Wireless Mobile Networks: 4G and 5G

Beneyam Berehanu Haile

January 2023
Contents
❖LTE
❖LTE-Advanced
❖LTE-A Pro
❖5G
Motivation for LTE
❖ Some market driving forces behind LTE development:
➢ Wireline capability evolution: aim was to keep the capacity gap between
➢ Wireline and wireless broadband constant.
➢ Need for additional wireless capacity and lower cost wireless data delivery.
✓ Data delivery cost cannot increase in direct proportion with data rates.
➢ Competition of other wireless technologies (like Mobile WiMAX).

3
Early performance targets for LTE
❖ Initial efficiency requirement was that LTE would provide
➢ In downlink 2-4 times higher spectral efficiency than HSPA
➢ In uplink 2-3 times higher spectral efficiency than HSPA
➢ HSPA Release 6 was the reference for performance comparisons
❖ Initial peak rate requirements were:
– Downlink 100Mbit/s, uplink 50Mbit/s.

CN

❖ One way radio latency below

10 ms RTT 5ms
(minimum) – Enables round 10ms Round Trip
Time (RTT)
UE

4
Other early requirements for LTE
❖ Improved terminal power efficiency
❖ Flexible frequency allocation
– Frequency bands between 1.4MHz and 20MHz.

R8/9 UE

…
1.4MHz 20MHz

❖ Packet switched only

❖ Support for high mobility
– Speeds up to 500km/h was discussed (yet, support for e.g. high speed trains is
weak)
– LTE was optimized for low mobile speeds (speeds less than 15 km/h)
❖ Efficiently interworking with non-3GPP accesses
❖ Compatible with legacy 3GPP networks

5
LTE standardization
➢ The work towards LTE started in 2004 with the definition of the
targets.
➢ Since it usually takes more than 5 years from setting the system
targets to commercial deployment, the system standardization must
be started early enough.
➢ Even though HSDPA was not yet deployed at that time, it was
evident that work for the next radio system should be started.

6
LTE & its evolution releases

❖ Standards delivered in rolling versions or ”Releases”

❖ After "freezing", a Release no further functions can be added

7
Realized LTE peak rates

The 10 ms RTT target was also achieved on the constraint that

system load is low

8
First commercial LTE
On December 14, 2009,
TeliaSonera provided the first
public LTE data service in
Stockholm and Oslo with a USB
modem

9
LTE/LTE-Advanced market share

10
LTE system architecture
❖ Architecture is divided into four main domains: ➢S1-U: User Plane interface
between eNB and S-GW
➢ User Equipment (UE),
➢S1-MME: Control Plane
➢ Evolved UTRAN (E-UTRAN), interface between eNB and MME
➢ Evolved Packet Core Network (EPC), ➢X2: Interface between eNBs
➢ Services domain. ➢Uu: Radio Interface between UEs
and eNB

SAE GW

UE E-UTRAN EPC Services

Uu S1-U
S-GW P-GW

operator IMS
External networks,
eNode B

X2 S11 PCRF

eNode B
MME HSS
S1-MME

11
Main architectural changes
❖ Three domains: UE, E-UTRAN and EPC form the so-called Internet
Protocol (IP) Connectivity Layer. This part of the system is also called as
Evolved Packet System (EPS).
– The main function of EPS is to provide IP based connectivity
– All services will be offered on top of IP
❖ Maybe the biggest architectural change is that EPC does not contain a
circuit switched domain.
❖ Main functionalities of the EPC are equivalent to the packet switched
domain of the existing 3GPP networks.

