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285 23-3107 Uen Rev B | September 2009

The evolution of EDGE

EDGE Evolution will introduce higher data rates and improved coverage, further strengthening GSM/EDGE as an attractive mobile broadband solution and complement to 3G/LTE.

Contents
1 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4 4.1 4.2 5 6 Executive summary The GSM/EDGE advantage Mobile internet for everyone EDGE complementing 3G Mobile broadband using EDGE EDGE performance today and tomorrow Network performance of today Enhanced applications performance over EDGE EDGE Evolution performance boost Implementing EDGE Evolution The evolution of EDGE technology Introducing EDGE EDGE Evolution enhancements Conclusion Glossary 3 4 5 5 6 7 7 8 8 9 11 11 12 15 16

2 The evolution of EDGE Contents

1 Executive summary
Since its standardization was nalized by the 3GPP in 2000, EDGE Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution has achieved market maturity in terms of networks, terminals and business models. Upgrading to EDGE has become a natural step for operators who want to offer high-performance mobile data services over GSM. EDGE gives them a costeffective way to reach the mass market and boost the uptake of mobile data services. The common view from GSM/WCDMA operators is that GSM will be used beyond 2020, providing nationwide coverage for voice and data for many years to come. EDGE combines efcient technology, a simple upgrade path and support for many GSM and WCDMA terminals to create a compelling business case. Three-quarters of all GSM and UMTS terminals sold now support EDGE, from low to high-end. EDGE is a viable alternative for providing fast internet access in markets where xed network infrastructure is yet to be established. The performance of EDGE has improved steadily since its introduction: today it offers user bit rates up to 250kbps, with end-to-end latency of less than 150ms. This performance is sufcient to make any data service available today attractive to users. EDGE is an important complement to mobile broadband services presently delivered over WCDMA/HSPA and in future LTE networks. EDGE provides both a fast way to achieve good indoor and outdoor coverage, and to meet increasing demand for mobile internet services through optimal use of available radio spectrum. To build on the global success of EDGE, the GSM community has standardized EDGE Evolution, which further improves performance and capacity. EDGE Evolution more than doubles end-user bit rates and reduces latency signicantly. What is more, all this can be done using existing infrastructure, protecting current GSM and EDGE investments for many years to come.

The evolution of EDGE Executive summary 3

2 The GSM/EDGE advantage

In the mid-1990s, GSM deployment gathered pace around the world, and this growth continues today. More than 80 percent of all mobile users in the world are served by GSM, and every month approximately 40 million new users join the GSM community. As a mobile technology, GSM has unmatched coverage, economies of scale, simplicity and maturity, and these are all benets that EDGE shares too. The common view from the GSM/WCDMA operators is that GSM will be used beyond 2020, meaning that GSM and EDGE will provide the fundamental coverage for voice and data for many years to come. Standardized in 3GPP as part of the GSM/ WCDMA family, EDGE is a simple and costeffective upgrade that provides a more than three-fold increase in both the capacity and performance of GSM/GPRS networks. It does this by introducing sophisticated
User data rate in the air Kbps 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

methods of coding and transmitting data, delivering higher bit rates per radio channel, as illustrated in Figure 1. Introducing EDGE normally only requires a software upgrade of the existing GSM/GPRS network. It does not require any new sites or new spectrum, and has no impact on existing cell or frequency plans. With EDGE, GSM operators can extend their service offering to include high-performance mobile data. They can rapidly target all potential data users thanks to EDGEs ability to achieve high geographic and population coverage in a short period of time. This is one of the main reasons that several hundred GSM networks have already upgraded to EDGE. EDGE is not launched as a service; it is an enabler of new services and faster internet access an almost mandatory upgrade, with a clear and compelling business case.

8.0

CS1 CS2

GPRS CS2 Normal 10kbps per TS Max 12kbps per TS

20.0

12.0 14.4

GPRS
CS3 CS4

8.4 11.2 14.8 17.6

MCS1 MCS2 MCS3 MCS4 MCS5 MCS6 MCS7 MCS8 MCS9

EDGE Normal 4050kbps per TS Max 59kbps per TS

44.8 54.4 59.2

22.4 29.6

EDGE

Figure 1: EDGE is four times as efcient as GPRS. GPRS uses four coding schemes (CS-1 to 4) while EDGE uses nine Modulation and Coding Schemes (MCS -1 to 9). Bit rates stated are per time slot; todays terminals receive data on up to ve time slots.

