ict-777137 5g-range5g-range.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/5g-range_d2.1_v3.pdf · rather than...

5G-RANGE receives funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Programme (H2020/2017-2019) under grant agreement n° 777137 and from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil through Rede Nacional de

Ensino e Pesquisa (RNP) under the 4th EU-BR Coordinated Call Information and Communication Technologies.

ICT-777137

5G-RANGE

5G-RANGE: Remote Area Access Network for the 5th Generation

Research and Innovation Action

H2020-EUB-2017 – EU-BRAZIL Joint Call

D2.1 Application and Requirements Report

Due date of deliverable: 31st April 2018

Actual submission date: 26th April 2018

Start date of project: November 1st 2017 Duration: 30 months

Project website: http://5g-range.eu

Lead contractor for this deliverable: TID

Version 2 date February 9th 2019

Confidentiality status: Public

http://5g-range.eu/

Deliverable 2.1 Applications and Requirements Report

© 5G-RANGE Consortium 2019 of (39)

Abstract

This document presents the first part of 5G-RANGE system specification regarding use-case study and

requirement analysis. The second part will cover the reference architecture in the document entitled

"Architecture Concept for 5G Remote Area Network". The motivation is to specifically tailor a system

that supports sustainable rural services with feasible network deployments and appropriate business

models. Consequently, representative use-cases are developed to cover basic services and infrastructure,

namely, Voice and Data Connectivity, and Wireless Backhaul, as well as, other advanced use cases,

namely, Smart Farming, and Remote Health Care. Furthermore, system requirements are analyzed to

cover, among other features, long-range coverage, and non-licensed TVWS bands. Finally, the 5G-

RANGE key performance indicators required to evaluate the system performance are also provided.

Target audience

The primary target audience for this document is the radio access network research and development

community, particularly those with an interest in radio protocol stack and system development. This

material can be fully understood by readers with a background in mobile wireless cellular systems,

especially those familiar with 3GPP standards for 4G and 5G.

Disclaimer

This document contains material, which is the copyright of certain 5G-RANGE consortium parties, and

may not be reproduced or copied without permission. For more information on the project, its partners

and contributors please see http://5g-range.eu. You are permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies

of this document containing this copyright notice, but modifying this document is not allowed. You are

permitted to copy this document in whole or in part into other documents if you attach the following

reference to the copied elements: “Copyright © The 5G-RANGE Consortium 2018.”

The information contained in this document represents the views of the 5G-RANGE Consortium as of

the date they are published. The 5G-RANGE Consortium does not guarantee that any information

contained herein is error-free, or up to date. THE 5G-RANGE CONSORTIUM MAKES NO

WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, BY PUBLISHING THIS DOCUMENT.

Impressum

Full project title: 5G-RANGE: Remote Area Access Network for the 5th Generation

Document title: D2.1 Application and requirements report

Editor: Alexander Chassaigne (TID)

Work Package No. and Title: WP2, Requirements, scenario and use cases definition

Work Package leaders: Alexander Chassaigne (TID), Sergio T. Kofuji (USP)

Project Co-ordinators: Marcelo Bagnulo, UC3M (EU), Priscila Solis, UnB (BR)

Technical Managers: Peter Neuhaus, TUD (EU), Luciano Mendes, Inatel (BR)

Copyright notice

© 2019 Participants in project 5G-RANGE

http://5g-range.eu/



Executive Summary

The families of usage scenarios defined by ITU-R for IMT-2020 and beyond include Enhanced Mobile

Broadband (EMBB), Ultra-Reliable and Low Latency Communications (URLLC), and massive

Machine Type Communications (mMTC). In some respects, the ITU scenarios favor smaller cells and

microwave bands since it enables simultaneously increased bandwidth for higher data rate and massive

Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (mMIMO) for higher spectral efficiency. Additionally, mMTC also

favors higher user density and URLLC shorter frame structure. However, 5G-RANGE approaches

application scenarios which envisage economically effective coverage for remote and under-served

areas. Consequently, the 5G-RANGE pursues features that are somehow complementary to the original

IMT-2020, for example, long-range coverage, low user density, long frame structures, and lower

frequency bands below 1 GHz. Moreover, 5G-RANGE proposes to add new spectrum from non-licensed

TV Whitespaces (TVWS). Based on these features, it is expected to tailor a cost-effective 5G system

which can stimulate feasible business models for remote areas.

The 5G-RANGE proposal has specified two use cases: Internet Access and High Mobility Application

in Remote Areas. This report expands the scenario analysis by including detailed case scenarios that

directly or indirectly cover the original use cases. In short, the case scenarios described in this deliverable

are Data and Voice Connectivity, Wireless Backhaul, Smart Farming and Remote Care. Although the

report covers other potential use cases, the objective is not to provide an exhaustive list. Rather than

exploring such applications, the report selects some representative ones to drive the requirement

analysis.

The majority of 5G-RANGE features will be implemented in physical (PHY) and medium access control

(MAC) layers of the radio protocol stack. The TVWS usage will require opportunistic access based on

cognitive radio, impacting directly the MAC layer: adaptive bandwidth, variable channel allocation,

among others. As a result, TVWS will also impact PHY since lower Out of Band (OOB) emissions will

require new waveforms for effective spectrum usage, supporting: fragmented bandwidth, incumbent

adjacent channel, and selective rejection of narrowband interference. Moreover, 5G-RANGE will be

designed to achieve ten times more cell radius than the conventional 4G technology, supporting high

data rates within cell sizes of 50 km radius. Consequently, this report presents several requirements to

constraint the system for those objectives and goals. The requirements are classified in functional and

quantitative, as well as, mandatory and specific. The functional requirements represent features while

the quantitative requirements represent minimum performance thresholds according to a defined set of

radio parameters. Also, mandatory requirements are those that must be implemented for all use case

scenarios, while specific requirements enable the optimization of certain scenarios when implemented.



List of Authors

Alexander Chassaigne (TID)

Javier Lorca (TID)

Juan Francisco Esteban (TID)

Fabbryccio Cardoso (CPqD)

Peter Neuhaus (TUD)

Heikki Karvonen (UOULU)

Luciano Mendes (Inatel)

Wheberth Dias (Inatel)

Danilo Gaspar (Inatel)

Marcos Caetano (UnB)

Priscila Solís (UnB)

Albérico de Castro (USP)

Douglas L. Dantas (USP)

Sergio T. Kofuji (USP)

Wagner Silveira (USP)

Andre Mendes Cavalcante (Ericsson)

Igor Almeida (Ericsson)

Maria Valéria Marquezini (Ericsson)

Carlos F. M. e Silva (UFC)

Marcelo Bagnulo (UC3M)



Table of contents

Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................. 3

List of Authors ....................................................................................................................................... 4

Table of contents .................................................................................................................................... 5

List of figures ......................................................................................................................................... 7

List of tables ........................................................................................................................................... 8

Definitions and abbreviations ............................................................................................................... 9

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 11

1.1 Objective ............................................................................................................................... 11

1.2 Deliverable Structure ............................................................................................................. 11

1.3 Use Cases related terminology .............................................................................................. 12

1.3.1 Use Cases ...................................................................................................................... 12

1.3.2 Services ......................................................................................................................... 12

1.3.3 Scenarios ....................................................................................................................... 12

1.3.4 Vertical Market .............................................................................................................. 12

1.3.5 Mandatory and specific requirements ........................................................................... 12

1.3.6 Functional and Quantitative Requirements ................................................................... 12

1.3.7 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) .............................................................................. 12

1.3.8 Proof of Concept (PoC) ................................................................................................. 13

1.3.9 Super Cell ...................................................................................................................... 13

1.3.10 Network Slice ................................................................................................................ 13

1.4 KPI Related Terminology ..................................................................................................... 13

1.4.1 Bandwidth (Hz) ............................................................................................................. 13

1.4.2 Coverage (km²) .............................................................................................................. 13

1.4.3 Latency (ms) .................................................................................................................. 13

1.4.4 Control Plane Latency (ms) ........................................................................................... 14

1.4.5 User Plane Latency (ms) ............................................................................................... 14

1.4.6 End-to-End Latency (ms) .............................................................................................. 14

1.4.7 Round-Trip Time (ms) .................................................................................................. 14

1.4.8 Mobility (km/h) ............................................................................................................. 14

1.4.9 Reliability (%) ............................................................................................................... 14

1.4.10 Peak Data Rate (bps) ..................................................................................................... 14

1.4.11 User Experienced Data Rate (bps) ................................................................................ 14

1.4.12 User/Connection Density (UE/km2) .............................................................................. 14

1.4.13 Survival time (ms) ......................................................................................................... 14



