage are still quite expensive.
Mobile telephony, on the other hand, has evidently been a good stroke of business and the demand for coverage and mobility has driven the mobile systems
towards
base stations (BS) with high output power and highly mounted antennas,
sophisticated mechanisms for mobility management and fast handovers
between cells, and
complex billing systems supporting various pricing strategies (see further
Appendix A.2).
As a consequence, entry barriers have been high in the wireless infrastructure
market, and the cost of switching supplier is an important criteria when an MNO
purchase new infrastructure.
A key enabler for the success of mobile telephony has been the availability of
spectrum. Since voice and messaging services (personal communications) only
require a low average and peak data rate per session, a relatively small bandwidth
of radio spectrum is sufficient. Regulators have therefore, so far, been able to put
spectrum in suitable frequency bands at the operators disposal.2 In conjunction
with the low data rate requirements per link, the maximum feasible range per
BS has also been quite high (in the order of 1030km in 1G and 2G). Hence,
relatively few BSs were required for (almost) full area coverage and today we
have nationwide coverage for mobile telephony in most developed countries.
The situation is quite different for services requiring higher peak and mean
data rate per session. From the supply perspective, higher data rates imply
both higher bandwidth requirements, which have been difficult to find in lower
bands, and shorter feasible communication distances. This fact complicates
spectrum assignment procedures and requires denser networks (which might be
quite expensive). Already in third generation systems (3G), targeted for data
rates in the order of 100kbps with full area coverage, cell radii in the order
of a few hundred meters are required to obtain good indoor coverage in urban
environments. Hence, significantly higher data rates (that is, > 1Mbps) are
most likely economically feasible only in specific places, like malls and large
enterprizes, and not in general.
Spectrum Regulation
Spectrum allocation procedures have varied considerably between countries and
services, and is an intricate question from both a technical, societal, and business
2 Both the carrier frequency and bandwidth strongly affect what combination of area coverage and data rate per link that can be served with a BS. Propagation path gain decrease as
a function of carrier frequency and, according to the Shannon bound, (R = W log 2 (1 + SIR)),
data rates R increase linearly with system bandwidth W , but only logarithmical with the
signal to interference ratio (SIR).
Chapter 1. Introduction
perspective [6,8]. Radio spectra have traditionally been reserved for specific services and technologies, and concessions are handed out (primarily) to broadcasting companies, military organizations, and telecom operators. This paradigm is
currently being challenged, and with an increasing number of analogue radio systems being replaced by digital successors, large portions of spectrum is at stake
also in lower frequency bands. These bands are very attractive for a plethora of
mobile services, including broadcasting, personal communications, and internet
access.
Parts of the radio spectrum have also been allocated to low-power transmitters, which do not require a license (for example, the bands used for WLAN and
other short range technologies). Despite that the range is poor at high frequencies, it is most often sufficient for indoor systems. Moreover, an advantage with
high carrier frequency for indoor BSs is that the channel can be reused already
in adjacent buildings and floors, and there is, as oppose to for mobile systems,
no particular need for exclusive spectrum use rights.
The high value of radio spectrum adequate for mobile services was evident in
the the recent 3G license auctions in Europe. To use auctions or not, and how
to design the auction process, has been discussed for more than forty years [6,9].
Typically only a few (35) MNOs are currently targeted per market to ensure
that reasonable quantities are available at affordable prices, while allowing operators to cover their fixed costs [6,10]. However, to keep license fees at reasonable
levels (avoiding the winners curse phenomenon3 ), it has been stressed that
at least one more license than in previous systems has to be awarded when new
systems are introduced [6].
Since the spectrum allocation process becomes increasingly complex, especially considering the multitude of systems and services available, alternative
solutions are currently being investigated. Instead of long term allocations,
spectrum is envisaged to be assigned more dynamically for different services and
technologies, and with finer granularity; see for example [12, 13].
Inter-connection Regulation
Both in the copper-line access network and mobile networks, regulators try to
stimulate competition by enforcing the owner of the access networks to allow for
independent (virtual) operators to resell access subscriptions. In particular for
residential broadband subscriptions, the legacy telephony networks have proven
to be sufficient for the majority of consumers, and the low-cost Digital Subscriber
Lines (DSL) have clearly boosted the residential broadband penetration in many
countries [3]. As demand takes off, DSL operators can then expand their business
gradually and eventually roll-out their own fiber networks instead of facing huge
investments upfront for the last mile access network.
3 Meaning that the winner of an auction realizes that the object was more worth for him
than the other participants, and thus overbid [11].
1.2
Research Approach
The cost of providing mobile data services can be reduced in several ways. If
we limit the scope to the RAN, which typically constitutes the bulk of the
infrastructure cost, an MNO could in principle choose to:
Improve the physical layer transmission techniques.
Exploit service requirements and propagation channel characteristics in
radio resource management (RRM).
Automate the network planning and optimization processes.
Acquire more radio spectrum in sufficiently low frequency bands.
4 Sunk costs have traditionally been high for telecom operators, both for mobile networks
and fixed line telephony infrastructure.
5 Once the cabling is in place, data rates in fixed networks can readily be increased by
upgrading routers, switches, etc. That is, electronics, for which the cost diminishes according
to Moores law.
Chapter 1. Introduction
Contributions
More specifically, we will analyze
the infrastructure cost of wireless networks adapted to a geographically
varying traffic load, and
multi-operator resource sharing.
Brief problem statements and a summary of the contributions within the respective research topic are provided next.
Infrastructure Cost Modeling
Operators can choose to deploy specific cellular indoor solutions and WLAN to
provide coverage for high data rates in specific places. This typically requires a
high willingness to pay per user, and is today most common in airports, hotels,
etc. Traditionally, though, hierarchical cell structures have also been used as
capacity fill-in in zones with high traffic density. However, with WLAN technology available, operators also have the option to deploy multi-access networks
instead of hierarchical cell structures if traffic demand increases significantly.
While it is widely accepted that future networks will consist of a blend of
radio access technologies [1922], less is known about what cost savings that can
be expected with such heterogeneous wireless networks. The primary objective
6 For some specific places and services, for instance fixed wireless access, higher data rates
could still be worthwhile to offer, but such deployments are outside the scope of this thesis.
herein is therefore to quantify to what extent an operator can lower its infrastructure costs by utilizing BSs with different characteristics to cover a non-uniform
spatial traffic density. In particular, we will compare the cost of using WLAN
access points in traffic hot spots with a conventional (single-access) hierarchical
cell structure. Moreover, the need for improved cellular systems and alternative,
user deployed, expansion strategies will also be considered.
For this purpose an infrastructure cost model has been developed, which has
been used to evaluate different combinations of single and multi-access systems
in the following conference contributions (which are summarized in Chapter 2):
1. Klas Johansson, Anders Furuskar, Peter Karlsson, and Jens Zander, Relation between base station characteristics and cost structure in cellular
systems, In Proc. PIMRC 2004 [23].
2. Anders Furuskar, Klas Johansson, and Magnus Almgren, An Infrastructure Cost Evaluation of Single- and Multi-Access Networks with Heterogeneous Traffic Density, In Proc. VTC2005 Spring [24].
3. Klas Johansson and Anders Furuskar, Cost efficient capacity expansion
strategies using multi-access networks, In Proc. VTC2005 Spring [25].
4. Klas Johansson, On the cost efficiency of user deployed access points
integrated in mobile networks, In Proc. RVK 2005 [26].
The author of the thesis was main responsible for the first, third, and fourth paper. Anders Furuskar contributed with significant parts of the simulation models
and was the primary author of the second paper. All modeling and the research
approach has been developed jointly by the author and Anders Furuskar. Peter Karlsson contributed with valuable comments and ideas in particular on the
first paper. Magnus Almgren assisted with the initial research approach and
network dimensioning principles used in the three last papers. Jens Zander has
as advisor been involved and provided valuable feedback and guidance in all
papers.
Multi-Operator Resource Sharing
Network sharing has recently been put into practice by some 3G operators and
the first operational networks were recently deployed in Sweden [2729]. 7 Technically, multiple operators access the same RAN using, to a large extent, mechanisms originally designed for international roaming. In a more general sense,
roaming based network sharing also includes Mobile Virtual Network Operators
(MVNO). National roaming between geographically overlapping cellular networks could also be exploited by operators to reduce their risk exposure when
introducing new services.
7 Rudimentary forms of network sharing, such as site and antenna sharing were widely used
also in 2G; see further Appendix B for a summary of network sharing methods.
10
Chapter 1. Introduction
The advantages with network sharing are promising, especially when considering the new business possibilities for MVNOs (see further Appendix B.1)
and that mobile data services could become economically viable also in less populated areas. However, there are considerable drawbacks in terms of reduced
differentiation possibilities as well as administrative and technical overhead.
Hence, the transaction costs may be significant, in particular for incumbent
operators [2731], which will be discussed further in Section 3.1.
We have studied technical solutions to one specific problem that has been
raised; namely how network resources can be allocated in a fair way between
operators sharing a cellular network. We will also investigate to what extent
coverage for higher data rates can be increased by means of national roaming.
This in order to further examine what the long-term use case of network sharing
might be for mobile network operators. These two problems were addressed in
the following two papers (summarized in Chapter 3):
5. Klas Johansson, Martin Kristensson, and Uwe Schwarz, Radio Resource
Management in Roaming Based Multi-Operator WCDMA networks, In
Proc. VTC2004 Spring [32].
6. Johan Hultell and Klas Johansson, An Estimation of the Achievable User
Throughput with National Roaming, Submitted to VTC2006 Spring [33].
The author of the thesis was main contributor to the first paper, for which
Martin Kristensson, Uwe Schwarz, and also Preben Mogensen contributed with
valuable feedback, both on the initial ideas and concept, and in identifying use
cases for fair radio resource sharing between operators. The second paper was
joint work with Johan Hultell where both contributed to an equal extent in all
aspects. Jens Zander provided feedback and guidance for both of the papers.
Other Related Papers
The following papers are related to, but not included, in the thesis and discuss
multi-operator RRM respectively business models for user deployed access points
(AP) at a conceptual level.
Johan Hultell, Klas Johansson, and Jan Markendahl, Business models and
resource management for shared wireless networks, In Proc. VTC2004
Fall [31].
Klas Johansson, Jan Markendahl, and Per Zetterberg, Relaying access
points and related business models for low cost mobile systems, In Proc.
Austin Mobility Roundtable, 2004 [34].
Klas Johansson, Jonas Lind, Miguel Berg, Johan Hultell, Niklas Kviselius,
Jan Markendahl, and Mikael Prytz, Integrating User Deployed Local Access Points in a Mobile Operators Network, In Proc. WWRF meeting
#12, 2004 [35].
1.3
11
Thesis Outline
The thesis consists of two parts. The first part contains a presentation of the
results and discussion of the included papers of the respective topic in Chapter 2
and Chapter 3. The thesis is summarized and recommendations for future work
are outlined in Chapter 4. In the second part, consisting of Chapter 510, the
series of papers that constitute the contributions of this thesis are reprinted
in verbatim. We have also included a brief overview of commonly used cost
terminology, pricing strategies, and network sharing use cases in Appendix AB.
Chapter 2
Infrastructure Cost
Modeling
In this chapter, we will analyze to what extent the incremental cost associated
with increasing traffic volumes can be reduced by adapting network capacity
and base station capabilities to local variations in demand. More specifically, we
will compare multi-access networks with conventional hierarchical cell structures.
Whereas the former refers to systems where multiple radio access technologies
(cellular and WLAN) are accessed with a multi-radio capable terminal, the latter describes a single-access network constituted of various cell sizes (macro,
micro, etc.). As compared to hierarchical cell structures, multi-access networks
in essence have the benefit that other (simpler) protocol stacks and larger (unlicensed) spectrum bandwidths can be used in local access systems (WLAN),
yielding cheaper systems and higher data rates. The advantage with hierarchical cell structures, on the other hand, is that handsets and central systems only
need to support one access method.
It is well known that considerable cost savings can be obtained by adapting
radio access systems to the data rates, capacity, and degree of coverage required.
For example, a system deployed in rural areas need a long range, but relatively
few users are served per BS. Consequently, a smaller chunk of spectrum in lower
frequency band is preferred as compared to a wide bandwidth at a higher frequency; see further Figure 2.1. Down-town areas with heavy traffic, on the
other hand, seldom require long range so the requirements on technology are the
opposite.1
If traffic is uniformly distributed within a service area, the network design is,
from an engineering perspective, straightforward since one technology essentially
minimizes cost for a given scenario. With a heterogeneous spatial traffic density,
1 In suburbs and urban areas with low-rise buildings, which in many European countries
cover the largest part of the population, BSs with medium range and capacity are typically
most cost efficient.
13
14
5
1GHz
2GHz
3GHz
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
Figure 2.1: A rough estimation of user throughput as a function of cell range for a
few carrier frequencies in a noise limited system. The COST231-Hata model for
outdoor, urban, propagation has been used (with parameters according to [25])
and throughput is calculated using the Shannon-bound, with 3.84MHz carrier
bandwidth. The figure illustrates how valuable spectrum in lower bands is for
services requiring area coverage.
though, introducing a mix of different BSs and radio access technologies with
varying characteristics could potentially reduce costs. In this chapter we will
therefore examine if there are any cost advantages to take local variations in
traffic load into account when deploying a heterogeneous wireless network. A
case study with a few common radio access technologies will be performed. The
focus in on infrastructure; even though terminals constitute a significant cost
for mobile operators and users, we assume that especially data and multi-media
handsets need to be multi-mode anyway to support legacy mobile systems and
private WLANs.
2.1
Related Work
Previous work on the cost structure of wireless access networks has mainly been
conducted during the development of the Universal Mobile Telephone System
(UMTS) [1, 10, 18]. National regulators have further on developed cost models for regulation of inter-connection charges and spectrum assignment guidelines [10,14,15,36,37]. Technology road-maps and visions, supported by economical reasoning, have also been presented by telecom equipment vendors [4, 38],
15
and technical researchers have to some extent used infrastructure cost as objective function for optimization of network dimensioning [3944]. All of these
studies cover both useful methodology and empirical data on unit costs, and are
summarized next.
16
17
18
operators. There are already a number of systems available, including the time
division duplex mode of WCDMA, IEEE 802.16a (WiMAX) and early fourth
generation (4G) system concepts. A techno-economical feasibility study of IEEE
802.16a was presented in [53], based on the methodology and tools developed
within ACTS and TONIC. The results showed that the cost structure of fixed
wireless access can not compete with fixed DSL in cities and suburbs due to
high equipment prices and low range of the systems, especially in the currently
available 3.5GHz frequency band. This was also concluded in [7]. However, for
rural areas and regions with inferior infrastructure the fixed broadband wireless
access systems look more promising and as compared to mobile systems the link
budget is significantly better thanks to that directional roof-top antennas can
be used (as with terrestrial TV-broadcasting).
2.2. Contributions
19
observe is that many of the conclusions and concepts in that study still are very
relevant, although empirical cost and performance estimates differ from present
levels.
2.2
Contributions
Previous research suggests that infrastructure costs can be lowered through BSs
that are well adapted to the deployment case. However, neither a framework for
analyzing the cost structure of heterogeneous networks, nor any quantification
of achievable cost savings, have been found in the literature.
In Paper 14, which are reprinted in Part II (Chapters 58), we have therefore
investigated the cost of using heterogeneous networks to expand the capacity in a
mobile network. Furthermore, we evaluate how the respective radio access technologies should be developed most effectively as part of a multi-access network.
The main contributions of the respective paper are as follows:
1. A methodology is derived for average infrastructure cost modeling under
uniform traffic densities, and the cost structure is derived for a few common
cellular BS configurations.
2. The average cost model is extended to the case of non-uniform spatial
traffic densities, in order to assess the cost of heterogeneous networks.
Numerical examples are also included with a number of different present
and future radio access technologies.
3. It is shown how the proposed cost model can be used to find the proper
tradeoff between macro cell radius and AP density, for a mixed 3G and
WLAN network. We also introduce the elasticity of infrastructure cost as
20
2.3
Delimitations
When assessing the cost structure of a mobile network, a great number of factors
need to be considered. Proper delimitations and simplifications are therefore
necessary. Network dimensioning is a function of
Demand user data rates, area coverage, traffic load, . . .
