HSPA systems

Kari Aho
Senior Research Scientist
kari.aho@magister.fi

Disclaimer
Effort has been put to make these slides as correct as
possible, however it is still suggested that reader confirms
the latest information from official sources like 3GPP specs
(http://www.3gpp.org/Specification-Numbering)
Material represents the views and opinions of the author
and not necessarily the views of their employers
Use/reproduction of this material is forbidden without a
permission from the author

2008

Readings related to the subject

General readings
WCDMA for UMTS H. Holma, A. Toskala
HSDPA/HSUPA for UMTS H. Holma, A. Toskala
3G Evolution - HSPA and LTE for Mobile Broadband - E.
Dahlman, S. Parkvall, J. Skld and P. Beming,

Network planning oriented

Radio Network Planning and Optimisation for UMTS J. Laiho,
A. Wacker, T. Novosad
UMTS Radio Network Planning, Optimization and QoS
Management For Practical Engineering Tasks J. Lempiinen,
M. Manninen

2008

Contents

Introduction
HSDPA
HSUPA
Continuous Packet Connectivity
I-HSPA
Conclusions

2008

Introduction

5 2008
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High Speed Packet Access (1/3)

There were number of pushing forces to improve the packet data

capabilities of WCDMA even further, e.g.
Growing interest towards rich calls, mobile-TV and music streaming in
the wireless domain
Competitive technologies such as WIMAX

High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) evolution introduced first

downlink counterpart of the evolution called High Speed Downlink
Packet Access (HSDPA) in Release 5
Uplink evolution followed later in Release 6 by the name of High
Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)
HSPA was originally designed for non-real time traffic with high
transmission rate requirements

2008

High Speed Packet Access (2/3)

HSPA features/properties include e.g.
Higher order modulation and coding
Higher throughput and peak data rates

In theory up to 5,8 Mbps in the uplink and 14 Mbps in the

downlink without Multiple Inputs and Multiple Outputs (MIMO)
Multiple Inputs and Multiple Outputs (MIMO)
Roughly speaking equals to additional transmitter and receiver
antennas

Fast scheduling in the Node B

Possibility to take advantage of channel conditions with lower latency

2008

High Speed Packet Access (3/3)

Link adaptation in downlink
Possibility to adjust the used modulation and coding scheme according
to be appropriate for current radio channel conditions

Improved retransmission capabilities

Newly introduced layer one retransmissions called as Hybrid Automatic
Repeat Request (HARQ) => reduced delay
Radio Link Control (RLC) level retransmissions still possible

Shorter frame sizes and thus Transmission Time Intervals (TTI)

With HSDPA 2ms and with HSUPA 10ms and 2ms

2008

WCDMA Background and Evolution

3GPP Rel -99
12/99

2000

Japan

3GPP Rel 4
03/01

2001

2002

Europe
(precommercial)

3GPP Rel 6
(HSUPA)
2H/04

3GPP Rel 5
(HSDPA)
03/02

2003

2004

Europe
(commercial)

2005

3GPP Rel 7
HSPA+
06/07

2006

HSDPA
(commercial)

Further
Releases, (LTE)

2007

HSUPA
(commercial)

2008

Questions
Why were the packet data capabilities of WCDMA improved
even further?
For what kind of services was HSPA originally designed?

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High Speed Downlink Packet Access

(HSDPA)

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Introduction to HSDPA (1/2)

In Release 99 there basically exists three different methods
for downlink packet data operation
DCH,
Forward Access Channel (FACH) and
Downlink Shared Channel (DSCH)

After the introduction of HSDPA in Release 5 some changes

to downlink packet data operations occurred
New High Speed DSCH (HS-DSCH) channel was introduced
DSCH was removed due to lack of interest for implementing it
in practical networks

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Introduction to HSDPA (2/2)

HSDPA Improvements for packet data performance both in
terms of capacity and practical bit rates are based on

The use of link adaptation,

Higher order modulation,
Fast scheduling,
Shorter frame size (or transmission time interval), and
Physical layer retransmission

HSDPA does not support DCH features like fast power

control or soft handover

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HSDPA channels (1/2)

The Release 99 based DCH is the key part of the system
despite the introduction of HSDPA
Release 5 HSDPA is always operated with the DCH

DCH with HSDPA

If the service is only for packet data, then at least the
signaling radio bearer (SRB) is carried on the DCH
In case the service is circuit-switched then the service always
runs on the DCH
With Release 6, signaling can also be carried without the DCH
In Release 5, uplink user data always go on the DCH (when
HSDPA is active)

