Cell radius <= 1400 m: Preamble formats 0 to 3 are recommended for an FDD cell, preamble

formats 0 to 4 are recommended for a TDD cell;

1400 m < Cell radius <= 14,500 m: Preamble formats 0 to 3 are recommended;

14,500 m < Cell radius <= 29,500 m: Preamble formats 1 to 3 are recommended;

29,500 m < Cell radius <= 77,300 m: Preamble formats 1 and 3 are recommended;

77,300 m < Cell radius <= 160,000 m: Preamble format 3 is recommended.

Cell Size Configuration in Random Access Procedure (I) - Preamble Format

When we talk about the cell size, we usually think of RF coverage first. The cell radius is also
related to the parameter configuration for the random access procedure, such as the preamble
format and cyclic shift. Let's look at the preamble format here.

In LTE, the random access procedure is non-synchronized, which means the UE which initiates
the random access procedure is not uplink synchronized yet (It is, however, already downlink
synchronized). So the random access procedure of this UE should not interfere the uplink
transmission of other already uplink synchronized UEs.

Figure 1 shows the mapping of the PRACH (Physical Random Access Channel) to physical
resources. The PRACH occupies 6 PRBs in the frequency domain and spans 1 or 2 or 3
subframes in the time domain, depending on the specific preamble format. In the frequency
domain, several subcarriers at both ends of the 6 PRBs are not used to avoid interference with the
adjacent PUCCH/PUSCH. In the time domain, the cyclic prefix (CP) and guard time (GT) are
used to avoid interference with the previous and next subframes. As it turns out, the GT
determines the maximum cell radius.
Figure 1: Resource Mapping of PRACH (Physical Random Access Channel)

How is the GT related to cell radius? Assume there are 3 UEs in the cell, located near the center
of the cell, in the middle of the cell, and at the cell edge, respectively. Assume that all of these 3
UEs are not yet UL synchronized and are about to perform a random access. The RACH
configuration information is transmitted in the DL. All UEs listen to it and send RACH
preambles in the same subframe. For UE3 at the cell edge, its RA preamble arrives at the eNB
later than UE1's preamble. The maximum delay between UE3 and UE1 is the round trip delay
(RTD) between the eNB and the cell edge, which is determined by the guard time in the expected
preamble receive window at the eNB. We can calculate the cell radius based on the GT.
Figure 2: Guard Time (GT) vs. Cell Size

The Preamble format is defined in LTE (3GPP TS 36.211, section 5.7).

Figure 5.7.1-1: Random access preamble format.

Table 5.7.1-1: Random access preamble parameters.

Where Ts is the basic time unit in LTE, Ts = 1/(15000*2048) s = 3.25521 X 10^(-5) ms.

First, we get the guard time from the number of subframes occupied by the PRACH, the time to
transmit cyclic shift, and the time to transmit preamble sequence. In figure 3, it is obvious that
the preamble format 0 and preamble format 1 have different guard times, which means they
support different maximum cell sizes.

Figure 3: Calculation of Guard Time

We can derive the cell radius from the guard time.

Figure 4: Calculation of Cell Radius based on Guard Time

We have calculated the cell radius for preamble format 0 and preamble format 1 in the
spreadsheet below, where the equation (1) in Figure 3 is used to calculate guard time and the
equation (2) in Figure 4 is used to calculate cell radius. Please calculate the cell radius for Format
2 and 3. Have fun!

Table 1: Cell Radius vs. Preamble Format

Answers: (Format 2: ~30 km, Format 3: ~107 km)