This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated.
Oct 30 2009
New Generation Wireless Communication Technologies: Flat IP
Architecture
Vadan Mehta
TATA consultancy services
vadan.mehta@tcs.com
.
Abstract
The wireless industry is now modeling next
generation mobile networks (NGN) based on
‘Flat IP architecture’. It would enable mobile
operators to deliver data more efficiently and
eliminate traffic bottlenecks inherent in
traditional mobile networks designed for circuit
switched voice architecture.
Flat IP architecture reduces the complexity of
existing networks. Using such architecture, a
mobile network will contain a single base
station with single core gateway, connected to
internet.. It would eliminate the need for radio
network controllers (RNC) and service GPRS
support nodes (SGSN) from GSM/UMTS
network, while base stations controllers (BSC)
and packet data serving nodes (PDSN) from
CDMA2000 network .It will simplify network
infrastructure and would result in Capital
expenditure (Capex) and Oprational
expenditure (Opex) savings. The users are also
benefited as fast data transfer between end
point ,will improve QoS performance for real-
time applications such as voice over IP (VoIP),
videoconferencing, and online-gaming. NGN
technologies as LTE, Wimax 16e/m are based
on Flat IP architecture to support high data
traffic. As flat IP architecture offers numerous
benefits in terms of Capex and Opex, service
provider are contemplating to migrate their
existing wireless network to flat IP architecture.
This paper explains the flat cellular
architecture based on LTE/SAE and migration
issues of NGN migration.
1. INTRODUCTION
Cellular systems have been built in a
hierarchical manner. Cellular network elements
have been designed to form a hierarchical
structure. When 2G and later 3G systems were
designed there was a good reason to make
system hierarchical. From a cost-perspective it
was better to concentrate traffic and to share the
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cost of processing equipment over a large set of
users while keeping the base stations relatively
cheap. When cellular systems were first devised,
sharing the expensive vocoders over a (large)
number of users led to considerable savings when
deploying such cellular systems. The savings
result from not having to deploy such expensive
vocoders in all the cell sites. Secondly, since
wireless voice transmissions are compressed,
fewer bits needed to be sent over the backhaul
connecting the core network to the base stations,
so more voice calls could be supported on a T1 or
E1.
The two fundamental reasons to build cellular
systems in a hierarchical manner have
disappeared. First, advances in electronics have
made the cost argument disappear there is no
reason the cost of electronics needs to dictate the
cellular system architecture: every base station
today can be equipped with cost effective
processing environments to perform all access
specific functions. Analysts point out that many
years ago Base stations would cost around
$250000 but new base stations will be likely in
$15000 to $25000. Traditional hierarchical
cellular system functioned fine when packet data
was a small amount of traffic on the network, but
as 3G radio technologies are improving and more
powerful i-phones, blackberries are emerging,
operators are seeing data usage from their
customers will skyrocket. Data traffic already
may have outpaced voice traffic on most
operators' networks and they have to expand their
network capacity to meet the primary driver of
growth in their networks. Traditional BSC based
cellular architecture treat packet data sessions
much the same way they do voice sessions, even
though the difference between the two is
pronounced. One voice session varies very little
from another, while a data session could be
anything from a few kbps download (such as
pinging or text emails) to multi megabyte
download(such as movie download or video
conferancing) . Some applications are
continuously running with an open connection to
the network. Others might access the network just
This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated. Oct 30 2009
once a day for a few minutes. The BSC,
however, manages all of these sessions as it
would voice sessions, regardless of the amount
or type of data being transmitted. The result is a
network that doesn't scale easily for data — a
network that can support far fewer data
subscribers at the core than its radio capacity
would imply.
A flat network architecture removes that voice-
centric hierarchy from the network. Instead of
overlaying a packet data core on the voice
network, much-simplified data architecture can
be implemented that removes the multiple
elements from the network chain. BSC/RNC
functions are collapsed into the base station
itself, which communicates directly with what
is essentially an IP router or gateway.
2. EXISTING HIERARCHICAL
NETWORK
Existing hierarchical system is based on
centralized resource for paging, handover and
Radio Resource Management (RRM). Figure 1
Figure 1: 3G Architecture
shows an overview of the WCDMA/HSPA
radio access network. As per figure 1, the RAN
consists of two fundamental logical nodes: the
RNC and the node connecting to the antenna of
the cells, the NodeB.