4 The evolution of EDGE The GSM/EDGE advantage

2.1

Mobile internet for everyone

GPRS users, resulting in higher Average Margin Per User (AMPU) contribution. There are still many markets where 3G networks have not been deployed, or where licensing regulations have not even been settled. In these markets, EDGE has been deployed offering sufcient bandwidth to deliver fast internet access over the existing GSM infrastructure. The combination of mobile broadband capability and low-priced EDGE-capable GSM phones has made EDGE a viable option for markets where xed network infrastructure has not yet been established.

Mobile phones and the internet are an important part of many peoples day-to-day lives. Now, thanks to the advances being made in mobile networks and terminals, these two invaluable technologies have merged. Mobile data rates have improved in recent years, prices are low, and services and content have been adapted to mobile consumers. EDGE-delivered data services create a broadband internet-like experience on a mobile phone. And the signs are that users like it. Figures from many markets show that users with EDGE-enabled services consume up to three times more data than standard

2.2

EDGE complementing 3G
HSPA/EDGE handsets will dominate the market, as shown in Figure 2. Therefore EDGE helps operators to adopt a more exible approach to the 3G/HSPA roll out. In many networks EDGE has been deployed nationwide to complement 3G/HSPA, enabling operators to focus the investments on most needed in 3G from a revenue perspective.

Mobile broadband is very successful in most 3G markets. The number of users with a bucket-plan data subscription has increased signicantly since the introduction of HSPA in the 3G networks. The mobile broadband service contributes positively to the operators revenue and enables new business segments. Almost all HSPA-enabled terminals have EDGE capability, and the trend is that WCDMA/

Global handset sales

1 600 1 400 1 200 1 000 800 600 400 200 0 2006 2007 2008 Other GSM/GPRS CDMA 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 EDGE WCDMA WCDMA/EDGE (incl. HSPA) LTE Million units TDSCDMA

Figure 2: New sales by technology (Source: Strategy Analytics, 2009)

The evolution of EDGE The GSM/EDGE advantage 5

With combined HSPA and EDGE deployment, the operator can truly offer a fullcoverage mobile broadband service to end users and still keep investments at a reasonable level. While many 3G networks today have good population coverage, it still typically lags the geographical coverage of GSM/EDGE, illustrated in Figure 3. One main reason for the coverage difference is that GSM is typically
Population coverage GSM/EDGE Geographical coverage GSM/EDGE 100%

deployed on the 900MHz frequency band while 3G is deployed on 2100MHz. As an example, at 90 percent geographical GSM coverage, the same number of RBS sites provides approximately 30-40 percent geographical 3G coverage. Naturally, extending 3G coverage to 90 percent implies a huge investment due to the large number of RBS sites needed.
Population coverage WCDMA/HSPA Geographical coverage WCDMA/HSPA

75%

50%

25%

0% 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Figure 3: Example of population and geographical coverage for GSM and WCDMA in a country

2.3

Mobile broadband using EDGE

enough to allow competitive offerings for most markets, and analysis shows that the investment can be recouped within two years. With EDGE and EDGE Evolution, therefore, it is possible to grab the 3G/LTE market now, irrespective of whether the operator has a 3G license. The service is then in place and once 3G/LTE is deployed the operator can concentrate on improving mobile broadband performance and capacity where it is needed.

Where 3G networks have yet not been deployed, EDGE and EDGE Evolution enable operators to provide a protable mobile broadband service, contributing to growth in ARPU. Given that most GSM networks are already well established and that voice and data typically do not peak at the same time, it is possible to deploy such mobile broadband services with limited investment. With EDGE Evolution, end-user performance is good

6 The evolution of EDGE The GSM/EDGE advantage

3 EDGE performance today and tomorrow

Todays EDGE technology offers greatly improved performance compared with standard GPRS and the rst implementations of EDGE. The increased user bit-rates and reduced latency offered by EDGE enhance existing applications and make new services like music downloads, mobile broadband and messaging services more attractive.

