DEMYSTIFYING 5G NR:

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS IN OVER-

THE-AIR (OTA) TESTING
Jose Maria Pindado Danny Sleiman
Product Line Manager – 5G Transport & RF Product Line Manager – 5G Transport & RF

June 30th, 2021

 1 What’s new with 5G?
Table of 2 5G challenges and solutions for field testing
contents 3 Overcoming 5G challenges with EXFO
4 Summary

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What’s new with 5G?

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What’s new in 5G-NR?
Verticals

Ultra Reliable Low Latency Enhanced Mobile massive Machine Type

Communications (URLLC) BroadBand (eMBB) Communications (mMTC)
Requirements

25x 10x 10x 30x 100-1000x 1000x

Decrease in High Reliability Experienced Peak data rate Connection density New service
end-to-end latency [99.999%] throughput [20 Gbps] [1M devices/km2] deployment time
[1 ms] [1 Gbps] [90 min]

Fiber High speed Cloud SDN/NFV Analytics

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5G-New Radio (NR) Split options

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5
 5G RAN synchronization requirements

Aggregation
Switch/Router
Core/Access
Grand Master
Fronthaul
CU DU RU
BC CPRI/eCPRI
Backhaul
GM
BC CSR
BC

Midhaul DU RU
BC Ethernet
Integrated small cells
EGM: Edge Grand Master
BC: Boundary Clock EGM Sync requirements
CSR: Cell Site Router CU • PDV ≤ 200 ns
RU: Radio unit • MaxTE ≤ 100 ns
iEN/HUB/CRAN • cTE ≤ 50 ns
DU: Distributed unit
CU: Centralized unit

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TDD Duplex scheme

DL UL DL UL DL UL DL UL DL UL DL UL

gNb A gNb B Operator B

Time

DLDL ULUL DLDL ULUL DLDL ULUL

gNb B DL UL DL UL DL UL

gNb B Operator B

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New Frequency bands (C-Band & mmWave)
C-Band/CBRS
– One of the hottest frequency bands in many countries.
– Still good propagation conditions
– TDD
Why use mmWave?
– Low frequency bands are pretty crowded and the mmWave is “mostly” empty
<1 GHz 3 GHz 6 GHz 24 GHz 39 GHz 100 GHz

More frequency
Full 5G Spectrum
available

Low Band Mid-Band High Band (e.g. mmWave)

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Poll question
Which frequency bands are currently deployed in your region?

1. Sub 2.4 GHz (FDD)

2. Sub 6 GHz (C-Band/CBRS)

3. mmWave

4. All of the above

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 5G challenges and
solutions for field testing

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5G main challenges and solutions for field testing
RF Environment getting Catching transient
more complex interferences
1 2

Synch and 5G RF Poor 5G

performance experience
3 4

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 11 Complex RF environment
LTE/5G

?
macro
CHALLENGES

Antennas are becoming

? 5G mmW/sub
more complex and using 6Ghz Converged access
multiple technologies: micro
mMIMO, Beamforming, Ethernet
eMBB
active antennas. eCPRI
URLLC
mMTC
The challenge for MNOs is CPRI & eCPRI

how to make sure the FR1 : up to 8 beams

radio unit is working FR2 : up to 64 beams
properly and that all
beams are being
transmitted correctly? LTE/5G mmW
pico

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11 Complex RF environment
CHALLENGES ? SOLUTION
Antennas are becoming
more complex and using
multiple technologies :
mMIMO, Beamforming,
active antennas.
The challenge for
MNOs/Contractors is how
to make sure cell sites are
working properly?
LTE/5G
macro
5G mmW/sub
6Ghz
micro
Ethernet
eCPRI
With a quick check of
power parameters in SSB, CPRI & eCPRI
we can realize whether all
beams are being
transmitted or not.
For example, at 3.5 GHz, if
LTE/5G mmW
a base station is operating pico
correctly, we should
receive 8 beams with
RSRP, RSRQ and SINR for
all SSB’s (from 0 to 7)
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5G main challenges and solutions for field testing
RF Environment getting Catching transient
more complex interferences
1 2

Synch and 5G RF Poor 5G

performance experience
3 4

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 21 Catching transient interferences
By adjusting RBW and VBW, we start to

?
Spectrum looks clean
CHALLENGES see something but it’s still not perfect

We often see that an

interferer falls directly
inside our channel with an
intermittent signal. With
5G, the analysis of these
interferences will be
extremely difficult.

A regular spectrum
analyzer requires that a lot
of settings be changed in
order to find those
interferers.

