Technical Paper

4G Mobile

New data services, interactive TV and evolving

Internet behavior will influence mobile data usage.
Long sessions in always-on mode will force a re-think
of radio access technology to achieve the required –
but not easy to attain – capacity (Gbit/s/km_) at low
cost. The ideas presented in this article can increase
capacity by a factor of 500 with regard to expected
cellular deployments. Coverage will be based on
large umbrella cells (3G, WiMAX) and numerous
pico cells interconnected to provide the user with
seamless high data rate (several Mbit/s) sessions.
Scalable and progressive deployments are possible
while protecting the operator’s long-term investment.
The 4G infrastructure operator will mix several
technologies, each of which has its optimal usage.
The connection to one of them will result in a real-time
trade-off which will offer the user the best possible
service. Some tools that genuinely improve the user’s
multimedia quality of experience (availability,
response time, definition, etc) are also presented in
this article.
TECHNICAL PAPER

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE

D. Rouffet, S. Kerboeuf, L. Cai, V. Capdevielle

4G MOBILE
4G will deliver low cost multi-megabit/s sessions
any time, any place, using any terminal.

V
oice was the driver for second-gen- ing applications. Figure 1: Service evolution vision
eration mobile and has been a con- Mobile terminal
siderable success. Today, video usage (laptops,
and TV services are driving forward third Personal digital Sender
generation (3G) deployment. And in the assistants, hand- Human Machine
Real
future, low cost, high speed data will drive helds) is expected VoIP Video relay broadcasting time
forward the fourth generation (4G) as to grow rapidly as Videophone/conference Video supervision
Human

short-range communication emerges. they become more Interactive games Human navigation
Internet browsing
Service and application ubiquity, with a user friendly. Fluid Chat Information service
high degree of personalization and syn- high quality video Visual mail/audio mail Music download
Receiver

Text mail
chronization between various user appli- and network reac- Permit
ances, will be another driver. At the tivity are important delay
Remote control Location information
Machine

same time, it is probable that the radio user requirements. services, distribution
access network will evolve from a central- Key infrastructure Recording to storage devices: systems, etc.
voice, video, etc. Data transfer
ized architecture to a distributed one. design require- Consumer electronic
ments include: fast device maintenance
Service Evolution response, high ses-
Support for real-time and non-real-time services
The evolution from 3G to 4G will be sion rate, high
Source NTTDoCoMo
driven by services that offer better qual- capacity, low user
ity (e.g. video and sound) thanks to charges, rapid
greater bandwidth, more sophistication return on invest-
in the association of a large quantity of ment for operators, investment that is in As a comparison, the expected best per-
information, and improved personaliza- line with the growth in demand, and sim- formance of 3G is around 10 bit/s/Hz/km2
tion. Convergence with other network ple autonomous terminals. using High Speed Downlink Packet Access
(enterprise, fixed) services will come The infrastructure will be much more (HSDPA), Multiple-Input Multiple-Output
about through the high session data distributed than in current deployments, (MIMO), etc. No current technology is
rate. It will require an always-on connec- facilitating the introduction of a new capable of such performance.
tion and a revenue model based on a source of local traffic: machine-to-
fixed monthly fee. The impact on net- machine. Figure 1 shows one vision of Dimensioning objectives
work capacity is expected to be signifi- how services are likely to evolve; most Based on various traffic analyses, the
cant. Machine-to-machine transmission such visions are similar. Wireless World Initiative (WWI) has
will involve two basic equipment types: issued target air interface performance
sensors (which Dimensioning targets figures. A consensus has been reached
measure param- A simple calcu-
eters) and tags lation illustrates the Figure 2: Dimensioning examples
(which are gen- order of magnitude.
erally read/write The design target Number of subscribers/km2 10000 10000
equipment). in terms of radio Peak usage 20 % 20 %
It is expected performance is to Spacial efficiency 30 % 20 %
Various efficiencies (e.g. MAC) 40 % 30 %
that users will achieve a scalable Average service rate (kbit/s) 128 1000
require high data capacity from 50 to
rates, similar to 500 bit/s/Hz/km2 Required capacity (Gbit/s/km2) 2.13 33.33
those on fixed (including capacity Available bandwidth (MHz) 50 100
networks, for for indoor use), as
Required radio performances bit/s/Hz/km 2 42.7 333.3
data and stream- shown in Figure 2.

