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Mobile Broadband With HSPA and LTE PDF
Mobile Broadband With HSPA and LTE PDF
Mobile broadband
with HSPA and LTE
capacity and cost aspects
The latest generation of smart
devices and USB data modems for
mobile computers has created
explosive growth in network data
traffic. In particular, mobile broadband
via High Speed Packet Access (HSPA)
has led to a significant rise in the
Contents number of subscribers and the amount
of data they use. The volume of data
3 Radio capacity of traffic carried by cellular networks has
mobile broadband already exceeded that of voice traffic.
2 Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects
Radio capacity
of mobile broadband
Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects 3
A margin in network dimensioning in
the busy hour needs to be reserved in
order to guarantee low delays and
reasonably good data rates. In this
example, a maximum 50% loading of
the CQI values over the busy hour is
assumed, which leads to an average
Share of traffic
busy hour throughput of 6 Mbps x
50% = 3 Mbps per cell in HSPA and
17.5 Mbps per cell in LTE 20 MHz.
The 50% margin is not constant but
depends on the targeted user data
rates and on the applications. 50%
4 Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects
Figure 5 shows typical European
Spectrum Current Future
spectrum resources. HSPA is
deployed at 2100 and 900 while LTE is 2600
LTE 20 MHz
used at 2600, 1800 and 800. The total (FDD 20 MHz)
amount of spectrum is assumed to be
2 x 70 MHz paired spectrum per CSP. 2100
HSPA Multicarrier HSPA
(15 MHz)
Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects 5
Figure 6 shows the results. With
Millions of subscribers
10,000 sites, the radio network can 50
support up to 5 million data subscribers
45
with HSPA and up to 22 million data LTE
subscribers with HSPA and LTE. 40
HSPA
With 20,000 sites, the capacities 35
would be 10 million HSPA subscribers
30
and 45 million with HSPA and LTE.
Typically, existing networks with 10,000 25
sites have of the order of 20 million 20
voice subscribers, while networks
15
with 20,000 sites have 40 million
subscribers. These calculations 10
indicate that HSPA and LTE radio 5
networks with typical spectrum
0
allocation can provide 5 GB of data for 10000 sites 20000 sites
all existing voice subscribers.
Figure 6. Maximum number of broadband subscribers, each
Another way to calculate capacity is to consuming 5 GB/month (using spectrum allocation from Figure 5)
consider user data rates. Lets aim for
a minimum of 1 Mbps user data rate.
A so-called overbooking factor can be
used to take into account the fact that
only a small proportion of users will
typically be downloading data at the The following solutions can be QoS differentiation can be
same time. 3.8 GB of downlink data used to provide even more applied to control the priority of
per month with 7% busy hour share capacity and to support more heavy users when they exceed
corresponds to 20 kbps average data subscribers: their monthly quota. Typically,
rate per subscriber during the busy More macro sites could be a small percentage (less than
hour, which is equal to an overbooking added to congested areas. 20%) of users takes most of the
factor of 1 Mbps/20 kbps = 50. Nokia Siemens Networks Flexi capacity (more than 80%).
base stations are compact, Offloading traffic from the
User expectations for data rates have zero-footprint and are fully macro network to small cells like
depend on the market, as well as the deployable outdoors, which can micro or femtocells (home
application and terminal being used. make site acquisition simpler NodeB/eNodeB). 3GPP
Markets with high wireline broadband compared to conventional base Releases 8 and 9 include a
penetration tend to have higher station designs. number of enhancements for
expectations for mobile broadband 6-sector sites offer typically femtocells, including optimized
data rates, while users in markets with 4050% more capacity per site architecture, as well as two-way
poor wireline broadband availability compared to 3-sector sites and handovers between macro and
may be happy with lower data rates. up to 80% in the best case. femtocells. 3GPP Release 10
Therefore, the dimensioning rules (Source: All-in-one mobile site includes the work item
need to be adapted to market solution boosts 2G, 3G and LTE Heterogeneous networks, that
conditions. network coverage and capacity, provides enhanced interworking
Nokia Siemens Networks press between macro cells and small
release, November 4, 2009). cells.
6 Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects
The cost
of mobile broadband capacity
This section estimates the cost of The annual OPEX ranges from
mobile broadband capacity and uses 8,000 to 80,000 EUR per site,
the following assumptions: depending on the configuration,
HSPA and LTE radios are including backhaul, site rental,
considered with minimum power consumption and radio
configuration of HSPA 1+1+1 (5 MHz) network software and hardware
and maximum configuration of maintenance. The OPEX is clearly
HSPA 4+4+4 @ 900 (5 MHz) and higher than CAPEX depreciation,
2100 (15 MHz), and LTE 3+3+3 @ and therefore, it is essential to
800 (10 MHz), 1800 (15 MHz) and minimize network OPEX.
