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LTE Backhaul Requirements - A Reality Check - Feb 2011 PDF
LTE Backhaul Requirements - A Reality Check - Feb 2011 PDF
INTRODUCTION
LTE mobile broadband technology is now being launched across the world with more than 140
service providers committed to implement it within the next two years. 3GPP, the LTE
standards defining body, has detailed the requirements of the new radio and core network
domain, but not for the packet backhaul network linking the two domains together. Therefore,
the industry has been left to extrapolate requirements for the backhaul network based on the
best-case radio interface capabilities. This leads to exaggerated predictions and is insufficient
to plan backhaul networks. This paper estimates backhaul capacity more realistically by
combining factors of LTE channel capacity, radio propagation, cell site design and traffic
aggregation.
Because LTE handsets are statistically distributed within the three radio sectors and not
downloading at maximum peak rates all the time, backhaul capacity can be split and
overbooked among individual sectors. The busier a macro cell is, the lower this overbooking
factor needs to be. For low usage sites, the factor can be safely increased. Existing backhaul
transmission networks for 3G, CDMA and WiMAX have shown that factors between two to five
work quite well.
Dense urban sites certainly have higher needs than rural sites. The size of the cell coverage
area is also an important factor as it determines the mean peak rates of the handsets served
by the site. Rural sites cover a much larger area and the majority of handsets transmit at
lower peak rates, as they are farther away from the cell center. Figure 3 provides an overview
of backhaul capacity vs. cell site type.
In the following example, the calculation for a suburban cell with 10MHz LTE channel would
be: 28Mbit/s (medium range peak of Figure 1) x 3 sectors / 3 (overbooking factor OBF) x 100/85
(15% QoS margin) = 33Mbit/s.
The QoS margin ensures that the backhaul network transmission buffers can deal with high-
priority data bursts without dropping frames.
These values are a realistic starting point for designing the packet backhaul network link
capacities. Of course, these figures must be viewed adjusted to the backhaul network traffic
reports of regular operational capacity reviews.
Although MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) antenna technology will enhance the peak
data rates of handsets, the radio signal conditions of a noisy and interfering LTE environment
are still forming a fundamental ceiling of how much data throughput improvement is
achievable. Figure 4 is showing this improvement through increased backhaul requirements.
But even for a dense urban area with large numbers of users, a three-sector macro cell using
a 20MHz radio channel plus 4x4 MIMO technology is unlikely to require more than 150-
200Mbps dedicated backhaul capacity.
adaptation is required to minimize side effects of deploying many small radio cells to enhance
LTE throughput.
DAISY CHAINS
Existing 2G/3G backhaul networks for TDM circuits have often relied on daisy-chained links to
carry the individual circuits. For Ethernet packet networks that connect individual cell sites to
each other and to the core network, daisy chains are not a good choice as traffic needs to pass
links multiple times to provide the desired connectivity. It is also quite difficult to insert new
cell sites because it makes the chains even longer and exacerbates associated problems.
TREE/TIERED NETWORKS
Splitting the network into multiple, smaller hub and branch sites will result in more flexible
traffic routing and capacity distribution. Site-to-site connections (LTE X2 interface) are much
shorter and link upgrades increase and provide capacity exactly where needed. The topology
also results in very few hops from the core edge to the cell site, which is critical to the strict
low packet delay and latency requirements of LTE.
TRAFFIC ASYMMETRY
We need to remember that LTE traffic volume is asymmetrically skewed toward user
downloads. Packet rates from the core network toward LTE base stations are much higher
than in the other direction. This is important for implementing QoS policies as its more likely
download traffic may overload links from the core network toward cell sites. Backhaul
network links are typically symmetrical, so uploads play no role in network dimensioning.
CONCLUSION
As in early phases of every technology, LTE backhaul capacity needs are being overstated. This
will change when the technology is more established. The introduction of 3G in the early 2000s
went through similar hype. LTE is likely to have an accelerated cycle, but the mobile industry
might still suffer from initial frustrations.
Usable LTE data capacity is fixed per siteindependent of number of users or handsets
determined by base station technology and channel bandwidth. This can be increased by
adding more cell sites or increasing LTE channel bandwidth, which is highly improbable due to
LTE licensing requirements. Adding more macro cell sites would significantly increase
network operations cost. Smaller picocells with more cost-effective backhaul options are a
good compromise for LTE. Operators will have to provide these rather than try to achieve
theoretical maximum coverage of macro cellsespecially in high user demand urban areas.
While a backhaul capacity limit of 150 Mbit/s for a three-sector site with 10MHz LTE channels
is below some LTE backhaul claims, it takes into account radio propagation limits. LTE
backhaul needs to fulfill several requirements of an evolving mobile network. High availability,
low latency, low packet loss, QoS, direct site-to-site connectivity and high network capacity are
the most important. Ring or mesh topologies with multiple paths from access to the core will
fit better than long chains of single-path links. They can also accommodate new network
nodes more easily without disturbing the existing network capacity distribution and
connectivity relationships.
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