Capacity Enhancement Techniques for WIMAX Networks

By: Imad Memon & Ayaz Ahmad

Introduction Initial design

Monitoring & Optimization

Network expansion

 Spectrum Allocation
Channel Size selection Introduction Capacity dimensioning

Marketing Inputs
Product specs Initial Design Design Requirements Simulations Actual Capacity Factors affecting Capacity Monitoring & Capacity Improvement techniques Optimization Drive Test Future growth & Way forward Capacity enhancement techniques Network Expansion Guard band Selection & WiMAX Forum Recommendation Spectrum deployment scenarios Challenges and design considerations

Spectrum Allocation Channel size selection

Capacity dimensioning

The frequency spectrum is allocated by the Frequency Allocation Board ( FAB). An operator is bound to operate within the spectrum bandwidth allocated. FAB in conjunction with Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ensures this.

Spectrum is scarce and costly resource and needs to be efficiently utilized. The spectrum is divided into a number of channels. Adequate Guard band is kept to avoid interference.

Based on the spectrum bandwidth, appropriate channel sizes are selected. The Wi-MAX forum defines the following channel sizes (MHz):
3.5 5 7 10

The transmission capacity increases with the channel size, but increasing channel size has its own pros and cons.

 Duplexing Mode TDD vs FDD TDD Configurations Modulation Schemes Capacity Calculations

The duplexing mode is chosen on the basis of spectrum allocated. There are two implementations of WiMax standard, TDD and FDD.

Due to the symmetric nature of FDD transmission channels, and the FDD legacy as duplex method of choice for TDM voice applications, FDD transmission channels are always of equal size (50% for UL and 50% for DL). In applications such as Internet access, which can be very asymmetric in nature, a large percentage of the available UL bandwidth remains unused and is, therefore, wasted. A guard band about two times the size of the UL or DL channel is required to separate the UL and DL channels. This amounts to an additional 50% loss in spectrum. Once the channel bandwidth is granted by the regulator, the UL/DL allocation cannot be changed. This leads to unused spectrum for asymmetric operations, i.e., for last-mile applications, where typically the UL traffic is a fraction of the DL traffic.

Guard Band Guard Time (FDD) Hardware cost Dynamic bandwidth allocation Latency (FDD) AAS/MIMO

TDD ratio configurations

75:25

60:40

55:45

WiMax supports different modulation and coding schemes for downlink and Uplink direction.

QPSK 1/2 QPSK 3/4 16 QAM 1/2 16 QAM 3/4 64 QAM 2/3 64 QAM 3/4 64 QAM 5/6

QPSK 1/2 QPSK 3/4 16 QAM 1/2 16 QAM 3/4

QPSK QPSK QPSK QPSK

Rep 2 Rep 4 Rep 6

Each MCS provides different capacity. Total capacity is calculated on the basis of different MCS percentages supported in the network.

Theoretical calculations of Downlink data Rate

Determine the DL/UL ratio and channel size. Multiply the DL active sub-carriers by DL symbols by frame rate to find the total number of active DL sub-carriers per second. Multiply the number of DL active sub-carriers per second by the modulation bits per sub-carrier. Multiply by the (FEC) coding rate to find the DL data bit rate

Calculations of bit rate using above steps for a 5 MHz channel, 60/40 DL/UL ratio, at 64QAM 5/6 is as follows: 420 active sub-carriers x (29-6) symbols x 200 frames per second = 1.932 million active DL sub-carriers 1.932 million active DL sub-carriers x 6 bits per sub-carrier = 11.592 Mbps 11.592 Mbps x 5/6 = 9.66 Mbps. Calculate data rate for all MCS. Calculate the percentage of MCS in the network. Calculate the capacity based on the weighted average of data rate and %age of MCS.

The actual capacity figures will vary due to the various margins incorporated ( re-transmission, drops, etc)

 Spectrum Allocation Channel Size selection Introductio Capacity dimensioning n Marketing Inputs Product Specs Initial Design Design Requirements Simulations Actual Capacity

Monitoring Factors affecting Capacity & Capacity Improvement techniques Optimizatio Drive Test n Future growth & Way forward
Capacity enhancement techniques Network Expansion Guard band Selection & WiMAX Forum Recommendation Spectrum deployment scenarios Challenges and design considerations

Marketing Inputs

Subscriber and Traffic Requirements Capacity Requirements Coverage Requirements

Product Specs
Base station and Customer premises equipment

Design requirements Simulations

Example:

50,000 Customers base are required assuming that the customer base is about 20% of the number of households in the different clutter types.