Supply spectrum bandwidth, carrier frequency, spectral efficiency, . . .
In this work, though, we will focus on traffic load. The other variables are
modeled through a feasible average throughput and range for each BS type.
No explicit assumptions will be made on what services that are demanded,
except for that only moderate data rates (in the order of 100kbps) are required
with full coverage. This is motivated by the rationale outlined in Chapter 1;
that is, that only such services with low and moderate data rates should be
economically viable to offer in mobile networks with wide-area coverage and
that demand for these services therefore should drive network dimensioning.
Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics, such as peak user data rate, outage
probability, blocking probability, and delay requirements are consequently exogenous variables. Only aggregate traffic volumes (or average throughput) will be
used as measure of demand. In practice, the users willingness to pay for a service
is (simply put) a function of the value the service brings, competition, and availability of substitutes; see further Appendix A.2. This all varies both spatially
and over time, and greatly affects a network deployment strategy.3 However, to
make accurate predictions of future demand for specific services and applications
is very difficult. Moreover, already a few different service mixes would be quite
tedious to model and analyze. Therefore, we will in this study resort to having
the aforementioned macro-scopic parameters as a measure of demand.
Moreover, only initial network deployment (roll-out) will be considered. 4
This is done to keep the analysis simple and tractable. However, since absolute cost estimates are not as important for us as relative comparisons between
technologies, this should only have a minor impact on the conclusions. Emerging
traffic demand and the evolution of component cost and performance will hence
not be considered in this initial study.
3 For example, a residential user may have access to a flat rate fixed broadband service
and is thus willing to pay less per bit for mobile data services than a vehicular user (ceteris
paribus).
4 Normally, network capacity and coverage is increased gradually as demand increases.
21
Strategic marketing issues are also neglected, as well as regulatory requirements, legacy infrastructure and organizational know-how and culture. These
factors will, of course, all heavily affect the deployment strategy for an operator. However, they are outside the scope of this thesis which has a technical
orientation.
All in all, we do not consider the delimited factors as absolutely necessary
for a first approximation of infrastructure costs. It is still, though, important to
keep these delimitations in mind when making conclusions on viable deployment
strategies based on the results. If more specific and precise results are required,
detailed case studies needs to be performed. Only then can all the aspects listed
above be modeled appropriately.
2.4
In the first paper we present a model for estimating average infrastructure costs
in mobile networks with uniform spatial traffic load. For this purpose, empirically based cost estimates of common BS configurations are derived [23]. The
models and results are summarized next.
where ci is the cost for BS type i, ni is the number of BSs that would be
required of that kind, and B is the set of available BS configurations. In this
paper, however, we only consider a uniform traffic distribution and hence only
one type of BS is considered (for each case).
Network Dimensioning
The network is dimensioned to serve a given average traffic density during the
busy hour5 and, for the sake of simplicity, only downlink is considered. This
should be reasonable since downlink generally limits the aggregate capacity in a
cellular system, while uplink limits the data rate per link and range (coverage)
5 A mobile network is normally dimensioned according to the traffic demanded during the
busiest time of the day the busy hour.
22
when the traffic load is low [61]. The maximum average throughput (reflecting
capacity) per BS is assumed to be constant, and does not vary as a function of
the actual cell range or time-varying traffic load, which typically is the case in
interference limited cellular networks.6
With a uniform spatial traffic density the network is thus either limited by
average aggregate throughput per BS Wmax (capacity limited) or the maximum cell range Rmax (coverage limited). The number of BSs required is then
given by
Results
The total cost (in present value) for each BS type is presented in Figure 2.2,
grouped by:
Radio BS equipment and discounted O&M costs.
6 In fact, a cellular network is never hexagonally shaped with uniform interference statistics
in practice. However, when modeling systems deployed over large areas it should be reasonable
to assume that the average approach we have taken herein is sufficiently accurate.
7 Besides, macro BSs can not be too densily deployed due to practical and environmental
reasons.
23
2.5
An Infrastructure Cost Evaluation of Singleand Multi-Access Networks with Heterogeneous Traffic Density (Paper 2)
While traffic was uniformly distributed in the first paper, a spatially heterogeneous traffic density is instead applied in this contribution [24]. The primary
8 The
24
300
250
Cost [kEuro]
200
150
100
50
Macro
Micro
Pico
Figure 2.2: Cost structure of typical urban WCDMA BSs calculated in present
value over 10 years.
Average busy hour throughput per user W
4
user
= 1kbps
Pico BS
3
10
Micro BS
10
10
Macro BS
Capacity limited
Coverage limited
1
10 2
10
10
10
10
Users/km
Figure 2.3: Total infrastructure cost per km2 for different WCDMA BSs with
uniform spatial traffic density.
25
purpose of this is to quantify the cost savings with hierarchical cell structures
and multi-access networks under more scattered traffic variations, both with
wide-area and hot spot coverage.
26
Macro
3.5
Micro
3000
2.5
2500
2000
1.5
1
1500
0.5
1000
500
0
0
10
3500
4000
0.5
1000
2000
3000
4000
Figure 2.4: Example of a network deployment with macro and micro cells covering an area of 4x4km with a spatially non-uniform traffic density.
27
Table 2.2: Performance parameters and cost coefficients for the included radio
access technologies (BSs, APs and relay clusters).
Radio
System
Spectral
Cell
Capacity
Cost
Access
bandwidth
efficiency
radius
[Mbps]
Technology
[MHz]
[bps/Hz/cell]
[m]
3G macro
5-15
0.2
1000
3-9
1
3G micro
5-10
0.2
250
1-2
0.5
3G pico
5
0.2
100
1
0.25
802.11g
20
1.1
40
22
0.1
HSDPA
As 3G
0.5
As 3G
2.5x3G
As 3G
S3G macro
20
0.75
1000
3x15
1
S3G micro
20
0.75
250
15
0.5
S3G pico
20
0.75
100
15
0.25
S3G 450
20
0.75
2500
3x15
1
4G macro
100
1
700
3x100
1
4G micro
100
1
175
100
0.5
4G pico
100
1
70
100
0.25
4G relay
100
1
1850
100
6
WCDMA with Dedicated Channels (WCDMA DCH),
WCDMA with High Speed Downlink Packet Access (WCDMA HSDPA),
IEEE 802.11g WLAN,
preliminary Super 3G (S3G) and 4G proposals,
as well as multi-access combinations of WCDMA DCH/HSDPA and IEEE 802.11g.
As in the previous paper, QoS requirements (delay and peak data rates) are not
modeled explicitly. For a fair and relevant comparison the services considered
therefore need to be feasible to provide with the performance parameters given
in Table 2.2. All performance estimates are based on an outdoor urban environment, whereby resulting costs may be slightly optimistic for indoor services. 11
Results
In this paper the total system infrastructure cost, normalized per transmitted
gigabyte (GB) of data per month, is compared for different combinations of radio
access technologies. This has been evaluated as a function of average traffic
density for both fractional (20%) and almost full (90%) coverage of the offered
traffic; see Figure 2.5. As a reference level, the traffic volume relative to typical
private speech users in a city centre (cc) and low-rise urban (u) environments
are depicted on the horizontal axes.
11 Notice
also that the WCDMA performance estimates are slightly different than in Paper 1.
28
2.6
10
802.11g
WCDMA DCH
WCDMA HS
DCH & 11g
HS & 11g
S3G
S3G 450
4G
4G relay
10
10
-1
10
10
Traffic Density [Mbps/km2]
cc1000
u1000
cc100
u100
cc10
10
u10
10
cc1
10
u1
29
10
10
802.11g
WCDMA DCH
WCDMA HS
DCH & 11g
HS & 11g
S3G
S3G 450
4G
4G relay
10
10
-1
10
10
2
Traffic Density [Mbps/km ]
10
cc1000
u1000
cc100
u100
cc10
10
u10
10
cc1
10
u1
10
10
Figure 2.5: Infrastructure cost per transmitted GB per month for a few different
system configurations, including cellular systems, WLAN, and multi-access combinations. In the upper graph only 20% of the offered traffic is served, reflecting
the coverage of a hot spot access provider, whereas in the lower plot 90% of the
traffic is served.
30
50Mbps/km2
400m
2.2BSs/km2
6.8cells
19APs/km2
e1.7
e1.9
10%
Table 2.3: Summary of monthly infrastructure costs per GB and the cost advantage for incumbents towards greenfield operators.
cost C as:
EC,X =
C/C
.
|X| /X
(2.3)
Thus, a negative EC,X corresponds to a decreased cost and if EC,X > 0 the
infrastructure cost increases independently of if the changed variable X is increased or decreased. The higher absolute elasticity, the greater impact X has
on C. Notice that elasticity quite often is calculated in absolute value in economics [24].
As an example, assume that we want to estimate the elasticity with respect
to the area covered per IEEE 802.11g AP. An elasticity of infrastructure cost
EC,X = 1 would then correspond to that the total infrastructure cost C decreases with
50% if the cell area is increased with 50%. That is, if the AP range
was 40 1.5 = 49m instead of 40m.
Results
In this paper we first estimate the infrastructure cost per GB and month for a
few different macro cell radii of an HSDPA system in combination with IEEE
802.11g APs. With denser macro cell layer, fewer WLAN APs will be deployed
(in accordance with the network dimensioning algorithm described in Section
2.5).
Due to the significant difference in cost and range of WCDMA HSDPA macro
BSs and IEEE 802.11g APs, different cell radius in HSDPA will minimize cost
at different traffic densities; see further Figure 2.6. With the assumptions and
modeling applied, we see that the incremental cost per GB and month flattens
at approximately 4Mbps/km2 . However, more macro cells are still beneficial as
traffic increase. Otherwise too many APs will have excess capacity in areas with
medium traffic. The results are summarized for a few traffic densities in Table
2.3.
31
200m
400m
800m
1000m
10
10
10
Voice
0
10
10 x voice
1
10
Average Traffic Density [Mbps/km2]
100 x voice
2
10
Figure 2.6: Infrastructure cost per GB and month for an incumbent operator
with a multi-access network consisting of WCDMA HSDPA macro BSs and IEEE
802.11g APs. The curves depict different cell radii in the macro cells.
The elasticity of infrastructure cost analysis shows that HSDPA capacity is
slightly more important to improve than 802.11g coverage with a dense macro cell
network (400m cell radius). However, with 800m cell radius improving HSDPA
capacity yields twice as high cost reduction as 802.11g coverage which is shown
in Figure 2.7. However, for traffic densities above 50Mbps/km2 the result is the
opposite. Furthermore, as seen in Figure 2.7, half of the total cost stem from
each sub-system at approximately 10 and 100Mbps/km2 with 800m and 400m
cell radius in WCDMA HSDPA respectively. Thus, the benefits of improving
different subsystems greatly depend on the initial dimensioning of the cellular
system and the average traffic density.
32
HSDPA cost
HSDPA capacity
802.11g cost
802.11g coverage
0.5
0.5
1
Voice
0
10
10 x voice
100 x voice
10
Average Traffic Density [Mbps/km2]
10
HSDPA cost
HSDPA capacity
802.11g cost
802.11g coverage
0.5
0.5
1
Voice
0
10
10 x voice
1
10
Average Traffic Density [Mbps/km2]
100 x voice
2
10
Figure 2.7: The figure shows the elasticity of infrastructure cost for an HSDPA
and IEEE 802.11g multi-access network with respect to improved AP costs,
HSDPA capacity, and 802.11 range respectively. In the upper figure, the cell
radius of HSDPA is 400m (adapted for 100Mbps/km2 ) and the lower graph
depicts the results for a 800m cell radius (suitable for 10Mbps/km2 ).
33
ban environments with constantly increasing property prices, and in rural areas
due to the construction work. WLAN APs are, instead, almost completely dominated by last-mil transmission. Considering indoor deployment, which is most
common for WLAN, we could therefore foresee novel, distributed, deployment
strategies involving the users and that is the focus of the next paper.
2.7
On the Cost Efficiency of User Deployed Access Points Integrated in Mobile Networks
(Paper 4)
An increasing availability of fixed broadband networks, including digital subscriber lines and cable modems, and the development of WLAN technology will
enable new designs of public wireless access networks. In this paper [26], the
economics of user deployed APs that are open for other subscribers and roaming
partners is considered. More specifically, we calculate the infrastructure cost
as a function of traffic density (area capacity) for different mixes of operator
deployed BSs and user deployed APs. Furthermore, the number of APs required
to serve different fractions of the offered traffic is estimated.
Network Franchising
Integrating user deployed APs in a public mobile network has, to the best of
our knowledge, not yet been implemented in practice. Use cases and business
models for that is an interesting topic, and we envisage that this is a plausible
extension of the ongoing convergence between fixed and mobile systems. One
possible business model that could be adopted by operators interested in exploiting this possibility would be network franchising; meaning that users install
APs, which the operator controls in terms of access rights, etc.
A successful franchising agreement of course relies on that both parties benefit. In this case, the operator obtains accessibility to APs providing cheap,
high-capacity, wireless access whereas the user gets an AP and some compensation by the operator. The operators could further on compensate the AP owner
through bundling of different services, such as fixed broadband, subsidized access
boxes, and wireless access when the user is in other locations. These marketing
related issues are however outside the scope of this paper. Yet, we can note that
network franchising in particular could be of interest to MNOs with limited
spectrum and/or poor indoor coverage, or broadband providers that would like
to exploit their fixed network by offering wireless access (indoors).
34
100
90
Typical fraction of traffic terminated
indoors in today's mobile systems
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
10
15
20
25
30
Percentage of subscribers with APs
35
40
Figure 2.8: Fraction of traffic covered as a function of the percent of users with
an open AP, for different data volumes.
will also introduce user deployed APs in the analysis. In that case, user deployed
APs are instead deployed first, in a random fashion with a uniform distribution.
Residual traffic is then allocated to operator deployed BSs according to the
previous algorithm.
All cost and performance assumptions for WCDMA HSDPA and operator
deployed WLAN (IEEE 802.11g) are the same as in [24,25]. User deployed APs,
instead, resembles IEEE 802.11b with 50m range and 5Mbps average throughput.
Moreover, the cost for a user deployed AP is 20 times less than for a operator
deployed WLAN AP, including a revenue sharing of approximately e100 per year
with each AP owner. Moreover, the cell radius of HSDPA is 1000m for traffic
densities below 5Mbps/km2 , 800m between 5 and 20Mbps/km2 , and 400m for
densities above that [25].
Interesting to note is that if 1, 2 or 4% of the subscribers install open APs,
as much as 30, 40 and 70% of the traffic, respectively, is covered by these APs;
see Figure 2.8. This indicates that user deployed APs could bring substantial
cost savings with respect to traffic dimensioning.
Results
As in the two previous papers, we have herein evaluated the infrastructure cost
per GB per month, but this time for a few levels of user deployed APs (measured
as the percentage of subscribers with APs). As expected, the operator deployed
2.8. Conclusions
35
10
HS+11g
HS+11g+AP1%
HS+11g+AP2%
HS+11g+AP4%
10
10
10
10
Traffic Density [Mbps/km2]
10
Figure 2.9: Monthly cost per transmitted GB as a function of average traffic density. The solid line is for an operator deployed multi-access network with HSDPA
and 802.11g. The other lines represent different percentages of subscribers with
open APs.
network yields lowest cost at low traffic densities whereas user deployed APs is
worthwhile introducing at approximately 10Mbps/km2 ; see further Figure 2.9.
At ten times that traffic density, the cost for operator deployed networks have
flattened (as seen in the previous paper), whereas the incremental cost per GB
and month still diminishes if instead more APs are deployed by the users.
2.8
Conclusions
In this chapter we have compared a few alternative methods to reduce the cost
of mobile data networks using various combinations of radio access technologies
and BSs. In particular, we have compared multi-access networks consisting of
WCDMA and WLAN, with conventional single-access hierarchical cell structures. Future network concepts (S3G, 4G, etc.) have also been considered, as
well as user deployed APs.