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HSDPA channels (2/2)

in Release 6 an alternative is provided by the Enhanced DCH
(E-DCH) with the introduction of high-speed uplink packet
access (HSUPA)

User data is sent on High Speed Downlink Shared Channel

(HS-DSCH)
Control information is sent on High Speed Common Control
Channel (HS-SCCH)
HS-SCCH is sent two slot before HS-DSCH to inform the
scheduled UE of the transport format of the incoming
transmission on HS-DSCH

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Questions
Mention at least purpose to which Rel99 DCH is used with
HSDPA
What kind of handovers are supported with HSDPA?

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Link Adaptation (1/3)

UE informs the Node B regularly of its channel quality by
CQI messages (Channel Quality Indicator)

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Link Adaptation (2/3)

Adaptive modulation and higher order modulation
(16/64QAM) with HSDPA
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2

1 6 Q A M 3 /4

20

40

60

80

Tim e [n u m b e r o f TTIs]

100

120

140

Link
adaptation
adjusts the
mode within
few ms based
on CQI

160

1 6 Q A M 2 /4
Q P S K 3 /4
Q P S K 2 /4
Q P S K 1 /4

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Link Adaptation (3/3)

More complex modulation schemes require more energy
per bit to be transmitted than simply going for transmission
with multiple parallel code channels, thus HSUPA benefits
more from using multiple codes as PC keeps the signal
levels quite good anyway

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Fast Retransmissions (1/3)

Rel 99

HSPA

RNC
Retransmisson

Packet

Packet

NodeB
RLC
ACK/NACK
UE

Retransmisson
Layer 1
ACK/NACK

Radio Link Control (RLC) layer ACK/NACKs also possible with HSPA

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Fast Retransmissions (2/3)

UE

NodeB

RNC

User data
(Re)transmission

RLC

RLC (N)ACK

MAC-d
MAC-hs
Layer1

(Re)transmission
HARQ (N)ACK

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Fast Retransmissions (3/3)

Layer 1 signaling indicates the need of retransmission which leads to much

faster round trip time that with Rel 99
Retransmission procedure with layer 1 retransmissions (HARQ) is done so
that decoder does not get rid of the received symbols if the transmission
fails but combines them with new transmissions
Retransmissions can operate in two ways:

Identical retransmissions (soft/chase combining)

Non-identical retransmissions (incremental redundancy)

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Questions

What is CQI?
What does link adaptation do?
Which entity initiates RLC re-transmissions?
Which entity initiates HARQ re-transmissions?

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Downlink scheduling (1/5)

NodeB has certain amount of users connected to it and it
needs to schedule the different users for transmission in
different fractions of time (Transmission Time Intervals)
Certain fairness for scheduling time for each user should be
maintained
Resources should be utilized in optimal manor

There exists different ways that users can be scheduled in

downlink, e.g.
Round Robin
Proportional Fair

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Downlink scheduling (2/5)

Round Robin (RR)
Simplest scheduling algorithms
Assigns users in order i.e. handling all users without priority
Positive sides
Easy to implement
Each user gets served equally

Negative sides
No channel conditions are taken into account and thus resources
might be wasted

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Downlink scheduling (3/5)

Proportional Fair (PF)
Compromise-based scheduling algorithm
Based upon maintaining a balance between two competing
interests
Maximize network throughput i.e. users are served in good channel
conditions
Allowing all users at least a minimal level of service

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Downlink scheduling (4/5)

PF assigning each users a scheduling priority that is inversely
proportional to its anticipated resource consumption
High resource consumption => low priority

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Downlink scheduling (5/5)

In general priority metric for certain user can be defined as follows

priority

d
,
r

where instantaneous data rate, d, is obtained by consulting the

link adaptation algorithm and average throughput, r, of the user is
defined and/or updated as follows

(1 a ) * rold a * d , if user is served

r
,
(1 a ) * rold , otherwise

where a is so called forgetting factor. Hence, a equals the

equivalent averaging period in a number of TTIs for the
exponential smoothing filter

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Mobility with HSDPA (1/4)

Handovers are roughly tradeoff between two issues
When channel conditions are getting worse, handover to better
cell should be made so that packets wont get lost due to poor
channel conditions
However, each time when the handover is made, transmission
buffers in the Node B are flushed resulting to additional delays
from RLC level retransmission or disruption of service