The Network should accommodate the required subscribers count (50,000) at 70% utilization.
Therefore, the system has to be designed to support a total of 72,000 subscribers at 100% utilization.

Marketing provides information about various packages and their percent distribution in the Network from which Minimum User Rate is calculated. With the help of simulations, the distribution of MCS is calculated which gives us the Average Capacity per Site Based on the above information, the number of Capacity sites needed to support the Subscribers with Minimum User Rate is calculated.

Average Packages Pkg 1 Pkg 2 256 K 512 K Distribution* data rate (kbps) 20% 40%
51.2 204.8 307.2 204.8

Pkg 3
Pkg 4

1024 K
2048 K

30%
10%

The potential maximum data rate is 768 Kbps

* Random numbers

Contention ratio is the ratio of the potential maximum demand to the realistic capacity requirement. The higher the contention ratio, the greater the number of users that may be trying to use the actual bandwidth instantaneously resulting in lower offered bandwidth, especially at peak hours.

Minimum user rate is calculated

Average Packages Pkg 1 Pkg 2 256 K 512 K Distribution* data rate (kbps) 20% 40%
51.2 204.8 307.2 204.8

Contention 20 20

Data rate (kbps)

2.56 10.24 15.36 10.24

Pkg 3
Pkg 4

1024 K
2048 K

30%
10%

20
20

The minimum data rate per user is 38 Kbps

* Random numbers

No. of Sites = Network Capacity requirements Per Site Capacity No. of Users / Site = Per Site Capacity Min User rate

Modulation QPSK 1/2 R6 QPSK 1/2 R4 QPSK 1/2 R2 QPSK 1/2 QPSK 3/4 16 QAM 1/2 16 QAM 3/4 64 QAM 1/2 64 QAM 2/3

Simulated MCS Distribution for an AOI Avg Data Rate % Distribution Wt Avg (Mbps) (Mbps) 0.0 0.0 0.0 8.0 2.0 20.0 5.0 0.0 25.0 0.35 0.25 0.5 1 1.8 2.46 3.5 4 4.6 0.000 0.000 0.000 0.080 0.036 0.492 0.175 0.000 1.150

64 QAM 3/4
64 QAM 5/6

25.0
15.0 Avg Throughput per sector Avg Throughput per site

5.2
5.8

1.300
0.870 4.10 12.31

* Random numbers

Marketing provides area to be covered. The chalked out Area of Interest (AOI) is then used to classify the clutter distribution (e.g., Dense Urban, Suburban, Rural, Open, etc).

Based on the product information and link budget, coverage radius of site is calculated though simulations.

No. of Sites = Area to be covered Coverage Radius / Site

Example:

Class Name open sea inland_water residential_low mean_urban dense_urban buildings village industrial/Commercial open_in_urban forest Parks dense_urban_high block_buildings dense_block_buildings residential_high dense-urban_low semi_open open_wet_area

Count 158087 0 1643 0 33319 0 131 0 10912 1339 0 520 0 5256 0 23812 128564 2212 0

Percent 15.55 0 0.16 0 3.28 0 0.01 0 1.07 0.13 0 0.05 0 0.52 0 2.34 12.65 0.22 0

Area 3,952,175.00 0 41,075.00 0 832,975.00 0 3,275.00 0 272,800.00 33,475.00 0 13,000.00 0 131,400.00 0 595,300.00 3,214,100.00 55,300.00 0

Area Sq KM 3.952175 0 0.041075 0 0.832975 0 0.003275 0 0.2728 0.033475 0 0.013 0 0.1314 0 0.5953 3.2141 0.0553 0

Category SU SU SU MU MU DU DU SU MU SU SU SU DU DU DU MU MU SU SU

sparse_forest
agriculture_fields

30256
3411

2.98
0.34

756,400.00
85,275.00

0.7564
0.085275

SU
SU

Based on the simulations the coverage radius of the site is calculated which is dependent of the product specifications.

Example:*
Clutter Clutter Area (Sq-KM) Site coverage Area (Sq-KM) Product specific DU MU SU Total 0.50 7.49 2.00 9.99 0.49 1.10 7.80 Sites RADIUS (KM)

Product specific Product specific 1.02 6.83 0.26 8.11~ 9 0.40 0.60 1.20

* Random numbers

After the initial designing of coverage and capacity sites is completed, certain margins are kept to avoid unforeseen circumstances.

