Public Safety Networks: Enabling Mobility for Critical Communications

Romain Favraud, ... Thanasis Korakis, in Wireless Public Safety Networks 2, 2016

4.7 Discussion

Some research papers provide insight into full solutions when no backhaul is available, providing
inter-eNB connectivity because of WiFi links and including D2D communications that were not
yet defined by the ProSe specifications of 3GPP studies [GOM 14]. Other technologies are
usually used to establish wireless backhaul supporting fixed LTE networks: PTP RF or free space
optics links and PTMP RF links. In the case of portable BS, satellite backhaul links are sometimes
used. However, it can be easily seen that these wireless solutions are not adequate for the
establishment of a network of BS enabling voice and data communications in moving cell
scenarios.

For instance, Table 4.4 shows the main differentiating criteria. Despite great performance, PTP
and PTMP solutions often require line-of-sight wireless connectivity with careful network
planning, which make them inapplicable to the moving cell scenarios. Satellite backhauling, on
the other hand, provides the best possible coverage but needs dedicated tracking antennas and
suffers from high cost. More importantly, it has high latency (≥200 ms) that limits voice and data
services [CAS 15]. WiFi solutions using omni-directional antennas are promising solutions if the
higher layers and protocols allow for efficient and dynamic meshing, similar to the proposed
LTE-based solutions (i.e. eUE and e2NB). However, dedicated equipment and antennas are
needed for WiFi backhauling, thus increasing the cost of BS. In addition, commodity WiFi works
on ISM bands and can thus experience a large interference compared to the licensed bands used
for LTE. To solve this problem, some countries define their own licensed bands for the PS WiFi.
Last but not least, studies on commercial networks have shown that the WiFi latency is on
average slightly higher and has more jitter than that of LTE, although results might differ for PS
networks [HUA 12] and other studies have shown that the WiFi latency is higher than that of LTE,
especially when the traffic load and number of users increase [HUA 13]. Moreover, carrier
aggregation and full duplex communications are expected to greatly increase LTE global
throughput in such mesh topologies, although similar techniques could be used for WiFi.