For this purpose, we proposed a model to estimate the cost of a radio access
network as a function of traffic density. The model is based on average cost
and performance data, and accounts for both investments and running costs
(per BS). To dimension the network we utilize a statistical model for geographically varying traffic demand. No explicit QoS-requirements or service mixes
are assumed, instead, the maximum feasible cell range and average throughput
36
ultimately determines what services that the network is capable to deliver. The
key numerical results are summarized next, followed by a discussion of the need
for multi-access networks and factors that affect the validity of the presented
findings.
2.8. Conclusions
37
Validity of Results
To conclude this chapter, we will discuss a few important assumptions and
choices of modeling which could affect the accuracy of the presented results.
Firstly, all numerical results are subject to our specific assumptions. Although
the intention has been to use fair and realistic parameter settings, these may of
course differ significantly for a real deployment case.
The spatial traffic model was derived from population statistics and traffic
measurements from GSM networks. It is not certain that mobile data users
will have a similar behavior, even though that may be a reasonable assumption
for the (still) moderate data rates being the focus of this work. Therefore,
empirical data on traffic demand for mobile data services would (when such
become available) be useful to improve the heterogeneous traffic density model.
Furthermore, we did not model QoS requirements explicitly, and the resulting
data rates, etc., could therefore vary significantly between compared system
configurations. Besides, no attempts have been made to optimize the network
38
deployment. Instead, the target has been a simple principle that is reasonably
good and fair between system concepts. Still, although we elaborated on different
cell radii in Paper 3 [25], a more extensive sensitivity analysis is of interest for
further studies.
Moreover, the network dimensioning model is primarily not intended for high
rise buildings, where a 3-dimensional model is needed. This naturally limits the
scope of the study at hand. It should also be noted that the user deployed APs
were uniformly distributed. This may be a pessimistic assumption for estimating
population (or household) coverage, since more APs automatically will be
placed where many people live. However, high population peaks are most often
where there are high-rise buildings so with our 2-dimensional model, the result
would be too optimistic if APs are deployed proportional to traffic demand.
Regarding cost estimates, we have relied on secondary data in almost all
cases. However, also here, the ambition has been to model the relative difference between technologies, in an average sense, as fair as possible. It should
be stressed though, that a linear annualization of CAPEX would be even more
straightforward than the present value calculations we have utilized, and probably yield similar results.13
Yet, in spite of the simplistic assumptions used herein, the proposed methodology should, much thanks to its simplicity, be useful for an initial assessment
of operator deployment strategies and when technical requirements are defined
for future radio access technologies (for instance in standardization bodies).
13 In fact, we would recommend a linear annualization as a base line assumption for further
studies in this area.
Chapter 3
Multi-Operator Resource
Sharing
Herein, we will consider three different cases of multi-operator resource sharing,
which differ greatly from a business perspective but have quite a lot in common
technically.
Firstly, network sharing has evolved as an important method to reduce investments in wireless infrastructure, especially in rural areas for systems and
services with limited link budgets. This can, as discussed further in Appendix
B and in the following literature study, either be implemented as a common
shared network or by means of geographical sharing. Secondly, the market for
MVNOs who, with little or no mobile infrastructure, offer wireless services is
steadily increasing. Thirdly, MNOs could potentially agree to allow for roaming
in between their existing networks in order to increase coverage and capacity for
higher data rates (hereinafter denoted national roaming). The common technical
denominator for these flavors of network sharing is that they can be facilitated
with functionality originally designed for international roaming. Therefore, we
will refer to them jointly as roaming based network sharing.
A potential drawback with roaming based network sharing is that forecasting of traffic demand could become less transparent to the network provider.
Hence, given that over-dimensioning remains expensive, the post-paid charging
of MVNOs (see further Appendix B.2) may be insufficient for network planning
purposes. Furthermore, problems could arise in terms of free-rider effects and
there is a risk that competing service providers provide consciously misleading
traffic forecasts. Thus, besides assuring certain QoS levels for the roaming partners, those should also be punished in some way if the actual traffic exceed the
contracted volumes significantly and this topic will be addressed in this chapter
of the thesis.
Moreover, we will investigate what performance benefits that can be expected
for data services by sharing overlaid cellular networks via national roaming. Al39
40
3.1
Related Work
41
Competition
Competition amongst sharing UMTS operators was studied in [30, 65], focusing
on the Swedish market. A key competitive advantage for MNOs has been to
provide good area coverage. With network sharing, other differentiation opportunities are hence needed. Quite a few possibilities were identified in [30, 65],
of which investing in multi-access networks was the most important 2 , together
with services that can be implemented in the unshared domain (that is, in the
core network and above). Still, most services require modifications also in the
shared RAN whereby site sharing is the only level of network sharing which does
not severely limit the operators differentiation possibilities [30].
Some drawbacks and difficulties with geographical sharing were also outlined
in [27]. This study emphasized that
Marketing campaigns launched by competitors may boost traffic load beyond the current network capacity, resulting in severe blocking for your
own customers.
Customer driven coverage3 , which is quite common at enterprises, may
only be provided by the operator responsible for that area.
Network quality needs to be sufficient for your customers and the services
you promote.
All in all, both common shared networks and geographical sharing will, without further considerations, cause both administrative and competition related
problems [2730, 65]. These, and more practical technical problems, have also
been addressed in the standardization body behind 3G4 , and the standards for
UMTS have been updated accordingly to support the most fundamental features of shared networks [66, 71]. This includes operator specific neighbor cell
and access rights lists, display of the home operator name in the terminals, etc.
However, as pointed out in [30], there are many aspects hidden in the detailed
configuration of a cellular network which also limits differentiation possibilities.
42
3.2
Contribution
Radio resource sharing between operators is an interesting option to reduce infrastructure costs. With roaming based network sharing a more formal structure
with negotiated capacity requirements between the service and RAN providers
43
3.3
In this paper [32], we introduce the problem of fair resource sharing in multioperator cellular networks, and propose a load based priority queuing in the
admission control to keep down the probability of call blocking for operators
that have not reached their agreed load. The focus is on roaming based sharing, which means that an operator access another operators RAN indirectly
via the core networks. This implies that multiple operators fully share the same
RAN, which motivates a radio resource control between the operators. Normally
the operators share the same carrier(s), but it is also possible to use dedicated
carriers.
Besides roaming based sharing, there are today two other major categories
of network sharing, being RAN sharing and site sharing. The three groups of
solutions imply different levels of sharing, which is depicted in Figure 3.1 (see
further Appendix B).
44
Core network
RAN sharing
Site sharing
BS
BS
BS
BS
Figure 3.1: The figure illustrates what levels of a cellular network architecture
that different sharing methods relate to.
using dedicated carriers for each operator,
allocating a fixed capacity share for each operator per carrier, or
dynamically prioritizing users from different operators (within one or multiple carriers).
Dedicated carriers and fixed capacity shares provide fairness between operators.
Unfortunately, though, any capacity reservation scheme implies a reduced capacity utilization (trunking efficiency). Instead, a dynamical prioritization of
operators based on the current load is preferable. For this purpose standard
RRM functionality such as admission control and packet scheduling can be utilized. In this paper we limited the scope to admission control, which in this
context is responsible for admission of new connections (both packet and circuit
switched) [61].5 Furthermore, assuming that a minimum rate is required for all
admitted bearers, we will without loss of generality limit the study to circuit
switched traffic.
5 Packet scheduling, on the other hand, is responsible for adjusting the bit rate and thus
resource consumption of connected non real-time radio bearers. Fair sharing using elastic bit
rates was studied in [68].
45
assuming that N operators share the network. Each of these operators has
priority to Ci channels per cell. A new connection request is queued until there
is a channel available. However, if the waiting time Td exceeds a certain threshold
Tmax the request is blocked.
P
The total number of channels per cell C =
Ci is thus modeled as constant,
which is a simplistic assumption for an interference limited system. However, for
an initial assessment of a priority queuing method, we believe that the allowed
queuing time, average connection duration, and the total number of channels
per cell will have stronger impact on the performance. More detailed system
modeling is left for further studies.
Ci
,
Li
(3.2)
so that operators with a load Li lower than the agreed minimum capacity Ci
receives a high priority. Li is simply defined as the total number of allocated
channels for that operator at a given point in time (without any averaging).
The queuing management outlined here can for example be implemented in
conjunction with a periodical admission control and it consists of the following
steps:
1. A new connection
request that arrives when the system is congested (that
P
is, when
Li = C) is put in the queue.
6 In
general this is considered to be the most important QoS measure for circuit-switched
services (like voice telephony).
46
Sort queue: 1) Pi 2) Td
Channel available?
Yes
Allocate channel
No
No
Td>Tmax?
Yes
Connection blocked!
Figure 3.2: Flowchart of periodical admission control with non-preemptive priority queuing.
4. Connection requests for which Td > Tmax are blocked and removed from
the queue.
Results
As a measure of the performance of the algorithm, we consider to what extent
operator specific blocking probability Bi can be kept below some given threshold
Bmax (say 5%) if the load Oi < Ci . Hence, as long as an operator has not
exceeded its agreed load share, their users should experience the contracted
blocking probability.
In an example with two operators sharing a network 50/50, we show that
the proposed algorithm functions well for a system with C = 80 channels per
cell. This case should resemble an urban WCDMA macro cell with voice users
only. A queuing time Tmax = 5s is allowed for new connection requests. With
only 16 channels per cell, modeling a video streaming service in WCDMA, the
algorithm is less effective even though Tmax was increased to 15s. The operator
specific blocking probabilities are plotted as a function of traffic load for both
systems in Figure 3.3.
3.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
47
Fixed reservation
O = 80 Erl
2
O = 60 Erl
2
O = 40 Erl
2
O2 = 20 Erl
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0.25
Fixed reservation
O2 = 14 Erl
O2 = 10 Erl
O2 = 6 Erl
O2 = 2 Erl
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
2
10
12
Figure 3.3: The figure depict the blocking probability of operator 1 (B1 ) as a
function of offered load (O1 ) for different levels of load for the other operator
(O2 ). In the upper graph, a speech service is assumed whereas the lower graph
show the results for video streaming. The dashed lines represent a fixed resource
allocation of half (C/2) channels per operator.
48
(3.3)
Herein, we will consider the special case when d = d1 = . . . = d(J ) . For this case,
2
cos(/6)
x0
xi
+d
,
(3.4)
=
(1)i sin(/6)
y0
yi
T
where i = 1, 2 and (x0 , y0 ) is the position of the reference network. Figure 3.4
depicts an example where d = rc .
that geographical sharing also has been called national roaming in the literature.
Although the cases are different, a common denominator is that operators allow users from
other operators to roam in their networks and that they retain the possibilities to expand their
own network capacity if demand surges.
49
d3
7d
1500
d1
1000
rc
500
0
500
1000
1500
1500 1000 500
500
50
Value
5000
3
2
20
8
0.5
35.8
3.5
360
5
-103
2, 4
24
33
3
1, 3, 10
0623.5
Results
The gain with national roaming was in this paper presented with respect to the
lower 10th percentile and average user throughput; see further Figure 3.5. The
difference in throughput is largest for the 10th percentile, for which national
roaming increase user throughput as compared to the single operator reference
system with approximately 80-190% with two receive antennas and Round Robin
packet scheduling. It is interesting that an 80% gain is obtained already when
BSs are just slightly separated. This can be explained by diversity gain against
8 This modeling is motivated by i) that modern radio access systems operate very close
to the well known Shannon bound at low mobile velocity, and ii) that a system typically is
designed so that the maximum rate is reached with some reasonably low probability.
3.5. Conclusions
51
shadow fading.9 Average user throughput is increased with approximately 2050%, and a similar dependency on inter-operator site distance can be observed
as for the 10-percentile.
With four receive antennas and proportional fair scheduling, which gives a
higher order of diversity gain against Rayleigh fading, the relative increase in
throughput is smaller (although still significant). The gain in user throughput
is in this case between 50-100% for the 10-percentile whereas the average user
throughput is increased with approximately 15-30%. The reduced gain with a
higher order of diversity gain can be explained by the logarithmic rate function
(with a higher SIR, the systems could have exploited a wider bandwidth).
3.5
Conclusions
Motivated by arising business needs, we have in this chapter first outlined how
fair resource sharing can be assured for operators using the same RAN. For this
purpose, an admission control with non-preemptive priority queuing based on
operator specific load was proposed. With a few numerical examples, we showed
that the method is promising for systems with a large number of channels per
cell. In this case, a quite moderate queuing time is sufficient. For systems
with fewer users per cell, stricter methods exploiting resource reservations or
preemption of allocated bearers would be necessary for a fair resource sharing.
However, this would come at the expense of decreased capacity utilization or
increased probability of dropped calls.
The benefits with national roaming between overlapping macro cellular networks were also assessed for uplink data services. It was shown that user throughput can be increased significantly already with adjacent BS locations, and in
particular for users with high path loss. Thus, national roaming promises large
coverage gains with only minor incremental infrastructure costs. However, the
relative gains will be smaller if the system already operate at high SIR levels.
52
200
150
100
50
0
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
50
40
30
20
10
0
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Figure 3.5: The relative gain with national roaming in 10-percentile user
throughput (upper graph) and average user throughput (lower graph). For both
measures, two different system configurations with different order of diversity
against Rayleigh fading have been simulated.
3.5. Conclusions
53
elastic bit rate method proposed in [68] for the case of mixed circuit and packet
switched radio bearers. A theoretical analysis of the priority queuing model
presented in Paper 5 would also be useful in order to validate the simulation
results and explain the behavior of the algorithm more consistently.
National roaming has herein been discussed in the context of cellular operators. A major obstacle for that to materialize, however, is that coverage still is a
very important competitive advantage for some operators. Yet, it is interesting
to understand what the gains would be, and it should be noticed that national
roaming also could be of interest for the emerging public WLAN operators and
other wireless operators with fractional coverage only.
Chapter 4
Concluding Remarks
This chapter concludes the first part of the thesis with a summary of the presented results and a few recommendations for future research in this field.
4.1
Summary
The main theme of this thesis has been cost efficient provisioning of mobile data
services. We have focused on two methods of relevance for MNOs; adopting
network deployment to local variations in traffic demand and network sharing
between multiple operators. Both solutions are, as we see it, quite promising
and the key findings are summarized next.
56
ever, even though both multi-access networks and hierarchical cell structures
manage to lower the cost to some extent, the cost will always increase linearly
with traffic demand at some level (with a given set of technologies).
Using the elasticity of infrastructure cost as performance measure, we also
illustrated at what average traffic densities the throughput, range, and cost
of different radio access technologies should be improved (when deployed in a
multi-access network). This was exemplified with a network of WCDMA HSDPA
macro cells and IEEE 802.11g APs. For this case, we observed that throughput is
most important to increase for macro-cell BSs (at a maintained range), whereas
increasing range and reducing cost for sites and last mile-transmission have a
higher impact for WLAN.
As a comparison, we also evaluated both future cellular concepts (S3G, 4G,
etc.), as well as open, user deployed, WLAN APs combined with a WCDMA HSDPA macro-cell network. These results point at two key directions for expanding
network capacity if demand for mobile data services increase significantly. That
is, an operator could either choose to increase capacity in their macro-cells at a
(at least) maintained cell range, or resort to user deployed WLAN APs exploiting
existing fixed broadband networks for the last mile-transmission.
4.2
Future Work
57
to estimate the empirical distribution of data rates that users experience with
different technology mixes. Refined system modeling and various sensitivity
analyses are also of great interest and importance for the cost evaluation. In
particular, the spatial traffic modeling should be verified for mobile data services,
and the effect of different user distributions should be investigated. If possible,
local demand and pricing for higher user data rates should also be modeled.
From a techno-economical perspective, case studies with empirical data from
specific markets and scenarios are also relevant extensions of this work. In
a broader sense, future research considering multi-access networks should also
include marketing strategies, multi-mode terminal availability, legacy infrastructure, cross-elasticity of demand between systems, etc. As this is a fundamental
part of future wireless networks, it should be an important topic on the wireless
research agenda and in particular for techno-economical research.
For what concerns fair radio resource sharing between operators, more detailed system modeling is needed with respect to the characteristics of a cellular
network (with time-varying path gains, interference, etc.). Furthermore, the proposed priority queuing mechanism relies on operator specific load measurements.