Example: If the number of coverage sites to cover a given AOI based on Simulations comes out to be 100, the actual number of sites budgeted would be 105.

BS Antenna Parameters Antenna Type Frequency range (MHz) Polarization Gain (dBi) Half-power beam width Vertical beam width Antenna Structure Tx Power(Max) Values Directional antenna 3400~3800 Dual-polarized

17.5
60 5.4 4 Ports / 2 columns 48 dBm

CPE Features SS Type (CPE, USB) Antenna gain (dB) Noise figure TX power (dBm) CPE C750i 7 5 27

Number of TX antennas
TX diversity gain RX diversity gain (dB)

1
0 4.7

Parameter

Value

Frequency Channel Size

Duplex Scheme DL / UL Ratio Target Cell-Edge Data Rates DL Cell-Edge MCS UL Cell-Edge MCS MAP MCS

3.5 GHz 5MHz (512 FFT)

TDD 60:40 (29:18 DL / UL Symbols) 1.4Mbps DL / 144kbps UL QPSK QPSK QPSK Rep 2

Simulations are performed to predict coverage radius of site against each clutter class Simulations also tell the MCS distribution within AOI which gives us the Average capacity per site GIS maps (Digital Elevation + Clutter) are bought for specific geographic region where coverage is to be provided. The Design requirements + Product specs are made part of Link budget (which also lists down all the gains and losses in the system)

The Project configuration for Simulation tool is based on the Link budget, GIS maps, and tuned Prediction models for specific clutter type.

Example:

 Spectrum Allocation Channel Size selection Introductio Capacity dimensioning n Marketing Inputs Product specs Initial Design Design Requirements Simulations

Actual Capacity
Monitoring Factors affecting Capacity & Capacity Improvement techniques Optimizati Drive Test on Future growth

Capacity enhancement techniques

Guard band Selection & WiMAX Forum Recommendation Network Spectrum deployment scenarios Expansion Challenges and design considerations

Actual Capacity Factors Affecting Capacity

MCS Re-Configuration for Control Channels

CPE Placement Drive test

Date 10/10/2011 10/11/2011 10/12/2011

MBytes 4000000 4200000 4100000

*MB at max util 23638042 23641785 23307663

*Mbps 2188.71 2189.05 2158.12

DL Util 34.4817 35.0748 34.9386

Control util 23.6517 23.7051 23.6805

*Total sites *Total cells *Mbps per site *Mbps per cell 215 215 215 645 645 645 10.18 10.18 10.04 3.39 3.39 3.35

*Calculated fields highlighted

The current DL throughput and RF Utilization is measured from stats. Based on the current stats the throughput is up scaled to the max utilization. This gives the max achievable capacity in the network.

This information is critical for future planning as it gives a realistic figure of capacity.

Another approach of calculating the actual capacity is to identify the current percentage of MCS in the network from stats. Based on each MCSs capacity figure, average weighted capacity is calculated.

Modulation QPSK 1/2 R6 QPSK 1/2 R4 QPSK 1/2 R2

Simulated MCS Distribution for an AOI* Avg Data Rate % Distribution Wt Avg (Mbps) (Mbps) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.35 0.25 0.5 0.000 0.000 0.000

QPSK 1/2 QPSK 3/4

16 QAM 1/2 16 QAM 3/4 64 QAM 1/2 64 QAM 2/3 64 QAM 3/4 64 QAM 5/6

8.0 2.0
20.0 5.0 0.0 25.0 25.0 15.0 Avg Throughput per sector Avg Throughput per site

1 1.8
2.46 3.5 4 4.6 5.2 5.8

0.080 0.036
0.492 0.175 0.000 1.150 1.300 0.870 4.10 12.31
* Random numbers

Indoor Coverage Out of Coverage Area Sales Number of Users/sector RF Conditions of users

Total capacity is calculated on the basis of different MCS percentages supported in the network. If the objective is to provide indoor coverage, the residential areas should be targeted while calculating the percentage mix of MCS during the planning phase. For indoor coverage the losses will be different which needs to be catered. MCS distribution will greatly differ for Indoor and Outdoor.

As shown in the previous slide, MCS is selected on the basis of SNR. Users out of coverage area will have degraded SNR and hence lowest MCS.