The RNC is the node connecting the RAN to
the core network via the Iu interface. The
principle of the Iu interface is that it should be
possible to use it toward different RNCs, not
only WCDMA/HSPA RAN.
Each RNC in the network can connect to every
other RNC in the same network using the Iur
interface. Thus, the Iur interface is a network
wide interface making it possible to keep one
RNC as an anchor point for a terminal and hide
mobility from the core network. As can be seen
from Figure 1, one RNC connects to one or
more NodeBs using the Iub interface. However,
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in contrast to the fact that one RNC can connect
to any other RNC in the network, one NodeB can
only connect to one RNC. Thus only one RNC is
controlling the NodeB. This means that the RNC
owns the radio resources of the NodeB. In case of
a macro-diversity connection across RNCs, the
two RNCs agree between themselves about the
use of the radio resources. The NodeB is a logical
node handling the transmission and reception of a
set of cells. Logically, the antennas of the cells
belong to the NodeB but they are not necessarily
located at the same antenna site. The NodeB owns
its hardware but not the radio resources of its cells.
Thus, the NodeB can reject a connection due to
hardware limitations, but not due to radio
resource shortage. With its hardware, the NodeB
performs the physical layer functions. As per
figure 2, RNC manages Radio Link Control
Layer(RLC), Medium Access Control
Layer(MAC), Radio Resource Control layer
(RRC) and Packet Data Convergence Protocol
(PDCP).
Figure 2: WCDMA control plan
A central component such as the RNC needs to
divide its processing resources between a possibly
large numbers of Node Bs (e.g. Ericsson’s GSM
solution uses 512 base stations per BSC, serving a
very large number of users.)
However, as described before, the reason this
central component came about was to be able to
share the expensive resources for a large number
of base stations and thus users. Since cheap
processing resources have become abundant, the
economic reason for centralization and sharing is
no more valid. The concept of distributed
processing, instead of centralized processing has
opened the way for flat network architecture.
This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated. Oct 30 2009
3. FLAT NETWORK
ARCHITECTURE
The next generation of mobile networks is
embracing the notion of flat network
architecture, one that runs entirely via IP and
collapses the complexity of a mobile network
into the base station and a single core gateway.
To replace the voice centric hierarchical
network to data centric flat IP network, 3GPP
has initiated to work on the Long-Term
Evolution (LTE) and Evolved packet core
(EPC), with following characteristics as target:
 Peak data rate: DL: 100Mbps ; UL:
50Mbps
 Control plane latency (Transition time to
active state): < 100ms (for idle to active)
 User plane latency: < 5ms
 Spectrum flexibility Requirement: 1.25,
2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20Mhz
LTE is the latest standard in the mobile
network technology tree. LTE, whose radio
access is called Evolved UMTS Terrestrial
Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN), is
expected to substantially improve end-user
throughputs, sector capacity and reduce user
plane latency, bringing significantly improved
user experience with full mobility. With the
emergence of Internet Protocol (IP) as the
protocol of choice for carrying all types of
traffic, LTE is scheduled to provide support for
IP-based traffic with end-to-end Quality of
service (QoS). Voice traffic will be supported
mainly as Voice over IP (VoIP) enabling better
integration with other multimedia services.
The evolved RAN for LTE consists of eNodeB.
ENode B is single point interface to UE. To
achieve the flat network architecture, many of
RNC functions are transferred to eNodeB.
The eNodeB hosts the PHYsical (PHY),
Medium Access Control (MAC), Radio Link
Control (RLC), and PacketData Control
Protocol (PDCP) layers that include the
functionality of user-plane header-compression
Figure 3: LTE/SAE control plan
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and encryption(see figure 3).
It also offers Radio Resource Control (RRC)
functionality corresponding to the control plane.
It performs many functions including radio
resource management, admission control,
scheduling, enforcement of negotiated UL QoS,
cell information broadcast, ciphering/deciphering
of user and control plane data, and
compression/decompression of DL/UL user plane
packet headers. While eNode B is handling most
of RRM functions, paging, mobility and security
functions have been transferred to Moblity
Management Entity
The ‘SAE’ core network: the Evolved
Packet Core
Figure 4: EPC architecture
When the LTE RAN standardization was started,
the corresponding work was started for the core
network. This work was called the System
Architecture Evolution (SAE). The core network
defined in the SAE work is a radical evolution
from the GSM/GPRS core network and therefore
it has got a new name, Evolved Packet Core
(EPC) as figure 4.