This could be difficult to measure in interference limited systems, and averaging
over both time and multiple cells may therefore be beneficial. Moreover, given
the rare event that more than two calls are queued in a specific cell, it could be
sufficient to have low and high priority calls only and this approach could also
be investigated further, as well as analytical solutions of the operator specific
blocking probability (with proper approximations).
In the assessment of data rates with national roaming, we did not consider
trunking efficiency (which increases as a function of total system capacity). As
further work the capacity gain with national roaming at a given blocking probability could be thus evaluated as a function of inter-operator site distance. A
related aspect, which may seem attractive at a first glance but which we do
not recommend for future work, is load balancing between cellular operators
that allow for national roaming. Firstly, the additional gain should be relatively
small1 . Secondly, as we elaborated on in [31], the administrative overhead between cooperating operators has to be minimized.2 A more relevant technical
problem would instead be how to design neighbor cell lists for handover measurements when multiple networks are accessible (to avoid exhaustive searches,
which decrease measurement accuracy).
1 In
cellular systems, connecting to the BS with lowest path loss is most often sufficient.
also that the trunking gain obtained by having access to more channels is present
also without advanced load balancing schemes, since it is sufficient if users can be redirected
to other operators at congestion.
2 Notice
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Appendices
67
Appendix A
A.1
It should be stressed that we deliberately have chosen a simplistic model for this
initial assessment of heterogeneous wireless infrastructure costs. The interested
reader is further referred to [11] for standard micro-economical cost definitions,
and [81] for an excellent overview of more detailed cost modelling applied to
telecommunications.1
The purpose with our model is to include both investments and running
costs.2 This can be done in several ways, where we have chosen a method
inspired by Net Present Value analysis (also referred to as Discounted Cash
Flow modeling) which is widely used for rudimentary investment analysis [11].
We thus calculate the cost (per BS) in present value, with a conventional 10%
discount rate.3
In general, the discount rate (r) reflects how willing a firm is to take risks.
It is thus of great importance, since it directly will affect the total net present
value. For more explicit derivations of r, a model often used is the Weighted
Average Cost of Capital (WACC). This may be calculated as a function of the
cost of debts (Cd ), tax level (T ), cost of equity (Ce ) and the size of debt (D)
1 As noted in [81], cost modeling becomes quite complex when used for real investment
analyses and regulation of inter-connection charges.
2 Often denoted Capital Expenditures (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditures (OPEX).
3 Here, we could as well have annualized the investments, for example with a linear depreciation during the system life cycle.
69
70
E
D
+ Ce
D+E
D+E
(A.1)
As we can see from the model above the discount rate will depend on the ratio
between equity and debt for the investment. Furthermore, the discount rate may
very well vary as a function of time. A more detailed Net Present Value analysis
thus requires detailed information on the investment to be judged. Another
popular method for more advanced investment analysis, which lends itself well
to the fast changing telecommunication industry [81], is the real options approach
[82]. With this method, also future opportunities can be modeled explicitly.
A.2
Pricing Strategies
Price Discrimination
Price discrimination is often implemented by mobile operators, for instance by
marketing different subscriptions towards different subscriber groups (block
pricing). Operators thereby charge differently per, for example, minute of use
dependent on the total number of call minutes per month.
71
Another standard method is to brand and price the same product differently,
and market different brands towards different consumer groups. This way, users
that are willing to pay more can be attracted to the brand with higher price
(even though the product in principle is the same). We can see examples of this
among mobile operators who have launched own MVNOs under separate brands.
The objective is to be able to target low-price segment without damaging the
main brand.
Both inter-temporal price discriminations and peak-load pricing are very
common in mobile networks. The aim with the inter-temporal price discriminations is to charge early adopters more than needed, since they have a high
demand for the product and consequently may be willing to pay more. Peak load
pricing is implemented in such a way that telephone calls cost more during office
hours than at night time and during weekends. This is particularly important
if we take into account that mobile networks have to be dimensioned for peak
load (during busy hour).
Appendix B
74
B.1
MVNOs have recently been identified by the national telecom regulators and
competition authorities as a means to, similar to the unbundling of the local-loop
for DSL services, increase competition also in the oligopoly like mobile operator
market. There are different types of MVNOs, with different background and
competitive strategy. Most common today are
branding MVNOs,
fixed line telephony and broadband service providers, and
mobile telephony operators targeting specific market segments.
In a wider perspective, the scope of the telecom operators business is since a few
decades ago constantly undergoing a change [6]. Today, we see that new roles
are developed in the industry. Driven by the development towards a diverse
portfolio of services, MNOs tend to focus more on developing and marketing
user applications and services. At the same time, telecom equipment vendors
seem to seize the opportunity to integrate upwards in the value chain and offer
network operations and service platforms to the operators.
A separation between infrastructure, product innovation, and customer relationship businesses could often be beneficial from an organizational point of
view and stimulate innovation of new services [87]. However, this does not imply that MVNOs are best operated as small businesses. On the contrary, driven
by economies of scope and a strive to offer each customer as many services as
possible, customer relationship business tend to benefit from size [87]. 1 . Hence,
it is plausible that the role as service provider and intermediator for specialized producers of content will be important both for MVNOs and MNOs in the
future.
So far, however, with voice services as the key offering, the business case
of telecom MVNOs have relied on sufficiently low wholesale cost of network
access [27]. Even though regulators are well aware of that, and enforce cost
based inter-connection charges, it is of course difficult for MVNOs to have a cost
advantage towards the MNOs for the access.
Successful MVNOs therefore need other strategic advantages, such as a strong
brand, an existing customer base (that are interested in the service), a streamlined customer care organization, or a niche service that the traditional MNOs
neither could nor would offer [65].2 Of all these, the two most important drivers
for MVNOs today, and during the foreseeable future, will therefore probably be
their opportunities to target niche services and customer segments [28,29,65,72].
1 Infrastructure business such as access provisioning also benefit from size, but instead due
to economies of scale [87].
2 For a win-win situation, the MVNO and hosting MNO should not compete for the same
customers.
75
B.2
As part of the GSM standard, international roaming has been extremely profitable for mobile operators, and a common assumption is that approximately
15% of their revenues originate from roaming calls [88]. GSM operators today
sign bilateral roaming agreements with license holders, but typically not with
MVNOs, from other countries. Hence, MVNO subscribers are referred to the
roaming partners of their respective hosting network operator. Accounting between operators is handled via international clearing houses. As we are used
to, subscribers normally pay for the international part of the call. The home
operator, however, may have a discount with the visited operator and is then
charged less per voice minute than what see on the bill [88]. The core network
functionalities originally intended for billing, service provisioning, and mobility
management with international roaming are naturally applicable also for roaming based sharing.
Part II
Paper Reprints
77
Chapter 5
79
81
W ireless@ KT H , E lec tru m 4 1 8 , S -1 6 4 4 0 Kista, S weden, {k lasj, jens.z ander}@ radio.k th.se
2
E ric sson A B , S E -1 6 4 8 0 S toc k holm , S weden, anders.fu ru sk ar@ eric sson.c om
T eliaS onera S weden, B ox 9 4 , S E -2 0 1 2 0 M alm o , S weden, P eter.C .Karlsson@ teliasonera.c om
T R O D U C T IO N
linearly with the data rate p er u ser. T his shou ld hold for a
g iv en freq u enc y alloc ation p rov ided that the sam e c ov erag e
is req u ired, and was identifi ed in [1 0 ] as a k ey p rob lem for
p rov iding wideb and data serv ic es in wireless sy stem s.
A sim p le infrastru c tu re c ost m odel was also p resented
in [9 ] (and dev elop ed fu rther in [1 0 ]), in whic h the total
infrastru c tu re c ost of a wireless sy stem is m odeled as linearly
p rop ortional to the nu m b er of b ase stations:
Csystem = cNb s ,
(1 )
V E R A L L C O S T S T R U C T U R E F O R M O B IL E O P E R A T O R S
82
Large country
5%
5%
15%
25%
50%
Small country
5%
25%
15%
15%
40%
III. C
Large country
30%
30%
40%
Small country
10%
50%
40%
O S T E S T I M AT I O N M E T H O D AN D AS S U M P T I O N S
(2 )
w here c1 , c2 , and c3 are the total costs for macro, micro and
pico b ase station respectiv ely. T ypically c1 > c2 > c3 and, if
w e in the same w ay defi ne the max imum cell radius R per
b ase station, R1 > R2 > R3 . H ence, different b ase stations
w ill minimiz e cost for different scenarios. H ow ev er, for the
sak e of simplicity, w e w ill study the different b ase stations
separately b ut k eep in mind that each cellular netw ork in
reality consist of a mix of b ase stations.
B . N etw ork dimensioning
T he numb er of b ase stations req uired, Nb s , is calculated
as a function of the demand specifi ed b y the:
S erv ice area to b e cov ered, Aser v ic e .
Av erag e capacity per user during b usy hour, Wu ser .
N umb er of sub scrib ers w ithin the cov erag e area, Nu ser .
F urthermore, the dimensioning w ill b e done for dow nlink
only. T his should b e reasonab le since the dow nlink g enerally
limits the ag g reg ate capacity in a W C D M A system, w hile
the uplink limits the data rate per link and cov erag e w hen
the traffi c load is low [3 ].
O nly a sing le carrier is assumed, to mak e the comparison
b etw een b ase station types simple (more carriers w ould
reduce the numb er of sites in a capacity limited scenario).
E ach b ase station has a g iv en max imum cell rang e (Rma x ),
minimum cell rang e (Rmin ) and supported capacity (Wma x ).
F or simplicity the capacity is k ept constant, and does not
v ary as a function of the actual cell rang e (Rb s ). E ach cell has
circular cov erag e area, w hich according to [7 ] is a reasonab le
assumption.
T he netw ork can either b e cov erag e or capacity (interference) limited and the numb er of b ase stations req uired is
dimensioned according to the follow ing model:
83
K1
X
k= 0
Macro BS
Micro BS
Pico BS
3
1
1km
0 .2 5 k m
2 .2 5 M b p s
1
1
0 .2 5 k m
0 .1 k m
1 .2 5 M b p s
1
1
0 .1 k m
0 .0 2 5 k m
1 .7 5 M b p s
50ke
70ke
30ke
20ke
15ke
5ke
3ke
3ke
10ke
5ke
1ke
3ke
5ke
1ke
1ke
5ke
ck
,
(1 + d)k
(5 )
E SU LT S
A v e ra g e b u s y h o u r th ro u g h p u t p e r u s e r W
user
= 1k b p s
10
P ic o B S
3
10
M ic ro B S
In fra s tru c tu re c o s t p e r k m
in p re s e n t v a lu e [k E u ro ]
10
C o s t p e r u s e r in p re s e n t v a lu e [k E u ro ]
84
10
M a c ro B S
10
user
= 10k b p s
Wu s e r = 1k b p s
1
10
user
= 0.2k b p s
C o v e ra g e lim ite d
2
10
10 2
10
10
U s e rs /k m
Fig. 1.
10
10
A. Infrastructure cost
Fig. 1 illustrates th e total infrastructure cost Csystem for
different base stations w ith a data rate Wu ser = 1k bp s. T h is
could, e.g., corresp ond to a sp eech serv ice of 10 k bp s at
0 .1E rlang traffi c load (ty p ical corp orate user). A ccording to
(3 ) th e infrastructure cost is constant as long as th e sy stem
is cov erage lim ited. T h en, as m ore base stations are needed
to m eet th e cap acity req uirem ents th e total cost increase
linearly according to th e cost p er base station c.
From th is p icture it is p ossible to fi nd th e base station
ty p e th at m inim iz e infrastructure cost for different user
densities. In th is sp ecifi c case, w ith Wu ser = 1k bp s, th e
m acro cell base stations sh ould be used until dem and ex ceed
4 0 0 0 users/k m 2 , th ereafter m icro cell base stations could be
w orth w h ile to introduce up to a v ery h igh user density (ap p rox im ately 2 0 0 0 0 users/k m 2 ) w h en p ico cells are ch eap est.
W e can also see w h en dem and increase signifi cantly so
th at a denser dep loy m ent is needed, th e cost p er user is
low ered and th ere is a certain degree of scale econom ics
as dep icted in Fig. 2 . H ere w e h av e p lotted th e cost p er user
as function of user density for Wu ser eq ual to
0 .2 k bp s (ty p ical p riv ate sp eech user at 2 0 m E rl),
1k bp s (ty p ical corp orate sp eech user at 10 0 m E rl), and
10 k bp s (data user dow nloading ap p r. 5 M B /h our)
resp ectiv ely . N ote also th at th e cost p er user dim inish es
step w ise because of th e lim ited num ber of base station ty p es
used in th is ex am p le and th at each base station is cov erage
lim ited w ith in som e region.
B . C ost structure
T h e cost structure of different solutions is h ere div ided in
th ree p arts:
R adio: B ase station eq uip m ent and discounted O & M
costs.
10
10
Fig. 2 .
10
U s e rs /k m
10
10
R ad io
70ke
27ke
12 k e
S ites
16 8 k e
35ke
10 k e
T r ansm ission
28ke
28ke
28ke
C ost p er BS
266e
90ke
50ke
85
O N C L U S IO N
K N O W L E D G M E N T
F E RE N C E S
[1 ] B. G avish and S . S ridhar, E conom ic asp ects of confi g uring cellular networks , Wireless Networks, V ol. 1 ,
N o. 1 , F eb. 1 9 9 5 , p p .1 1 5 -1 2 8
[2 ] J . H arno, 3 G Business C ase S uccessfulness within
the C onstraints S et by C om p etition, Reg ulation and
Alternative T echnolog ies , in the P roc eed in g s of th e
F IT C E E u rop ea n T elec om m u n ic a tion s C on g ress, 2 0 0 2 .
[3 ] H . H olm a and A. T oskala, WC D M A for U M T S , J ohn
W iley & S ons, 2 0 0 2 .
[4 ] D . K atsianis et al., T he econom ic p ersp ective of the
m obile networks in E urop e , IE E E P erson a l C om m u n ic a tion s M a g a z in e, V ol. 8 , N o. 6 , p p 5 8 -6 4 , D ec. 2 0 0 1 .
[5 ] F . L oiz illon et al., F in a l resu lts on sea m less m ob ile IP
serv ic e p rov ision ec on om ic s , IS T -2 0 0 0 -2 5 1 7 2 T O N IC
D eliverable num ber 1 1 , O ct. 2 0 0 2 .
[6 ] D .P . Reed, T he C ost S tructure of P ersonal C om m unication S ervices , IE E E C om m u n ic a tion s M a g a z in e,
V ol. 7 , N o. 2 , Ap r. 1 9 9 3 , p p . 1 7 3 -1 8 5 .
[7 ] R. S tanley , A m ethodolog y for evaluating and op tim iz ing wireless sy stem infrastructure costs , in P roc eed in g s of th e IE E E In tern a tion a l S y m p osiu m of P erson a l,
In d oor a n d M ob ile R a d io C om m u n ic a tion s (P IM R C ),
1996.
[8 ] F .J . V elez , L .M . C orreia, C ost/revenue op tim isation in
m ulti-service m obile broadband sy stem s , in the P roc eed in g s of th e IE E E c on feren c e on P erson a l, In d oor
a n d M ob ile R a d io C om m u n ic a tion s (P IM R C ), 2 0 0 2 .
[9 ] J . Z ander, O n the cost structure of future wideband
wireless access , in p roc eed in g s of th e IE E E V eh ic u la r
T ec h n olog y C on fereren c e (V T C ), 1 9 9 7 .
[1 0 ] J . Z ander, Affordable m ultiservice wireless networks
- research challeng es for the nex t decade , in P roc eed in g s of th e IE E E In tern a tion a l S y m p osiu m on P erson a l,
In d oor a n d M ob ile R a d io C om m u n ic a tion s (P IM R C ),
2002.
Chapter 6
An Infrastructure Cost
Evaluation of Single- and
Multi-Access Networks with
Heterogeneous Traffic
Density (Paper 2)
Anders Furuskar, Klas Johansson, and Magnus Almgren,
In Proc. IEEE VTC2005 Spring, May 2005.