2 - Alcatel Telecommunications Review - 2 nd Quarter 2005 www.alcatel.com/atr

4G MOBILE

around peak rates of 100 Mbit/s in Figure 3: Multiple overlay architecture

mobile situations and 1 Gbit/s in
nomadic and pedestrian situations, at Service Internet Gateway
adaptation Router
least as targets. So far, in a 10 MHz spec- Slice manager
trum, a carrier rate of 20 Mbit/s has
PSTN
been achieved when the user is moving
at high speed, and 40 Mbit/s in nomadic Worldwide
Internet
use. These values will double when Macro mobility
MIMO is introduced. Clearly, the bitrate Fixed 4G Gateway Enterprise
networks networks
should be associated with an amount of
Support
spectrum. For mobile use, a good target radio Node(s) Gateway
Switch access
is a network performance of 5 bit/s/Hz, controller
access
rising to 8 bit/s/Hz in nomadic use. controller Satellite
hub Broadcast
DVB-H DAB access
access RNC
Multi-technology Approach point controller
Many technologies are competing on the
NodeB base access
road to 4G, as can be seen in Figure 3. Terrestrial point
repeater station
Three paths are possible, even if they are
more or less specialized. The first is the WiFi and indoor "cellular" slice localization "hot spot/zone" 4G coverage
evolution UniRAN (3G+) & broadcast slice slice WiMAX outdoor & indoor
3G-centric path, in which Code Division
Multiple Access (CDMA) will be progres-
sively pushed to the point at which ter-
DAB: Digital Audio Broadcasting
minal manufacturers will give up. When DVB-H: Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld
this point is PAN PAN: Personal Area Network
Terminal S/W AdHoc
reached, another PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network
technology will RNC: Radio Network Controller
be needed to
realize the requi-
red increases in capacity, and can be designed without any OFDMA
capacity and constraints on coverage continuity. This Orthogonal Pico cell A good
data rates. is known as pico-cell coverage. Only the Frequency Divi- example of a pico
The second use of both technologies can achieve sion Multiplexing cell is a WiFi
path is the radio both targets (Figure 4). Handover (OFDM) not only coverage. By
LAN one. Wide- between parent coverage and pico cell provides clear extension, a pico
spread deploy- coverage is different from a classical advantages for cell has a radius
ment of WiFi is roaming process, but similar to classical physical layer around 50 m and
expected to handover. Parent coverage can also be performance, but the associated
start in 2005 for PCs, laptops and PDAs. used as a back-up when service delivery also a framework base station is
In enterprises, voice may start to be car- in the pico cell becomes too difficult. for improving similar to a WiFi
ried by Voice over Wireless LAN layer 2 perform- access point. It can
(VoWLAN). However, it is not clear Key 4G Technologies ance by propos- be deployed
what the next successful technology Some of the key technologies required ing an additional indoors or outdoors.
will be. Reaching a consensus on a 200 for 4G are briefly described below: degree of free-
Mbit/s (and more) technology will be a
lengthy task, with too many proprietary
Figure 4: Coverage performance trends
solutions on offer.
A third path is IEEE 802.16e and
802.20, which are simpler than 3G for the >8U
10-25 U
equivalent performance. A core network
15 to 40 U
evolution towards a broadband Next
Bearer 3G
Generation Network (NGN) will facilitate oriented 3G+ > 500 U
3G
the introduction of new access network evolution
technologies through standard access
gateways, based on ETSI-TISPAN, ITU-T, Parent coverage
25 U 50 U and pico cell
3GPP, China Communication Standards
coverage
Association (CCSA) and other standards. Packet
How can an operator provide a large and WiMAX
Bearer WiMAX
evolution
number of users with high session data oriented 4G
rates using its existing infrastructure? At
least two technologies are needed. The 100 U > 500 U Nano
first (called “parent coverage”) is dedi- coverage

cated to large coverage and real-time Packet WiFi WiFi SRR

services. Legacy technologies, such as oriented SRR evolution > 1000 U
2G/3G and their evolutions will be com- U = bit/s/Hz/km2
plemented by WiFi and WiMAX. A second
New bands New sites
set of technologies is needed to increase

www.alcatel.com/atr 2 nd Quarter 2005 - Alcatel Telecommunications Review - 3

4G MOBILE

Figure 5: OFDM principles eral modems at a given Base Trans-

ceiver Station (BTS). SDR makes this
reconfiguration easy.
10 MHz Bandwidth In the context of 4G systems, SDR
FFT Sub-carriers will become an enabler for the aggrega-
Guard tion of multi-standard pico/micro cells.
Intervals For a manufacturer, this can be a power-
ful aid to providing multi-standard,
Symbols multi-band equipment with reduced
Frequency development effort and costs through
simultaneous multi-channel processing.