1.4.14 Jitter (ms) ....................................................................................................................... 15

2. Deployment Scenarios ................................................................................................................. 16

3. General Overview of Use Cases.................................................................................................. 18

3.1 Core Use Cases ...................................................................................................................... 20

3.2 Other Use Cases .................................................................................................................... 20

4. Mandatory Requirements ........................................................................................................... 22

4.1 Functional Requirements ....................................................................................................... 22

4.2 Quantitative Requirements .................................................................................................... 24

5. Core Use Cases: Detailed Description and Requirements ....................................................... 27

5.1 Agribusiness and Smart Farming for Remote Areas ............................................................. 27

5.1.1 Services ......................................................................................................................... 28

5.1.2 Quantitative specific requirements ................................................................................ 28

5.2 Voice and Data connectivity over long distances for remote areas ....................................... 29

5.2.1 Services ......................................................................................................................... 30

5.2.2 Quantitative requirements ............................................................................................. 30

5.3 Wireless Backhaul and Local High-Quality Connections ..................................................... 31

5.3.1 Services ......................................................................................................................... 32


5.4 Remote Health Care (e-Health) for remote areas .................................................................. 33

5.4.1 Services ......................................................................................................................... 34


6. Concurrent technologies drawback ........................................................................................... 36

6.1 Existing competing technologies ........................................................................................... 36

6.2 Limitations on current standards ........................................................................................... 37

7. Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 38

References ............................................................................................................................................ 39



List of figures

Figure 1. An overview of use cases. ...................................................................................................... 19

Figure 2. Conceptual architecture for agribusiness case scenario. ........................................................ 28

Figure 3. Illustrative scenario for voice and data connectivity for remote areas. .................................. 30

Figure 4. Illustration of the wireless backhaul scenario. ....................................................................... 32

Figure 5. Illustration of the Remote Health Care scenario. ................................................................... 34



List of tables

Table 1. 5G-RANGE deployment scenarios. ........................................................................................ 17

Table 2. List of core and other use cases for 5G-RANGE. ................................................................... 18

Table 3. Functional requirements. ......................................................................................................... 23

Table 4. Mandatory quantitative requirements. ..................................................................................... 25

Table 5. Specific requirements (Agribusiness and smart farming). ...................................................... 29

Table 6. Specific requirements (Connectivity). ..................................................................................... 30

Table 7. Specific requirements (Wireless backhaul). ............................................................................ 32

Table 8. Specific requirements (Remote Health Care). ......................................................................... 34

Table 9. Comparison of competing technologies. ................................................................................. 36



Definitions and abbreviations

3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project

5G 5th generation wireless systems

ACLR Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio

ARPU Average revenue per user

BS Base Station

BW Bandwidth

C-Latency Control Plane Latency

C-Plane Control Plane

CA Carrier Aggregation

CAN Controller Area Network

CAPEX Capital Expenditure

CPE Customer-Premises Equipment

CQI Channel Quality Information

CS Circuit Switch

CSI Channel State Information

DL Downlink

E2E End to end

EMBB Enhanced Mobile Broadband

eV2X Enhanced Vehicle-to-everything

FCC Federal Communications Commission

FTTH Fiber to the Home

GW Gateway

HPUE High Power User Equipment

Hz Hertz

ICNIRP International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection

IMT-2020 International Mobile Telecommunication system - 2020

IoT Internet of Things

ITU International Telecommunication Union

KPI Key Performance Indicator

LAA Licensed Assisted Access

LOS Line of Sight

LoRaWAN Long Range Wide Area Network

LTE Long Term Evolution

Lx Layer x (x = 1, 2, 3)

MAC Medium Access Control

MaxCL Maximum Coupling Loss

MBB Mobile Broadband

MIMO Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output

mMIMO massive MIMO

mMTC massive MTC

MTC Machine Type Communications

NGMN Next Generation Mobile Networks

NR New Radio

NW Network

OOB Out of Band

OOBE OOB Emission

OPEX Operational expense

PHY Physical layer

PoC Proof of Concept

QoS Quality of Service



RRC Radio Resource Control

RTT Round Trip Time

SAP Service Access Point

SDU Service Data Unit

TVWS TV Whitespace

UE User Equipment

UHF Ultra-High Frequency

UL Uplink

URLLC Ultra-reliable-low latency communications

V2X Vehicle-to-everything

VHF Very-High Frequency

VoIP Voice over IP

WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access



1. Introduction

Nowadays, almost all telecom players have prepared their roadmaps for the imminent advent of 5G. On

December 2017, 3GPP completed the first phase of 5G specifications in Release 15 (38 specification

series). That action gives the industry green light to fully accelerate design and implementation of

equipment adhering to the standard to reach the goal of commercializing first products in the 2019 time-

frame.

5G technology is expected to bring tremendous growth in connectivity, mobile traffic capacity, and new

capabilities that enhance performance by providing greater throughput, lower latency, ultra-high

reliability and higher connectivity density. It will enable different use cases from enhanced Mobile

Broadband (eMBB), to Ultra Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC), and massive Machine

Type Communication (mMTC) for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as sensors, wearables, and

smart vehicles. However, as in the previous mobile network generations, application scenarios for 5G

do not address use cases focused on rural and remote areas. This is happening in spite the fact that some

studies estimate that from the 3.9 billion of unconnected people [Philbeck17], almost 1.6 billion live in

areas where mobile broadband coverage is not available [inter16]. It is clear that a sustainable rural

service will not be available unless network deployments and business strategies are specifically tailored

to this scenario.

In order to cover such opportunities in 5G, this deliverable describes the main services for broadband

Internet access in rural areas and the corresponding requirements for the physical (PHY) and medium

access control (MAC) layers, including the metrics for performance evaluation. In this context, the

deliverable presents four detailed use cases to better characterize services and applications that should

be supported by 5G-RANGE.

1.1 Objective

The objective of this deliverable is to identify the main use cases and their specific services for

connecting rural and remote areas as well as the main requirements to support them in terms of data rate,

latency, scalability, robustness, mobility, and power consumption. The deliverable also lists a group of

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) required to evaluate the performance of the proposed Cognitive

MAC and PHY layers. These values will allow partners in the project to determine the best PHY and

Cognitive MAC configurations to be developed in Work Packages 3 and 4 specifically, defining the

requirements for the innovative blocks that will be designed in the scope of this project, namely: 5G-

ACRA (Advanced Coding for Remote Areas), 5G-FlexNOW (Flexible Non-Orthogonal Waveform

modulator/demodulator), 5G-MIMORA (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output techniques for Remote Areas

applications) and 5G-IR2A (Inner Receiver for Remote Areas applications) for the PHY layer and 5G-

COSORA (Collaborative Spectrum Sensing Optimized for Remote Areas), 5G-DARA (Dynamic

Spectrum and Resource Allocation for Remote Areas) and 5G-D2DRC (Device-to-Device Relay

Communication) for the Cognitive MAC layer. Besides the requirements for these blocks, this

deliverable also provides the main KPIs against which the solutions will be benchmarked for successful

operation.

1.2 Deliverable Structure

The structure of the deliverable can be summarized as follows:

Section 1, contains the introduction, objective and structure of this deliverable, as well as basic

terminology related to use cases and KPIs.

Section 2, describes the main deployment scenarios couple with the 5G-RANGE proposal.

Section 3, contains a general overview of the use cases.

Section 4, contains the mandatory requirements for the PHY and MAC layers, including the

metrics for performance evaluation.

Section 5, describes the use cases in detail, including specific metrics for each use case.



Section 6, includes an overview of the existing wireless technologies and their drawbacks for

remote area scenario.

Section 7, concludes this deliverable.

1.3 Use Cases related terminology

This section presents and describes the terminology used in this deliverable.

1.3.1 Use Cases

A use case describes in a particular environment, the real sequences of interactions between the user of

one or more services (voice, mobile broadband – MBB, MTC, etc.) and the 5G RANGE system. The

use case also describes how these interactions are related to a clearly defined set of requirements and

KPI’s in order to provide an observable result of value.

1.3.2 Services

A service represents a specific application that is provided within a use case context. These services

could have particular KPIs and specifications, depending on the service category to which they belong:

for example, mMTC for sensors control, eMBB for video streaming, or URLLC for low latency services.

1.3.3 Scenarios

A scenario is defined by an environment where a particular conditions are met in terms of density of

users, existing infrastructure, orographic characteristics or industrial presence.

1.3.4 Vertical Market

A vertical market represents a set of services sharing some common characteristics mainly associated

to a group of businesses that belong to the same industry, but not necessarily linked in terms of

connectivity requirements.