87
89
Klas Johansson
W ireless@ KTH,
The Royal Institute of Technology
Electrum 418,S-16440Kista,Sweden
Email:klasj@ radio.
kth.
se
I. INTRODUCTION
M obile network operators are typically interested in maximizingthe profit determinedbythe revenue generatedbytheir
systems andtheir costs.Traditional performance measures used
for single-access cellular systems,suchas coverage andcapacity,are effective measures of the relative improvements for
specific systems.Consideringalso deployment aspects andthat
different systems typicallyhave different cost structure,technical measures,like spectral efficiency,are however,as discussed in e.
g.[1],insufficient to compare different systems.
Ideally both costs and revenues should be included in the
analysis,as in [2],andavailabilityof spectrum,previous assets,
andother strategic issues needto be taken into account.Due to
difficulties in,e.
g.
,predictingendusers willingness to pay,this
is quite complex.A simpler initial step,for relative comparisons only,is to compare the system cost for equal potential
revenues (to simplify;number of supported users)and this is
also the focus of this paper.
90
Traffic Density
Traffic Density
Traffic Density
Average
Figure 1. Simple example of traffic density variations over space, and deployment of macro(light grey) and micro(darkgrey) access points.
(1)
Tmr =
TE
(2)
nS mr
N mr = min m , N APmax, m
Cr
(3)
r
M ma
TEn ' C r N APmax,m
x,
m = max M :
n '=1
(4)
r
n' M max
m
r
n' > M max
m
(5)
91
Figure2. A sampl
eofatrafficdensi
t
ymapandW CDMA macroandW LAN
accesspoi
ntdepl
oyment.
III.
MODELSAND ASSUMPTIONS
Thissecti
on descri
besthe userbehavi
or,system,and radi
o
networkmodelsusedt
oevaluatethedifferentsystem concepts.
Macroscopicmodelsareused to enableaconceptualcomparisonbetweentheconceptsfordifferentt
rafficdensiti
es.
A. TrafficDensityModels
In ordert
o capturetheeffectsdiscussed in Secti
onII,aheterogeneoususerbehaviorisassumed. In short
,based on the
measurementsand modelproposed in [4]and statisticsfrom
[6],itisassumed thattheuserdensity isl
og-normally dist
ributed around a large-scal
emean. The smallscalestandard
devi
ati
on ofthisdist
ri
buti
on i
sadjust
ed so thatassumed peak
valuesinuserdensityareachi
evedwithreasonableprobabili
ty.
To fi
tthe cell-l
eveluserdensity standard deviati
on t
o the
value 0.4 (l
og-scale)reported in [4],a spatialcorrelati
on is
assumed between elements. Reference userdensi
tiesare created by multiplying typicalsuburban (su)and ci
ty centre(cc)
popul
ati
on densiti
es,500 and 20.000 inhabi
tants/km2 respectively,withanassumedservicepenetrati
onof90% andanoperat
ormarketshareof30%. Usersarefurthercharacteri
zedby
anaveragebusyhourtrafficintensity,measuredindat
ageneration perunittime. Asabasisforthis,thetrafficintensi
ty ofa
privat
evoiceuserduringbusyhourisused. Thisisassumedt
o
be20mErlangx10kbps= 0.2kbps. Mul
ti
plyingthiswithafactorN then formstrafficint
ensity referencevalues. Asareference,assuming that0.6% ofthe monthly traffic isgenerat
ed
during each busy hour(typicalforvoice),a 1GB/month user
corresponds t
o 13kbps, or N = 66. Traffic density maps
(10x10km)are creat
ed by multiplying the userdensit
ies and
per-usert
rafficint
ensities. Thegray scalecont
ourin Figure2
depi
ctsareali
zati
onoft
rafficdensitygenerat
edbythemodel.
Not
e thatno explici
tservice isassumed. The evaluati
on is
appli
cabl
eto allservi
cesforwhich thesystem models,i.e. accesspointcapacityandcoverage,arevali
d,andthatarewithin
t
he capabi
l
i
t
i
es of t
he access t
echnol
ogy. These capabi
l
i
t
i
es
differsignificantly between some ofthe accesstechnol
ogi
es.
Forexample,4G conceptsshould becompared withW CDMA
onlyforservicessupport
edbybothnetworks.
Cost Coeff.
1(55/45%)
0.45(45/55%)
0.3(35/65%)
1(55/45%)
0.45(45/55%)
0.3(35/65%)
1(55/45%)
0.45(45/55%)
0.3(35/65%)
1(55/45%)
1(55/45%)
0.45(45/55%)
0.3(35/65%)
6.4(65/35%)
0.13(3/97%)
0.13(3/97%)
0.13(3/97%)
0.13(3/97%)
B. System andRadioNetworkModels
Accesspointsofdifferentaccesstechnol
ogiesarecharacterized with differentmaximum cellradi
iand capaci
ties;seeTableI (hereinacellisdefinedasacombinati
onofasect
orand
carri
erfrequency). Allfiguresareforthedownlinkandroughly
valid foran urban environmentwithoutstrictrequi
rementsfor
indoorcoverage. However,withthesimplified modelingused,
withoutexplici
tradi
o networkmodels,themodelsareappli
cableforarbit
rary environment,depl
oymentand servi
cescenariosforwhichthesystem modelsareval
id.
The W CDMA DCH and HS-DSCH figures,assuming a
15MHzspectrum all
ocati
on,aretakenasreferencevalues,and
Long-Term 3G Evolved[8](henceforthshortlydenotedS3G)
and 4G figures are derived from these. ForS3G,a 20MHz
spect
rum allocati
onisassumed. Togetherwithaspect
rum efficiencyassumptionof0.75bps/
Hz/cell
,thisresultsinacapaci
ty
percellof15Mbps. ThesamepowerdensityasforW CDMA is
also assumed,resulting in thesamecellradius. To investigate
theimpactofcoverage,ahypotheticalS3G system operatingin
450MHz spect
rum,i
s also st
udi
ed. Its cel
lradius i
s simpl
y
basedonfrequencydifferenceandapath-l
ossexponentof3.5.
For 4G, a 100MHz spect
rum is assumed,together with a
slightly improved spect
rum efficiency of 1bps/Hz/cell
. This
resultsin acapaci
ty percellof100Mbps. A fourtimeslower
powerdensity is assumed forthe wider4G carrierthan for
W CDMA. Assuming a distance at
tenuat
ion exponentof3.5,
thisresultsin a30% reduced cellradius. Micro and pico cell
capaciti
esareassumed equalto the macro-cel
lcapaci
ties(per
cell
).
TheW LAN figuresassumesingle-cell
,non-interferedaccess
points. In coordinat
ed multi-cellscenarios these figures decrease some 20-40% for 802.11b and 802.11g. In noncoordinated multi-operat
or scenarios,the capacity is shared
equallybetweentheoperat
ors.
A simple2-hop regenerat
iverelaying conceptisalso evaluated. Itisassumedthattheaccesspointissurroundedbyari
ng
ofsix rel
ay nodes,each with thesamecellradiusasaregular
macrocellaccesspoint.Thisresultsinanequivalentcellradi
us
of7oftheoriginalcel
lradius. Thecapacityisl
imited byt
he
accesspoint
,and assumed to remain at100Mbpsdespit
et
he
potenti
ally favorable channel conditi
ons t
owards the rel
ay
10
-2
10
T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m 2]
10
30 /m o n th
-2
10
T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m 2]
10
c c 1000
-1
10
c c 100
10
c c 10
10
s u 1000
10
cc1
c c 10
s u 1000
cc1
-1
s u 100
10
s u 10
10
10
8 02.11g
W C D M A D C H
W C D M A H S
D C H & 11g
H S & 11g
S 3G
S 3G 45 0
4G
4G r e la y
s u 100
30 /m o n th
10
10
F r a c tio n o f S u p p o r te d U s e r s 20%
s u 10
10
su1
In fr a s tru c tu re C o s t p e r M o n th a n d G b y te [ ]
10
8 02.11g
W C D M A D C H
W C D M A H S
D C H & 11g
H S & 11g
S 3G
S 3G 45 0
4G
4G r e la y
c c 1000
10
F r a c tio n o f S u p p o r te d U s e r s 9 0%
c c 100
10
su1
In fr a s tru c tu re C o s t p e r M o n th a n d G b y te [ ]
92
Figure 3. Infrastructure cost per 1GB/month user versus traffic density for
90% supported users.
Figure 4. Infrastructure cost per 1GB/month user versus traffic density for
20% supported users.
IV.
A. CommerciallyAvailableSystems
Beginning with the 802.11g W LAN and 90% ofthe traffic
served, it is seen that for low traffic densities the cost per GB is
very high. In a suburban environment with a voice-like traffic
intensity per user (su1), the infrastructure cost reaches
10.000/
GB/month. To get down to a reasonable cost per GB
(30), a traffic density of10 M bps/km2 is required, approximately corresponding to su500or cc10scenarios. For a fraction
ofsupported users ofonly 20%, as shown in Figure 4, the cost
per user for 802.11g decreases significantly (as expected). The
reasonable cost of 30/GB/month is now reached at
1M bps/km2 instead, or roughly a cc1 scenario. This indicates
the degree ofcoverage that can be expected to be profitable for
W LAN only operators.
W CDM A DCH and HSDPA yield about 50times lower cost
for moderate traffic densities. These systems reach 30per GB
and month already at 0.2M bps/km2 corresponding to su10scenarios. W CDM A HSDPA becomes capacity limited at higher
traffic densities than W CDM A DCH, and therefore yields
lower costs at high traffic densities. The crossover point between W CDM A HSDPA and 802.11g is about 100M bps/km2,
or cc100. W ith 20% ofthe users covered W CDM A HSDPA is
more expensive than W LAN at 30M bps/km2 (su1000/
cc30),
whereas with 90% coverage W LAN only systems gives a
2
lower cost at first around 100M bps/km (cc100).
The multi-access concepts, W CDM A DCH or W CDM A
HSDPA combined with 802.11g, are seen to yield the lowest
cost ofthe included subsystems. However, the gain as compared to, e.g., a single access W CDM A HSDPA system (with
hierarchical cell structures)is evident only at very high traffic
(> 300M bps/km2). W ith the models and assumptions used,
there is hence no significant multi-access cost reduction. On
the other hand there is neither any loss, and there is thus no
93
V.
CONCLUSIONS
Chapter 7
95
97
A nd ers F urusk a r
Abstract Multi-access networks and hierarchical cell structures are two com m on cap acity ex p ansion strateg ies for m ob ile
network op erators. I n b oth cases costs can b e m inim iz ed for
a set of av ailab le radio access technolog ies, g iv en heterog eneous
req uirem ents on area cov erag e, cap acity and q uality of serv ice. I n
this p ap er we q uantify the infrastructure cost for a m ulti-access
network com p osed of m acro cellular H S D P A b ase stations and
I E E E 8 0 2 .1 1 g W L A N access p oints. T he network is dim ensioned
for an urb an env ironm ent using a stochastic m odel for heterog eneous traffi c density .
W ith the used assum p tions and m odelling it is shown that
a com b ination of H S D P A b ase stations dep loy ed with 4 0 0 m
cell radius tog ether with W L A N in hot sp ots are suffi cient for
av erag e traffi c densities up to around 5 0 Mb p s/km 2 (5 0 tim es
the traffi c of ty p ical p riv ate v oice users today ). I n order to
ev aluate the sensitiv ity to different desig n features, we introduce
the elasticity of infrastructure cost and can thereb y show that it
is m ore im p ortant to im p rov e cap acity in H S D P A than cov erag e
p er 8 0 2 .1 1 g access p oint. H owev er, with a sp arse dep loy m ent
of H S D P A m acro cells (8 0 0 m radius) infrastructure cost is
m ore elastic to 8 0 2 .1 1 g cov erag e. T he p ap er also indicates
som e p ossib ilities to differentiate future radio access technolog ies
towards current sy stem s.
I . I N T R O D U CT I O N
M ulti-access netw ork s are prom ising d ue to h igh ly v arying
req uirem ents ov er tim e and geograph ically on m ob ility, q uality
of serv ice, capacity, etc., and th e inh erent trad eoff in all
w ireless system s b etw een range and feasib le d ata rates. H ence,
b y d eploying a h eterogeneous w ireless netw ork , w ith m ultiple
stand ard s and /or h ierarch ical cell structures, an operator can
ad apt capacity to d em and and th ereb y low er th eir capital and
operational expend itures (CA P E X /O P E X ). T h ere are in fact
m any w ireless stand ard s in th e m ark et alread y tod ay, and
ev en m ore are und er d ev elopm ent. S om e system s, lik e 3 G ,
are d esigned to b enefit from econom y of scope, m eaning th at
cost efficiency is ach iev ed since a w id e range of serv ices can
b e prov id ed w ith th e sam e system ov er w id e areas, potentially serv ing m any users. O th er stand ard s are stream lined for
specific serv ices, such as 2 G for w id e-area m ob ile v oice and
W L A N for local h igh -speed d ata connectiv ity. T h ere are h ence
reasons to b eliev e th at m ulti-access netw ork s is a sustainab le
d eploym ent strategy for m ob ile netw ork operators.
T h is paper treats cost efficient d eploym ent strategies for
netw ork s com posed of H S D P A m acro cellular b ase stations
(B S ) and IE E E 8 0 2 .1 1 g access points (A P ). T h ese sh ould
represent system s w ith long range for w id e area cov erage and
low cost, sh ort range access points suitab le for h ot spots. M ore
specifically, tw o prob lem s w ill b e ad d ressed ; (i) th e trad eoff
b etw een th e num b er of m acro cellular B S s and com plem entary
W L A N A P s need ed , and (ii) w h ich param eters th at are m ost
im portant to im prov e in each system in ord er to furth er
red uce costs. T h is stud y com plem ents th e results presented
in [3 ], w h ich ev aluates th e cost w ith single and m ulti-access
d eploym ent for a num b er of, b oth com m ercially av ailab le, and
future rad io access tech nologies. In b oth stud ies th e scope is
lim ited to th e rad io access netw ork . S pectrum license fees and
oth er costs th at are com m on for th e w h ole m ob ile netw ork
are th us exclud ed . L ik ew ise are a num b er of oth er param eters
th at also are of im portance for a m ob ile operators d eploym ent
strategy; e.g. topology, prev ious assets, and (perh aps forem ost)
d em and and regulatory req uirem ents. Y et, th e ob jectiv e is to
contrib ute to a b etter und erstand ing of th e role of m ulti-access
as capacity expansion strategy and for th is reason a stoch astic
(log-norm al) spatial d istrib ution of traffic is assum ed [3 ].
S erv ice allocation principles for m ulti-access netw ork s h av e
prev iously b een treated in, e.g., [4 ] and [7 ]. T h ese stud ies,
h ow ev er, ad d resses th e prob lem of selecting rad io access
netw ork for users th at are cov ered b y m ultiple system s, and not
d im ensioning of each sub system . In ad d ition, E U h as recently
initiated th e A m b ient N etw ork s project w h ich d eals w ith a
num b er of aspects, m ainly tech nically b ut also b usiness w ise,
of h eterogeneous netw ork s [9 ] and th ere are h ence a num b er
of ongoing stud ies in th is area. P rev ious stud ies consid ering
th e cost structure of m ob ile system s includ e, e.g., [6 ], [8 ], [1 1 ],
and [1 2 ]. F rom th ese stud ies it is clear th at th e cost structure
of m ob ile netw ork s tod ay is d om inated b y th e rad io access
netw ork . M oreov er, th e stud ies in [6 ] and [8 ] prov id e a b asis
for th e tech no-econom ical m od elling used in th e seq uel of th is
paper w h ich is outlined as follow s.
S ection II cov ers b asic m od elling and assum ptions related to
B S perform ance and costs, as w ell as netw ork d im ensioning.
Infrastructure cost estim ations for a m ulti-access netw ork is
presented in S ection III for incum b ent and greenfield operators
respectiv ely, togeth er w ith an analysis of th e elasticity of cost
w ith respect to th e capacity, cov erage and cost per B S . In
S ection IV w e d iscuss h ow th e stud ied system s could b e
im prov ed tech nically and econom ically, and point at a few
gaps th at potentially could b e filled b y future rad io access
tech nologies. T h e paper is conclud ed in S ection V .
98
Lb = 2 8 .9 + 3 3 .9 lo g 1 0 fc + 3 5.2 lo g 1 0 d.
