nokia indoor deployment strategies

8/10/2019 Nokia Indoor Deployment Strategies

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Indoor Deployment StrategiesWhite Paper

Nokia White paperJune 2014


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CONTENTS

Executive Summary 2

Business and market drivers for indoor solutions 3

Technology options for operators 3

Indoor deployment 5

Cost considerations 10

Nokia indoor solutions 11

Executive SummaryThe growing demand for a ordable mobile broadband connectivityis driving the development of Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets).A range of di erent cellular Radio Access Technologies (RATs) andWi-Fi will all co-exist, and macro cells will be complemented by amultitude of smaller cells, such as micro and pico cells and DistributedAntenna Systems (DAS). The deployment strategies for HetNets aredescribed in [ NOKIA Deployment whitepaper ]. The evolution of macrobase stations and outdoor small cells will ensure mobile broadbandcoverage and capacity for the next few years. However, as around 80%of all mobile broadband tra c is consumed by users located indoors[Source: Informa], the challenge is to deliver fast and seamlessconnectivity to indoor users. There are multiple deployment optionsfor providing indoor mobile broadband:

The rst step is to maximize indoor mobile broadband coveragevia the existing macro base stations, for example, using lowerfrequency bands such as UMTS900 and LTE700/800.

In addition, outdoor small cells can be deployed to increase outdoormacro capacity and coverage and can also help provide indoormobile broadband in areas with high tra c load and a su cientsubscriber base (city center shopping streets, etc).

In addition and in important locations (enterprise customers,strategic indoor locations) operators will have to deploy indoordedicated base stations to provide coverage and to boost capacity.This will create smaller cells in congested network areas, such asapartment complexes, tube and train stations, shopping malls,stadiums, exhibition centers and airports.

Indoor small cells provide the lowest TCO for providing coverageand capacity in indoor hot spots in enterprises and public buildings.
http://nsn.com/sites/default/files/document/nsn_deployment_strategies_for_heterogeneous_networks_1.pdfhttp://nsn.com/sites/default/files/document/nsn_deployment_strategies_for_heterogeneous_networks_1.pdf


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This white paper outlines key deployment strategies to provide the

best mobile broadband indoor user experience and explains howNokia can help operators to address them. It discusses how to designroadmaps to expand the outdoor macro and micro layer and how touse indoor deployment to handle the increasing tra c.

Business and market drivers for indoorsolutionsThe technology drivers are described throughout this paper, togetherwith the best network deployment options to utilize spectrum.Services are another key driver for indoor solutions as operatorsstrive to provide users with the same or better QoS that they canget outdoors. Finally, mobile broadband tra c continues to growsigni cantly with the latest forecast showing ~61% compound annualgrowth rate (CAGR) [CISCO 2014 Reference]. The main drivers for theincrease in mobile broadband come from smartphones, tablets andlaptops, accounting for more than 80% of the network data.

Previously, the existing macro network was typically designed formobility and outdoor coverage for voice services. Today, increasedindoor coverage and broadband capacity is becoming more importantas more tra c is consumed indoors. The main limitations of theexisting macro network are:

Limited indoor coverage due to building penetration loss(especially from modern buildings)

Ine cient use of spectrum resources particularly in urban anddense urban deployments

Capacity limited Relatively high cost for new deployments and upgrades

Many of these limitations can be overcome with various deploymentoptions based on indoor coverage and capacity. These options aredescribed in this white paper. Finally, the paper provides answerson how indoor solutions can be used to prepare networks for oneGigabyte per mobile user per day by 2020.

Technology options for operatorsTodays operators have many deployment options to enhance coverageand capacity for indoor users. Macro cell enhancements, outdoor smallcells and dedicated indoor deployment are all options that can be used

to further enhance the indoor user experience. Figure 1 shows thegeneral deployment options for operators to evolve their networks.These general deployment options have been described in the Nokiawhite paper Deployment Strategies for Heterogeneous Networks.


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Outdoor deployment for indoor coverageTraditionally, cellular networks have been deployed outdoors forcontinuous coverage. Indoor coverage and user experience varies

depending on a number of parameters, such as distance from the celltower, the outdoor-to-indoor penetration and the services requested.However, there are many options for operators to provide betterindoor coverage and capacity.

One of the most e cient methods for operators to provide coverageis to use their spectrum asset smartly. The coverage layer should bedeployed at the lowest frequency available, while the capacity shouldbe provided using higher frequencies.

Another simple way to increase the antenna gain at the base stationis to split the current cells into smaller and narrowband cells bysectorization. Higher order sectorization can be deployed in both thehorizontal plane by increasing the number of antennas/sectors and/orin the vertical plane by introducing Active Antenna Systems (AAS).

