Chapter 6

High Speed Packet Switching Access (HSPA +) Networks

 Introduction
• GSM allowed voice to go wireless with more than 4.5 billion
subscribers globally.

• HSPA allowed data to go wireless with 1.5 billion subscribers

globally.

• The number of mobile broadband subscribers is shown in Figure 1.1.

• Mobile operators need to enhance network capabilities to carry

more data traffic with better performance.

• Smartphone users expect higher data rates, more extensive

coverage, better voice quality, and longer.

• Most of the current mobile data traffic is carried by HSPA networks.

Figure 6.1 Number of subscribers
• HSPA+ is expected to be the dominant mobile broadband with mobile broadband technologies
technology for many years to come due to attractive data rates and
high system efficiency combined with low cost devices and simple
upgrade on top of WCDMA and HSPA networks.
 Introduction
• All WCDMA networks have been upgraded to support HSPA and
many networks also support HSPA+ with 21 Mbps and 42 Mbps.
• HSPA technology has become the main mobile broadband
solution globally.
• long term for GSM and HSPA operators and also for CDMA and
WiMAX operators.
• HSPA traffic will continue to grow for many years and HSPA
networks will remain in parallel to LTE for a long time. The Figure Low end HSPA phone – Nokia
technology evolution is shown in Figure 6.2. 208. Source: Nokia. Reproduced by

• HSPA has been deployed on fie bands globally, see Figure 6.3. permission of Nokia

Figure 6.2 Radio technology evolution Figure 6.3 HSPA main frequency bands Figure : HSDPA data volume growth of a few major operators
 Existing Technologies / releases

Figure 6.4 Peak data rate evolution in downlink and in uplink

• The first version of HSDPA was defied in 3GPP Release 5 during 2002, the backwards
compatibility started in 2004, and the fist HSDPA network was launched in 2005.
• Release 5 allowed a maximum data rate of 14 Mbps in downlink, although the first
networks supported only 1.8 and 3.6 Mbps.
• Since then, data rates have been increasing in 3GPP releases both in downlink and in uplink.
• The peak rate in Release 11 is up to 336 Mbps in downlink and 35 Mbps in uplink.
• The evolution is shown in Figure 6.4.
• The maximum data rates in the commercial networks currently (mid 2014) are 42 Mbps in
downlink and 11 Mbps in uplink, which are based on Release 8
 HSDPA Technology Key Characteristics:
• HSDPA included several fundamental improvements to the
WCDMA standard, with the key items being:

• BTS based scheduling;

• physical layer retransmissions;
• higher order modulation;
• link adaptation;
• dynamic code resource utilization.
Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel
• High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) in Release 5 and High Speed Uplink Packet
Access (HSUPA) in Release 6 improved the efficiency, data rates, and latency considerably
by providing a true packet channel-based radio interface.
• The limitation was still that a Dedicated Physical Control Channel (DPCCH)
was required and setting up and releasing DPCCH takes time, adding to the connection setup
latency and limiting the number of users with simultaneously active radio connections.
• Release 6 solution was still circuit-switched from the control channel point of view.
• Release 7 brings Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC) which enables Discontinuous
Transmission (DTX) for the control channel.
• Release 8 brings for the fist time a true packet switched channel type in HSPA with High
Speed Random Access Channel (HS-RACH) for the uplink direction, called Enhanced
Cell_FACH in 3GPP.
• The corresponding downlink channel High Speed Forward Access Channel (HS-FACH) was
defied in Release 7.
 Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel

Figure 6.5 Evolution of packet transmission in WCDMA/HSPA

Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC)

The data channel in HSDPA and HSUPA is active only when data transmission is happening but the
control channel (DPCCH) is active continuously.
Continuous Packet Connectivity (CPC) brings the following improvements:
– Discontinuous transmission (DTX) of DPCCH in uplink.
– Discontinuous reception (DRX) of High Speed Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH) in downlink.
– Downlink transmission without a High-Speed Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH).
Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel
Uplink DTX
• The CPC concept in uplink is illustrated in Figure 6.6.

• The uplink Enhanced Dedicated Physical Data Channel

(E-DPDCH) runs only when there is data transmission in
uplink while DPCCH runs also during data inactivity in
Release 6.

• The typical inactivity timer before the channel is released

Figure 6.6 CPC concept in uplink. and the UE moved to Cell_FACH or to Cell_PCH is several
seconds.
• CPC allows using discontinuous DPCCH transmission during data inactivity when DPCCH is
transmitted only in short bursts.
• These short bursts of DPCCH are needed to maintain the link synchronization and power
control for instantaneous resumption of the data traffic.
• The discontinuous transmission brings two main benefits: less interference is created in
the network and less battery power is used by the terminal.
Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel
• Typical CPC parameter values are shown in Table 4.1 both for 2-ms TTI and 10-ms TTI.
• Normally, 2-ms TTI is used as long as the uplink link budget allows 2-ms TTI transmission.
If the signal level gets low, then the connection is reconfigured to 10-ms TTI.