If the Percentage of Low MCS is more, the overall sector capacity will reduce.

The networks are best effort and hence the resources are shared. As the number of users increase, the sector capacity is shared amongst them. This degrades the capacity / user.

Network capacity is based on certain design assumptions during planning (e.g. CPE location and height) The CPE placement is not always according to the design assumptions which affects the RF conditions and hence the capacity.

CPE Placement / RF Optimization MCS Re-Configuration for Control Channels

Sector Level

Interference Coverage Footprint Capacity Distribution

CPE/Subscriber Level

CPE Orientation & Placement Serving Cell CPE Type (wifi, Outdoor)

The MCS used for Control Channels, such as QPSK rep2 can be reconfigured as QPSK which will increase capacity for Traffic Channels. Aggressive MCS for DL control channels (Map + Broadcast) should only be configured selectively on highly utilized sectors provided the users are in good RF conditions (share of 64 QAM is higher). As implementing this change on network level can cause camping issue for the users with poor RF conditions.

As the drive test tool is moved (driven) from point to point, the tool locates, identifies and synchronizes with APs; tracks the DL and UL characteristics; collects the GPS coordinates for each measurement point; and builds the drive test map. There are two types of drive test:
Scanned Mode Dedicated Mode

A Drive test is the process of network access and measurement over an outside route typically in a key network coverage area. The Drive Test tool operates as a subscriber station and predicts the users quality of experience. The following are the software/hardware requirements:
Drive test software ( Agilent, NEMO, XCAL, Genex Probe, etc) Post processing software ( XCAP, MapInfo) Operator device/ hardware ( USB, CPE, Vendor specific hardware) GPS device ( Garmin, etc)

Drive tests are carried out for various reasons. Some common ones are:

Network Planning Performance goals Simulation Network implementation Special Drive test

Drive tests can give much information about a network and the main things that are measured are listed below:
RSSI CINR Throughput DL & UL Latency Jitter MCS

No network entry

Preamble RSSI/CINR scanning only

Interference/ overshoot detection Competitor benchmarking Coverage footprint Model tuning

Legend:

Legend:

Complete network entry (6-7 step procedure)

Tap into segments of problem during any of the steps.

DL/UL Throughput RSSI/CINR recording

MCS assignment
Interference detection Coverage footprint

Sequence Number 713 711 688 766

Time

Latitude Longitude Preamble ID 41 41 41 41

Base Station ID 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a

Instantaneous CINR Current RSSI DL Throughput UL Throughput DL Burst Data FEC Scheme UL Burst Data FEC Scheme 26 26 26 30 -56 -56 -57 -53 10696 10539 10360 10204 202 224 210 207 QPSK (CTC) 1/2 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4

04:15.5 33.63759 73.08712 04:12.5 33.63758 73.08713 04:13.5 33.63758 73.08713 04:02.4 33.63757 73.08715

794
671 710 749 686 732 706 669 743 783 657 691 784 674 797 799 761 712 630 770 771

04:19.6 33.63759 73.08712

04:03.4 33.63758 73.08715 04:11.5 33.63758 73.08713 51:35.9 33.63626 73.08864 51:49.0 33.63625 73.08868 04:10.5 33.63758 73.08714 03:58.4 33.63754 73.08722 51:37.9 33.63623 73.08863 49:35.9 33.63676 73.08802 51:34.9 33.63626 73.08865 04:05.4 33.63758 73.08714 48:34.4 33.63745 73.08723 51:41.9 33.63623 73.08864 48:38.4 33.63748 73.08723 49:44.0 33.63683 73.08798 51:48.0 33.63625 73.08868 49:50.0 33.6369 73.08797 04:14.5 33.63758 73.08713 50:29.3 33.63702 73.08828 04:24.6 33.63762 73.08705 49:10.7 33.6369 73.08788

41
41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 41

00-00-0f-10-5d-4a
00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a 00-00-0f-10-5d-4a

30
25 28 30 29 29 27 30 30 30 25 27 30 27 29 31 29 27 28 31 28

-51
-58 -56 -54 -57 -55 -56 -58 -54 -52 -59 -56 -52 -57 -50 -50 -53 -56 -60 -53 -52

10091
10035 10013 9834 9420 9397 9386 9274 9218 9173 9139 8982 8932 8881 8725 8691 8638 8613 8580 8557 8546