When regarding HSDPA, the user can be connected only to

one serving HSDPA Node B at the time
Leading to hard handover when the handover between HSDPA
Node Bs is required in contrary to DCH soft handover

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Mobility with HSDPA (2/4)

Even though there is only one serving HS-DSCH cell, the
associated DCH itself can be in soft(er) handover and
maintain the active set as in Rel99
Node B,
Serving HSDPA
DCH
DCH
HS-SCCH

DCH/HSDPA

Node B,
Part of DCH active set

UE
DCH

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Mobility with HSDPA (3/4)

HSDPA handover procedure includes following steps
Serving HS-DSCH cell change procedure is initiated when a
link in (DCH) active set becomes higher in strength and stays
stronger for certain period of time, referred as time-to-trigger
If the condition mentioned above is met then the
measurement report is sent from the UE to the Node B, which
forwards it to the RNC
If e.g. the admission control requirements are met the RNC
can then give the consent for the UE to make the handover by
sending so called Signaling Radio Bearer (SRB)
(re)configuration message

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Mobility with HSDPA (4/4)

In the case of intra Node B handover, the HARQ processes
(transmissions) and Node B buffers can be maintained and
thus there is only minimal interruption in data flow
However, with inter Node B handover i.e. between Node Bs,
the Node B packet buffers are flushed including all unfinished
HARQ processes which are belonging to the UE that is handed
off

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Questions
How does Round Robin allocate resources for the users?
How intra- and inter-Node B handovers differ from each
other?

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High Speed Uplink Packet Access

(HSUPA)

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Introduction to HSUPA (1/2)

Roughly three years later when HSDPA was introduced
uplink counterpart of the high speed packet access
evolution was introduced in Release 6
In 3GPP original name was not HSUPA but Enhanced Dedicated
Channel (E-DCH)
The obvious choices for uplink evolution was to investigate the
techniques used for HSDPA and, if possible, adopt them for the
uplink as well

Improvements in HSUPA when compared to Rel99

Layer 1 Hybrid ARQ (HARQ) i.e. fast retransmissions
Node B based scheduling

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Introduction to HSUPA (2/2)

Easier multicode transmissions
Shorter frame size, 10ms mandatory for all HSUPA capable
devices and 2 ms as optional feature

HSUPA is not a standalone feature, but requires many of

the basic features of the WCDMA Rel99

Cell selection and synchronization,

random access,
basic power control loop functions,
basic mobility procedures (soft handover), etc.

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HSUPA channels (1/4)

New uplink transport channel - Enhanced Dedicated
Channel (E-DCH)
Supports key HSUPA features such as HARQ, fast scheduling
etc.
Unlike HS-DSCH (HSDPA) E-DCH is not a shared channel, but
a dedicated channel (*)
Similarly to DCH, E-DCH is also mapped to physical control
and data channels
The user data is carried on the enhanced dedicated physical data
channel (E-DPDCH) while new control information is on the EDPCCH

(*)Dedicated channel means that each UE has its own data path to the Node B that is
continuous and independent from the DCHs and E-DCHs of other UEs

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HSUPA channels (2/4)

From the Release 99 DCH, the dedicated physical control
channel (DPCCH) is unchanged and the need for the
DPDCH depends on possible uplink services mapped to the
DCH
DPCCH is used e.g. for fast power control

New channels for scheduling control

E-DCH absolute grant channel (E-AGCH) - absolute scheduling
value
E-DCH relative grant channel (E-RGCH) - relative step
up/down scheduling commands

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HSUPA channels (3/4)

New channel for retransmission control, carries information
in the downlink direction on whether a particular base
station has received the uplink packet correctly or not
E-DCH HARQ indicator channel (E-HICH)

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HSUPA channels (4/4)

DPCCH

NodeB

E-DPCCH
E-DPDCH
E-RGGH

UE

E-AGCH
E-HICH

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Questions
What new features on top of multicodes and shorter frame
sizes do HSUPA offer?
Is DCH part of the HSUPA?