The SAE scope only covers the packet-switched
domain, not the circuit-switched domain. Looking
back at the discussions in standardization, the
philosophy of minimizing the number of nodes
also reigns in the core network standardization.
As a consequence, the Evolved Packet Core
network started off as single-node architecture
with all the functions in one node, except the
Home Subscriber Server (HSS) which were kept
outside the node. HSS is a node/database
corresponding to the HLR in GSM/WCDMA core
network. The EPC connects to the LTE RAN via
the S1 interface and to internet via the SGi
interface.
This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated. Oct 30 2009
Furthermore, the EPC connects to the HSS
using the S6 interface. S1 is the interface
between eNodeBs and MME/SGW.. (see figure
5).
Figure 5: HSS/EPC
Mobility Management Entity (MME)
The MME is the key control-node for the LTE
access- network. It is responsible for idle mode
UE tracking and paging procedure including
retransmissions. It is involved in the bearer
activation/deactivation process and is also
responsible for choosing the SGW for a UE at
the initial attach and at time of intra-LTE
handover involving Core Network (CN) node
relocation. It is responsible for authenticating
the user (by interacting with the HSS). The
Non- Access Stratum (NAS) signaling
terminates at the MME and it is also
responsible for generation and allocation of
temporary identities to UEs. It checks the
authorization of the UE to camp on the service
provider’s Public Land Mobile Network
(PLMN) and enforces UE roaming restrictions.
The MME is the termination point in the
network for ciphering/integrity protection for
NAS signaling and handles the security key
management. Lawful interception of signaling
is also supported by the MME. The MME also
provides the control plane function for mobility
between LTE and 2G/3G access networks with
the S3 interface terminating at the MME from
the SGSN. The MME also terminates the S6a
interface towards the home HSS for roaming
UEs.
Serving Gateway (SGW)
The SGW routes and forwards user data
packets, while also acting as the mobility
anchor for the user plane during inter-eNB
handovers and as the anchor for mobility
between LTE and other 3GPP technologies
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(terminating S4 interface and relaying the traffic
between 2G/3G systems and PDN GW). For idle
state UEs, the SGW terminates the DL data path
and triggers paging when DL data arrives for the
UE. It manages and stores UE contexts, e.g.
parameters of the IP bearer service, network
internal routing information. It also performs
replication of the user traffic in case of lawful
interception
Packet Data Network Gateway (PDN GW)
The PDN GW provides connectivity to the UE to
external packet data networks by being the point
of exit and entry of traffic for the UE. A UE may
have simultaneous connectivity with more than
one PDN GW for accessing multiple PDNs. The
PDN GW performs policy enforcement, packet
filtering for each user, charging support, lawful
Interception and packet screening. Another key
role of the PDN GW is to act as the anchor for
mobility between 3GPP and non-3GPP
technologies such as WiMAX and 3GPP2
(CDMA 1X and EvDO).
Function split between Control plan and
User plan
A key feature of the EPC is the separation of the
network entity that performs control-plane
functionality (MME) from the network entity that
performs bearer-plane functionality (SGW) with a
well defined open interface between them (S11).
Since E-UTRAN will provide higher bandwidths
to enable new services as well as to improve
existing ones, separation of MME from SGW
implies that SGW can be based on a platform
optimized for high bandwidth packet processing,
where as the MME is based on a platform
optimized for signaling transactions. This enables
selection of more cost-effective platforms for, as
well as independent scaling of, each of these two
elements. Service providers can also choose
optimized topological locations of SGWs within
the network independent of the locations of
MMEs in order to optimize bandwidth reduce
latencies and avoid concentrated points of failure.
Mobility
In LTE, the EPC acts as an anchor in the SAE
core network for mobility, that is the EPC node
handling the user plane of the terminal is not
changed during a connection. Due to the flat
architecture, the EPC node handling the user
 This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated. Oct 30 2009
plane of the terminal needs to be able to
connect to essentially every eNodeB in the
network. Since the EPC(MME) is the anchor
and the LTE RAN only consists of the eNodeB,
the EPC need to be updated on to which
eNodeB it shall route the packets of the user.