Deploying outdoor small cells for dense urban areas can provideindoor coverage and capacity. However, for high rise environments,outdoor small cells do not solve the challenge of indoor coverage.These environments will require either an in-building solution or amacro / micro based solution, with directional antennas pointingupwards to provide coverage and capacity.

This white paper focuses on the key deployment options to improveindoor coverage and capacity to achieve the best mobile broadband

experience. The indoor deployment options will be discussedthroughout this paper.

Small cells

Existing Network

MacroExtension

OutdoorSmall Cells

Offl oad toIndoor

Strategic Decision Options

Multicarrier

Sectorization

Tilt optimizations

Micro & Pico

RRH

Wi-Fi

DAS

Expected Bene ts

Enhance capacity with high coverageIncluding refarming

Minimize interference to increase capacity at very low cost

Deployment for coverage especially macro cell edge or hotzone capacity deployment

Deployment with ber front haul to existing macro sitesenabling intra-site coordination

Deployment for capacity enhancements, especially in indoorhigh tra ffi c areas.

Deployment for indoor coverage and capacity for large indoorhot zones

Suitable to provide cost-e ffi cient shared coverage in large-sized buildings

Horizontal and vertical sectorization increases coverage andcapacity w/o macro densi cation

Figure 1. Strategic deployment options for outdoor macro, micro, and indoor solutions


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Indoor deploymentTo overcome the path loss from walls, windows and other obstacles,indoor deployment provides an e cient way to provide indoorcoverage and capacity. This section outlines some of the manyoptions that can provide both coverage and capacity enhancementfor indoor deployment.

Distributed Antenna SystemA DAS is the distribution of cellular RF to a network of antennas withina building to provide cellular coverage. The DAS distributes RF from acentralized radio source throughout the building using a network ofRF cabling, splitters, couplers and antennas, ber optic cabling and RFrepeaters.

The aim is to create an indoor coverage layer seamlessly integratedwith the macro layer and handling all voice and data tra c internal tothe building, o ering better quality and user experience. This indoorlayer will form an underlay to the macro layer, o oading the muchneeded capacity from the macro layer and creating potential revenuefor the operator. The bene t of DAS comes from its ability to supportmultiple operators (neutrality) using the same system and to betechnology agnostic. Upfront costs for DAS are typically high but areo set somewhat by the ability to split the cost amongst operators,making it more suited for large and very large buildings where the highexpense can be amortized across a large number of users. However,DAS has quite a rigid architecture, making growing the capacitycomplex and costly.

DAS solutions can be classi ed as passive, active, or hybrid systems.

Passive DAS: In passive systems, the wireless signal from the RFsource is distributed to the antennas for transmission, without anyampli cation, through a series of passive components.

Active DAS: In active DAS, the RF signal from a source is convertedto a digital signal for transmission over ber optics or cable.

Hybrid DAS: A hybrid DAS system is a combination of passive andactive systems. In a hybrid DAS system, ber optic or CAT5 cable

Indoor DAS Outdoor DAS

Figure 2. Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS)


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is still used to connect the head end (master unit) to the remote

units. However, passive DAS is used for distributing the RF to theantennas from the remote units.

Indoor small cellsIt was shown in the previous section that indoor small cells are neededto meet the capacity requirements for dense indoor locations due tothe high outdoor-to-indoor penetration. DAS supports good indoorcoverage but is unable to provide the needed capacity. In this sectionwe will describe several options to deploy indoor small cells fordi erent indoor environments.

Indoor coverage and capacity complemented by small cellsThe potential for indoor o oad is quite signi cant, since a largepercentage of global wireless data tra c is generated indoors andmost if not all smartphones and laptops are equipped with Wi-Ficonnectivity. The indoor o oad will connect users to the nearestconnectivity node, reducing interference and transmission power,increasing capacity and reducing battery consumption.

Load-based tra c steering between the macro, micro, pico clustersand Wi-Fi layers will be needed in order to use the available spectrume ciently. Furthermore, automatic authentication is needed for Wi-Fio oad to reach its full potential, because manual authentication willprevent some users from going through the registration process.

Figure 3 shows an example of indoor data o oading to Wi-Fi cells ina macro and micro overlaid network. It can be seen that the numberof users getting less than 10Mb/s is signi cantly reduced from 12%to 5% with only 200 Wi-Fi cells in a 1 km 2 area. An alternative wouldbe to deploy more indoor Wi-Fi cells and fewer outdoor cells as shown

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No Wi-Fi 1700 Wi-Fi 200 Wi-Fi 200 Micros

100 Micros

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Users < 10Mb/s [%]

Wi-Fi

Micro

Macro

Figure 3. Example of indoor o oad via Wi-Fi cells in a denseurban area with 20 macro sites and 200 micro cells.