Examples of vertical markets are automotive, banking, education, city management, energy, utilities,

finance, food and agriculture, media, government, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, real estate,

transportation and retail. These verticals have specific network demands and plenty of room for

improvements in their production and service processes.

1.3.5 Mandatory and specific requirements

The mandatory requirements are those that must be fulfilled for the solution to work. On the other hand,

the specific requirements are those that optimize the solution or the user experience depending what

service is implemented.

1.3.6 Functional and Quantitative Requirements

When specifying a system, functional requirements describe what are the system functions and

behaviors, i.e., what the system does. On the other hand, quantitative requirements constraint the system

operation and define how it performs.

1.3.7 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key Performance Indicators are measurable values used for quantitative evaluating the network

performance delivered to users as well as characterizing the use cases. With the use of KPIs it is possible

to set optimal values and performance thresholds for several fundamental parameters like throughput,

availability latency, jitter, among others.



1.3.8 Proof of Concept (PoC)

A Proof of Concept (PoC) is a prototype that is designed to demonstrate the feasibility and practical

potential for real-world application of the 5G-RANGE system.

1.3.9 Super Cell

It is a coverage area that extends the macro cell range with high performance in term of throughput,

spectrum efficiency and mobility. Super Cell concept adheres and optimizes the 3GPP scenario for

Extreme Long-Range Coverage in Low-Density Area [22.261], allowing better throughput performance

by considering additional non-licensed TV White Space (TVWS) spectrum.

1.3.10 Network Slice

In the 5G-RANGE project, the network slice concept is treated as a set of network functions and

corresponding resources necessary to provide a complete network functionality, including radio access

network functions and core network functions (e.g., potentially from different vendors). Network slices

are independent of each other and one network can support one or several network slices. It means that

regardless the number of slices, one service or traffic in one slice should not impact other services or

traffic in other slices.

1.4 KPI Related Terminology

This section presents the terminology regarding the KPIs used in this document.

1.4.1 Bandwidth (Hz)

This term refers to the maximum total aggregated system bandwidth, independently of using a single or

multiple RF carriers.

1.4.2 Coverage (km²)

Simply put, coverage is defined as an area over which a system service is provided with a probability

level above a certain threshold. More specifically, assuming link level formulation, it is an area where

the coupling loss is below a maximum value at which the service can be delivered.

The coupling loss is defined as the total long-term channel loss between the user equipment (UE) and

the base station (BS) antenna ports, and includes link budget information such as antenna gains, path

loss and shadowing. The maximum coupling loss value (MaxCL) is defined by 3GPP [38.913] as

MaxCL = 𝑃Tx(max)

− 𝒮Rx, ( 1 )

where MaxCL is given in dB, 𝑃Tx(max)

is the maximum transmission power in dBm and 𝒮Rx is the receiver

sensitivity in dBm.

The receiver sensitivity is calculated by

𝒮Rx = 𝑁eff + SINR;

𝑁eff = 𝑁𝑡 + ℱRx + ℐm + 10 log Bw ; ( 2 )

where 𝑁eff is the effective noise (dBm), SINR is the required signal to interference plus noise ratio

(dB), 𝑁𝑡 is the thermal noise density (dBm/Hz), ℱRx is the receiver noise figure (dB), ℐm is the

interference margin (dB) and Bw is the occupied channel bandwidth (Hz).

1.4.3 Latency (ms)

The latency requirement depends on different circumstances, as described in the next subsections.



1.4.4 Control Plane Latency (ms)

Control Plane Latency (C-Latency) is a transition time required by a UE to move from Radio Resource

Control (RRC) idle state, or simply RRC-Idle, to active state (RRC-Connected). The C-Latency target

assumed for Long Term Evolution (LTE) is 100 ms, while for 5G New Radio (NR), it is 10 ms.

1.4.5 User Plane Latency (ms)

User Plane Latency is the transit time period a packet takes between radio protocol L2/L3 Service Data

Unit (SDU) ingress and egress points. Target values are 5 ms for uplink (UL) + 5 ms for downlink (DL)

assuming low latency communications and 0.5 ms (UL) + 0.5 ms (DL) for URLLC.

1.4.6 End-to-End Latency (ms)

End-to-End Latency (E2E) is the time duration it takes to successfully transfer a piece of information at

the application level. The time is measured from the moment it is transmitted by the source to the

moment it is successfully received at the destination.

1.4.7 Round-Trip Time (ms)

Round-Trip Time (RTT) is the time period measured between the instant a message/packet is sent to

one node and an acknowledge status is received back, without assuming correct reception.

1.4.8 Mobility (km/h)

Mobility is the maximum speed of a UE that enables the achievement of a defined quality of service

(QoS), independent of its location. As a reference, LTE is optimized for mobile speeds up to 15 km/h,

supporting high performance up to 120 km/h, and connectivity is maintained up to 350 km/h. 5G NR is

targeting even higher mobility to support some QoS for high-speed trains with speeds up to 500 km/h.

1.4.9 Reliability (%)

Reliability is the percentage of packets successfully delivered between nodes, within the time constraint

required by the targeted service, and measured at radio protocol L2/L3 SAP. High reliability is assumed

for values above 99% and ultra-reliability for values measured as 1 − 10−𝑥, where x depends on the

application. For example, ultra-reliable Enhanced Vehicle-to-everything (eV2X) applications require

the reliability of 1 − 10−5.

1.4.10 Peak Data Rate (bps)

Peak data rate is defined as the highest theoretical throughput in bits per second, assuming error-free

conditions, when all radio resources are assigned to a single UE.

1.4.11 User Experienced Data Rate (bps)

User experienced data rate is the minimum data rate required to achieve a sufficient quality experience.

It is measured at the transport layer or above, depending on the service type and the link direction (uplink

or downlink).

1.4.12 User/Connection Density (UE/km2)

User density or connection density is the number of network-connected UEs over a unit area, given in

km2, fulfilling specific QoS requirements.

1.4.13 Survival time (ms)

The time that an application consuming a communication service may continue without an anticipated

message.



1.4.14 Jitter (ms)

Jitter is the variation of packet interarrival time. The difference between when the packet is expected

and when it is actually received.



2. Deployment Scenarios

The 5G-RANGE proposal focuses on enabling a cost-effective 5G solution for broadband Internet

access in remote areas. To tackle this problem, we address coverage improvements of low-density

population areas. Our goal is to provide applications that can boost economic development for local

populations worldwide. Some examples of such applications are: smart farming for agribusinesses, asset

tracking for transportation, and broadband internet access for communities and businesses operating in

remote areas. We can identify two deployment scenarios that couple with the 5G-RANGE proposal, as

detailed in Table 1.

The first type of areas we consider are remote areas. Remote areas are regions isolated from urban areas

that lack even basic healthcare and education facilities. They consist of very large open areas with very

diverse terrain, all kinds of vegetation, and scarce physical infrastructure. Communities living in such

areas are characterized by their small size, older demographic structure, declining population,

geographic isolation, and reliance many times on only one type of industry. The residents have to travel

long distances to access any kind of service. They have inadequate public infrastructures such as

transportation, electricity, and communication. The second type of areas we consider are underserved

areas. Underserved rural areas refers to countryside, villages, and farms that have access to basic

facilities. These include, for example, basic schools, health centers and small supermarkets. Some areas

even have limited Internet access.

These two scenarios can also be defined by their degree of remoteness. They differ according to their

distance and isolation from urban areas. Moreover, we observe a strong correlation among remoteness,

population vitality and economic dynamism. It means that the more isolated a community is, the worse

it performs economically. These areas cannot provide sufficient business opportunities in general. The

more remote a community is, the more difficult and expensive transportation, construction and other

services are to provide. Remoteness also implies isolation of potential employers from suppliers and

markets. By this definition, we could say that the Underserved Rural Areas scenario would be less

remote than the Remote Areas scenario but would still have some degree of isolation and lack of

economic diversity.

The amount of isolation is a determining factor of how much knowledge can be shared. In fact, the

ability to share knowledge is very important in many aspects, namely, productivity, successful

innovation, and social progress. Current communication technologies cannot tackle many problems that

local producers face. The reason is either because their deployment is not economically feasible, or the

ones available are so basic that many advanced digital services simply cannot work there.