This is a large difference compared to
WCDMA/HSPA RAN where the RNC hides
this kind of mobility from the core network.
4.MIGRATION
Migration from legacy network to flat network
architecture, involves certain important issues
which needs to consider while adapting new
network architecture.
Spectrum
Radio frequency is a valuable and finite
resource and, today there is simply not enough
spectrum available to satisfy demand. The need
for spectrum is being driven by the pervasive
convenience of mobile communications and the
need for increased penetration combined with
improved performance and the falling costs of
wireless devices & services. Existing and new
Mobile Broadband networks will quickly
consume current spectrum allocations as they
deliver a highly compelling user experience by
allowing multimedia applications anywhere.
One of major challenge for service provider to
deploy Flat IP architecture (LTE/SAE) is
availability of required spectrum. Service
provider has to find ways to utilize their
existing spectrum (re-farming) or apply for
additional spectrum. As LTE has greater
spectrum flexibility (from 1.24 Mhz to 20 Mhz),
a service provider can re-farm their existing 5
Mhz band into 1X1.24 Mhz (for LTE) and
2X1.24 (2 CDMA carriers). To save the cost, it
is advisable to deploy the LTE network with re-
farming existing spectrum and add the required
spectrum as on requirement arise. While re-
farming the existing spectrum, service provider
has to plan according to expected data traffic
volume and voice to data traffic ratio,
interference calculations and other RF
parameters.
Network Up gradation
As Voice revenue is declining and competition
in wireless market, is getting stiffer, upcoming
challenge for any service provider is to provide
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latest wireless services at very cheap rate. To
maintain minimum capex/opex while
transforming network to newer technologies are
quite a Herculean task. Service provider will opt
for technology which has strong business case
and restraint deployment expenditure. Flat
network architecture offers quite expenditure
savings in long run by removing network entities
(as RNC) and offers revenue generating data
application. Migration from hierarchical to Flat
network requires skillful planning and network
up-gradation. The successful migration will be
maximum re-usage of old assets as, Site
infrastructure, Mast, Spectrum etc. Node Bs has
to be transformed to eNodeBs by
hardware/software up-grade depends on
equipment vendor specification. Vendor, who
offers minimum network up-grade cost, will have
higher possibility to get succeed in LTE market.
Voice
As LTE/SAE is primarily designed for data, voice
will be an issue for service providers. 3GPP has
suggested VoIP for voice in LTE but given the
rough nature of wireless communication, latency
will be an issue for VoIP traffic. Besides LTE
has minimum transmission bandwidth (RB) as
180 Khz, comparing to GSM’s RB as 16 Khz.
Higher RB makes LTE not efficient technology
for narrow bandwidth application, such as voice.
Service provider may opt for existing 2.5/3G
network for voice and LTE overlay network for
data, but it will increase opex cost for service
provider as, it has to maintain two separate
networks. There is another option of using
VoLGA (Voice over LTE via Generic access),
which creates tunnel for voice packet in LTE
network. Again VoLGA will add capex and
increase the complexity of network. Thus,
carrying voice in LTE will be prime issue for
service provider, while transforming network to
LTE/SAE.
5. CONCLUSION
Currently wireless networks are designed in voice
centric hierarchical manner. As data traffic is
growing at tremendous speed, voice centric
hierarchical network will pose a great deal of
bottlenecks. Flat network architecture removes
the hierarchy and creates IP centric flat network
architecture. 3GPP Rel 8 has defined LTE/SAE as
flat network architecture where RNC functions
are collapsed into eNodeB and MME.
This paper is submission for IEEE, National conference at L&T research institute, Mumbai, dated. Oct 30 2009

While flat network architecture offers

capex/opexx saving and scalability, it has
certain migration issues such as Spectrum
availability, Network up gradation cost and
carrying voice into data specific network.

6. REFERANCE:

 “ Flat Cellular (UMTS) Networks” by

Peter Bosch, Louis Samuel, Sape
Mullender, Paul Polakos, Gee
Rittenhouse (Bell Laboratories)
 3GPP TS 25.401 V8.1.0 (2008-09)
 “3G evolution – HSPA and LTE for
Mobile Broadband” by Erik Dahlman,
Stefan Parkvall, Johan Skold, and Per
Beming
 Three Tactics for Winning the LTE
Game
 Addressing the Challenges by Nadine
Manjaro

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