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95% coverage. The rst case uses DAS for indoor coverage and

the second uses the DAS infrastructure with a small cell on everyoor doubling the capacity. Deploying further small cells improvescapacity signi cantly. The nal case shows a combination of DAS in thecommon area and small cells in the dedicated o ce areas. The indoordeployment with distributed small cells provides signi cantly morecapacity, with the same coverage as DAS, for a reduced cost.

Ultra dense indoor deploymentIncreasing the tra c density in deployment areas like airports,campuses, bus stations and large shopping malls requires acombination of outdoor and indoor deployment to provide seamless

coverage and capacity. Such an example is shown in Figure 5 whereindoor LTE small cell and WLAN/ 802.11n/ac solutions complementoutdoor macro and small cell deployment. The ratio of users gettingmore than 10 Mbit/s is increased from 80% to 90% by deploying anindoor cell for every ~500m 2.

In enterprise deployment environments, where the locations andtransmit power levels of the indoor small cells (Wi-Fi or pico) can beoptimized, the number of indoor small cells required can be signi cantlyreduced, thus providing cost reductions of up to 45% compared to thecosts of un-planned residential-like deployment solutions.

In public deployment environments, such as large multi- oor shoppingmalls, a deployment density of one indoor pico cell per 1000 m 2 oorarea is su cient in order to provide the minimum downlink user datarate of 10 Mbit/s in a 2020 tra c growth scenario as shown in Figure 6.

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10%

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30%

40%

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60%

70%

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90%

100%

Without indoor small-cells With indoor small-cells

U s e r s w i t

h t h r o u g

h p u t > 1 0 M

b i t

/ s

Indoor small-cell Pico Macro

Figure 5. Example of outdoor and indoor small cell (4G/LTE and Wi-Fi802.11n/ac) coverage probability performance under a typical denseurban deployment scenario as expected in 2020.


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Figure 6 shows an ultra-dense indoor deployment with di erenttransmit power and spectrum allocation. It can be seen that sharingspectrum with outdoor macro and small cells will signi cantly increasethe number of required indoor small cells.

Feature paritySoftware and feature parity between macro and micro/pico cells is oneof the critical steps needed in small cell deployment, both outdoorand indoor. It will help create tighter integration between the twonetwork layers, which leads to improved HetNet performance and thusalso better coverage and a consistent user experience.

Figure 6. Example of dense indoor deployment per 10,000 m 2 with expected 2020 tra c levels.

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I n d o o r

d e p

l o y m e n t s c a

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Indoor 25dBm small cell (dedicated spectrum) Indoor 25dBm small cell (shared spectrum) Indoor 20dBm small cell (dedicated spectrum) Indoor 20dBm small cell (shared spectrum)

Same capacity as macro & Full Macro parity for tightest HetNet integration & lowest OPEX Same capacity as Macro Same Renowned superior Smart Scheduler Same LTE-A support Same macro load line, robust code Same O&M (NetAct) and SON features (iSON) Same LTE End2End security Same IOT as Macro

Unique Nokia HetNet features

Flexi Zone Micro & PicoOutdoor & Rugged indoor

Flexi Zone Pico-E Outdoor & Rugged indoor

Flexi Zone Indoor PicoEnterprise & Public indoor

NEWNEW

Figure 7 shows the Nokia feature parity between small cells andmacro cells that tight integration with macro cells allows, enabling keyfeatures like carrier aggregation and other features described in the


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the cheapest DAS solution, with a very large capacity gain compared

to any of the DAS solutions. The cost of the radio equipment is higherfor indoor small cells compared to the DAS radio but the deployment,installation and other CAPEX are signi cantly reduced, creating a veryattractive business case for indoor small cells.

Nokia indoor solutionsNokia supports operators as they wrestle with the increasingcomplexities of their evolving networks. We provide smart and uni edheterogeneous networks together with our award winning Flexi Zonesolution, Flexi Lite & Smart Wi-Fi. Nokia provides both product andservices designed to enable operators to provide the best mobilebroadband user experience.

In other words, Nokia provides solutions for both coverage andcapacity. This is a uni ed approach, with services that deliveroptimized HetNet solutions with feature parity for all use cases,enabling operators to serve the growing demand for mobile datawhile keeping costs rmly under control.


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nokia indoor deployment strategies

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