3.1

Network performance of today

(as shown in Figure 4). Features like advanced link quality control and persistent scheduling have improved performance signicantly over standard GPRS and the rst implementations of EDGE. For example, the time it takes to download a web page is about one-quarter of that taken with standard GPRS. Network efciency also impacts end-user performance. Compared with basic implementations, the latest EDGE systems have greatly improved resource utilization, multiplexing capabilities for several users and other capabilities that maximize network efciency.
60 50 40

The performance of EDGE, as experienced by the end-user, is dependent on a variety of system characteristics. For example, a web download consists of multiple requests and downloads of objects and, consequently, the time it takes to download a page depends on the end-to-end round-trip time and user bit-rates in the system which are the main performance indicators for any packet data system. Performance is normally evaluated across a common set of subscriber applications. Todays state-of-the-art EDGE networks typically offer user speeds of 200kbps, with end-to-end round-trip time (latency) of 150ms
700 600 200 500 400 300 200 50 100 0 0 150 250

30 100 20 10 0

System round trip time (ms)

User bit rate (kbps)

Web download time (sec)

GPRS

EDGE first release

EDGE state-of-the-art

Figure 4: Typical live network performance indicators and application performance

The evolution of EDGE EDGE performance today and tomorrow 7

3.2

Enhanced application performance over EDGE

The perceived end-user performance enabled by EDGE is good enough to make any service available today more attractive (Table 1). This includes e-mail, web browsing, music downloads and mobile TV.

EDGE enhances services provided by GSM systems with higher user bit rates and multimedia capabilities. EDGE is also an evolutionary path towards providing thirdgeneration services.
Application Web browsing Messaging E-mail Push-to-Talk Gaming Mobile TV Music download Mobile broadband Benet with EDGE

Signicantly faster browsing for all data users Much faster interaction good for chat environment Synchronization of mail accounts signicantly faster Improved end-user quality and higher capacity Real-time gaming is enabled Good TV quality is enabled Good experience with EDGE and progressive download Possibility to deploy mobile broadband services in the GSM network

Table 1: Services enhanced over GSM/EDGE

3.3

EDGE Evolution performance boost

perceived performance across all services by: Reducing latency to improve the user experience of interactive services and also to enhance support for conversational services such as multimedia telephony. Increasing peak and mean bit rates, to improve best-effort services such as web browsing or music downloads. Improving spectrum efciency, which will particularly benet operators in urban areas where existing frequency spectrum is used to its maximum extent trafc volume can be increased without compromising service performance or degrading perceived user quality. Boosting service coverage, for example by reducing interference or allowing more robust services. Increased terminal sensitivity improves coverage in the noiselimited scenario.

To improve service performance in general, and facilitate conversational multimedia services, a number of enhancements to EDGE have been standardized by the 3GPP. Known collectively as EDGE Evolution, these were included in Release 7 of the 3GPP standard. Peak bit rates of up to 1Mbps and typical bit rates of 400kbps can be expected. Round-trip times will be less than 80ms and spectrum efciency will be more than twice as good as today. EDGE Evolution can be gradually introduced as software upgrades, taking advantage of the installed base. With EDGE Evolution, end users will be able to experience mobile internet connections corresponding to a 500kbps ADSL service. EDGE Evolution will improve service performance and enable more efcient radio bearers. Different services may have varying performance requirements in different areas, but EDGE Evolution is expected to improve the

8 The evolution of EDGE EDGE performance today and tomorrow

3.4

Implementing EDGE Evolution

modications, but are replaced at a much higher rate. A large number of handset vendors are foreseen to adhere to EDGE Evolution, and handsets with increasing levels of EDGE Evolution functionality are expected to be available from 2010. Figures 5 and 6 show examples of the increased peak bit rates and spectrum efciency provided by GPRS, EDGE and different stages of EDGE Evolution implementation.

The installed base of GSM/EDGE equipment is very large, so great care has been taken to ensure that the impact of EDGE Evolution on base station hardware is minimized. The different enhancements may be gradually and to some extent independently introduced in the network, most of them as software upgrades. Current network architecture remains unchanged. Handsets will require more extensive
1000 900 800 Peak bit-rates (kbps) 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 GPRS, 4TS, CS2 EDGE, 5TS EDGE Evolution, 10TS, dual carrier EDGE Evolution, 10TS, dual carrier, 32QAM