In this context, 5G-RANGE is committed to bring such technologies to 5G that can have an actual

economic impact on remote and underserved rural areas. For example, cognitive radio and spectrum

sensing will allow non-licensed access to vacant TV spectrum, the so-called TVWS. The license-free

exploitation of TVWS is an approach to reduce capital expenditure. In another example, the radio

protocol stack, including the PHY, will be optimized for long-range coverage. In low population density

areas, the distance between neighboring BSs can be increased whenever the technology allows it. 5G-

RANGE is proposing to multiply this distance ten folds when compared to the current 4G technology,

which is optimized for 5 km range. Long range coverage is an approach that will allow for covering a

determined area using a reduced number of BSs. This will have a direct impact on the demand for

additional infrastructure as backhaul and power supply. As a result, 5G-RANGE will enable more

efficient capital and operational expenditures for remote areas, creating a deployment scenario for a

more attractive business plan.

These two scenarios defined above can be applicable to both regions: Brazil and Europe. In which there

are low density of users and it would be a cost-effective solution to give connectivity to people and

industry present in these scenarios, which are not expected to have 4G/5G services or fiber network

anytime soon.



Table 1. 5G-RANGE deployment scenarios.

Feature Scenario

Remote Areas Underserved Rural Areas

Open areas

Wild regions

Geographic barriers

National parks

Cultivating crops

Pasture fields

Public

infrastructure

Scarce infrastructure, basically

roads and train lines Basic infrastructure

Building structures Practically none Houses or group of houses

Potential users

Very low-density users

People in transit

Vertical markets: Energy,

Mining

Environmental agencies

Disaster monitoring agencies

Low-density users

Small communities

Vertical markets: Agribusiness,

Transportation, Mining



3. General Overview of Use Cases

Several strategic use cases can be described for remote and underserved areas that could potentially

trespass barriers of isolation that restricts the development of those areas. However, despite the variety

of potential use cases, this report selects a few representatives for in-depth analysis of technical

components. By denominating them as Core Use Cases, we are not suggesting that other cases are less

relevant, but merely that they are only partially covered in 5G-RANGE, with no support in the PoC.

Examples of such cases are summarized in Table 2. Also, Figure 1 shows a pictorial view of the potential

use cases.

In order to select the Core Use Cases, we took into consideration the applications with promising social

and economic impact for remote and underserved areas, which are use-case scenarios that deal with

basic services and infrastructure. For example, data and voice connectivity aims to guarantee minimum

voice and broadband services at far distances from the base station. Indeed, this is an enabling service

that can leverage other potential applications. Wireless backhaul is also an example of how villages,

rural communities and even countryside municipalities can benefit from long range communication. In

this case, instead of providing direct radio access, 5G-RANGE could use conventional TV infrastructure

(tower, power supply, frequency bands, etc.) to enable smaller cell deployments with 5 km radius in

strategic areas. This would allow conventional devices without requiring powerful amplifiers and

external high-performance antennas.

There are also use cases that have the potential to stimulate local economies and improve the quality of

life in remote and underserved areas. For example, the smart farming use case aims to promote fertile

environment for advanced agricultural settlements and enterprises. This would create opportunities to

develop entire regions and to open new frontiers for efficient agriculture. In another use case scenario,

remote health care is considered since it would bring quality healthcare assistance to regions where

health infrastructure is still precarious, or even absent. Furthermore, when associating these two use

cases, it could potentially revert the population decline of remote communities and even leverage new

settlements to the farthest regions of the countryside.

Table 2. List of core and other use cases for 5G-RANGE.

Use Case

Name Use Case

Vertical

Market Service Scenario

Co

re U

se C

ases

Voice and

Data

Connectivity

Basic data speeds and voice

services for very large areas

Telecom

service

providers

Voice, MBB Remote and

Underserved

Smart Farm

Data collection and

analysis, crop monitoring,

production traceability,

remote maintenance and

diagnosis, cattle counting,

etc.

Agribusiness Voice, MBB,

MTC Underserved

Wireless

Backhaul

Usage of TV broadcast

network infrastructure for

wireless backhaul

implementation

Telecom

service

providers

MBB Underserved

Remote

Health Care

Health/medical assistance

and monitoring Health Voice, MBB

Remote and

Underserved

Oth

e

r

Use

Cas

e

s Environmental Disaster alert and situational

awareness Governments,

Health MTC Remote



organization,

NGOs

Maritime

Integration between

offshore platforms and

onshore facilities

Oil and Gas Voice, MBB,

MTC Remote

Smart grid

Enhance smart-grid

connectivity and

applications

Energy Voice, MBB,

MTC

Remote and

Underserved

Figure 1. An overview of use cases.



3.1 Core Use Cases

Wireless Backhaul and Local High-Quality Connections

This is one of the most important use cases of 5G-RANGE, especially in countries with

continental dimensions. In this use case, a single BS operates as a broadband interconnection

for several UE located at uncovered outlying areas, with an asymmetrical link capacity,

privileging the downlink. The advantages of this approach rely on the fact that the UE can

provide connectivity for several local devices with a reduced cost and short deployment time

when compared with other access technologies such as fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and satellite

links.

Agribusiness and Smart Farming for Remote Areas

This use case presents an enormous potential of innovation, not only for the agribusiness

segment, but also for small to medium-sized producers, leading to improvements in practically

all agriculture production process. The 5G-RANGE network can host a mission-critical overlay

network for automated machinery, allowing field automation like plating, irrigation, harvest and

plague control besides storage and transportation of goods. Likewise, IoT devices from clusters

of actuators and sensors to wearables would be connected to the 5G-RANGE network through

specific UE used as a gateway.

Remote Health Care (e-Health) for remote areas

Through this use case, people can have professional medical assistance at their own home. This

is very important in areas where there is no medical infrastructure nearby. In addition, eHealth

must allow the monitoring of patient data in emergency situations to improve the treatment

quality.

Voice and Data connectivity over long distances for remote areas

This use case allows providing both data and voice connectivity in areas where low user density

makes unfeasible to deploy other solutions, such as 4G or FTTH. This use case is focused on

human use and there are different services that can be provided with the data connectivity: email,

VoIP, web browsing, file sharing, among others. The different services could have different

quantitative requirements. Therefore, 5G-RANGE has to ensure that the specific requirements

are accomplish to have an acceptable QoS.

3.2 Other Use Cases

Energy

5G-RANGE will permit the expansion of energy monitoring devices along the power

distributions lines, enabling currently unconnected devices to be monitored, leading to a better

forecasting of energy needs. The energy sector will further enhance its grid management in

terms of load balancing, helping to reduce electricity peaks and ultimately reduce energy costs,

improving the efficiency of the energy market. This use case will also help a better planning of

energy infrastructure.

Maritime

The need for integration between offshore platforms and onshore facilities requires intense

information exchange, such as video conferencing, vessel monitoring, remote control,

broadband access for the crew, geological data traffic and model visualization. 5G-RANGE can

become a complementary connective solution, besides satellite link, for the oil, gas and minerals

exploration in deep water. There are two possible ways of integration in this scenario. In the

first one, a 5G-RANGE BS located on the shore can provide Internet access for the platforms



within the coverage area. In the second approach, a 5G-RANGE BS located in a central platform

can use a satellite link as backhaul to provide Internet access for the surrounding platforms.

Environmental monitoring and alert

The long-range coverage of 5G-RANGE network can enable environmental monitoring in

remote areas including farms, forests and sea. The monitoring of relevant parameters can

enhance public safety, life quality, environment protection and agribusiness efficiency by

raising situational awareness and allowing responsible parties to emit alerts or take actions at

the proper time. Relevant environmental data like rainfall, ocean waves, smoke presence, and

others can be applied in disaster alert related to earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding, landslides,

wildfire, tornados, etc. Acquired data can also be used for environmental monitoring regarding

on air and water quality and wildlife tracking.



4. Mandatory Requirements

This section presents two types of requirements: functional and quantitative. The functional

requirements specify features that are necessary to achieve the technical objectives of the project, which

are the following:

Design and develop a cognitive MAC layer for opportunistic and fragmented spectrum

allocation on TVWS band; Design and develop a novel PHY to deal with extremely large

coverage areas, and very low out-of-band emission (OOBE) for coexistence with TV signals.

On the other hand, quantitative requirements are related to performance required to the system to work

properly. These quantitative requirements will be defined generally for the complete project and

specifically for each use case which has different purpose to achieve. Therefore, it will be considered

different specific KPIs in the detailed use case description.

Considering that the system is a next generational leap in the mobile industry, the minimum expected

performance should be a relevant change with respect to the previous generation. In this matter, 5G-

RANGE holds a strategic position to complement 5G efforts toward sustainable remote and rural

networks.