Multiple-input multiple-output
FFT: Fast Fourier transform MIMO uses signal multiplexing between
Time
multiple transmitting antennas (space
multiplex) and time or frequency. It is well
suited to OFDM, as it is possible to process
Figure 6: Alcatel test-bed performance roadmap independent time symbols as soon as the
OFDM waveform is correctly designed for
Mbps the channel. This aspect of OFDM greatly
simplifies processing. The signal transmit-
20 MHz Air interface design
8 bit/s/Hz
ted by m antennas is received by n anten-
and verification
• Larger bandwidth by simulation nas. Processing of the received signals
200 • MAC & MIMO joint optimization 160 Mbit/s may deliver several performance improve-
• Robust MIMO to correlation ments: range, quality of received signal and
10 MHz and Doppler • MIMO-OFDM
optimization: higher spectrum efficiency. In principle, MIMO is
5 bit/s/Hz order modulation, more efficient when many multiple path sig-
• MIMO-OF DM improved channel
100 100 Mbit/s 100 Mbit/s coding nals are received. The performance in cel-
• MAC layer
• Advanced MIMO lular deployments is still subject to research
detector and simulations (see Figure 6). However,
4 bit/s/Hz
• OFDM
it is generally admitted that the gain in spec-
50 40 Mbit/s 40 Mbit/s
2 bit/s/Hz
trum efficiency is directly related to the
minimum number of antennas in the link.
Test bed development
20 20 Mbit/s 20 Mbit/s
Interlayer optimization
2004 2005 2006 2007 The most obvious interaction is the one
between MIMO and the MAC layer. Other
MAC: Media Access Control
interactions have been identified (see
Figure 7).

dom. Using ODFM, it is possible to exploit resource allocation (increasing the capac- Handover and mobility
the time domain, the space domain, the fre- ity), but also enables cross-layer optimiza- Handover technologies based on mobile
quency domain and even the code domain tion of radio link usage. IP technology have been considered for
to optimize radio channel usage. It ensures data and voice. Mobile IP techniques are
very robust transmission in multi-path Software defined radio slow but can be accelerated with classical
environments with reduced receiver com- Software Defined Radio (SDR) bene- methods (hierarchical, fast mobile IP).
plexity. fits from today’s high processing power These methods are applicable to data
As shown in Figure 5, the signal is split to develop multi-band, multi-standard and probably also voice. In single-fre-
into orthogonal subcarriers, on each of base stations and terminals. Although quency networks, it is necessary to recon-
which the signal is “narrowband” (a few in future the terminals will adapt the sider the handover methods. Several tech-
kHz) and therefore immune to multi-path air interface to the
effects, provided a guard interval is inserted available radio Figure 7: Layer interaction and associated optimization
between each OFDM symbol. OFDM also access technology,
provides a frequency diversity gain, at present this is • OFDMA
improving the physical layer performance. done by the infra- • Smart antennas
It is also compatible with other enhance- structure. Several • MIMO
ment technologies, such as smart antennas infrastructure gains
• Optimized MAC scheduling algorithms (e.g. MUD)
and MIMO. are expected from
• Robust and scalable transmissions
OFDM modulation can also be SDR. For example,
employed as a multiple access technology to increase network • Network selection (e.g. ABC)
(Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple capacity at a spe- • Usage of cache
Access; OFDMA). In this case, each cific time (e.g. dur- • Pico station and associated deployment
OFDM symbol can transmit information ing a sports event), • IP mobility
to/from several users using a different set an operator will • Meshed networks and ad hoc routing
of subcarriers (subchannels). This not reconfigure its net-
only provides additional flexibility for work adding sev- ABC: Always Best Connected MUD: Multi User Detection

