LTE-M

Planning

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Content

• Narrowband Allocation • Power Boosting

• PCI Planning • Cell Identity & BTS Identity
• Cell Range Planning • Tracking Area
• MPRACH Planning • Neighbours
• MPUCCH Allocation • Hardware
• Link Budget • Impact upon Legacy LTE

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Narrowband Allocation

Mobile Access

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Narrowbands (I)
• LTE-M UE transmit and receive within 6 PRB belonging to a ‘Narrowband’
• A Narrowband is defined as 6 adjacent PRB in the frequency domain
• The number of Narrowbands within each channel bandwidth is shown below
• Narrowbands are centered around the middle of the channel bandwidth
• If the channel bandwidth has an odd number of PRB then the central PRB does not
belong to a Narrowband

1.4 MHz 3 MHz 5 MHz 10 MHz 15 MHz 20 MHz

Total PRB 6 15 25 50 75 100
Number of Narrowbands 1 2 4 8 12 16

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Narrowbands (II)
• The Narrowbands belonging to the 3, 5 and 10 MHz channel bandwidths are shown
below:

3 MHz channel
Narrowband 0 Narrowband 1

5 MHz channel
Narrowband 0 Narrowband 1 Narrowband 2 Narrowband 3

10 MHz channel

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Downlink Narrowband (I)
• Within the timescales of FL17A, the position of
the downlink Narrowband is fixed
• LTE3128 allocates Narrowband 7 for the 10 MHz
channel bandwidth
• PRB 43 to 48
• LTE3582 allocates Narrowband 0 for the 5 MHz
channel bandwidth
• PRB 0 to 5

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Downlink Narrowband (II)

• The same downlink Narrowbands are used for

paging messages on the PDSCH

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Uplink Narrowband

• Within the timescales of FL17A, the position of

the uplink Narrowband is fixed
• LTE3128 allocates Narrowband 6 for the 10 MHz
channel bandwidth
• PRB 37 to 42
• LTE3582 allocates Narrowband 2 for the 5 MHz
channel bandwidth
• PRB 13 to 18

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PCI Planning

Mobile Access

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PCI Planning
• PCI planning is not necessary for LTE-M
• LTE-M shares the same PCI as the host cell

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Cell Range Planning

Mobile Access

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Cell Range Planning

• Cell Range is limited by:

• Timing Advance
• PRACH Preamble Format (cyclic prefix and guard period durations)
• PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift

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Cell Range – Timing Advance

• Timing Advance is initialised using a command within

MSG2
• 11 bits are allocated to this command
• same as legacy LTE
• range from 0 to 1282 is multiplied by 16/30.72
microsecs
• generates maximum value of 0.67 ms
• Corresponds to a round trip distance of 200 km,
i.e. cell range of 100 km

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Cell Range – PRACH Preamble Format
• The PRACH Preamble Format is configured using the PRACH Configuration Index
• Within the timescale of FL17A, LTE-M shares the same PRACH Configuration Index as the
legacy LTE host cell

• LTE-M does not place any restrictions upon the

configuration of prachConfIndex
• Preamble Formats 0, 1 and 3 are supported
• Cell Range of up to 100 km

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Cell Range – PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift
• Within the timescale of FL17A, LTE-M shares the same PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift
as the legacy LTE host cell
• LTE-M does not place any restrictions upon the configuration of prachConfIndex

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Cell Range Planning - Summary

• If the existing legacy LTE Cell Range is sufficient for LTE-M, then no additional planning is
required for LTE-M
• If there is a requirement to increase the Cell Range for LTE-M then it must be increased for
both LTE-M and legacy LTE
• potential change of PRACH Format
• change of PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift
• re-planning of PRACH Root Sequences

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MPRACH Planning

Mobile Access

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MPRACH Planning
• PRACH Planning for legacy LTE involves:
• selection of PRACH Preamble Format
Impact of LTE-M should at
• selection of PRACH Configuration Index
least be considered
• selection of PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift
• Root Sequence allocation
Modified by LTE-M
• division of 64 preamble sequences into groups
• specification of PRACH frequency offset
• These tasks are common to both LTE-M and legacy LTE when LTE-M is enabled

• PRACH Planning for LTE-M adds:

• selection of period between the start of MPRACH opportunities

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Selection of PRACH Preamble Format
• It should be possible to keep the same PRACH Preamble Format when enabling LTE-M
• existing cell range should correspond to the existing site density
• any change to the PRACH Preamble Format will impact both LTE-M and legacy LTE
• The PRACH Preamble Format should be checked to gain an understanding of the maximum cell
range

Selection of PRACH Configuration Index

• Enabling LTE-M will increase the PRACH load for legacy LTE because a subset of preambles
will no longer be available to legacy LTE
• It may be necessary to compensate for the unavailable preambles by increasing the PRACH
Configuration Index to a higher capacity value

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Selection of PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift
• It should be possible to keep the same PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift when enabling
LTE-M
• existing cell range should correspond to the existing site density
• any change to the PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift will impact both LTE-M and
legacy LTE
• The PRACH Root Sequence Cyclic Shift should be checked to gain an understanding of the
maximum cell range