2600 (20 MHz). We assume that 100% of OPEX is
The network CAPEX ranges from allocated for data but, in practice,
40,000 to 400,000 EUR per site part of the OPEX could also be
depending on the configuration. allocated to voice traffic because
The minimum CAPEX corresponds the base station sites also provide
to HSPA 1+1+1 configuration, while the voice network. This would make
the maximum CAPEX corresponds the data cost lower than that shown
to HSPA 4+4+4 and LTE 3+3+3 in the calculations in this paper.
configurations. The CAPEX per site Site configuration is selected
is assumed to be linear with the site according to traffic requirements.
capacity. Here, the same traffic distribution
CAPEX depreciation occurs over as in capacity calculations is
8 years. assumed, in which 15% of the cells
carry 50% of the traffic.
Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects 7
Figure 7 shows the cost per subscriber
EUR/sub/month
as a function of subscriber density per 10
base station site. Figure 8 shows cost 10 GB/sub/month
9
per gigabyte as a function of mobile 5 GB/sub/month
broadband penetration. 8
2 GB/sub/month
7 1 GB/sub/month
Subscriber density is the average
6
value over the whole network. If the
average number is, for example, 5
500 subscribers per site, there will be 4
sites in the network supporting
3
1,0002,000 subscribers, while many
sites will provide mainly coverage for a 2
few subscribers. Figure 8 assumes 1
that there are, on average, 2,000 voice
0
subscribers per site. 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Average subs per site
The CAPEX + OPEX per subscriber
are relatively high when the subscriber Figure 7. Network CAPEX + OPEX per sub per month
density is low. The cost reduces
when there are more subscribers
sharing the costs. With at least 500
subscribers per site each using less
than 2 GB/month, the monthly CAPEX EUR/GB
10
+ OPEX will be below 3 EUR per
subscriber. If the average data usage 9 10 GB/sub/month
2
The cost of delivering a GB of data is
1
highly dependent on the network
utilization. If total data use is high, 0
5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50%
either due to a high number of Penetration of mobile broadband subscription
subscribers or to high use per
subscriber, the cost per GB can be Figure 8. Network CAPEX + OPEX per gigabyte of data
below 1 EUR. Figure 8 shows that a
cost of less than 1 EUR can be
obtained with 40% mobile broadband
penetration and 2 GB/sub/month.
8 Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects
A few notes on the cost calculations: LTE with new spectrum allocations
The most important factor in the is efficient for carrying higher
cost calculations is network OPEX traffic volumes. The benefit of LTE
because it is typically higher than becomes clear when HSPA
CAPEX. The largest contributors to spectrum has already been fully
OPEX are backhaul transport, site utilized and further HSPA capacity
rental, network maintenance and would require new and costly base
electricity. Other OPEX factors, like station sites.
customer acquisition and Sufficiently high LTE terminal
marketing, are not considered here. penetration is needed to offload
It is essential to minimize OPEX by traffic from HSPA to LTE. If LTE
using efficient Ethernet transport, terminal penetration is low, it may
for example Ethernet based be more cost effective to upgrade
microwave radio, fiber or DSL, the capacity of the existing HSPA
and by re-using existing base network than to deploy an LTE
station sites. network.
The mobile broadband cost Small femtocells can provide a
depends on how the site and significant capacity offload from
transport costs are shared between the macro network, if marketed to
voice and broadband data. users with appropriate use patterns.
The relationship between cost and Macro cell traffic can also be
traffic per subscriber is not linear. offloaded to WLAN (WiFi) networks.
If the traffic per subscriber grows
ten-fold, the cost will increase only
two- to three-fold. This is because
the radio networks must always
provide basic coverage even in low
traffic areas. When the traffic
increases, the low traffic areas do
not need capacity upgrades.
Furthermore, many cost elements
in the high traffic areas remain
similar or grow only moderately
with traffic volumes. Such costs
include site rental and backhauling
costs. In other words, high data
penetration and high data usage
leads to lower cost per GB.
Therefore, CSPs with a large
market share will benefit from
economies of scale.
Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects 9
Summary
10 Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects
Abbreviations
Mobile broadband with HSPA and LTE capacity and cost aspects 11
Nokia Siemens Networks Corporation
P.O. Box 1
FI-02022 NOKIA SIEMENS NETWORKS
Finland
Visiting address:
Karaportti 3, ESPOO, Finland
www.nokiasiemensnetworks.com