Figure 5: Peak bit rates in downlink for GPRS, EDGE and different stages of EDGE Evolution 7 6 Relative spectrum efficiency 5 4 3 2 1 0 GPRS EDGE EDGE Evolution, dual antenna terminals EDGE Evolution, dual antenna terminals, 32QAM, turbo codes

Figure 6: Relative spectrum efciency for GPRS, EDGE and different stages of EDGE Evolution

The evolution of EDGE EDGE performance today and tomorrow 9

Performance in a live network has been measured in order to ensure that EDGE Evolution provides benets in real situations. Quality measurements have been collected in a number of typical cells in operators networks and the results show that EDGE Evolution will

signicantly improve bit rates in the whole cell. Figure 7 shows the cumulative distribution of the time slot bit rate in an urban cell with medium quality. EDGE Evolution increases the average bit rate by 86 percent (from 42 to 78kbps) compared with EDGE.

Predicted radio link bit rate: cumulative distribution

100%

75%

EDGE

50% EGDE Evolution 25%

0% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Radio link bit rate (kbps/TS) 70 80 90 100

Figure 7: Bit rate distribution per time slot in a rural cell for EDGE and EDGE Evolution

10 The evolution of EDGE EDGE performance today and tomorrow

4 The evolution of EDGE technology

EDGE and EDGE Evolution are designed with both backwards compatibility and efciency in mind. Both steps of the technology substantially improve performance and efciency in the GSM network while protecting the architecture and keeping as much existing equipment as possible in use. These benets make upgrades more cost efcient for operators with existing GSM infrastructure.

4.1

Introducing EDGE
different channel quality, as a result of differences in the distance to the serving base station, fading and interference. Radio network planning ensures that only a fraction of users ever experience poor channel quality, but also means that many users have excessive channel quality. EDGE improves the situation by employing a new modulation method and link quality control. 8-PSK is a high-level linear modulation method that carries three times more information through an extended signal constellation. GMSK modulation, as dened in GSM/GPRS, is also part of EDGE.
GMSC MSC/ VLR BSC HLR GPRS register SGSN PSTN

EDGE is an improvement to the GPRS air interface that enables higher user bit rates and greater system capacity by enhancing the physical layer. The higher bit rates place extra demands on parts of the GPRS network (as shown in Figure 8). The core GPRS nodes, SGSN and GGSN, are more or less independent of user bit rates and no new hardware is required. In the radio network, base station transceivers need to be EDGE-capable, and base station and BSC/PCU software needs to be updated. One fundamental characteristic of cellular systems is that different users experience

Backbone IP network

GGSN

External IP network

Affected by EDGE introduction

Figure 8: GSM/GPRS network architecture

The evolution of EDGE The evolution of EDGE technology 11

Nine modulation and coding schemes are dened in EDGE. Link quality control dynamically selects the modulation and coding scheme for transmission of data over the air interface. The protection of the data is adapted to the channel quality to ensure optimal bit rate. A standard GPRS bit rate saturates at relatively low channel quality, whereas EDGE user bit rates increase with better channel quality. Link
GPRS, LA 60 Throughput (kbps) 50 40 30 20 10 0 5 10 15 C/I (dB) 20

quality control in EDGE uses both link adaptation and incremental redundancy where the initial coding is selected based on measurement of radio quality and additional redundancy is sent if decoding fails. As illustrated in Figure 9, incremental redundancy gives a higher bit rate and higher robustness compared to link adaptation.

EDGE, LA

EDGE, IR

25

30

Figure 9: Bit rate per time slot as a function of radio quality for GPRS, EDGE Link Adaptation and EDGE Incremental Redundancy

4.2

EDGE Evolution enhancements

4.2.1 Latency reduction

EDGE Evolution makes substantial improvements in latency and perceived delay through reduced Transmission Time Interval (TTI) and additional protocol enhancements. Radio blocks are currently transmitted over four consecutive bursts on one time slot using a TTI of 20ms. Reducing the TTI to 10ms improves latency substantially, to below 80ms. The four bursts are then transmitted on more than one time slot (parallel time slots on two carriers or dual time slots on one carrier).