12
Main architectural changes
❖ All radio protocols, (part of) mobility HSPA LTE
management, header compression and Release 6 Release 8
packet retransmissions are located in the
base stations called eNode B.
❖ eNode B includes almost all algorithms GGSN SAE GW
that are located in Radio Network
Controller (RNC) in WCDMA/HSPA SGSN MME
(Release 6) architecture.
❖ The core network is streamlined by
separating the user and the control
planes.
– The Mobility Management Entity
(MME) is a control plane element RNC
– User plane bypasses MME directly to
System Architecture Evolution (SAE)
Gateway (GW). Node B eNode B
Radio Access Network

Control plane
User plane
13
OFDM: Multicarrier system with
narrow tightly packed subcarriers
Conventional multicarrier approach

OFDM

• OFDM subcarriers have a frequency response resulting in overlap in the

frequency domain. This overlap does however not cause interference due to
the orthogonality of the subcarriers.
OFDM parameters for LTE
• In LTE the following OFDM parameter
selections has been done:
– The subcarrier spacing:
• Δf =15kHz
– The cyclic prefix length:
• Normal CP = 5.2µs or 4.7µs (see next slide)
• Extended CP = 16.7µs
– The number of subcarriers:
• Nc depends on the used bandwidth, between 72 and 1200
• The size of FFT is power of two and depends on the used
bandwidth, between 128 and 2048
LTE bandwidth options
Bandwidth 1.4MHz 3 MHz 5MHz 10MHz 15MHz 20MHz
Subcarriers 72 180 300 600 900 1200
FFT (DFT) size 128 256 512 1024 1536 2048
Sampling rate [MHz] 1.92 3.84 7.68 15.36 23.04 30.72
Samples per slot 960 1920 3840 7680 11520 15360

Narrowband options to be Compatible with High data rate

used for refarming of e.g. WCDMA/HSPA options
GSM bands

• LTE provides very good frequency flexibility => effective

refarming of frequency bands is easier.
LTE time frame structure
• LTE frame:
– Contains 10 subframes of 1ms
– Each subframe contains 2 time slots (0.5ms)
– Time slot contains 6-7 OFDM symbols
– Frame length is 10ms
LTE time-frequency structure 3/4
LTE time-frequency structure 4/4
Bandwidth 1.4MHz 3 MHz 5MHz 10MHz 15MHz 20MHz
Subcarriers 72 180 300 600 900 1200
FFT (DFT) size 128 256 512 1024 1536 2048
Sampling rate [MHz] 1.92 3.84 7.68 15.36 23.04 30.72
Samples per slot 960 1920 3840 7680 11520 15360
Resource Blocks 6 15 25 50 75 100

Narrowband options to be Compatible with High data rate

used for refarming of e.g. WCDMA/HSPA options
GSM bands

In performance studies it is usually assumed that 2

RBs are used for control purposes
19
LTE Modulation (DL and UL)
• Available modulations for user data transmission are QPSK (2bits/symbol),
16QAM (4bits/symbol) and 64QAM (6bits/symbol)
• In uplink 64QAM is not mandatory capability for UE.
• When using 16QAM or 64QAM the UE applies lower TX power than in case
of using QPSK due to increased peak-to-average power ratio
• BPSK is used on some control channels
Background
• The uplink is bottleneck in 3G WCDMA/HSPA since
users are not orthogonal - they operate on the whole
bandwidth. This leads to the following major problems
– Intra-cell interference; both own cell users and other cell users
are seen as interference => interference level is almost always
high and high user rates occurs very seldom.
– Near-far effect; avoidance of near far effect demands for
accurate and fast power control, and (complex) soft handover.
• On the other hand, OFDMA leads to high Peak-to-
Average-Power Ratio (PAPR)
– OFDMA would imply heavy requirements for handset power
amplifier
SC-FDMA for LTE uplink
• In SC-FDMA uplink transmission only one modulated symbol is
being transmitted at a time similarly to TDMA systems such as
GSM.
• A DFT precoding and IFFT are used to create frequency domain
subcarriers. Then, the need for guard bands between different
users can be avoided, similar to the LTE downlink OFDMA.
• Resource blocks in uplink as in DL:
– 6-7 symbols and cyclic prefix (= time slot duration).
– 15kHz subcarriers
– 12 subcarriers form resource blocks
– Resource block width in frequency is 180kHz
SC-FDMA for LTE uplink
• Notes:
– Cyclic prefix is added after a block of 6-7 symbols, not after each
symbol like in LTE downlink.
– The number of symbols in a resource block depends on the CP
length; if long CP is used, then number of symbols is 6.
• Frame structure:
– 10ms Frame that consists of 10 subframes (1ms) and 20 slots
(0.5ms).
• The receiver still needs to deal with inter-symbol
interference but the cyclic prefix prevents inter-symbol
interference between blocks of symbols.
Summary of uplink physical layer
parameter