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Uplink scheduling (1/5)

With HSDPA all the cell power can be directed to a single
user for a short period of time
Very high peak data rates achievable for certain UE and all the
others can be left with a zero data rate
However, in the next time instant another UE can be served
and so on

With HSUPA HSDPA type of scheduling is not possible

HSUPA is a many-to-one scheduling
The uplink transmission power resources are divided to
separate devices (UEs) which can be used only for their
purposes and not shared as with HSDPA

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Uplink scheduling (2/5)

The shared resource of the uplink is the uplink noise rise(*), or
the total received power seen in the Node B receiver
Typically, one UE is unable to consume that resource alone
completely and it is very beneficial for the scheduler to know at
each time instant how much of that resource each UE will consume
and to try to maintain the interference level experienced close to
the maximum

Thus, HSUPA scheduling could be referred as very fast DCH

scheduling

(*)ratio between the total power received from all of the UEs at the base station and
the thermal noise

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Uplink scheduling (3/5)

Two different scheduling schemes are defined for HSUPA
traffic
Scheduled transmissions controlled by Node B which might not
guarantee high enough minimum bit rate. In addition each
request requires time consuming signaling
Non-scheduled transmissions (NST) controlled by radio
network controller (RNC) which defines a minimum data rate
at which the UE can transmit without any previous request.
This reduces signaling overhead and consequently processing
delays

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Uplink scheduling (4/5)

Scheduled transmissions
The scheduler measures the noise level and decides whether
Additional traffic can be allocated
Should some users have smaller data rates

The scheduler also monitors the uplink feedback

Transmitted on E-DPCCH in every TTI
Referred as happy bits
Tells which users could transmit at a higher data rate both from the
buffer status and the transmission power availability point of view

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Uplink scheduling (5/5)

Depending on possible user priorities given from the RNC, the
scheduler chooses a particular user or users for data rate
adjustment
The respective relative or absolute rate commands are then send
on the E-RGCH or E-AGCH

UE in soft handover receives only relative hold/down

commands from other than serving HSUPA Node B

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Questions
What is the shared resource in the uplink if power is in the
downlink?
What kind of scheduling possibilities HSUPA offer?

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2008

Multicodes with HSUPA (1/2)

Even though Rel99 DCH supports in theory multicode
transmissions in practice only E-DCH can support multicode
transmissions and thus higher bitrates
In theory DCH can use 6xSF4 leading to 5.4 Mbps
E-DCH can in practice support 2xSF2 + 2xSF4 leading to 5.4
Mbps

The reason why DCH does not support multicodes is that

the DCH is controlled by RNC and thus DCH is rather slowly
controllable

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Multicodes with HSUPA (2/2)

If the UE could send with fully utilizing multicodes in some
time instant this might not be the case later and UE might end
up in power outage and thus wouldnt be able to use its
allocation
With RNC control reallocation of resources is slow => resources
wasted

Also, HSUPA with HARQ increases the possibility to operate

with higher BLER target which leads to lower power
requirement for corresponding data rate

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Mobility with HSUPA (1/2)

HSUPA supports the soft(er) handover procedure similar to
WCDMA Rel99
The HARQ operation in HSUPA soft handover situation is
done in following manor
If any Node B part of the active set sends an ACK, then the
information given to the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer is
that an ACK has been received and the MAC layer will consider
the transmission successful

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Mobility with HSUPA (2/2)

Packet
reordering

RNC

Correctly
received
packet

NodeB
Layer 1
ACK/NACK

Data
NodeB

UE
Layer 1
ACK/NACK

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Questions
Why does not DCH support multicodes in practice?
If UE is in a two-way soft handover how does the HARQ
operate?

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Continuous Packet Connectivity

(CPC)

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Continuous Packet Connectivity (1/5)

Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC) was released in
Release 7
Designed to improve the performance of delay critical small
bit rate services like VoIP
Eliminates the need for continuous transmission and
reception when data is not exchanged. Can be categorized
into three feature
UL discontinuous transmission
DL discontinuous transmission
HS-SCCH less for HSDPA VoIP

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Continuous Packet Connectivity (2/5)

Benefits
Connected inactive HSPA users need less resources and create
less interference => more users can be connected
UE power savings => increased talk time (VoIP)
UTRAN resources are saved

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Continuous Packet Connectivity (3/5)

R99 DCH with 20-ms TTI
(Rel99, CS voice)
E-DCH with 10-ms TTI
(Rel6, phase 1, VoIP)

12.2 kbps DCH

32 kbps E-DCH

160 kbps E-DCH

Power offset

E-DCH with 2-ms TTI

(Rel-6, phase 2, VoIP)
160 kbps E-DCH

E-DCH with 2 ms TTI

and UL DPCCH gating
(Rel-7, VoIP)

PO

= DPDCH (DCH) / E-DPDCH (E-DCH)

= DPCCH
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Continuous Packet Connectivity (4/5)