(2 )
T AB L E I
AC C E SS PO IN T C H AR AC T E R IST IC S
R a d iu s
C a p a c ity
C o s t c o e ffi c ie n t
(C APE X /O PE X )
HSDPA
2 0 0 -1 0 0 0 m
[3 -9 ] x 2 .5 Mb p s
1 (5 5 % /4 5 % )
+ 0 .0 3 p e r c e ll
8 0 2 .1 1 g
40m
2 2 Mb p s
0 .1 3 (3 % /9 7 % )
In b o th m o d e ls th e B S h e ig h t w a s 3 0 m a n d m o b ile s ta tio n
h e ig h t 1 .5 m . Lb d e n o te p a th lo s s in d B , fc is th e c a rrie r
fre q u e n c y in MH z , a n d d is th e d is ta n c e b e tw e e n B S a n d
m o b ile s ta tio n g iv e n in k m .
C . Access p oint p erformance and cost assu mp tions
APs a re c h a ra c te riz e d w ith d iffe re n t c e ll ra d ii, c a p a c itie s a n d
c o s ts ; s e e T a b le I. C a p a c ity c o e ffi c ie n ts fo r 8 0 2 .1 1 g a s s u m e s
n o c o -c h a n n e l in te rfe re n c e w h e re a s H SD PA d o e s , d u e to th e
c e llu la r d e p lo y m e n t a n d lim ite d fre q u e n c y s p e c tru m w e
a s s u m e 3 c a rrie rs x 5 Mh z (1 5 MH z in to ta l) fo r d o w n lin k .
N o tic e th a t th e m a x im u m c a p a c ity fo r H SD PA a n d 8 0 2 .1 1 g
is s im ila r, 2 2 .5 a n d 2 2 Mb p s , s o th e AP w ith lo w e s t c o s t p e r
tra n s m itte d b it is e s s e n tia lly d e te rm in e d b y th e g e o g ra p h ic a l
d is trib u tio n o f tra ffi c .
C o s t c o e ffi c ie n ts in c lu d e b o th C APE X a n d O PE X a n d a re
h e n c e fo rth d e n o te d AP c o s t. F o r H SD PA w e u s e th e c o s t fo r a
m a c ro B S d e riv e d in [6 ], w h ic h in tu rn w a s b a s e d o n e s tim a te s
p ro v id e d b y th e G a rtn e r G ro u p a n d [8 ]. In th e n u m e ric a l
e x a m p le s w e h a v e a s s u m e d th a t a m a c ro B S c o s ts e3 0 0 k .
C o s ts fo r ra d io n e tw o rk c o n tro lle rs (R N C ) a n d e le c tric a l p o w e r
h a v e b e e n a d d e d a s c o m p a re d to th e e s tim a te s in [6 ]. T a b le
I a ls o s u m m a riz e s th e c o s t s tru c tu re in te rm s o f C APE X
a n d O PE X a n d th e a d d itio n a l c o s t fo r e x tra c e lls (d e fi n e d
a s a c a rrie r fre q u e n c y a n d s e c to r) in H SD PA. An in c u m b e n t
o p e ra to r th a t a lre a d y h a s s ite s fo r le g a c y s y s te m s in s ta lle d m a y
re u s e m o s t o f th e s e s ite s a n d w e a s s u m e th a t th is lo w e rs th e
c o s t fo r H SD PA B Ss w ith 2 5 % . F o r 8 0 2 .1 1 g n e w e s tim a te s
h a v e b e e n d e d u c te d b a s e d o n [8 ]. O PE X is c a lc u la te d in
p re s e n t v a lu e o v e r a 1 0 -y e a r p e rio d , u s in g a 1 0 % d is c o u n t
ra te (s e e fu rth e r [6 ]). F o r th e s a k e o f s im p lic ity th e n e tw o rk is
d im e n s io n e d to c a rry th e s a m e tra ffi c d u rin g th e w h o le n e tw o rk
life s p a n .
D . Infrastru ctu re cost measu res
T h e b a s ic m e a s u re fo r c o s t e ffi c ie n c y u s e d is th e infrastru ctu re cost p er G B and month . In d o in g th is w e a s s u m e th a t 0 .6 %
o f th e m o n th ly tra ffi c is c a rrie d d u rin g e a c h b u s y h o u r, w h ic h
ro u g h ly c o rre s p o n d s to th e tra ffi c p a tte rn in c u rre n t c e llu la r
s y s te m s , a n d th a t th e n e tw o rk is d im e n s io n e d a c c o rd in g to
a v e ra g e a g g re g a te th ro u g h p u t (p e r a re a s a m p le ). H e n c e , th e
re s u lts a n d c o n c lu s io n s s h o u ld h o ld fo r a ll tra ffi c m ix e s th a t
fa ll w ith in th e p e rfo rm a n c e p a ra m e te rs g iv e n in T a b le I.
As a s e n s itiv ity a n a ly s is w e e s tim a te th e elasticity of infrastru ctu re cost. E la s tic ity is c o m m o n ly u s e d in e c o n o m ic s
to m e a s u re th e in c re m e n ta l p e rc e n ta g e c h a n g e in o n e v a ria b le
w ith re s p e c t to a n in c re m e n ta l p e rc e n ta g e c h a n g e in a n o th e r
v a ria b le [1 0 ]. W e d e fi n e th e e la s tic ity o f a p a ra m e te r X (w h ic h
In fra s tru c tu re C o s t p e r M o n th a n d G B [E u ro ]
99
T A BL E II
S U M M A RY O F M O N T H L Y IN FRA ST RU C T U RE C O ST S P E R GB A N D T H E C O ST
A D V A N T A GE FO R IN C U M BE N T S T O W A RD S GRE E N FIE L D O P E RA T O RS .
200m
4 00m
8 00m
1000m
10
T r a ffi c d en s ity
H S D P A r a d iu s
H S D P A B S d en s ity
H S D P A cells /B S
W L A N A P d en s ity
I n cu m b en t op er a tor
G r een fi eld op er a tor
C os t a d v a n ta g e
for in cu m b en t
10
Voice
1M bps/k m2
10 0 0 m
0 .3 3 BSs/k m2
1.4 cells
0 A P s/k m2
e6 .8
e8 .8
24%
1 0 x v oice
10 M bps/k m2
800m
0 .5 6 BSs/k m2
5 .7 cells
2 .1A P s/k m2
e2 .9
e3 .4
15 %
5 0 x v oice
5 0 M bps/k m2
400m
2 .2 BSs/k m2
6 .8 cells
19 A P s/k m2
e1.7
e1.9
10 %
10
V o ic e
0
10
10 x v o ic e
1
10
A v e ra g e T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m 2]
100 x v o ic e
2
10
Fig. 1. Infrastructure cost per GB and month for an incumbent operator with
a multi-access network consisting of H SD P A macro BSs and IE E E 8 0 2 .11g
A P s. T he curv es depict different cell radii in the macro cells.
100
1
H SD PA
H SD PA
8 02.11g
8 02.11g
0.5
cost
c a p a c ity
cost
c o v e ra g e
0.5
H SD PA
H SD PA
8 02.11g
8 02.11g
0.5
cost
c a p a c ity
cost
c o v e ra g e
0.5
1
V o ic e
0
10
10 x v o ic e
1
10
A v e ra g e T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m 2]
100 x v o ic e
V o ic e
2
10
10
10 x v o ic e
1
10
A v e ra g e T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m 2]
100 x v o ic e
2
10
F ig . 2 . E lasticity o f in frastructure co st fo r an HSDPA an d 8 02 .1 1 g multi-access n etw o rk w ith resp ect to differen t ch an g es in desig n p arameters. T h e referen ce
sy stem is adap ted fo r ap p ro x imately 5 0 x v o ice traffi c (left g rap h ) an d 1 0 x v o ice traffi c (rig h t g rap h ). All b ut th e ch an g ed v ariab les are k ep t co n stan t.
I V . P O T E N T I AL I M PR O V E M E N T S O F C U R R E N T SY ST E M S
F o llo w in g th is an aly sis o f k ey p arameters to imp ro v e in
HSDPA an d 8 02 .1 1 g if traffi c in creases w e w ill discuss b riefl y
h o w such imp ro v emen ts co uld b e materializ ed.
101
V . C O N CL US I O N S
2200
2000
18 00
C e ll ra n g e [m ]
16 00
In c a r 12.2k b p s
speech user
O u td o o r 3 8 4 k b p s
n o n re a ltim e d a ta u s e r
14 00
1200
1000
In d o o r 14 4 k b p s
re a ltim e d a ta u s e r
8 00
6 00
C O S T 23 1-W a lfis c h -Ik e g a m i
C O S T 23 1-H a ta
4 00
200
120
125
13 0
13 5
14 0
A llo w e d p a th lo s s [d B ]
14 5
15 0
Fig. 3. Uplink range as a function of allowed path loss for urban WCDMA
m acro cells. A few ty pical serv ices [2 ] are depicted in thegraph.
Multi-access networks are useful in order to lower infrastructure costs for operators in the long run if geographical
traffi c density v aries strongly . Also in the short run, it can be
benefi cial as a tem porary solution before im prov ed m acro cell
networks and m ore freq uency spectrum are av ailable.
As an ex am ple, we hav e looked in m ore detail into an
operator deploy ed network with m acro cellular H S DP A base
stations and IE E E 8 0 2 .1 1 g access points. For this sy stem
the total infrastructure cost was q uantifi ed for a city center
env ironm ent using a stochastic (log-norm al) m odel for heterogeneous traffi c density . It was shown that an H S DP A cell
radius between 4 0 0 m and 8 0 0 m m inim iz e cost for av erage
traffi c densities during busy hour of 1 0 -5 0 Mbps/km 2 . T his
approx im ately correspond to 1 0 -5 0 tim es the traffi c of priv ate
v oice users today . For higher traffi c densities, either a v ery
dense m acro cell lay er, or a large am ount of WL AN access
points are needed and this is probably not feasible.
We hav e also illustrated how elasticity of infrastructure cost
can be used to effectiv ely analy z e what design param eters
that are m ost im portant to im prov e in a m ulti-access wireless
network. In the ex am ple with H S DP A and 8 0 2 .1 1 the capacity
per m acro base station is m ore im portant to im prov e with
4 0 0 m cell radius than 8 0 2 .1 1 g cov erage up to 1 0 0 Mbps/km 2 .
H owev er, if H S DP A base stations are m ore sparsely deploy ed
(8 0 0 m radius) the sam e cost sav ings can be achiev ed through
increasing the range of 8 0 2 .1 1 g already at 5 0 Mbps/km 2 .
ACK N O WL E DG ME N T
T his work has partly been sponsored by the S wedish
Foundation for S trategic Research v ia the Affordable Wireless
S erv ices and Infrastructure P roject.
R E FE RE N CE S
[1 ] CO S T 2 31 Final Report, av ailable at http://www.lx .it.pt/cost2 31 /
[2 ] H . H olm a and A. T oskala (editors), W CD M A for U M T S , T hird edition,
J ohn Wiley & S ons, 2 0 0 4 .
[3] A. Furuskar, M. Alm gren, and K . J ohansson, An Infrastructure Cost
E v aluation of S ingle- and Multi-Access N etworks with H eterogeneous
User B ehav ior , in Proc. IE E E V ehicu lar T echnology Conference sp ring,
May 2 0 0 5 .
[4 ] A. Furuskar, Allocation of m ultiple serv ices in m ulti-access wireless
sy stem s , in Proc. IE E E W ork shop on M ob ile and W ireless Com m u nications N etw ork , 2 0 0 2 .
[5 ] U. G otz ner et al., S patial T raffi c Distribution in Cellular N etworks , in
Proc. IE E E V ehicu lar T echnology Conference, 1 9 9 8 .
[6 ] K . J ohansson, A. Furuskar, P . K arlsson, and J . Z ander, Relation between
base station characteristics and cost structure in cellular networks ,
in Proc. IE E E Personal, Indoor and M ob ile R adio Com m u nications,
S ept. 2 0 0 4 .
[7 ] J . K alliokulju et al., Radio Access S election for Multistandard T erm inals , IE E E Com m u nications M agaz ine, O ct. 2 0 0 1 .
[8 ] F. L oiz illon et al., F inal resu lts on seam less m ob ile IP serv ice p rov ision
econom ics , IS T -2 0 0 0 -2 5 1 7 2 T O N IC Deliv erable num ber 1 1 , O ct. 2 0 0 2 .
[9 ] N . N iebert et al., Am bient N etworks: An Architecture For Com m unication N etworks B ey ond 3G , IE E E W ireless Com m u nications, April
2004.
[1 0 ] R. S . P indy ck and D. L . Rubinfeld, M icroeconom ics , Fifth edition,
P rentice H all International, 2 0 0 1 .
[1 1 ] D. P . Reed, T he Cost S tructure of P ersonal Com m unication S erv ices ,
IE E E Com m u nications M agaz ine, Apr. 1 9 9 3.
[1 2 ] J . Z ander, O n the cost structure of future wideband wireless access ,
in Proc. IE E E V ehicu lar T echnology Conference, 1 9 9 7 .
Chapter 8
103
105
On th e c o s t e ffi c ie nc y o f u s e r d e p lo ye d a c c e s s
p o ints inte g ra te d in m o b ile ne tw o rk s
Klas J o h an sso n
Wireles s @ K TH , R oyal In s titu te of Tec h n ology, E lec tru m 4 1 8 , S E -1 6 4 4 0 K is ta, S wed en
E m ail: k las j@ rad io.k th .s e
I. I NTRODUCTION
An in c reas in g availability of fi x ed broad ban d n etwork s ,
in c lu d in g d igital s u bs c riber lin es an d c able m od em s ,
an d th e d evelop m en t of Wireles s L AN tec h n ology will
en able n ew d es ign s of p u blic wireles s ac c es s n etwork s .
In th is s tu d y th e ec on om ic s of u s er d ep loyed loc al ac c es s
p oin ts (AP s ) th at are als o op en for oth er s u bs c ribers
an d roam in g p artn ers , is c on s id ered . M ore s p ec ifi c ally,
we will es tim ate th e in fras tru c tu re c os t as a fu n c tion
of traffi c d en s ity (area c ap ac ity) for d ifferen t m ix es of
op erator d ep loyed bas e s tation s (B S ) an d u s er d ep loyed
AP s . Fu rth erm ore, th e n u m ber of AP s n eed ed for s om e
frac tion of c overed traffi c is ad d res s ed .
For th is p u rp os e a tec h n o-ec on om ic al m od el th at
ac c ou n ts for both c ap ital an d op eration al ex p en d itu res
(C AP E X an d O P E X ) is ap p lied . Th e n etwork is d im en s ion ed ac c ord in g to average c ap ac ity an d ran ge p er
ac c es s p oin t an d a s tatis tic al m od el for h eterogen eou s
traffi c d en s ity is u s ed to c ap tu re geograp h ic al variation s
in aggregate (d em an d ed ) th rou gh p u t. An ex am p le of a
n etwork layou t with op erator d ep loyed m ac ro c ellu lar
bas e s tation s an d ran d om ly p lac ed ac c es s p oin ts (AP s )
d ep loyed by u s ers is given in Figu re 1 .
P rivately own ed AP s th at are op en for p u blic ac c es s
h ave p reviou s ly been p rop os ed in , e.g., [1 ,9 ,1 2 ]. In [1 2 ]
it was c on c lu d ed th at ap p rox im ately twic e as m an y
AP s are n eed ed to c over in d oor (offi c e) en viron m en ts
with ran d om in s tead of p lan n ed p lac em en t. A s im ilar
c as e is loc al WL AN p rovid ers p res en t in s p ec ifi c areas ,
e.g., airp orts an d h otels . Th es e op erators typ ic ally h ave
roam in g agreem en ts with p u blic op erators wh o ac tu ally
c h arge th e en d u s ers an d in tu rn p ay th es e loc al n etwork
p rovid ers for p rovid in g ac c es s to th eir c u s tom ers [1 0 ].
A c learin g h ou s e m ay als o be u s ed as an in term ed iator
A. T h e n e tw o r k fr a n c h is in g bu s in e s s m o d e l
G enerally speaking , franc h ising refers to a two-layered
bu siness m od el wh ere a franc h iser offers brand nam e and
c ore fu nc tions su c h as proc u rem ent, bac k-offi c e, and IT
su pport to a larg e nu m ber of affi liates, c alled franc h isees.