4.1 Functional Requirements

High spectral efficiency is not straightforward at far distances from the BS, where the expected low

signal-to-noise ratio restricts higher order modulation and link throughput. In this context, the 5G-

RANGE system relies more on spectrum flexibility, adaptive transmission bandwidth, and link

adaptation to balance robustness and spectrum efficiency (Req-F.m.13). Consequently, this approach

includes more bandwidth from TVWS (Req-F.m.3), with the possibility of dynamic allocation (Req-

F.m.5), and fragmented spectrum usage (Req-F.m.6). This latter feature (Req-F.m.6) could allow the

system, for example, to reject harmful portions of spectrum selectively, even narrowband ones, which

would suffer from strong interference.

Although a non-licensed TVWS carrier can add a significant amount of additional spectrum, it can be

difficult to guaranty system reliability and even continuity of service by relying only on TVWS. This

occurs due to opportunistic access to TVWS band which requires sophisticated mechanisms of sensing

and decision, leading to dynamic and fragmented bandwidth. Thus, the system shall provide minimum

licensed bandwidth (Req-F.m.3) to ensure basic control operations like paging, connection

establishment, and broadcasting of system information. A solution based on licensed assisted access is

proposed (Req-F.m.3) to anchor the dedicated traffic on TVWS carrier. Moreover, LAA can be

customized to synchronous, coordinated access with coupled downlink and uplink as in conventional

licensed operation (Req-F.m.4).

The system is also conditioned to reuse, as always as possible, features from 3GPP protocol stack (Req-

F.m.12): LTE-Advanced-Pro (Releases 13 and 14) and 5G NR (Release 15). Since the 5G-RANGE

relies primarily on PHY and MAC, it is possible to reuse 3GPP features for the upper layers (Req-

F.m.12) and even the core network. However, it is important to note that such features are reused to

accelerate the development, keeping the focus on the project scope.

Regulatory aspects of opportunistic access to TVWS are still an incipient matter for the majority of

regulating agencies worldwide. One recurring discussion is the spectrum sensing mechanisms versus

the usage of a database to exploit the fixed assignment of TV channels. Spectrum sensing has the

advantage of being a dynamic mechanism that can adapt automatically to any local condition, being

even capable of dealing with narrowband systems and/or interferences. Also, databases are the obvious

option due to the fixed nature of TV channeling. However, sensing mechanisms can be shadowed or

not precise enough to guarantee the required detection performance. Databases, on the other hand, might

not be accessible and/or cannot be updated fast enough to support on-demand services like other

secondary systems, and wireless microphone, or might be out of date because of imprecise coverage



prediction. Moreover, current system standards and technologies employ waveform techniques that are

not efficient regarding coexistence with other systems, demanding excessive guard bands to avoid

adjacent interference. Consequently, to deal with these issues, the 5G-RANGE system proposes to

support a combined usage of both database and sensing methods (Req-F.m.7) depending on the

availability of a database system. Regarding sensing, the assumption relies on distributed and

collaborative methods to increase detection efficiency (Req-F.m.15), that can be implemented with

support from the MAC layer. The system also proposes an appropriate waveform for coexisting with

other systems (Req-F.m.14), providing simultaneously support to dynamic (Req-F.m.5) and fragmented

(Req-F.m.6) spectrum allocation.

Even though large cells are particularly suitable for cost-effective networks, they are typically associated

with propagation impairments as long multipath components and high Doppler shift, especially those

cells as proposed in the project with more than 50 km radius. In fact, larger cells are subjected to farther

scatters points which contribute to the long delay spread. Also, such large cells typically permit high-

speed transport infrastructure, like roads, highways, and railway, which contributes to the high Doppler

shift. As a result, the 5G-RANGE system must be robust to such propagation impairments (Req-F.m.8),

which can be accomplished by carefully designing MAC and PHY layers for this purpose (Req-F.m.13).

Furthermore, the system must provide long preambles to deal with high delay spread, and for random

access to large cells. Therefore, long frame structures are needed to obtain an efficient system in terms

of throughput (Req-F.m.9)

Another important aspect of large cells is the impact on the UE. Except for the case scenario of wireless

backhaul, where a donor cell provides the backhaul to a small cell, reception at far distances will require

powerful CPE-like equipment with probably external antennas (Req-F.m.10).

Table 3. Functional requirements.

ID1 Description

Req-F.m.1 5G-RANGE system shall support long range cells for remote areas assuming low user

density.

Req-F.m.2 5G-RANGE system shall support mobile broadband access.

Req-F.m.3 5G-RANGE system shall provide aggregation of one licensed carrier for broadcast and

common control information, and at least one non-licensed TVWS carrier for dedicated

user traffic.

Req-F.m.4 Requirement Req-F.m.3 shall be supported for downlink with optional synchronous and

coupled operation for uplink traffic.

Req-F.m.5 Subject to regional regulatory requirements, 5G-RANGE shall support dynamic spectrum

allocation for the TVWS component carrier.

Req-F.m.6 Non-licensed TVWS component carrier shall support non-continuous bandwidth selected

from within a specified spectrum window.

Req-F.m.7

Depending on local TV spectrum regulation, 5G-RANGE system shall support a

combination of database and spectrum sensing methods to acquire information about TV

spectrum availability.

Req-F.m.8 5G-RANGE system shall be robust against severe multipath channel and high Doppler

shift.

Req-F.m.9 5G-RANGE air interface shall provide appropriate frame structures to handle random

multiple access and channel delay profile over large cells.



Req-F.m.10

5G-RANGE system shall support specific UE Category to allow uplink connection via

high-power transmission at long distances. Respecting the limitations of local regulators,

both in licensed and unlicensed spectrum.

Req-F.m.11 5G-RANGE system shall assure high spectrum efficiency and expected QoS even with the

uncertainty regarding TVWS availability.

Req-F.m.12

5G-RANGE system should be based on 3GPP features (LTE Release 14 and NR Release

15) for topics that are not the scope of the project, for example, the upper layers (above

MAC) of the radio protocol stack.

Req-F.m.13

5G-RANGE system shall provide a radio configuration, supporting mechanisms for

adaptive coding and modulation, and for run-time configurable waveform with adaptive

time-frequency resource grid.

Req-F.m.14 5G-RANGE system shall support robust waveform with low OOBE without relying on RF

filters.

Req-F.m.15 5G-RANGE system shall support collaborative and distributed sensing to improve

detection mechanism of Req-F.m.7.

Req-F.m.16 Subject to regional regulatory requirements, 5G-RANGE shall meet the power limits for

TVWS channels.

Note 1: In the ID Req-x.y.z, “x” classifies the requirement in “F” for functional or “Q” for quantitative,

“y” indicates a mandatory (m) or optional (o) requirement, “z” is the requirement number.

4.2 Quantitative Requirements

Quantitative requirements define how the system should perform. Table 4 presents the mandatory

quantitative requirements for relevant system attributes: spectrum, spectrum sensing, traffic model, base

station and UE. A label (ID) is provided for each key performance indicator in order to allow

requirement traceability throughout the project development. As a result, these attributes are constrained

based on the following rational:

The spectrum shall be selected primarily from bands bellow 1 GHz to favor long range coverage,

which is the case of TVWS. Licensed spectrum is equivalent to one LTE carrier with a

maximum of 20 MHz bandwidth. Considering UL and DL, it can achieve a total bandwidth of

40 MHz. However, in the 5G-RANGE context, it is expected to use minimum licensed spectrum

for economic reasons, which would be 2.8 MHz (UL+DL). Regarding TVWS, a maximum

aggregation of 100 MHz is expected for the adaptive transmission bandwidth, which follows

the similar strategy used in LTE-Advanced for Intra carrier aggregation (CA). In this case, one

difference is the possibility of fragmented bandwidth.

The requirements for spectrum sensing were defined based on FCC studies for opportunistic

access on TVWS bands.

A traffic model was constrained partially from the 3GPP scenario for extreme long-range

coverage in low density areas. However, 5G-RANGE challenges the system design, especially

for MAC and PHY, to achieve 100 Mbps at a distance of 50 km in the downlink. This KPI

motivates the majority of innovative features proposed in the 5G-RANGE project.

The requirements for the BSs are similar to LTE macro cells. However, the transmission power

is required to be increased compared with typical LTE setup.

Considering the UE, it is assumed the typical LTE mobility up to 120 km/h. However, higher

power CPE-like terminals are also considered for indoor and outdoor fixed communication.



Other system parameters also follow typical 3GPP values for LTE. However, it is worth noting

that such parameters are expected over the uncertainties of TVWS opportunistic access.

Table 4. Mandatory quantitative requirements.