4 - Alcatel Telecommunications Review - 2 nd Quarter 2005 www.alcatel.com/atr

4G MOBILE
niques can be used when the carrier to is shown in Figure 8. At the entrance of the
interference ratio is negative (e.g. VSF- access network, lines of cache at the
OFDM, bit repetition), but the drawback destination of a terminal are built and
of these techniques is capacity. In OFDM, stored. When a terminal enters an area in
the same alternative exists as in CDMA, which a transfer is possible, it simply asks
which is to use macro-diversity. In the case for the line of cache following the last
of OFDM, MIMO allows macro-diversity received. Between the terminal and the
processing with performance
gains. However, the imple-
mentation of macro-diversity
Figure 8: Pico cell network design
implies that MIMO processing
is centralized and transmis-
sions are synchronous. This is
not as complex as in CDMA,
but such a technique should
only be used in situations Cache
making
where spectrum is very
scarce.
Caching and
Pico Cells
Memory in the network
and terminals facilitates serv-
ice delivery. In cellular sys-
tems, this extends the capa-
bilities of the MAC sched-
uler, as it facilitates the deliv-
ery of real-time services.
Resources can be assigned
to data only when the radio
conditions are favorable. This
method can double the
capacity of a classical cellular
system.
In pico cellular coverage,
high data rate (non-real-time)
services can be delivered even
when reception/transmission is
interrupted for a few seconds.
Consequently, the coverage
zone within which data can be MT: Mobile
received/transmitted can be
designed with no constraints
other than limiting interference. Data
delivery is preferred in places where the
bitrate is a maximum. Between these
areas, the coverage is not used most of the
time, creating an apparent discontinuity.
In these areas, content is sent to the ter-
minal cache at the high data rate and read
at the service rate. Coverages are “discon-
tinuous”. The advantage of coverage, espe-
cially when designed with caching technol-
ogy, is high spec-
trum efficiency,
high scalability
(from 50 to
500 bit/s/Hz), high
capacity and
lower cost.
A specific
architecture is
needed to intro-
duce cache mem-
ory in the net-
work. An example
www.alcatel.com/atr
ently: one base layer (30 kbit/s), which is
a robust flow but of limited quality (e.g.
5 images/s), and two enhancement flows
(50 kbit/s and 200 kbit/s). The first flow
provides availability, the other two quality
and definition. In a streaming situation, the
terminal will have three caches. In pico cel-
lular coverage, the parent cov-
erage establishes the service
dialog and service start-up
(with the base layer). As soon
as the terminal enters pico
cell coverage, the terminal
caches are filled, starting with
IP Backbone
the base cache. Video (and
audio) transmissions are cur-
IP
rently transmitted without
G/W
Cache error and without packet loss.
Proxy
L1/L2 However, it is possible to allow
error rates of about 10-5 /10-6
Uni or
N-Casting and a packet loss around 10-2
/10-3. Coded images still con-
tain enough redundancy for
4G d-cov AN
error correction. It is possible
Cache
to gain about 10 dB in trans-
L1/L2 Cache
storage mission with a reasonable
increase in complexity. Using
the described technologies,
multimedia transmission can
provide a good quality user
experience.
RAP
Coverage
L1
Coverage is achieved by
MAC adding new technologies
Cache (possibly in overlay mode)
IP and progressively enhancing
MT
density. Take a WiMAX
deployment, for example:
Pico cell network design first the parent coverage is
Terminal
deployed; it is then made
denser by adding discontinu-
ous pico cells, after which
cache. A simple, robust and reliable pro- the pico cell is made denser but still dis-
tocol is used between the terminal and the continuously. Finally the pico cell cover-
cache for every service delivered in this age is made continuous either by using
type of coverage. MIMO or by deploying another pico cell
coverage in a different frequency band
Multimedia service delivery, (see Figure 9).
service adaptation and robust The ultimate performances of the var-
transmission ious technologies are shown in Figure 10.
Audio and video coding are scalable. For Parent coverage performance may vary
instance, a video flow can be split into three from 1 to 20 bit/s/Hz/km?, while pico cell
flows which can be transported independ- technology can achieve from 100 to 500
Figure 9: Example of deployment in dense traffic areas
Parent coverage Parent coverage with discontinuous pico cells Continuous pico cells coverage
with MIMO
2 nd Quarter 2005 - Alcatel Telecommunications Review - 5
4G MOBILE
ETSI- TISPAN). This generic architecture
Distributed architecture integrates all service enablers (e.g. IMS,
An architecture with a large number of network selection, middleware for applica-
decentralized connections to the core tions providers), and offers a unique inter-
network. face to application service providers.
Network selection Conclusion
The process of associating one or more The provision of megabit/s data rates
service networks with a user terminal. to thousands of radio and mobile termi-
nals per square kilometer presents sev-
eral challenges. Some key technologies
bit/s/Hz/km?, depending on the complex- permit the progressive introduction of
ity of the terminal hardware and software. such networks without jeopardizing
These performances only refer to outdoor existing investment. Disruptive tech-
coverage; not all the issues associated nologies are needed to achieve high
with indoor coverage have yet been capacity at low cost, but it can still be
resolved. However, indoor coverage can done in a progressive manner. The key
be obtained by: enablers are:
• Direct penetration; this is only possi- • Sufficient spectrum, with associated
ble in low frequency bands (signifi- sharing mechanisms.
cantly below 1 GHz) and requires an • Coverage with two technologies: parent
excess of power, which may raise signif- (2G, 3G, WiMAX) for real-time delivery,
icant interference issues. and discontinuous pico cell for high
• Indoor short range radio connected to data rate delivery.
the fixed network. • Caching technology in the network and
• Connection via a relay to a pico cel- terminals.
lular access point. • OFDM and MIMO.
• IP mobility.
Integration • Multi-technology distributed architec-
in a Broadband ture.
NGN • Fixed-mobile convergence (for indoor
The focus is service).
now on deploying • Network selection mechanisms.
an architecture
realizing conver- Many other features, such as robust
gence between transmission and cross-layer optimiza-
the fixed and tion, will contribute to optimizing the
mobile networks performance, which can reach between
(ITU-T Broad- 100 and 500 bit/s/Hz/km 2. The distrib-
band NGN and uted, full IP architecture can be
6 - Alcatel Telecommunications Review - 2 nd Quarter 2005
Denis Rouffet is Head of
Strategic Projects in the
Research & Innovation depart-
ment, Chief Technology Office,
Marcoussis, France.
(Denis.Rouffet@alcatel.fr)
Sylvaine Kerboeuf is lead-
ing a research group in the
Research & Innovation depart-
ment, Chief Technology Office,
Marcoussis, France.
(Sylvaine.Kerboeuf@alcatel.fr)
Liyu Cai is leading a research
group in the Research & Innova-
tion department, Chief Technol-
ogy Office, Alcatel Shanghai
Bell, Shanghai, China .
(Liyu.Cai@alcatel-sbell.com.cn)
Véronique Capdevielle is
leading a research group in the
Research & Innovation depart-
ment, Chief Technology Office,
Marcoussis, France .
(Veronique.Capdevielle@alcatel.fr)
deployed using two main products: base
stations and the associated controllers.
Terminal complexity depends on the
number of technologies they can work
with. The minimum number of technolo-
gies is two: one for the radio coverage
and one for short range use (e.g. PANs).
However, the presence of legacy net-
works will increase this to six or seven.
www.alcatel.com/atr
4G MOBILE