195
227 233 249 164 173 174 197 164 167 171 262 166 171 145 146 156 142 177 209 158

64-QAM (CTC) 3/4

64-QAM (CTC) 2/3 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 2/3 64-QAM (CTC) 2/3 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 QPSK (CTC) 1/2 64-QAM (CTC) 2/3 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4 64-QAM (CTC) 5/6 QPSK (CTC) 1/2 64-QAM (CTC) 2/3 64-QAM (CTC) 3/4

16-QAM (CTC) 3/4

16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4 16-QAM (CTC) 3/4

 Spectrum Allocation Channel Size selection Introductio Capacity dimensioning n Marketing Inputs Product specs Initial Design Design Requirements Simulations Actual Capacity

Monitoring Factors affecting Capacity & Capacity Improvement techniques Optimizatio Drive Test n Future growth & Way forward
Capacity enhancement techniques Network Expansion Guard band Selection & WiMAX Forum Recommendation Spectrum deployment scenarios Challenges and design considerations

Future growth & Way forward

Capacity enhancement techniques Spectrum deployment scenarios

With the growth in users, capacity sites are required in addition to the already deployed sites. With additional sites, inter-site distance will decrease, frequency re-use will increase, increasing the interference and hence reducing the capacity of the site.

New methods/ techniques are used to effectively utilize the existing spectrum. New spectrum/ clean channels are required to improve the capacity further.

TDD Ratio Optimization 7/10 MHz Channels Multicarrier & 4th Sector Percentage of Improvement

Changing the TDD ratio can provide more capacity in either direction as required. Increasing the percentage for downlink direction will add more slots to the downlink and hence more capacity.

The TDD Ratio is optimized based on the analysis of current UL/DL traffic distribution of the network. Usually downlink traffic in a network is 4-5 times the uplink traffic. In such cases the TDD ratio, 75:25, will be most suitable.

Care must be taken during the analysis as the uplink capacity is reduced and can lead to congestion on the uplink.

Pros: Number of Slots increases Medium scale optimization required to optimize the coverage No additional hardware requirement-minimum cost and implementation overhead.

Cons: Coverage degradation planning challenge

Total Subcarriers
1024 512

BW (MHz)
7 or 10 5

Data Subcarriers
840 420

Sub channels DL
30 15

UL
35 17

Bandwidth Change
5 -> 10 5 -> 7 7 -> 10

Coverage Change
0.73 0.86 0.85

For multi-carrier & 4th Sector a new frequency carrier is used. In Multicarrier, this new carrier is introduced over the congested sector, provided the existing hardware supports this feature. Addition of 4th sector requires additional hardware.

Pros: Congestion Relief in only the high Utilization cells giving at max 50% more capacity to the sector. The sector with multicarrier will have High MCS distribution due to minimum interference. No reduction in network coverage instead it improves for the CPEs camped on the 4th sector.

Cons: Traffic distribution/balancing between the existing and new carrier present an optimization challenge.

Additional RF heads/modems required for 4th Sector additional cost and implementation overhead.

Techniques 5 MHz TDD 75/25

Capacity Improvement 20% in DL

Cost Low

Coverage Implementation Optimization Improvement

Low Low Negative

7 MHz TDD 60/40

5 MHz 4th Channel Overlay 1*3*3 to 1*3*4 1*3*3 to 1*4*4

43% in DL Slots
50% on overlaid Sectors 7% in DL and UL 33 % in DL and UL

Low
Medium Low High

Low
Medium Low High

Medium
Medium Low High

Negative
Medium Low High

Interference in the network can degrade the capacity. Guard band is required to avoid the interference

Guard band is the spectrum left unused at the points where interference is expected.
Vendors recommend leaving guard band equal to half the channel size selected, on each side of the spectrum.

The RF filter at the BTS plays a vital role in the selection of guard band. Antennas with narrow band filters reject adjacent channel interference to a greater extent as opposed to wide band filters. The selection of RF filters is vendor specific.

There are no stringent requirements on the amount of guard band for the operator. However WiMax forum recommends to have a minimum guard band which varies product to product. It has given the figures for Adjacent channel rejection and co-channel rejection. Based on the operators selection of product the guard band can be adjusted.