24
 RRM algorithms
General view of the eNodeB user plane and control plane protocol architecture
The mapping of the RRM functionalities to the different protocol layers.
Layer 3

QoS Admissio Persistent

PDCP RRC management n control scheduling
Layer 2

RLC RLC HARQ Dynamic Link

manager Scheduling Adaptation
MAC MAC
Layer 1

PHY PHY PDCCH CQI Power

adaptation manager control
LTE-Advanced component
technologies
LTE-A technology extensions over baseline LTE
1. Carrier aggregation; Rel.10/11
2. Advanced relaying; Rel.10
3. Coordinated multipoint transmission (CoMP);
Rel.11
4. Extended multiantenna (MIMO) solutions,
Rel.10/11

26
 LTE-Advanced Carrier Aggregation
❖ The target peak data rate of 1 Gbps in downlink and 500 Mbps in uplink
can be achieved with bandwidth extension from 20 MHz up to 100 MHz.
❖ In LTE-Advanced this extension is achieved through carrier aggregation
❖ By combining N Release 8 Component Carriers (CC), together to form N
x LTE bandwidth, up to 5 x 20 MHz = 100 MHz operation bandwith could
be obtained
❖ Yet, LTE Rel.11 still provides support only for 2 carrier transmission (up
to 40MHz band)

Component LTE-Advanced aimed maximum configuration

carrier (CC)
R8 R8 R8 R8 R8
20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz 20 MHz
Frequency
RF band

27
HetNet

28
 CoMP scenarios (Rel.11)
Scenario 1: Homogeneous network
Scenario 3/4: Network with low power
with intra-site CoMP
RRHs within the macrocell coverage

eNB
eNB
Coordination area
Low Tx power
RRH
(Omni-antenna)
Optical fiber
High Tx
power RRH

Optical fiber

Scenario 2: Homogeneous network

with high Tx power RRHs
Assume high Tx power RRH
as same as eNB

29
Extended MIMO
❖In LTE-Advanced MIMO schemes are
extended/enhanced from Rel.8 LTE:
– Downlink MIMO operation is extended to support 8 TX
antennas, (instead of 4TX supported by Release 8 LTE).
– Uplink 4 stream MIMO is being introduced to increase user
throughput

Up to 8 DL streams
Up to 4 UL streams

30
LTE-Advanced Release 12 requirements &
enhancements
❖Increase capacity
❖Enhance coverage
❖Improve coordination (between cells)
❖Reduce cost

31
LTE-Advanced pro enhancements
highlights
❖ Active Antenna Systems (AAS)
❖ Self-Optimizing Networks (SON) for Active Antenna System (AAS) Deployments
❖ Elevation Beamforming (EBF) and Full Dimension (FD) Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)
❖ Enhanced Signaling for Inter-eNBCoordinated Multi-Point (CoMP)
❖ Further LTE Physical Layer Enhancements for Machine Type Communication (MTC)
❖ Indoor Positioning Enhancements
❖ Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) Using LTE
❖ Carrier Aggregation (CA) Enhancements
❖ Downlink Multi-User Superposition Transmission (MUST)
❖ Radio Access Network (RAN) Aspects of RAN Sharing Enhancements
❖ Enhanced LTE Device-To-Device (D2D) Proximity Services (ProSe)
❖ Dual Connectivity Enhancements
❖ LTE-Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) Radio Level Integration
❖ Radio Access Network (RAN) Enhancements for Extended Discontinuous Reception (DRX) in
LTE

32
Group Assignment Part 3
1. Compare LTE/LTE-A/LTE-A Pro with HSPA/HSPA+
in terms of Multiple Access, Modulation, Coding and
Performance and other capabiliteis?
2. Identify a LTE/LTE-A/LTE-A Pro base station
product from a vendor and analyze its capability
from specification and data sheet?
3. Identify and analyze the LTE/LTE-A/LTE-A Pro base
station(s) available in the AAiT area assigned for
your group and evaluate the achieved data rate and
received power in the area. You can use ‘Network
Cell Info Lite’ or any other network tool from Play
Store.
Contents
❖LTE
❖LTE-Advanced
❖LTE-A Pro
❖5G
Key drivers to 5th generation
Massive growth in traffic volume

