LTE RAN Sharing Techniques

Applicability to Small Cells

RUCKUS WIRELESS PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL

 RAN Sharing Techniques

o Roaming-based Sharing
o Customers of one operator can roam seamlessly in the other ‘host’ operator’s network

o Passive Sharing
o Share physical sites and passive network elements, e.g. masts and power supplies

o Active RAN Sharing

o Two or more operators have joint decision-making on investments and operations
o Multi-Operator BSS (MOBSS) for GSM
o Multi-Operator RAN (MORAN) for WCDMA
o Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) for GSM, WCDMA and LTE

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 Roaming Based Sharing

o Deployment Characteristics:
o Areas of low business potential
o Lowest cost approach to fulfill regulatory coverage requirements
o In rural or less densely populated areas, operators don’t see incentive to put their own network

o No service or performance differentiation

o Types of roaming:
o Home routed traffic

o Local break out

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 Roaming – Home Routed Traffic

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 Roaming - LBO

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 Passive Sharing

o Operators share antennas, masts, rooftop, cabinets, shelters

o Deployment characteristics:
o Regions of high business potential
o Heavy competition between MNOs
o Full control of own network assets
o High potential need for service and performance differentiation

o Passive sharing is widely used in 2G, 3G and 4G networks

o Widely used in DAS indoor model as well

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 Active Sharing in LTE
o Deployment characteristics:
o Regions of moderate business potential
o Partial control of network assets

o Operators can share the spectrum

o Operators may share both eNodeB
and MME
o Operators have their own eUTRAN in
some areas and share a common
eUTRAN in other areas

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 Types of LTE Active Sharing
o Multi-Operator Core Network (MOCN) o Gateway Core Network (GWCN)
o eNodeB is shared; EPC is not shared o eNodeB and MME are shared
o S1 flex
o Allows to connect to different EPCs
o Load balancing between the MME and SGW of
a given CN

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 MOCN vs. GWCN Comparison
Features MOCN GWCN Comments
Interworking with legacy networks Inter-RAT mobility needs MME interface with
+ - legacy network (i.e. SGSN). Sharing the MME
leads to a tighter integration between shared
eNodeB and Core.
Support of voice service with CS CS fallback need support of SGs interface
fallback
+ - between MME and MSCs.
Support of voice service with IMS
= =
Support of roaming In roaming visiting network MME needs to
+ - interact with home HSS. In the shared MME
case, MME needs to have the HSS of ach
roaming partner.
Cost MME cost saving; this is minimal
- +

MOCN is the preferred approach

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 Issues with Active Sharing

o How’s PLMN ID assigned?

o How does the operator provide QOS differentiation?

o How is capacity shared? How is traffic separated?

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 PLMN ID Assignment/Selection

o PLMN IDs of different operators

broadcasted in the SIB
o UE decodes system information
and perform PLMN ID selection
o Selected PLNN ID is specified in
RRC connection procedure
o eNodeB uses the selected PLMN
ID to forward the attachment
request to the appropriate MME

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 E2E QOS Model in Active Sharing

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 Capacity Sharing between Operators

• Capacity sharing is enabled using the Call Admission Control configuration.

• Resource usage monitored using Performance Mgmt. Counters per PLMN ID at eNodeB.
• Traffic separation using VLANs, each operator’s traffic can be routed to its core.

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 E2E Network Architecture in Active Sharing

o IPSEC secures S1 between eNodeB and CN

o 1 VLAN per operator to separate traffic
o 1 IP subnet per VLAN per operator
o QOS through admission, policy and shaping
o Capacity sharing through call admission
control

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 Ruckus RAN Sharing Offering
o Dedicated Spectrum Case (AT&T, Verizon)
o Option 1: Extend 3G MORAN concept – 2 radios in a box
o Option 2: Separate SKUs and adopt checker board deployment

o Shared Spectrum Case (T-Mobile+Sprint?, 3.5GHz)

o Use MOCN to share the single radio shared between multiple operators
o Operators have to agree to such an arrangement
o Potentially merge two operators spectrum and use them in a venue
o Qualcomm will support MOCN in FR5.x – preliminary release end of April
o 3.5GHz may be the first real enablement of shared spectrum

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 Qualcomm’s MOCN Offering & Position
o Q-MOCN provides no bandwidth partition or QOS mechanism to separate users from
different MNOs.
o Only mechanism for QOS separation is the traditional method, based on QCI, but no means
to map users to MNOs.
o Considering the small number of users in the small cell scenario, is it sufficient to provision in
the EPC and not on the eNodeB?
o KPI stats may also need to be different for different MNOs; there is no support today.

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 Neutral Host Network (NHN) vs. Existing RAN Sharing
o NHN is closer to GWCN than MOCN, but quite different from both
o EPC is shared in NHN, as opposed to MME in GWCN
o GWCN uses S10 interface between the shared MME and the MNO EPC
o User identity (IMSI) stored in MME in GWCN; but not in NHN
o NHN conceptually similar to roaming, but
o Roaming is coverage driven
o NHN is capacity driven
o Handover is also different
o GWCN/MOCN requires communication between the EPC of the MNOs
o No communication in the case of NHN; UEs need to be in the idle mode to transition from MNO -> NHN
o MNO Differentiation
o Traffic shaping per operator can be done in EPC, easier in NHN case – does Aricent EPC have the capability?

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 Backup

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 Notes
o Main advantage of MOCN is service differentiation offered by an Operator
o Dynamic policy management through PCRF connected to Operator IMS / Application Function for establishing different dedicated
bearers supporting different class of services and QoS, IMS services, Inter-operator roaming with /without LBO, convergence of
Wifi access, Voice/video calls (CSFB, SRVCC you have mentioned), broadcast-multicast services etc.)
o Operators prefer to keep the control over the Core Network.
o Even MVNOs which lease our access capacity from an established MNO prefer to control the Core Network access through their
own Cores including subscriber management and charging.

o Both MME and SGW/PGW would be shared by the Operators and so the Data Center hosting these
Core Networks elements would be of the common / master Operator and so QoS settings and service
definitions of the Common/Master Operator would hold for all the participating Operators.
o Another consideration in GWCN is how would an Operator trust a MME to store the IMSI of its
subscriber with full confidentiality since though IMSI would always be available with MME.

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 Notes
o In Shared RAN (MOCN), though the eNB is shared through agreement but there is a master Operator
who owns the eNB infrastructure in that location (and the licensed spectrum) and this Operator’s
PLMN-id is the one which goes first in the list of broadcasted PLMNs.
o There is a single HeMS which is controlling the eNB and on its (HeMS) backend (NBI), it would connect
to different (participating) operator OSS/Management Systems. So the eNB deployment would have
one HeMS with which it performs iHeMS/sHeMS discovery and all other procedures for FCAPS and
this HeMS connects to different Operator NMS, besides own, for any participating operator Supervisory
operations and only selected operations are made available eg PM counters & KPIs for PLMN, cell
service related faults, minimum control and configuration per operator like access barring for a specific
PLMN etc.). Infact this is similar in deployment to Deployment Architecture / Scenario # 2 in the
System Architecture ppt.

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