10ms BSC BTS

10 m s

10

Core network and internet

10ms

Figure 10: Lower latency with reduced TTI

12 The evolution of EDGE The evolution of EDGE technology

4.2.2 Increased bit rates and improved efciency

Dual carriers The most obvious improvement to peak bit rates is through the introduction of dual carriers in the downlink, increasing the carrier bandwidth available above 200kHz. EDGE terminals already use multiple time slots for transmission and reception. Todays terminals receive on up to ve time slots. The introduction of dual carriers doubles the available bandwidth (to 400kHz) as well as the practical peak bit rate. Using dual carriers and ve timeslots on each carrier provides bitrates of almost 600kbps, with no other changes to EDGE.

Higher-order modulation, turbo codes and increased symbol rate Higher average and peak bit-rates and improved spectrum efciency are achieved through more advanced modulation, more efcient channel coding and an increased symbol rate (in practice, increasing the carrier bandwidth). Using 16QAM instead of 8-PSK modulation for some of the current modulation and coding schemes (MCS) improves robustness against interference and, as a result, increases the average bit rates. In this case, the higher number of bits per symbol, is used to increase the channel coding. Using turbo codes, which handle error correction more efciently than current convolutional codes, improves average bit rates even further. With 12 MCSs three more than with regular EDGE enabled by higher-order modulations (16QAM and 32QAM in addition to GMSK and 8-PSK), the peak bit rate is boosted to 98.4kbps per time slot, equating to user bitrates of almost 1Mbps if dual carriers are used. The higher symbol rate enables higher bit rates in the uplink, since dual carriers are only standardized for the downlink.

Dual-antenna terminals Dual-antenna terminals enable efcient interference rejection techniques, similar to those used in base station receivers. By combining signals from the two antennas, a large proportion of the interference can be cancelled out, signicantly improving average bit rates and spectrum efciency.
Mbps 1.0
Dual-carrier downlink 2 x TS

Figure 11 shows an example of different bit rates in a cell, as different features are introduced. It shows how higher-order modulation and dual carriers improve peak bit rates, while higher-order modulation, turbo codes and interference cancellation with dual antennas increase bit rates at the cell border.

0.8

Dual-antenna terminals

3 8dB

0.6 0.5Mbps 0.4 EDGE Evolution 0.2 EDGE

Higher-order modulation and turbo codes

1 5dB

EDGE today

14dB

14dB

Figure 11: Examples of bit rate improvements in different parts of a cell

The evolution of EDGE The evolution of EDGE technology 13

4.2.3 Service coverage

Dual antenna terminals can also improve service coverage. With two antennas and efcient combination methods, weaker signal transmissions can be captured. Around 3dB less (roughly 50 percent) signal power is needed to provide service, enabling larger cells or lower output power.

14 The evolution of EDGE The evolution of EDGE technology

5 Conclusion
EDGE is delivering high bit rates and spectrum efciency for GSM operators around the world, and is a standard capability for GSM and WCDMA phones. In effect, EDGE enables 3G applications such as mobile broadband over current GSM networks, and provides seamless services with 3G. Today, EDGE enables user bit rates up to 250kbps and a latency of 150ms. This means it can handle four times as much trafc as standard GPRS, increasing the usability of mobile data services, enhancing customer satisfaction and boosting data revenues. EDGE Evolution, standardized in 3GPP, improves performance and coverage even further, with bit rates of up to 1Mbps and latency of less than 80ms. For GSM operators around the world, this makes the business case for EDGE even stronger than it is today regardless of whether they have access to 3G spectrum.

The evolution of EDGE Conclusion 15

6 Glossary
3G 3GPP 8-PSK 16QAM 32QAM BSC CDMA EDGE GGSN GMSC GMSK GPRS GSM HLR HSPA LTE MCS MSC PCU PSTN SGSN TD-SCDMA TTI VLR VoIP third generation radio technology for mobile networks. Narrowband digital radio is the second generation of technology (2G). Third Generation Partnership Project Octonary-Phase-Shift Keying 16-point quadrature amplitude modulation 32-point quadrature amplitude modulation base station controller code division multiple access Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution Gateway GPRS Support Node Gateway Mobile Switching Center Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying General Packet Radio Service Global System for Mobile communications Home Location Register High Speed Packet Access Long Term Evolution modulation and coding scheme mobile switching center packet control unit public switched telephone network serving GPRS support node Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access transmission time interval visitor location register Voice over Internet Protocol technology enables users to transmit voice calls via the internet using packet-linked routes. VoIP is also called IP telephony. WCDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access

16 The evolution of EDGE Glossary