Attribute ID Description KPI

Licensed spectrum Unlicensed spectrum

Spectrum

Req-Q.m.1 Carrier Frequency < 3.5 GHz 1

(priority on bands bellow 1 GHz)

Req-Q.m.2 Maximum Channel BW ≤ 40 MHz (UL+DL)

Control plane ≤ 100 MHz (UL+DL)

Spectrum

Sensing

Req-Q.m.3 Digital TV detection threshold --- -114 dBm over 6 MHz

bandwidth 3

Req-Q.m.4 Analog TV detection threshold --- -114 dBm over 100 kHz

bandwidth 3

Req-Q.m.5 Detection threshold for low power

auxiliary and wireless microphone -107 dBm over 200 kHz bandwidth

Traffic

model

Req-Q.m.6 Peak DL data rate at cell edge (one

user/stationary) ≥ 100 Mbps @ 50 km

Req-Q.m.7 Average data throughput (busy

hour/user) 30 kbps

Base Station

Req-Q.m.8 BS maximum transmit power Not limited for Wide

Area mode 2

See note 3

Req-Q.m.9 BS Noise figure 5 dB

Req-Q.m.10 Layout Single Layer: Isolated Super cells

Req-Q.m.11

Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio

(ACLR) for Out-of-band emissions

limit

45 dB 55 dB 2

Req-Q.m.12 Number of BS antennas elements Up to 4 Transmit and 4 Receive

UE Req-Q.m.13 UE transmit power

23 dBm - Power Class 3

26 dBm - Power Class 2

(HPUE)

26 to 36 dBm – CPE 4

20 dBm

16 dBm if the adjacent

channel requirements are

not met 2

Note: In the ID Req-x.y.z, “x” classifies the requirement in “F” for functional or “Q” for quantitative,

“y” indicates a mandatory (m) or optional (o) requirement, “z” is the requirement number.

1 5G-RANGE can be deployed at 250 MHz frequency band for private wireless networks.

2 As established on 3GPP TS 36.104 version 14.3.0 Release 14, the upper limit for the BS output power is not limited when operating in Wide

Area mode. Regulation agencies can restrict this requirement and a power limit will be suggested at the end of the project.

3 Depending on the local regulator this value could be changed at different countries.

4 UE transmit power shall comply with local regulations regarding maximum permissible exposure to electromagnetic fields values for

occupational and general public. Reference values [FCCRFEF97], [ICNIRP09] are:

FCC: 300-1500MHz: Occupational= f/300; General public=f/1500 | 1.5-100 GHz: Occupational= 50 W/m2; General public=10 W/m2;

ICNIRP: 400-2000MHz: Occupational= f/40; General public=f/200 | 2-300 GHz: Occupational= 50 W/m2; General public=10 W/m2;

f= frequency in MHz.



5. Core Use Cases: Detailed Description and

Requirements

5.1 Agribusiness and Smart Farming for Remote Areas

This use case scenario addresses the agribusiness vertical market with the objective to provide reliable

connectivity and networking for underserved and remote rural areas. It intends to enable smart farming

and broadband Internet access in a sustainable and cost-effective way. Moreover, it deals with real-time

services (not necessarily low latency) such as data collection and analysis, crop monitoring, production

traceability, remote maintenance and diagnosis, cattle counting, etc. Figure 2 shows the conceptual

architecture for this scenario.

This use case could be viewed as a set of mobile sensors aggregated into a Controller Area Network

(CAN) bus, monitored by a single UE module that would work as an access gateway. Agriculture

vehicles like harvesters, tractors, and trucks would be the target for these modules. In fact, much of this

equipment, provided by specialized manufactures like Case IH and John Deer, already have built-in

embedded sensors for real-time data collection. However, they usually lack wireless connectivity to

transmit this information to a data center for real-time analysis and monitoring. Additionally, such

gateways could also support video surveillance in cases where it is necessary.

Obviously, this specific mobile scenario has no limitations regarding battery usage since power can be

supplied directly by the vehicles. However, the same cannot be said about the stationary scenario, where

sensors are deployed directly into the field. Because of the need to transmit data over long distances,

improved battery capacity and/or external energy harvesting techniques, like solar panels, may be

required.

Even though this case scenario supports MTC, the massive deployment stated by ITU IMT-2020 will

not be supported here. The reason is because the massive installation contradicts the original statement

of low user density. The agribusiness scenario addresses this issue by using gateways that can be easily

installed in the vehicles. These gateways can then provide the required connectivity for a large set of

sensors that will be typically embedded in the vehicles themselves.

Some basic features can be depicted here for this case scenario:

Most of the traffic load is driven in the uplink with no mission-critical requirements;

High data rates will be required to support video surveillance in the uplink;

Mobility can be relaxed assuming that in-the-field vehicles, including aerial vehicles like drones, do

not surpass 120 km/h. All these vehicles usually travel at 60 km/h or less;

A low-density area is assumed to be up to 2 UE/km2 to match 3GPP Extremely-Long-Range-

Coverage Scenario;

The system works best when covering an area with a radius up to 50 km, however it is designed to

support coverage up to 100 km with acceptable performance in favorable conditions.

In agribusiness, it is quite common to program and schedule parallel fronts to harvest a crop field. Each

harvest front consists of a team that operates the machinery and a team that provides support for

transportation, supply, maintenance, etc. In this context, we can assume that there is a higher

concentration of users in the harvest fronts, and in the garage as well. This higher concentration could

require a more advanced usage of 5G technology. For example, it could be more efficient to have one

mobile base station installed in a specific vehicle for each of those areas. Wireless self-backhaul would

be a way to connect the base stations to the core network. In this case, less transmission power would

be required from the terminals since they would be closer to the base station.

In practical scenarios, however, user/device density can be considered even less than the assumed 2

UE/km2. For example, consider the São Martinho group, the world's largest ethanol producer with 97%



of its production mechanized. One of its farms, in Pradopolis city, Brazil, has 1350 km2 and about a

400-vehicle fleet directly involved in the agriculture business. In this case, we have potentially 0.3

user/vehicle per km2 that is below the 2 UE/km2 requirements by far, leaving room for other devices

like cell phones, tablets and extra sensors.

The 5G-RANGE system is specifically designed for optimizing infrastructure costs. One example is the

use of a non-licensed spectrum in TVWS which would allow broadband access and long-range coverage

at an effective cost. The 5G NR system has some features that could also be helpful for this purpose.

For example, it is possible to expose network capabilities within a dedicated network slice. This feature

would enable third-party specialized operators, or even the producers themselves, to operate the

network. Moreover, this type of service would bring new business plan opportunities, new potential

incomes and the possibility to share some deployment and operational costs among the operators.

Figure 2. Conceptual architecture for agribusiness case scenario.

5.1.1 Services

o Crops monitoring: The sensors installed in a smart farm scenery will have high reliability

specifications.

o Remote maintenance and diagnosis: Automation for flows, (for example irrigation

systems) located in very large areas, isolated and difficult to access. This service is

characterized by high requirements on the communications system regarding

communication service availability as it is described in [22.261].

These two services are described in [22.261] in the same category for low latency and high

reliability sceneries, for this reason they have the same KPIs.

5.1.2 Quantitative specific requirements

Table 5 presents the quantitative specific requirements for Agribusiness and smart farming use case.



Table 5. Specific requirements (Agribusiness and smart farming).

Attribute Description KPI Comments

Spectrum Carrier Frequency < 3.5 GHz

Priority on 700 MHz band

[38.913] for extreme long

distance coverage

Traffic model

Low-density areas ≤ 2 gateway/km2

[22.261] As it is specified at

this use case description, the ue

of the network will be the

gateway.

User Experience data

throughput (per IoT device) 1 Mbps

[22.261]

Payload size Small: payload typically ≤ 256 bytes [22.261]

UE Medium mobility Speed up to 60 km/h

In-field-vehicles do not

surpass 60 km/h

System

Reliability > 99.9%

[22.261] One or more

retransmissions of network

layer packets may take place in

order to satisfy the reliability

requirement

End-to-end latency 50 ms

[22.261] this is the end-to-end

latency from the IoT device to

the interface to Data Network

Survival time 100 ms

[22.261] survival time is

defined as the time that an

application consuming a

communication service may

continue without an

anticipated message.

Cell range Up to 100 km range [38.913]

5.2 Voice and Data connectivity over long distances for remote areas

This use case is focused on providing access to typical Internet applications in very large areas

(underserved / rural to far remote) with extreme coverage requirements and low density of users. The

users may be humans and machines (e.g. low average revenue per user – ARPU – regions, wilderness,

farms, areas where only highways are located, etc.) and will have limited availability of Internet

broadband access where traditional network deployments are not economically feasible. Figure 3

illustrates some applications examples for voice and data connectivity.

This use case could be located not only in Brazil’s countryside, but also in wealthier, developed countries

in Europe, where connectivity continues to vary between various members of the European Union, with

many rural regions still stuck in the slow digital line. The Nordics and Northwest Europe enjoy a high

level of access to high-speed Internet while some countries in Southeast Europe lags in the slow lane.