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 21 Catching transient interferences
?
CHALLENGES
We often see that an
interferer falls directly
inside our channel with an
intermittent signal. With
5G, the analysis of these
interferences will be
extremely difficult.
A regular spectrum
analyzer requires that a lot
of settings be changed in
order to find those
interferers.
Using RTSA without any settings we
can quickly see the interferers.
SOLUTION
Real-time spectrum
analysis (RTSA) is able to
show the signals that are
masked inside our
channel with a different
color density (due to
different intensity in the
interferer signal). This
gives us the ability to
detect interference,
quickly.
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5G main challenges and solutions in field testing
RF Environment getting Catching transient
more complex interferences
1 2

Synch and 5G RF Poor 5G

performance experience
3 4

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 31 Synch and 5G RF performance

CHALLENGES ?
Timing issues dramatically impact
performance of RF in 5G networks:
• User equipment (UE) transmitting at
the same time as the radio in TDD
• Cell sites interfering with each other
• Handover issues
• Slow to no throughput
• Audio dropout or one way audio

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 31 Synch and 5G RF performance
CHALLENGES ?
Timing issues dramatically impact
performance of RF in 5G networks:

SOLUTION

Timing issues are starting to show up

and it will get worse!

It will be key that all network elements

are synchronized with the right time of
day. TEST Talk 3: Why timing and synchronization
is critical in 5G networks (July 7, 2021)
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5G main challenges and solutions in field testing
RF Environment getting Catching transient
more complex interferences
1 2

Synch and 5G RF Poor 5G

performance experience
3 4

© 2021 EXFO Inc. All rights reserved 20

 41 Poor 5G experience
5G Non-StandAlone (NSA)
CHALLENGES ? 4G CORE
(EPC)
5G depends on 4G with
NSA installations. Poor 4G
experience is translating
to poor 5G experience. ? 4G/LTE 5G NR
When looking across the
bandwidth of a site,
Uplink Control Downlink
multiple interferers can be
identified, and the
challenge is determining
which one is affecting the
site under test. RF over CPRI on 4G/LTE Uplink

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 41 Poor 5G experience
CHALLENGES ? SOLUTION
5G depends on 4G with
NSA installations. Poor 4G
experience is translating
to poor 5G experience.
When looking across the
bandwidth of a site,
multiple interferers can be
identified, and the
challenge is determining
which one is affecting the
site under test.
4G Antenna 5G Antenna
For 5G NSA, user has
access to RF spectrum
analysis over CPRI to look RRH/RU
at the 4G uplink and
determine whether the Downlink
issue is internal or Uplink
external.
If PIM issue, tower crew is Interferer found
required. at at 785MHz
If external issue, user will
need to hunt interference Optical splitter BBU
using an RF OTA
spectrum analyzer.
iORF
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Poll question
What is your top challenge in deploying 5G?

1. New technologies like massive MIMO and beamforming

2. Synchronizing networks

3. Finding interferences and PIM

4. Other challenges

5. Not deploying 5G yet

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 Overcoming 5G
challenges with EXFO

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EXFO FTB 5GPro with RF Spectrum Analyzer

FR1 (450 MHz - 6 GHz) & FR2 (24.25 GHz – 40 GHz)

• Analysis Bandwidth : 100 MHz
• Real-time Spectrum Analysis (RTSA)
• 5GNR and 4G/LTE demodulation with beam and
Key
signal analysis
features
• TDD support
• Digital RF power measurements
• And more to come!

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EXFO FTB 5GPro with RF Spectrum Analyzer
Not just an RF field tester
Synchronization

– PTP, SyncE and Wander measurements

– validate SyncE and PTP services
– Validate clock quality level, IPDV and SyncE
frequency across the network
– Time Error (TE) between BS and GM

Transport
– CPRI, eCPRI and OBSAI
– Fronthaul link validation at different rates

– Ethernet
– Midhaul and backhaul link testing
EXFO FTB 5GPro with RF Spectrum Analyzer
Not just an RF field tester
Intelligent RF over CPRI

– PIM and interference measurements

– 5G NSA relying on 4G/LTE
– Auto CPRI Rate Scan
– Autodetect PIM issues

OTDR, FIP & PM

– Fiber characterization and fault finding

– Fiber inspection probe to detect dirty or

damaged connectors

– Power meter to ensure fiber continuity

Summary

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 The 5G Radio Access Network
In general, 5G is changing the landscape of the
typical wireless radio access network:
– More complex RF environment
– New Frequency bands

Summary – Different verticals coexisting in the networks

– Timing restrictions in TDD
– Beamforming
– Synchronization and transport network validation
– 1588 PTP, SyncE
– CPRI, eCPRI, etc.

– RF and fiber merging

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Thank you!

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