DL discontinuous transmission or Discontinuous Reception
(DRx) cycles allow an idle UE to power off the radio receiver
for a predefined period
Period after the UE wakes up again is called as DRx cycle
When UE wakes up it listens predefined time for incoming
transmissions and if it successfully decodes a new transmission
during that time it starts timer for staying active certain period
of time
No
measurements
done or data
received

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Continuous Packet Connectivity (5/5)

HS-SCCH-less HSDPA operation in downlink
Initial transmission of small (VoIP) packets can be sent without
High Speed Secondary Control Channel (HS-SCCH)
Eliminates the control channel overhead from small packets
sent over HSDPA
Retransmissions are sent with HS-SCCH pointing to the initial
transmission

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VoIP performance with and without

CPC

In general major performance enhancements visible if circuit switched

voice over WCDMA and VoIP over HSPA Rel 7 is compared

With Rel 99 CS voice capacity 60-70 users/cell

With Rel 7 VoIP capacity goes beyond 120 users/cell

H. Holma, M. Kuusela, E. Malkamki, K. Ranta-aho, C. Tao:

VoIP over HSPA with 3GPP Release 7, PIMRC, 2006.

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Internet HSPA
(I-HSPA)

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I-HSPA (1/3)
Internet-HSPA (I-HSPA) aims to provide competitive mobile
internet access with much more simpler network
architecture than it is in normal WCDMA systems
Deployable with existing WCDMA base stations
Utilizes standard 3GPP terminals
Simplified architecture brings many benefits such as

Cost-efficient broadband wireless access

Improves the delay performance
Transmission savings
Enables flat rating for the end user
Works anywhere (compared to WLAN or WIMAX)

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I-HSPA (2/3)
NodeB /
E-NodeB
UE

SGSN
RNC

GGSN

Internet
Internet
//
Intranet
Intranet

I-HSPA

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I-HSPA (3/3)
Release
99 ~200
ms

Round trip time of 32-Byte packet

200

HSDPA
<100 ms

180
160

HSUPA
~50 ms

140
120
100

I-HSPA
~25 ms

80
60

Internet
Iu + core
RNC
Iub
Node B
AI
UE

40
20
0
Today

HSDPA

HSDPA+HSUPA I-HSDPA+
I-HSUPA

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Conclusions

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Conclusions (1/2)
High Speed Packet Access evolution for WCDMA was
introduced in Release 5 and 6 for downlink and uplink,
respectively
HSPA offers much higher peak data rates, reaching in
theory up to 14 Mbps in the downlink and 5,4 Mbps in the
uplink, in addition to reduced delays
Key technologies with HSPA are
Fast Layer 1 retransmissions i.e. HARQ
Node B scheduling
Shorter frame size (2ms in DL and 2/10ms UL)
Higher order modulation and coding along with link adaptation
in downlink
Real support for multicodes in the uplink

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Conclusions (2/2)
HSPA improved also the performance of delay critical low bit
rate services like VoIP even though it was not originally
designed for it
Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC) enhancements
introduced in Release 7 improved VoIP performance even
more
I-HSPA was introduced to provide competitive internet
access solution
High data rates with low delay
Reduced costs => flat rate could be possible

Femtocells were introduced to improve the mobile

convergence and performance in small offices or at home,
for instance

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HSPA vs DCH (basic WCDMA)

Feature

DCH

HSUPA

HSDPA

Variable spreading factor

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Fast power control

Yes

Yes

No

Soft handover

Yes

Yes

Adaptive modulation

No

No

Yes

BTS based scheduling

No

Yes

Yes

Fast L1 HARQ

No

Yes

Yes

Multicode transmission

(No in practice)

No

(associated DCH only)

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HSPA Peak Data Rates

Downlink HSDPA
Theoretical up to 14.4 Mbps
Initial capability 1.8 3.6 Mbps
Max
# of codes
Modulation
data rate

Uplink HSUPA
Theoretical up to 5.76 Mbps
Initial capability 1.46 Mbps
# of codes

TTI

Max
data rate

5 codes

QPSK

1.8 Mbps

2 x SF4

2 ms
10 ms

1.46 Mbps

5 codes

16-QAM

3.6 Mbps

2 x SF2

10 ms

2.0 Mbps

10 codes

16-QAM

7.2 Mbps

2 x SF2

2 ms

2.9 Mbps

15 codes

16-QAM 10.1 Mbps

2 x SF2 +
2 x SF4

2 ms

5.76 Mbps

15 codes

16-QAM 14.4 Mbps

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Thank you!
kari.aho@magister.fi

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