Th ese franc h isees norm ally h ave to pay a fee for u sing
th e brand and su pport fu nc tionality and follow ru les for,
e.g ., store selec tion, servic e and prod u c t q u alities set u p
by th e franc h iser. H owever, m ost loc al profi ts are kept
by th e loc al franc h isee. Im plem entations of th is bu siness
m od el c an be fou nd in, e.g ., th e retail ind u stry.
With network franc h ising both parties benefi t from th e
arrang em ent. Th e operator obtains ac c essibility to AP s
provid ing c h eap, h ig h -c apac ity wireless ac c ess wh ereas
th e u ser g ets an AP and som e c om pensation by th e
operator. In prac tic e we ex pec t th at operators will c om pensate th e AP owner th rou g h bu nd ling of d ifferent
servic es, su c h as fi x ed broad band , su bsid iz ed ac c ess
box es, and wireless ac c ess wh en th e u ser is in oth er
loc ations. N atu rally th e ac tu al d esig n of th e offering will
d epend on th e types of provid ers, wh ic h allows for a
nu m ber of new ways of pac kag ing and d istribu ting th e
d eploym ent; th is issu e is ou tsid e th e sc ope of th is paper.
Th is bu siness m od el c ou ld be of interest to m obile
network operators with lim ited spec tru m and /or poor
ind oor c overag e, or broad band provid ers th at wou ld like
to ex ploit th eir fi x ed network by offering wireless ac c ess
(ind oors). A prom ising bu siness c ase wou ld be operators th at provid e fi x ed broad band ac c ess and m obile
su bsc riptions as a M obile Virtu al N etwork O perators
(M VN O ). Th ese M VN O s c ou ld offer ind oor and loc al
c overag e by m eans of franc h ising of AP s, th ereby only
u tiliz ing th e m obile network as a c om plem ent (prim arily
for ou td oor and m obile u sers). N ote, h owever, th at
with ou t reg u latory interventions operators with ou t th eir
own fi x ed broad band ac c ess wou ld probably su ffer from
h ig h inter-c onnec tion fees for th e last m ile. In any c ase,
th e proposed bu siness m od el fosters m ore c om petition in
ac c ess networks, wh ic h h as been an im portant objec tive
of telec om reg u lation au th orities for a long tim e [2 ].
1 0000
9 000
4.5
8 000
7 000
3.5
6 000
5 000
2.5
B . U s e r d e p lo y e d a c c e s s p o in ts
4 000
3 000
2 000
1.5
1 000
0
0
10
106
1
2 000
4 000
6 000
8 000
1 0000
107
R a d iu s
C a p a c ity
C o s t c o e ffi c ie n t
(C APE X /O PE X )
90
T y p ic a l fra c tio n o f tra ffic te rm in a te d
in d o o rs in to d a y 's m o b ile s y s te m s
80
70
60
50
40
30
2 0m E v o ic e tra ffic
1 00 x v o ic e
2 00 x v o ic e
20
TAB L E I
HSDPA
2 0 0 -10 0 0 m
[3 -9 ] x 2 .5 Mb p s
1 (5 5 % /4 5 % )
+ 0 .0 3 p e r c e ll
1 00
P e rc e n ta g e o f tra ffic c o v e re d
8 0 2 .1 1 g
40m
2 2 Mb p s
0 .13 (3 % /9 7 % )
10
0
AP
50m
5 Mb p s
0 .0 0 6 7
10
15
20
25
30
P e rc e n ta g e o f s u b s c rib e rs w ith A P s
35
40
108
TAB LE II
T HE NUMBER OF TRANSCEIVERS AND ACCESS POINTS REQUIRED
PER SERVED KM 2 IN A CITY CENTER .
M o n th ly In fra s tru c tu re C o s t [E u ro /G B ]
10
H
H
H
H
S
S
S
S
+
+
+
+
11g
11g + A P 1%
11g + A P 2%
11g + A P 4 %
Subscribers w ith AP
10 x vo ic e tr a ffi c
H SD P A T R X s
8 0 2 .1 1 g AP s
AP s
100 x vo ic e tr a ffi c
H SD P A T R X s
8 0 2 .1 1 g AP s
AP s
10
0%
1%
2%
4%
3 .2
9 .1
0 .0
2 .6
3 .6
54
2 .2
1 .8
110
1 .4
0 .0
220
23
28
0 .0
19
17
54
16
10
110
11
3 .7
220
10
10
10
2
T ra ffic D e n s ity [M b p s /k m ]
10
Chapter 9
Radio Resource
Management in Roaming
Based Multi-Operator
WCDMA networks (Paper
5)
Klas Johansson, Martin Kristensson, and Uwe Schwarz,
In Proc. IEEE VTC2004 Spring, May 2004.
109
111
K las J oh ansson
Radio C ommunication Sy stems L ab oratory
D ep t. of Signals, Sensors & Sy stems
Roy al Institute of T ech nology
S-1 0 0 4 4 ST O C K H O L M, Sw eden
E mail: k lasj@ radio.k th .se
I . I N T RO D U C T I O N
Sh aring th e radio access netw ork (RA N ) h as b ecome p op ular among U MT S mob ile op erators during th e recent y ears.
T h e main reason is p erh ap s to low er th e inv estment costs, b ut
it could also b e to reduce op erating costs in th e long run.
In p articular in rural areas, w h ere cov erage driv es th e total
netw ork cost, th is h as also to some ex tent b een imp lemented
in p ractice. Moreov er, op erators w ith out a 3 G license may act
as Mob ile V irtual N etw ork op erators, and th ereb y ex tend th ere
serv ice offering b y roaming into anoth er op erators netw ork .
F or th is p urp ose, similar functionality as w ith international roaming can b e utiliz ed to inter-connect th e op erators
netw ork s. A nd, th is p ap er inv estigates meth ods for h ow to
allocate radio resources in such roaming b ased multi-op erator
W C D MA netw ork s.
T ech nically , w ith roaming based sharing, an op erator access
anoth er op erators RA N indirectly v ia th e core netw ork s. T h is
imp lies th at multip le op erators fully sh are th e same RA N ,
and th ere is h ence a p otential need for radio resource control
b etw een th e op erators. N ormally th e op erators sh are th e same
carrier(s), b ut it is also p ossib le to use dedicated carriers.
Besides roaming b ased sh aring, w h ich is th e top ic of
th is p ap er, th ere are also oth er sh aring solutions. T h e main
categories th at w e see today are R A N sharing and site sharing.
T h e th ree group s of solutions imp ly different lev els of sh aring,
w h ich is dep icted in F ig. 1 .
W ith RA N b ased sh aring th e op erators h av e dedicated
carriers b ut sh are netw ork elements up to and including th e
N ok ia N etw ork s
Saterinp ortti, P L 3 0 1
0 0 0 4 5 N ok ia G roup , F IN L A N D
E mail: {martin.k ristensson, uw e.sch w arz }@ nok ia.com
Core network
R oa m ing b a s ed
s h a ring
R a d io N etwork Controller
BS
BS
BS
BS
R A N s h a ring
S ite
s h a ring
112
II. M E T H O D S F O R A L L O C A T IN G R A D IO R E S O U R C E S W IT H
R O A MIN G B A S E D S H A R IN G
A. Dedicated carriers
In th is c a s e th e o p e ra to rs s h a re fo r e x a m p le th e b a s e s ta tio n s ,
th e tra n s m is s io n n e tw o rk a n d th e ra d io n e tw o rk c o n tro lle r, b u t
th e y e a c h h a v e th e ir d e d ic a te d c a rrie r la y e r.
D e d ic a te d c a rrie rs re s u lt in g o o d in te r-o p e ra to r is o la tio n ,
b u t th e d e d ic a te d c a rrie rs a ls o re s u lt in u n n e c e s s a ry h ig h
in v e s tm e n t c o s ts in s o m e s c e n a rio s . E s p e c ia lly in ru ra l a re a s
th e c a p a c ity o f a s in g le -c a rrie r W C D MA n e tw o rk c o u ld b e
w e ll e n o u g h to c o v e r th e n e e d s fo r m u ltip le o p e ra to rs .
B . F ix ed cap acity sh ares p er carrier
W ith a d v a n c e d R R M fu n c tio n a lity , a fi x e d fra c tio n o f th e
c e ll c a p a c ity c a n b e re s e rv e d fo r e a c h o p e ra to r a n d o n ly o n e
c a rrie r is th u s re q u ire d . T h is a p p ro a c h re s u lts in lo w e r in v e s tm e n t c o s ts a s c o m p a re d to d e d ic a te d c a rrie rs (in p a rtic u la r in
c o v e ra g e lim ite d a re a s ) a n d it s till p ro v id e s p e rfe c t fa ir s h a rin g
o f th e a v a ila b le c a p a c ity . H o w e v e r, it c o u ld a ls o le a d to a lo s s
in to ta l s y s te m c a p a c ity a s c o m p a re d to fu lly s h a re d c a rrie rs
d u e to a d e c re a s e d s ta tis tic a l m u ltip le x in g g a in .
A n e x a m p le o f th e tru n k in g e ffi c ie n c y is g iv e n in F ig . 2 .
H e re th e a v e ra g e c h a n n e l u tiliz a tio n is d e p ic te d a s a fu n c tio n
o f th e n u m b e r o f a v a ila b le c h a n n e ls p e r c e ll C. F o r a to le ra b le
b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility Bmax = 5% (c a lc u la te d a c c o rd in g to
th e w e ll k n o w n E rla n g -B fo rm u la , s e e e .g . [3 ]), th e a v e ra g e
c h a n n e l u tiliz a tio n is h e re d e fi n e d a s
O
(1 )
= ,
C
w h e re th e o ffe re d lo a d O is th e to ta l o ffe re d lo a d g iv e n in
E rla n g a n d th e n u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls C is a c o n s ta n t.
W ith C = 8 0 c h a n n e ls a v a ila b le p e r c e ll th e to ta l c a p a c ity
is re d u c e d w ith 1 0 % a lre a d y w ith tw o o p e ra to rs s h a rin g
th e c a p a c ity in e q u a lly s iz e d s h a re s . A n d w ith fo u r s h a rin g
o p e ra to rs th e lo s s is u p to 2 0 %. N o tic e th a t th is a ls o b rin g s
m o re c o s ts w h ic h w o u ld c o n tra d ic t w ith th e m a in p u rp o s e o f
10%
re d u c tio n
2 0%
re d u c tio n
0.9
A v e ra g e c h a n n e l u tiliz a tio n ,
H o w m u c h o f th e ra d io n e tw o rk c a p a c ity th a t e a c h s h a rin g
p a rtn e r h a s th e rig h t to u s e w ith ro a m in g b a s e d s h a rin g is
c o m m o n ly s p e c ifi e d in a S e rv ic e L e v e l A g re e m e n t (S L A ). A n
o p e ra to r th a t fo llo w s its te rm s in th e S L A s h o u ld re c e iv e th e
a g re e d Q u a lity o f S e rv ic e (Q o S ) le v e ls ; th is e v e n if th e o th e r
o p e ra to rs try to u tiliz e m o re c a p a c ity th a n a g re e d . T h e o n ly
w a y fo r a n o p e ra to r to o b ta in m o re c a p a c ity s h o u ld th u s b e to
e ith e r p a y fo r a la rg e r s h a re , o r in v e s t in m o re c a p a c ity .
In p ra c tic e th is m e a n s th e th e ra d io re s o u rc e m u s t b e s h a re d
in a c o n tro lle d w a y b e tw e e n th e o p e ra to rs . A n d , th e ra d io
re s o u rc e s c a n in p rin c ip le b e a llo c a te d b y :
u s in g d e d ic a te d c a rrie rs fo r e a c h o p e ra to r,
a llo c a tin g a fi x e d c a p a c ity s h a re fo r e a c h o p e ra to r p e r
c a rrie r, o r
d y n a m ic a lly p rio ritiz e o p e ra to rs (w ith in o n e o r m u ltip le
c a rrie rs ).
N e x t w e w ill d is c rib e th o s e m e th o d s b rie fl y , a n d d is c u s s th e
a p p lic a b ility fo r d iffe re n t u s e c a s e s .
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
N u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls p e r c e ll, C
113
III. M U L T I - O P E R A T O R A D MIS S IO N C O N T R O L W IT H
N O N - P R E E MP T IV E P R IO R IT Y Q U E U E IN G
S ort q ueue: 1 ) Pi 2 ) Td
N o
Oi = i T,
(2 )
w h e re i is th e a v e ra g e a rriv a l ra te o f n e w c o n n e c tio n s fo r
o p e ra to r i a n d T is th e a v e ra g e d u ra tio n p e r c o n n e c tio n . T h e
to ta l o ffe re d lo a d is th e n g iv e n b y
O=
N
Oi ,
N o
Td> Tm a x ?
Y es
Y es
A lloca te ch a nnel
F ig . 3 .
F lo w c h a rt o f p e rio d ic a l a d m is s io n c o n tro l w ith n o n -p re e m p tiv e
p rio rity q u e u in g .
(3 )
i=1
a s s u m in g th a t N o p e ra to rs s h a re th e n e tw o rk .
T h e to ta l n u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls p e r c e ll C is s till m o d e le d
a s c o n s ta n t. A lth o u g h it is w e ll k n o w n th a t th is is n o t th e
c a s e in a W C D MA s y s te m (s e e e .g . [2 ], w e b e lie v e th is in itia l
a s s e s s m e n t is n o t im p ro v e d s ig n ifi c a n tly b y m o d e lin g th is in
m o re d e ta il.
E a c h o p e ra to r is a s s ig n e d a m in im u m c a p a c ity le v e l p e r c e ll,
Ci , h e rin c o rre s p o n d in g to th e n u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls a n o p e ra to r
is g u a ra n te e d a c c o rd in g to th e S L A .
A n e w c o n n e c tio n re q u e s t is q u e u e d u n til th e re a re re s o u rc e s
a v a ila b le . H o w e v e r, if th e w a itin g tim e Td e x c e e d s a c e rta in
th re s h o ld Tm a x th e re q u e s t is b lo c k e d . T h e b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility fo r a n o p e ra to r, Bi , is th u s d e fi n e d a s
Bi = P r (Td > Tm
ax
)P r (U s e r b e lo n g s to o p e ra to r i). (4 )
F u rth e rm o re , th e lo a d p e r o p e ra to r Li is s im p ly g iv e n b y
th e to ta l n u m b e r o f a llo c a te d c h a n n e ls fo r th a t o p e ra to r a t a
g iv e n p o in t in tim e .
B . Alg orith m description
A n o v e rv ie w o f th e a lg o rith m u s e d fo r a d m is s io n c o n tro l
w ith n o n -p re e m p tiv e p rio rity q u e u in g is d e p ic te d in F ig . 3 .
T h e p rio rity le v e l o f e a c h o p e ra to r, Pi , is d e fi n e d a s
Ci
,
(5 )
Li
s o th a t o p e ra to rs w ith a lo a d Li lo w e r th a n th e a g re e d
m in im u m c a p a c ity Ci re c e iv e s a h ig h p rio rity .
T h e q u e u in g m a n a g e m e n t o u tlin e d h e re c a n b e im p le m e n te d
in c o n ju n c tio n w ith , e .g ., th e p e rio d ic a l a d m is s io n c o n tro l
fu n c tio n a lity d e s c rib e d in [2 ] a n d it c o n s is ts o f th e fo llo w in g
s te p s .
1 ) A n e w c o n n e c tio n re q u e s t th a t a rriv e s w h e n th e s y s te m
is c o n g e s te d is p u t in th e q u e u e .
2 ) T h e q u e u e is p e rio d ic a lly s o rte d in a n d e s c e n d in g o rd e r
a c c o rd in g to Pi . T h e n e a c h o p e ra to rs c o n n e c tio n s a re
s o rte d g ro u p -w is e in a d e s c e n d in g o rd e r b a s e d o n Td .