Table 6.1 Typical CPC parameters

(sub frame = 2 ms)
Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel

Figure 6.6 DPCCH transmission burst

• The transmission burst of a DTX cycle consists of a preamble, a burst of DPCCH, and a
post amble, see Figure 6.6.
• Preamble and post amble are pilots before and after the DPCCH burst and they are used
for channel estimation and uplink power control convergence.
• The preamble length is two slots and post amble length one slot.
• The actual DPCCH transmission burst is of configurable length and is typically the same
with 2-ms and 10-ms TTI.
• A long preamble of 4 or 15 slots is also allowed in DTX Cycle 2 if E-DCH data
transmission is started for better power control convergence after a longer transmission gap.
Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel
Downlink DRX

Figure 6.7 Downlink DRX concept Figure6.8 Downlink DRX with uplink activity

• UE must monitor continuously up to four HS-SCCHs, E-AGCH, and E-RGCH in

normal operation in the Cell_DCH state.
• The continuous reception keeps UE power consumption relatively high.
• Release 7 enables downlink discontinuous reception (DRX) to save UE batteries.
• If there has been no data to UE within the “Inactivity threshold for UE DRX cycle”
number of sub frames, the UE can start to use DRX.
 Continuous Packet Connectivity and High Speed Common Channel
• The “UE DRX cycle” defines how frequently UE must wake-up to check the HS-SCCH again to
see if there is data scheduled to it.

• When there is again data transmission on HS-PDSCH, the UE needs to monitor the HS-SCCHs
continuously in subsequent TTIs until the inactivity timer has expired.
• The DRX concept is shown in Figure 6.7.

• Downlink DRX only works together with uplink DTX because uplink power control is needed
for uplink transmission.

• If uplink is running continuously, then the power control commands need to be delivered in
downlink and DRX is not possible. That means uplink transmission also prevents downlink DRX.

• The concept is shown in Figure 6.8.

• It makes sense to harmonize the UE DTX cycle and UE DRX cycle parameters to maximize the
benefits from downlink DRX power savings
 HSDPA Multiflow
• Release 11 HSDPA Multiflow, which was introduced to address and improve the cell edge
performance of the HSDPA system.
• With HSDPA Multiflow, there is the possibility of obtaining additional diversity and
boosting the cell edge data rate by receiving several data streams from neighbouring cells.

• Multiflow Overview:

• Multiflow is designed to improve the throughput of cell edge users and network-wide
capacity by RRM load balancing.
• Multiflow is very similar to multicarrier HSDPA, with the generalization that cells do not
need to have the same timing and can be on the same frequency.
• Multiflow also has a similarity with the LTE-Advanced dual connectivity, which at the point
of writing is being studied as a feature for Release 12.
• In a Multiflow transmission a UE, which is situated at the border between two cells and has
those cells in its active set, may receive data independently and concurrently from several
cells.
 HSDPA Multiflow
• The cells may belong to the same site, leading to intra-site Multiflow, or may belong to
different sites, leading to inter-site Multiflow, as shown in Figure 6.9 .
• From a UE perspective, gains are visible because twice as many transmission resources can
be put at its disposal.
• On a system level, gains materialize when either of the cells has free resources that are put
to use with Multiflow.
• This works best in low–medium load situations, and Multiflow gains are thus best
understood as short-term load balancing gains between cells.

Figure 6.9 Node Bs schedule and transmit data independently to a UE at the cell edge
• Multiflow Principle HSDPA Multiflow
• In intra-site Multiflow, RNC sends all data to one NodeB, which distributes packets between
the cells, making the overall functionality almost identical to multicarrier HSDPA.

• In inter-site Multiflow the source data coming to the RNC is split at the level of RLC PDUs
and distributed between two independent flows sent to different sites, as shown in Figure
6.10.

• NodeBs of both sites schedule and transmit the RLC PDUs independently of each other.
• In turn, the UE merges PDUs received from the two NodeBs and re-orders them into a single
stream of PDUs with consecutive sequence numbers before delivering them to higher layers.

• Multiflow has been designed to support transmission from only two different sites.

• The reason is that transmissions from three or more sites improve performance only
marginally.

• Furthermore, more than two sites will result in having potentially more than two cells with
different timing.
 HSDPA Multiflow
• Multiflow Configurations :
• In multicarrier HSDPA, the NodeB transmits content to the UE on several carriers: up to
eight carriers may be used for transmission to a UE as per 3GPP Release 11 functionality.
• Multiflow configurations are limited to two cells on the same frequency and two NodeBs
transmitting on at most two frequencies, leading to a total amount of aggregated cells of four.
• The naming convention for the different configurations is:
• < number of frequencies > − < number of cells>.

Figure 6.10 Data flow split, independent scheduling, and

combining at the UE for inter-site Multiflow RLC –Radio
link control RNC – Radio Network controller
UE – User Equipment
 HSDPA : Performance Evaluation and Analysis

and applications topic will be in special seminar