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Division of 64 Preambles into Groups
• When enabling LTE-M, it is necessary to allocate a subset of
preambles to ‘Group C’
• reduces the preambles available to legacy LTE
• The number of preambles belonging to Group C is configured
using raPreGrCSizeCatM
• default of 15 preambles
• It is likely that the legacy values for raPreGrASize and
raNondedPreamb will need to be reconfigured when enabling
LTE-M

raPreGrASize
raNondedPreamb raPreGrCSizeCatM

Group A Group B Dedicated LTE-M

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64 Preambles
Period between MPRACH Opportunities (I)
• When enabling LTE-M, it is necessary to specify the period between the start of LTE-M
PRACH opportunities
• Configured using the prachStartSFCatM parameter (default value of 8)
• The period is quantified in terms of legacy LTE PRACH opportunities
• default value of 8 means that 1 in every 8 legacy LTE PRACH opportunities can be used
to initiate an LTE-M PRACH transmission

Defines the period

Radio frame 1 prach-ConfigIndex = 4 between attempts
Subframe 4 prach-StartingSubframe-r13 = 8
Radio frame 2
Radio frame 0 Subframe 4 numRepetitionPerPreambleAttempt-r13 = 2
Subframe 4

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Preamble
Transmission Period of 8 PRACH opportunities
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Transmission
Period between MPRACH Opportunities (II)
• The period between the start of LTE-M PRACH opportunities must allow for repetitions
• For example, if 8 repetitions are used for each MPRACH preamble transmission then the period
should be at least 8 PRACH opportunities

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MPUCCH Allocation

Mobile Access

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MPUCCH Allocation
• Used to transfer Scheduling Requests and HARQ Acknowledgements
• no CSI reporting on the MPUCCH
• Within the timescales of FL17A, a 2 PRB are allocated to the MPUCCH
• total PUCCH allocation must be increased by 2
• The total PUCCH allocation must be <= 14 PRB when using the 10 MHz channel to
avoid colliding with Narrowband 6

Legacy PUCCH Legacy PUCCH MPUCCH

Formats 2 & 3 Format 1, 1a, 1b Resources

SR ACK/NACK SR ACK/NACK

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Link Budget

Mobile Access

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Link Budget (I)
• Link budget principles for LTE-M are the same as for other technologies
• A key point is that the Noise Floor needs to be scaled according to the bandwidth of
the physical channel, i.e. based upon kTB
• k = Boltzmann’s constant = 1.38 ×10 -23 Downlink Scheduler allocates 6 PRB
• T = temperature = 290 K Uplink Scheduler allocates 2 or 6 PRB
• B = Bandwidth

PRB Allocation Bandwidth Noise Floor

2 360 kHz -118.4 dBm
6 1080 kHz -113.6 dBm

• Noise Figure needs to be added to these numbers

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Link Budget (II)
• Similar to other link budgets, SINR requirements are an important input
• generated from link level simulations
• service/channel specific

• Similar to other link budgets, greatest uncertainty is likely to be associated with

factors such as building penetration loss

• LTE-M link budget can include a ‘Handoff Gain’ although handover is not
supported in FL17A
• quantifies the cell edge benefit of being able to cell reselect onto the best cell
as fading conditions change the best server over time

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Link Budget (III)
• Important to differentiate between ‘Path Loss’ and ‘Coupling Loss’
• These terms are often mixed in documentation
• Path Loss is the air-interface propagation loss
• Coupling Loss is the total link loss between antenna connectors

• When a figure of 156 dB is quoted as a Maximum Coupling Loss (MCL)

coverage figure for LTE-M, this refers to the
Maximum Coupling Loss (MCL)

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Link Budget (IV)

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For internal use
Link Budget (V)

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For internal use
Power Boosting

Mobile Access

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 Power Boosting

• Within the timescales of FL17A, downlink power boosting is not supported for LTE-M

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For internal use
Cell Identity & BTS Identity

Mobile Access

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BTS Identity
• The LNBTS object is shared between legacy LTE and LTE-M, i.e. there is a common BTS
Identity and separate planning is not required

Cell Identity
• The LNCEL object is shared between legacy LTE and LTE-M, i.e. there is a common Local
Cell Resource Identity and separate planning is not required
• Cell Identities are planned using the Local Cell Resource Identity (lcrId)
• combined with the BTS Identity to generate eutraCelId

eutraCelId
lnBtsId lcrId
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Tracking Area Planning

Mobile Access

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Tracking Area Planning
• Tracking Area Codes (TAC) are shared between legacy LTE and LTE-M, i.e. separate
planning is not required
• The eNode B separates the legacy LTE and LTE-M paging records using the ‘Extended UE
Identity Index Value’
• legacy LTE pages are not broadcast over LTE-M, and vice versa

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Neighbours

Mobile Access

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Neighbour Planning

• Within the timescales of FL17A, LTE-M only supports Idle Mode mobility
• Neighbour definitions are not mandatory
• Neighbour Planning is not necessary

• Note that SIB4-BR (intra-frequency) allows the inclusion of specific neighbours for blacklisting
and the application of measurement power offsets
• can be optionally defined

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For internal use
Hardware

Mobile Access

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Hardware Dimensioning
• The following hardware is required for LTE-M:
• FSMF, or
• Airscale
• The activation of LTE-M does not require additional LNCEL objects at the eNode B, i.e.
both legacy LTE and LTE-M share the same cells
• This means that hardware dimensioning is not impacted when evaluating the requirement for
Cell Sets

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Impact upon Legacy LTE

Mobile Access

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Impact upon Legacy LTE
• LTE-M allows dynamic sharing of Resource Blocks within the allocated Narrowband
between LTE-M and legacy LTE
• impact of LTE-M depends upon LTE-M activity factor (load)
• Also a dependence upon PBCH repetition and System Information broadcast rate
• The attached Excel allows impact to be quantified:

Microsoft Excel
Worksheet

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