Some types of services that will be evaluated in this use case are enhanced web browsing, email, VoIP,

multimedia on the web, audiographics conference, file sharing and interactive video on demand.



The QoS requirements will vary for the different applications. For example, in conventional text and

data networking, delay requirements are the least stringent. The response time in these types of

applications can increase from 2 to 5 seconds before becoming unacceptable. For interactive

applications, the overall round-trip delay needs to be short to give the user an impression of real-time

responses. Normally, a maximum value of 0.1 to 0.5 seconds is required to accomplish this goal. In

video applications, it is necessary to preserve the timing relationships between audio and video streams,

as well as the timing relationships within individual video streams that may happen since audio and

video streams are transmitted concurrently. Jitter also is an essential performance parameter to support

real-time sound and image media. Of all data types, real-time sound is the most sensitive to network

jitter. For example, for VoIP, the timeliness of jitter is below 400 ms and below 100 ms for interactive

video on demand. Also, VoIP requires a short end-to-end delay of 100 ms to give the users an

imperceptible difference between the voice service and real speech.

The key characteristics of this scenario are super cells with very large area coverage (e.g.: link budget

better than 160 dB, relaxed timing on random access and other procedures to enable very long range

beyond 50 km), with low to moderate user throughput up to 100 Mbps and low user density of 2 UE/km2.

Consistency of user experience across a wide territory is not mandatory. Also, a key feature is the

opportunistic usage of TVWS in the VHF (Very High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency)

bands. A license-free and opportunistic approach for the TVWS exploitation significantly reduces the

operation cost of the network. The VHF and UHF bands also exhibit very good signal propagation

properties, allowing for wide area coverage.

Figure 3. Illustrative scenario for voice and data connectivity for remote areas.

5.2.1 Services

o VoIP: This service is characterized by the set of rules that allow voice transmission through

IP protocol. This service is especially sensible to the parameters like jitter and latency.

o Web browsing: This is the traditional web service, it works using HTTP protocol. It has an

important difference among the DL traffic and UL traffic.

5.2.2 Quantitative requirements

Table 6 presents the quantitative specific requirements for Voice and Data connectivity use case.

Table 6. Specific requirements (Voice and Data Connectivity).


VoIP Web

Spectrum Carrier Frequency < 3.5 GHz [38.913] for extreme long

distance coverage




Traffic model

Low-density areas ≤ 2 users/km2 [22.261]

User Experience data

throughput 500 kbps 100 Mbps

100 Mbps is the Peak DL data

rate at cell edge (50 km, one

user/stationary)

Uplink /Downlink capacity

ratio 50%/50% 25%/75%

[22.261]

UE Medium mobility Speed up to 60 km/h

In-field-vehicles do not

surpass 60 km/h

System

Reliability >90% [ITU-T Rec. P.564]

End-to-end latency 100 ms Use case description

Jitter 400 ms 100 ms Use case description

Cell range Up to 100 km [38.913]

5.3 Wireless Backhaul and Local High-Quality Connections

This use case focuses on the usage of TV broadcast network infrastructure (towers and frequency

channels) for wireless backhaul implementation for rural area network. Figure 4 illustrates this case

scenario. Such regions that currently have a relatively good TV-coverage, the use of that infrastructure

for backhaul implementation could be a cost-effective solution. By utilizing low frequencies (VHF and

UHF), large multi-antenna systems, beamforming and high TV-towers, enough long wireless backhaul

link distances and required capacity may be achieved.

The proposed wireless backhaul approach could be useful for diverse types of scenarios for remote rural

locations, which do not have existing (fixed) Internet and cellular network connection or which have

connections with only very limited data rates. Here we propose that wireless backhaul could be useful

especially for local rural places like tourist venues, schools, industrial or farming premises, remote

settlements (villages) and industrial areas which require high-quality connections e.g., mines located in

far remote areas, in countries with large areas in which the low population density make a cost-effective

solution the 5G-RANGE technology (North European countries in artic Lapland has mean of 2 people

for every square kilometer). The assumption is that a 5G-RANGE base station that is installed to TV

tower, can provide line-of-sight (LOS) for a 50 km link using VHF or UHF band (unoccupied channels

based on spectrum sensing reports) to the local small cell BS which is located at the rural location. This

link works in a transparent way to connect the small cells with the network core. Mobile users are

connected to small cell BS in this local rural area. A further assumption is that the population density is

low in this area, but the user at small cell BS coverage (< 500 m) must be supported by a high throughput

(100 Mbps) connection.

It should be noticed that, in this use case, the 5G-RANGE user would be each one of the small cell base

station. It has been estimated that the small cell density will be much lower (small cells/km2) than the

normal user density in underserved areas (2 users/km2) due to the difference in the concept, in which

the 5G-RANGE UE is a small cell base station. For this reason, it will be possible to give high user

throughput.



Figure 4. Illustration of the wireless backhaul scenario.

5.3.1 Services

o Data transport: Due to the nature of the use case, the service that is intended to be covered

by the backhaul link is the indiscriminate transport of data among the small cell and the core

network.


Table 7 presents the quantitative specific requirements for Wireless Backhaul use case

Table 7. Specific requirements (Wireless backhaul).


Bac

kh

aul

Spectrum Carrier Frequency

< 3.5 GHz


[38.913]

Traffic

model

Low-density areas ≤ 0.1 users/km2 [22.261] in this case each

user is a small cell

Backhaul data throughput 100 Mbps (DL)

100 Mbps is the Peak DL

data rate at cell edge (50 Km,

one link)

Reliability 99.5%



UE

Mobility Static

The UE in this case is the

small cell base station

Sm

all

Cel

l

Traffic

model

Uplink /Downlink capacity ratio 25%/75% [38.913]

Medium mobility Speed up to 30 km/h [36.932]

UE Reliability 99%

System Small Cell range 0.5 km range Use case description

5.4 Remote Health Care (e-Health) for remote areas

The Remote Health Care (e-Health) use case is focused on providing health/medical assistance to

Underserved Rural and Remote Areas. It assumes broadband communication with acceptable latency,

so the e-Health Ecosystem can provide real-time assistance. Thus, one facet of this scenario deals with

high-speed ambulance traveling through the super cell coverage area without losing connection to video

and voice services, and with high data rate and low latency capable of handling full definition video

conference.

In both remote and underserved rural areas, the access to medical assistance is considerably limited, if

it exists at all. Also, when available, the service is very inefficient because of the long distances and

difficult access to these areas. Therefore, the service in the entire chain, going from the physician up to

the patient and vice-versa, needs to be rethought, redesigned to create a new efficient ecosystem that

could provide qualified assistance to long distance and resource limited areas. In the context, the e-

Health Ecosystem is of extreme importance. This new ecosystem could be divided into three main parts:

First-Aid Care: During the call to emergency services, a video conference will help the

emergency center to provide first care instructions to ensure the patient’s safety during the wait

for the ambulance as well as to provide more information to ambulance staff, so they can be

more effective.

Ambulance Attendance: Due to the potentially long time that it takes to arrive at the hospital, it

is important to have the hospital team updated, providing real-time information and video

image, in order to get them ready to the patient’s arrival.

Hospital Care: It is the final patient treatment, which should not dependent on 5G innovative

technologies. However, during the first-aid, rescue process, or even for routine health

monitoring, physicians can monitor the situation, provide instructions, etc.

Other services for this ecosystem can provide complementary medical support, for example, dental and

dermatology remote appointments and psychology treatment sessions. Figure 5 illustrates this case

scenario.



Figure 5. Illustration of the Remote Health Care scenario.

5.4.1 Services

o High mobility ambulance sceneries monitoring: In emergency situation, such as

ambulance transportation, is necessary to have real-time monitoring of vital functions

in the hospital in order to know the state of the patient for a good planification. It will

be necessary a high reliability in a high mobility sceneries.

o E-Health Multimedia services at home: multimedia services, like video-conference,

will be possible in remote areas sceneries. It is necessary to keep high data rate to

provide this service.


Table 8 presents the quantitative specific requirements for Remote Health Care use case.

Table 8. Specific requirements (Remote Health Care).


Monitoring Multimedia

Spectrum Carrier Frequency

< 3.5 GHz


[38.913]

Traffic model

Low-density areas ≤ 2 users/km2

[22.261]

Uplink /Downlink ratio Mostly UL 25%/75%

User experience data rate 1 Mbps (per

IoT device) 100 Mbps

100 Mbps is the Peak DL

data rate at cell edge (50 Km,

one user/stationary)

UE

Mobility Speed up to

120 km/h Static

[38.913]

System

Reliability > 99.9% >99%

Depends on the relevant

characteristics of the

measurement (for periodic

measurements)

End-to-end latency 50 ms 100 ms

As human being are

involved, latency

requirements become less

stringent.