Comparison Possible channel BW Possible configuration scenarios

Option - 1: Non-Contiguous Band (2 blocks of 21 MHz) Recommended Guard Reduced Guard Band Band Only 5MHz and 7MHz 1) 6 x 5 MHz channel 2) 4 x 7 MHz channel 5 MHz channel: 30 MHz All: 5MHz, 7MHz and 10MHz 1) 8 x 5 MHz channel 2) 4 x 7 MHz channel 3) 4 x 10 MHz channel 5 MHz channel: 40 MHz 7 MHz channel: 28 MHz 10 MHz channel: 40 MHz 7 MHz channel: 28 MHz 5 MHz channel: 10 MHz (5+5) 7 MHz channel: 14 MHz (7+7)

Option - 2: Contiguous Band (1 block of 42 MHz) Recommended Guard Band All: 5 MHz, 7 MHz and 10 MHz 1) 7 x 5 MHz channel 2) 5 x 7 MHz channel 3) 3 x 10 MHz channel 5 MHz channel: 7 MHz channel: 35 MHz 35 MHz Reduced Guard Band

All: 5 MHz, 7 MHz and 10 MHz

1) 8 x 5 MHz channel 2) 5 x 7 MHz channel 3) 4 x 10 MHz channel 5 MHz channel: 7 MHz channel: 5 MHz channel: (1+1) 40 MHz 35 MHz 2 MHz

Effective band

10 MHz channel: 30 MHz 5 MHz channel: 5 MHz (2.5+2.5) 7 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 10 MHz channel: 10 MHz (5+5) 5 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 7 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 10 MHz channel: 12 MHz (6+6)

10 MHz channel: 40 MHz

Guard Band required (Ideally, half the channel BW for each side of each block)

5 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1) 7 MHz channel: 14 MHz (7+7) 10 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1)

7 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 10 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1) 5 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 7 MHz channel: 7 MHz (3.5+3.5) 10 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1)

Un-utilized Band (Available BW at each side of block)

5 MHz channel: 12 MHz (7+7) 7 MHz channel: 14 MHz (7+7)

5 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1)

7 MHz channel: 14 MHz (7+7)

10 MHz channel: 2 MHz (1+1)

Case 1 2

Channel 5 5

Sectors 3 4

DL Capacity No. of Adjacent Separate Improvement Channels Band Band (%) 6 6 19% 46%

CAPEX

Comments No CAPEX required. Can be used to offer Capacity Relief in specific cases. No CAPEX required. 50% gain in capacity at the cost for slightly reduced coverage.

Cost for additional sector hardware (Antenna, Modem Card)

55%

97%

5 (Overlay)

100%

Can be used to offer Cost for adjacent band, Cost Capacity Relief in specific for additional sector hardware cases. Coverage loss is an (Antenna, Modem Card) issue New BS hardware needed (in addition to Antennas & Cabinets, Transmission Can be used to offer equipment, etc). Additional Capacity Relief in specific space on OMO towers needs to cases. Not an efficient be negotiated. utilization of resources. Can be used to offer Capacity Relief in specific cases

5 (multicarrier)

119%

Software upgrade cost involved per site basis

10

138%

Cost for adjacent band, Swap of old BS hardware not supporting 10 MHz Channel

Network is redesigned.

Some of older Base stations dont support 10 MHz channel band width and Multi-carrier feature. They need to be swapped with newer Base station versions. Multi-carrier feature can in some cases result in 3 dB loss in coverage (e.g., 4Tx4R becomes 2Tx2R). With newer Software release, it may be possible to overcome 3 dB loss in UL with Enhanced Multi-carrier feature. So essentially, 4Tx4R will become 2Tx4R. Either Multi-carrier or Sector Overlay can be planned to offer Capacity relief. However, Multi-carrier is much cheaper option than physical Sector overlay. There will be around 25% of coverage shrinkage when the operator moves to 10 MHz channel bandwidth from 5 MHz and 16% with 7 MHz from 5 MHz. 10 MHz channel bandwidth is suitable for offering high data rate packages. With 5 MHz Multi-carrier, the operator can support more users but may not be able to offer new services requiring bandwidth. For physical sector overlay, (2m) vertical antenna separation is recommended. It may not be possible to achieve at some sharing sites. Moving network from 3 to 4 sectors requires major network redesign. Again, there may not be adequate space available for 4th sector on some sites. In case of non-contiguous band, 7 MHz channel size is least efficient in terms of effective bandwidth usage. 5 & 10 MHz channel bandwidth with reduced Guard-band offers most efficient use of spectrum.