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.