Range Up to 100 km [38.913]



6. Concurrent technologies drawback

6.1 Existing competing technologies

This section shows the main drawbacks of the existing wireless technologies and argue how 5G-RANGE

is the most optimal solution for the remote scenarios described in section 2.

Table 9 provides a comparison of the main characteristics of competing wireless technologies. All of

the data presented are approximations due to the high number of design variables that can be configured

in each technology. From the competing technologies, Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN)

is not able to fulfill the mandatory data rate and latency requirements of any core use case (cf. section

4). It can only be used in specific MTC applications where low data rate and high latency are acceptable.

Therefore, LoRaWAN is not a feasible solution for the scenarios described in Section 2. LTE Advanced

has evolved to provide high data rates in urban areas and the introduction of narrow band IoT (NB IoT)

makes this standard suitable for some MTC applications in dense populated areas. However, although

it is possible to achieve up to 30 km radius, LTE-A presents poor spectrum efficiency under this

circumstance. This technology also demands licensed bands, imposing a prohibit cost for the network

operation in remote areas. Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) can provide

high throughput in long-range links, but it lacks the spectrum flexibility to exploit the TVWS. Also,

WiMAX is not compatible with dynamic spectrum allocation and it does not provide sufficient

robustness against severe multipath channels. IEEE 802.22 is a standard created to use cognitive radio

techniques to provide connectivity in remote areas. Its physical layer is fully based on WiMAX, which

means that orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is employed as waveform. It means

that IEEE 802.22 needs to rely on RF filter to reduce the high OOBE. Therefore, dynamic spectrum

allocation is limited. The high OOBE also hinders the use of fragmented spectrum allocation. Wireless

Fidelity (Wi-Fi) is a family of standards that are continuously evolving to provide high quality

connectivity mainly in wireless local area network. Recent versions of Wi-Fi can use TVWS, but only

within a limited coverage. The last remaining competing technology is Satellite. However, the

application is very limited to latency and cost tolerant applications. Satellite networks can be used as

backhaul, while 5G-RANGE provides connectivity in the last mile. Consequently, the 5G-RANGE

network, although yet under development, is the only technology which can provide an economically

efficient solution for the considered scenarios and use cases.

Table 9. Comparison of competing technologies.

Cell radius Data rate Latency Cost Spectrum Main

drawbacks

Lo

RaW

AN

Up to 20 km Up to 50 kbps Not real-time Very low Unlicensed Very low data

rate capacity

LT

E-

Ad

van

ced

30 km Up to 300 Mbps 10 ms High Licensed

Not enough

range for

undeserved

areas

WiM

AX

Up to 60 km Up to 74 Mbps 25-50 ms Medium Licensed and

unlicensed

Not enough

capacity and

coverage



IEE

E

80

2.2

2

Up to 40 km Up to 74 Mbps 25-50 ms Low Unlicensed

High OOBE

and inflexible

spectrum

allocation

Wi-

Fi

50-100 m Up to 100 Mbps 50 ms Low Unlicensed Very low

range

Sat

elli

te

Up to 6000 km Up to 50 Mbps 600-800 ms Very high Licensed

Very high cost

and high

latency

5G

-RA

NG

E

100 km Up to 100 Mbps 10-100 ms Medium-high Licensed and

unlicensed

This system is

under

development

and needs

maturation to

reach the

market.

6.2 Limitations on current standards

Most standards of wireless technologies employ OFDM as air interface. This waveform imposes

limitations, not only for long-range mobile systems, but also for cognitive radio cycle, which is one of

the fundamental concepts in 5G-RANGE for TVWS exploitation. The main OFDM’s drawbacks that

hinders its usage in cognitive radio systems are:

Energy efficiency: OFDM systems has an important overhead because each symbol has its own

cyclic prefix. In long channel delay profiles, which is the typical situation in large cells, the CP

severely reduces the system throughput and consumes a significant parcel of the transmitted

power. Supercells need a waveform that can use one CP to protect a large number of data blocks

(or subsymbols).

Latency: The CP also reduces the system spectrum efficiency in low latency situations. Since

the CP must be larger than the channel delay profile, the shortest OFDM symbols duration must

be twice the channel impulse response. In this situation, 50% of the power and data rate are

used to transmit CP, resulting in a massive waste of resources. 5G-RANGE must use a

waveform that allows short frames with a single CP for several subsymbols to improve the

power and spectrum efficiencies.

High OOB emissions: the use of TVWS require the absence of OOB interferences to be possible

the co-existence with TV services. OFDM has huge energy leakage and it is necessary to

improve this parameter using different waveforms.

All of these limitations is taken into account in the WP3, in which different waveforms are studied,

exploring better characteristics in terms of throughput, energy consumption, robustness and latency to

improve the 5G-RANGE network overall efficiency and resilience.



7. Conclusions

This deliverable provides a description about several identified deployment scenarios that couple with

the 5G-RANGE proposal, which is focused on enabling a cost-effective 5G solution for broadband

Internet access in remote and underserved areas. Foreseen applications with a great potential to

innovation are detailed, resulting on four selected core use cases: (1) agribusiness and smart farming

for remote areas; (2) voice and data connectivity over long distances for remote areas; (3) wireless

backhaul and local high-quality connections and (4) remote health care (e-health) over long distances

for remote areas.

The deliverable presents a set of mandatory and optional requirements that may be quantitative or

functional for the PHY and MAC layers. For the quantitative requirements, the document includes the

specification of metrics for performance evaluation (KPIs) which will be a fundamental reference for

the development of the other phases of the 5G-RANGE project. 3GPP is mostly referenced as a technical

source, however several specific 5G-RANGE technological challenges and targets are introduced for

long range coverage e.g. a peak throughput of 100 Mbps at 50km distance from the base station as well

as the opportunistic usage of TVWS in VHF and UHF bands, among others.

The topology of the system will be developed in D2.2. The economic viability of the project with all

requirements defined at this document will be studied in D7.1. The system requirements would have

corrections if it is mandatory for economic reasons.

All core use cases described in this deliverable will be technically analyzed through system simulations.

More detailed analysis and a PoC testbed will be conducted specifically for the data connectivity over

long distances use case. It is possible that any of the requirements or KPIs included in this deliverable

will be subject to fine tuning or corrections, which is a normal action in performance evaluation and its

validation. In that case, the updated information and its analysis will be available along with the overall

system performance evaluation results that will be covered in D6.3 Implementation, integration, testing

and validation.



References

[22.346] 3GPP TS 22.346, “Isolated E-UTRAN Operation for Public Safety (Release 13)”,

2014.

[22.261] 3GPP TS 22.261 V15.2.0, “Service requirements for the 5G system; Stage 1

(Release 15)”, 2017.

[36.932] 3GPP TR 36.932 V15.0.0, “Scenarios and requirements for small cell

enhancements for E-UTRA and E-UTRAN (Release 15)”, 2018.

[38.104] 3GPP TS 38.104 V1.0.0, “NR Base Station (BS) radio transmission and reception

(Release 15)”, 2017.

[38.801] 3GPP TR 38.801 V2.0.0, “Study on new radio access technology; Radio access

architecture and interfaces (Release 14)”, 2017.

[38.802] 3GPP TR 38.802 V2.0.0, “Study on new radio (NR) access technology; Physical

layer aspects (Release 14)”, 2017.

[38.803] 3GPP TR 38.803, “Study on new radio access technology; RF and co-existence

aspects (Release 14)”, 2017.

[38.913] 3GPP TR 38.913, “Study on scenarios and requirements for next generation

access technologies (Release 14)”, 2016.

[FCCRFEF97] Federal Communications Commission, “Evaluating Compliance with FCC Guidelines

for Human Exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields” (OET Bulletin

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[ICNIRP09] International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), “Exposure

to high frequency electromagnetic fields, biological effects and health

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[inter16] internet.org, “State of Connectivity 2015: A Report on Global Internet Access”,

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[ITU-T P.564] ITU-T Rec P.564 (11/2007), “Conformance testing for voice over IP transmission

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[METISII16-D21] METIS-II, Deliverable D2.1, “Performance evaluation framework”, 2016.

[ONE5G17-D21] ONE5G, Deliverable D2.1, “Scenarios, KPIs, use cases and baseline system

evaluation”, 2017.

[Philbeck17] Imme Philbeck, “Connecting the Unconnected: Working Together to Achieve

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