Abbreviations
3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership
Project
4G resp 3G 4th (resp. 3rd) Generation
BAN Body Area Network
BBNGN Broadband Next Generation
Network
BTS Base Transmission Station
CCSA China Communications Standard
Association
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access
DFS Direct Frequency Selection
ETSI-TISPAN European Telecommunication
Standard Institute –
Telecommunications and Internet
Converged Services and
Protocols for Advanced
Networking
GGSN GPRS Gateway Support Node
GPRS General Packet Radio Service
GSM Global System for Mobile
Communication
HSDPA High Speed Downlink Packet
Access
IEEE Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers
IETF Internet Engineering task force
ITU-T International Telecommunication
Union – Telecommunications
LAN Local Area Network
MAC Media Access Control
MIMO Multiple Input Multiple Output
NTT Nippon Telegraph and
Telephone Corporation
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing
PAN Personal Area Network
P-CSCF Proxy Call Session Control
Function
QoS Quality of Service
RAN Radio Access Network
SDR Software Defined Radio
SFN Single Frequency Network
SNR Signal-to-Noise Ratio
VoWLAN Voice over Wireless LAN
WIBRO Wireless Broadband
WiFi Wireless Fidelity
WiMAX Interoperability standard of IEEE
802.16 (e)
WRC World Radio Conference
WWI Wireless World Initiative
WWRF Wireless World Research Forum

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