C o n s e q u e n tly , th e o p e ra to r w ith h ig h e s t Pi w ill b e
s e rv e d fi rs t a n d e a c h o p e ra to rs c o n n e c tio n re q u e s ts a re
s e rv e d in a fi rs t-in -fi rs t-o u t (F IF O ) m a n n e r re la tiv e to
e a c h o th e r.
ax
fo r Oi < Ci .
(6 )
T h a t is , Bi s h o u ld b e b e lo w a c e rta in th re s h o ld Bm a x u n til
th e o p e ra to r re a c h e s its a g re e d m in im u m c a p a c ity Ci . A n d
a s a c o n s e q u e n c e , a t h ig h to ta l o ffe re d lo a d O th e b lo c k in g
p ro b a b ility w ill b e h ig h e r fo r o p e ra to rs th a t h a v e e x c e e d e d
th e ir lo a d s h a re .
Pi =
IV . S IMU L A T IO N S A N D R E S U L T S
T h e p e rfo rm a n c e o f th e a lg o rith m o u tlin e d in S e c tio n III h a s
b e e n in v e s tig a te d b y m e a n s o f s im p le q u e u in g s im u la tio n s w ith
tw o o p e ra to rs (N = 2). F irs t, g e n e ra l s im u la tio n a s s u m p tio n s
a n d m o d e ls a re d e s c rib e d . T h e n a fe w e x a m p le s a re g iv e n to
s h o w h o w th e a lg o rith m c o u ld fu n c tio n in d iffe re n t s c e n a rio s .
A. G eneral assumptions and traffi c models
A s in g le c e ll h a s b e e n s im u la te d in w h ic h a ll c o n n e c tio n s
h a v e th e s a m e b it ra te . E a c h o p e ra to r h a s p rio ritiz e d a c c e s s to
a to ta l n u m b e r o f Ci c h a n n e ls . A n d , if n o t s ta te d o th e rw is e ,
b o th o p e ra to rs h a v e th e s a m e g u a ra n te e d c a p a c ity s o th a t
C1 = C2 =
C
.
2
(7 )
114
TABLE I
S IM U LATED SER V IC ES
Se rv ic e
C h a n n e ls p e r c e ll C
Allo w e d q u e u in g tim e Tmax [s ]
Av e ra g e c o n n e c tio n tim e
D a ta ra te
Sp e e c h
80
5s
120s
1 2 .2 k b p s
V id e o s tre a m in g
16
15s
120s
64kbps
A c o n n e c tio n is a d m itte d if th e re is a t le a s t o n e c h a n n e l
a v a ila b le , th a t is if
N
Li < C,
(8 )
i=1
a n d b lo c k e d if n o c h a n n e l is re le a s e d b e fo re th e m a x im u m
a llo w e d w a itin g tim e Tm a x is e x c e e d e d . Th e p rio rity le v e l Pi
is u p d a te d c o n tin u o u s ly w ith o u t a n y te m p o ra l a v e ra g in g a n d
is th e s a m e fo r a ll c o n n e c tio n s b e lo n g in g to th e s a m e o p e ra to r.
Th e to ta l n u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls C a n d th e m a x im u m w a itin g
tim e Tm a x a re s e rv ic e s p e c ifi c a n d th e s a m e in a ll s im u la tio n s ;
s e e Ta b le I.
N o te a ls o th a t, a c c o rd in g to th e P o is s o n tra ffi c m o d e l
u s e d , b o th th e in te r-a rriv a l tim e s o f c o n n e c tio n re q u e s ts a n d
c o n n e c tio n d u ra tio n s a re e x p o n e n tia lly d is trib u te d .
B. Blocking probability for a speech service
Th e b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility o f a n o p e ra to r i = 1 is d e p ic te d
in F ig . 4 a s fu n c tio n o f its o ffe re d lo a d O1 . Th is h a s b e e n
s im u la te d fo r a fe w d iffe re n t v a lu e s o f o ffe re d lo a d fo r th e
s e c o n d o p e ra to r, O2 . N o w , a c c o rd in g to (6 ), th e b lo c k in g
p ro b a b ility o f th e s tu d ie d o p e ra to r B1 s h o u ld b e k e p t b e lo w
s o m e th re s h o ld Bm a x a s lo n g a s L1 < C1 .
F ig . 4 s h o w s th a t th e a lg o rith m p e rfo rm s w e ll fo r a s p e e c h
s e rv ic e . Th is is s im p ly d u e to th a t th e re a re q u ite m a n y
c h a n n e ls (8 0 ) a v a ila b le p e r c a rrie r. Th u s , th e re is a h ig h
lik e lih o o d th a t a c h a n n e l is re le a s e d b e fo re th e m a x im u m
a llo w e d q u e u in g tim e Tm a x is e x c e e d e d .
0.15
0.1
20
72
80%
As th e b it ra te in c re a s e , th e to ta l n u m b e r o f c h a n n e ls
a v a ila b le p e r c a rrie r d e c re a s e a n d th e n o n p re m p tiv e p rio rity
q u e u in g a lg o rith m s h o u ld c o n s e q u e n tly p e rfo rm w o rs e . Th is
is a ls o in d ic a te d b y th e s im u la te d re s u lts in F ig . 5 fo r a v id e o
s tre a m in g s e rv ic e .
In th is c a s e th e b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility o f th e fi rs t o p e ra to r B1
c a n n o t b e k e p t b e lo w Bm a x = 5 % w h e n th e lo a d is h ig h
fo r th e o th e r o p e ra to r, a n d th e re is h e n c e a lo s s in c a p a c ity
0.2
40
51
30%
B lo c k in g p ro b a b ility fo r o p e ra to r 1, B
B lo c k in g p ro b a b ility fo r o p e ra to r 1, B
0.25
F ix e d re s e rv a tio n
O = 80 E rl
2
O2 = 60 E rl
O2 = 40 E rl
O2 = 20 E rl
60
44
10%
F in a lly , w e c a n a ls o s e e in F ig . 4 th a t, w h e n th e o ffe re d lo a d
fo r th e s e c o n d o p e ra to r O2 in c re a s e , s o d o e s u n fo rtu n a te ly
a ls o th e b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility o f o p e ra to r 1 (B1 ). H o w e v e r, in
th is c a s e B1 c a n s till b e k e p t b e lo w Bm a x = 5 % . Th u s , w e
c o n c lu d e th e a lg o rith m p e rfo rm s w e ll fo r a W C D M A s y s te m
w ith s p e e c h u s e rs a n d th is s h o u ld a ls o h o ld fo r a n y c irc u it
s w itc h e d v id e o a n d d a ta s e rv ic e w ith a m o d e ra te d a ta ra te .
0.3 5
0.3
80
4 1 .6
5%
0.25
F ix e d re s e rv a tio n
O = 14 E rl
2
O2 = 10 E rl
O2 = 6 E rl
O2 = 2 E rl
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0.05
0
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Offe re d lo a d fo r o p e ra to r 1, O1 [E rl]
F ig . 4 . Th e b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility o f o p e ra to r 1 (B1 ) fo r a s p e e c h s e rv ic e a s a
fu n c tio n o f o ffe re d lo a d (O1 ) fo r d iffe re n t le v e ls o f lo a d fo r th e o th e r o p e ra to r
(O2 ). A fi x e d re s o u rc e a llo c a tio n o f 4 0 c h a n n e ls p e r o p e ra to r is d e p ic te d a s
a re fe re n c e .
0
2
10
12
Offe re d lo a d fo r o p e ra to r 1, O [E rl]
1
115
T AB L E III
G AI N RE L AT I V E T O A F I X E D AL L O C AT I O N O F 8 S T RE AM I N G C H AN N E L S
W I T H 5% T O L E RAB L E B L O C K I N G P RO B AB I L I T Y .
O2 [E rl]
O1 [E rl]
Gain
14
2 .0
-6 0 %
10
4 .6
-6 %
6
6 .9
40%
2
11
120%
0.25
O p e ra to r s p e c ific b lo c k in g p ro b a b ility , B
0.2
O
O
O
O
=
=
=
=
2
2
100 E rl
100 E rl
6 0 E rl
6 0 E rl
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
5
T hese resu lts indicate that for circu it switched serv ices
with hig h data rates, one cou ld consider to slowly adju st the
minimu m capacity g u aranteed per operator Ci according to
the av erag e demand. F or pack et switched serv ices, howev er,
it is simpler to mu ltiplex b etween u sers and the same ty pe of
prob lem shou ld hence not occu r for su ch traffi c.
B fo r
2
B fo r
1
B fo r
2
B fo r
10
15
20
O ffe re d lo a d fo r o p e ra to r 1, O
25
1
30
[E rl]
F ig . 6 . C oex istence of operators with sig nifi cantly different traffi c load and
max imu m capacity lev el Ci . H ere, C1 = 2 0 and C2 = 6 0 channels. T he
offered load for operator 1 is v aried and depicted for two different lev els of
offered load for operator 2 (O2 = 6 0 and 1 0 0 E rlang ).
Chapter 10
An Estimation of the
Achievable User
Throughput with National
Roaming (Paper 6)
Johan Hultell and Klas Johansson,
Submitted to IEEE VTC2006 Spring.
117
119
An E s tim a tio n o f th e Ac h ie va b le U s e r
T h ro u g h p u t w ith N a tio na l R o a m ing
Johan H u lte ll, and K las Johans s on
Wireless@ K TH , Th e R oyal In stitu te of Tec h n ology
E lec tru m 4 1 8 , S -1 6 4 4 0 K ista, S wed en
E m ail: {joh an .h u ltell, klasj}@ rad io.kth .se
I. I NTRODUCTION
D esp ite th e in trod u c tion of ad van c ed tran sm ission an d
p ac ket sc h ed u lin g tec h n iq u es, ex istin g m obile d ata n etworks
wou ld req u ire sign ifi c an t, an d h en c e c ostly, u p grad es in ord er to su p p ort h igh er d ata rates with wid e area c overage.
C on seq u en tly, th e vast m ajority of op erators h ave c h osen
to p ostp on e th e n ec essary n etwork u p grad es u n til c on su m er
d em an d bec om es m ore p ron ou n c ed . Alth ou gh th is at a fi rst
glan c e m igh t seem sou n d , it is d efi n itely n ot th e c ase sin c e
su p p ortin g h igh -en d u sers ( early ad op ters ) h as p roven to be
a c ru c ial en abler for later reac h in g a m ass-m arket [1 ].
O n e m eth od to in c rease c overage for h igh er d ata rates wou ld
be to en able u sers to roam between m u ltip le op erators with in
a c ou n try (h en c eforth referred to as national roam ing ) u n til
d em an d for h igh -sp eed servic es ju stifi es a n etwork ex p an sion .
Th e m eth od was d isc u ssed alread y d u rin g d evelop m en t of
th e fi rst an d sec on d gen eration system s, bu t for m obile voic e
servic es op erators afford ed to bu ild fu ll c overage n etworks
alon e. S u p p ortin g broad ban d d ata servic es are h owever assoc iated with m u c h larger in vestm en ts an d , as alon g as d em an d
is resilien t, risks. M oreover th ere will, c om p ared to voic e
servic es, be fewer sim u ltan eou s u sers an d th u s larger sc op e for
statistic al m u ltip lex in g. All of th is yet again m akes n ation al
roam in g an in terestin g altern ative.
1 Th is wo rk h a s b e e n c o n d u c te d with in th e No ve l A c c e s s P ro vis io n in g
(NA P ) p ro je c t, c o -fu n d e d b y th e S we d is h A g e n c y fo r In n o va tio n S ys te m s
(VINNOVA ).
120
d3
d2
7
1500
11
A. U s e r a n d Tra ffi c B e h a v io r
(1)
d = m in d1 , d2 , ..., d(J ) .
2
xi
yi
x0
y0
+d
co s (/6 )
(1)i s in (/6 )
(2 )
[d B ].
(3 )
4
4
4
16
18
16
14
10
14
3
3
17
77
1
15
15
13
19
20
19
20
19
1000
7
21
13
13
12
1500
21
21
15
12
12
1000
14
17
17
rc
16
10
500
2
2
18
10
18
500
1500
9
11
1000
A m u lti-op erator en viron m en t with J op erators is in ves tigated . T h rou gh ou t th e p ap er all active u s ers are s tation ary
an d u n iform ly d is tribu ted . T h is res u lts in th at th e traffi c load
for op erator j is P ois s on d is tribu ted with ex p ected valu e j
(m eas u red in u s ers p er k m 2 ). Moreover we, for s im p licity
reas on s , as s u m e th at all u s ers h ave fu ll bu ffers an d d em an d
bes t effort traffi c.
d1
11
500
20
500
1000
1500
2000
[d B ],
(4 )
121
Qkl =
PM
m=1
e klm
G
kl
TAB LE I
S YSTEM PARAMETERS
[lin],
(5 )
(6 )
kkl
Pk = m in P N, Pm
ax
[lin].
(7 )
E. D a ta R a te Es tim a tio n
As s u m ing th at u s er k b elo ngs to th e s et o f u s ers th at are
s c h ed u led to trans m it d u ring tim e-s lo t kt , th e rec eived s ignalto -interferenc e (SIR ) ratio at antenna elem ent m b elo nging to
b as e s tatio n l c an b e w ritten as
Pk Gklm
,
(8 )
klm = P
i=kt \k Pi Gim + N0 W
w h ere N0 W is th e rec eived no is e p o w er (m o d elled as AWG N
w ith c o ns tant s p ec tral d ens ity ). As s u m ing s y nc h ro no u s m ax im u m ratio c o m b ining (MR C ), th e res u lting ins tantaneo u s SIR
is o b tained as
M
X
kl =
klm .
(9 )
m=1
ax
, W lo g2 (1 + kl )),
(1 0 )
Pa ra m e te r
Po p u la tio n d e n s ity [k m 2 ]
# Op e ra to rs
Slo t d u ra tio n [m s ]
Co rre la tio n d is ta n c e [m ]
Sta n d a rd d e via tio n (s h a d o w fa d in g ) [d B ]
Sh a d o w fa d in g c o rre la tio n b e twe e n b a s e s ta tio n s
Pa th lo s s @ 1 m [d B ]
Dis ta n c e d e p e n d e n t a tte n u a tio n fa c to r
Ce ll ra d iu s [m ]
Ch a n n e l b a n d wid th [MH z ]
Th e rm a l n o is e fl o o r [d B m ]
# Re c e ivin g a n te n n a s
Ave ra g e te rm in a l p o we r [d B m ]
Ma x im u m te rm in a l p o we r [d B m ]
# Se c to rs p e r b a s e s ta tio n
Tra ffi c [u s e rs /k m 2 ]
In te rs ite d is ta n c e [m ]
Va lu e
50 0 0
3
2
20
8
0 .5
-35.8
3.5
36 0
5
-1 0 3
2,4
24
33
3
1 ,3,1 0
0 -6 23.5
F. M in im u m Pa th -L o s s B a s e S ta tio n S e le c tio n
We as s u m e th at u s ers c o nnec t to th e b as e s tatio n as s o c iated
w ith th e h igh es t lo ng-term average p ath gain kl . C o ns eq u ently u s er k c o nnec ts to b as e s tatio n l w h ere
l = argm ax kl
ll
(1 1 )
B . S im u la tio n M o d e l
Th ro u gh o u t th e s im u latio ns w e as s u m e th at th ree o p erato rs
c o ex is ts . Po tential b o rd er effec ts are m itigated th ro u gh an
im p lem ented w rap -aro u nd tec h niq u e and w ith in o u r s im u latio ns th e inter-o p erato r s ite d is tanc e d, lo ad and nu m b er
o f rec eiving antennas M are varied . R em aining s im u latio ns
p aram eters are s u m m ariz ed in Tab le I.
2 00
150
1 00
50
0
120
1 00
80
60
40
20
0
50
122
40
30
20
10
0
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
123
T h ro u g h p u t fo r th e 10th p e rc e n tile o f u s e rs [M b p s ]
T
T
F
F
w o a n te n n a s
w o a n te n n a s
o u r a n te n n a s
o u r a n te n n a s
R R
PF
R R
PF
1 u s e r/c e ll
3
3 u s e rs /c e ll
2
10 u s e rs /c e ll
0
0
100
200
300
400
In te ro p e ra to r s ite d is ta n c e [m ]
500
600