Global mobile data traffic grew 63 percent in 2016,

from 4.4EB/month at the end of 2015 to 7.2EB/month
at the end of 2016
35
Key drivers to 5 th generation
Massive growth in connected devices/things

36
5G service requirements
Wide range of requirements and characteristics

Source: Huawie

37
5G requirements

38
5G requirements

39
 5G Requirements
• 5G requirements are use case driven
• 5G main use cases
– Enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB)
– Ultra-reliable low latency
communications (URLLC)
– Massive machine type communications
(mMTC)
• Release 15 focused heavily on eMBB
enhancements
– Also focus of this lecture

Source: Ericsson

40
 5G Requirements
• Use case driven targets
– Peak rate: 20 Gbps (1 Gbps in LTE-A)
– Cell edge user experienced throughput (5th percentile): DL 100
Mbps, UL 50 Mbps
– Latency: Maximum 1 ms RTT delay for URLLC (10 ms in LTE Rel.8)
– Connection density: 1 million connected devices per km2
– Service availability: 99.999%

LTE Rel.8 LTE-A target 5G (IMT-2020)

Peak data rate DL 150/300 Mbps 1 Gbps 20 Gbps
UL 75 Mbps 500 Mbps 10 Gbps
Peak spectral DL 15 bps/Hz 30 bps/Hz 30 bps/Hz
efficiency UL 3.75 bps/Hz 15 bps/Hz 15 bps/Hz

41
5G key challenges
• X1000 data volume/ geographical area
• X10 lower energy consumption
• Very short service creation time cycle (i.e. in minutes)
• Very short latency
• Very dense deployments of wireless links
• Scalable & Cognitive management framework for fast
deployment
• OPEX reduction with more than 20% of today
• Multi domain virtualized networks and services
• Complete network convergence(fixed, backhaul, satellite)

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 5G Standardization
Release Rel.13 Rel.14 Rel.15 Rel.16 Rel.17

Freeze date 3/2016 3/2017 9/2018 (early 7/2020 TBC (Covid

drop) uncertainties)
4/2019 (late
drop)
Comment LTE-A Pro 5G NR

• Rel.13 and 14 = LTE-A Pro (“pre-5G”)

• Rel.15: Specs for 5G New Radio (NR) start to appear
– 5G NR Non-Standalone (NSA) operation→ “early drop” due to demand from
operators
– 5G NR Standalone (SA) operation
• Rel. 15 also includes work items continuing LTE enhancements (e.g.
1024 QAM)! (not covered in this course)
• Rel.16 continues enhancements to 5G NR → recently frozen but only
brief overview in this lecture
• Work on Rel. 17 started earlier this year, but progress impacted by
Covid-19 disruptions
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 5G NR Radio Frame Structure
Attributes LTE radio frame NR radio frame

Frame length 10 ms 10 ms

Subframe length 1 ms 1 ms

Slots per subframe Fixed number of slots in subframe:
2 slots each 0.5 ms
OFDM symbols per 7 symbols per slot (normal CP)
slot 6 symbols per slot (extended CP)
Slot number of varies with numerology:
If ∆f = 15 kHz, 1 slot of 1 ms
If ∆f = 30 kHz, 2 slots each 0.5 ms
If ∆f = 60 kHz, 4 slots each 0.25 ms
If ∆f = 120 kHz, 8 slots each 0.125 ms
If ∆f = 240 kHz, 16 slots each 0.0625 ms
Standard slot: 14 symbols per slot (normal CP),
12 symbols per slot (extended CP)

Mini slots: 7, 4 or 2 symbols per slot

OFDM symbol Fixed at 66.67 µs (= 1/15 kHz) Duration varies with numerology:
duration = 1/∆f
Cyclic Prefix (CP) 4.7 µs 5.2 µs (normal CP) Duration varies with numerology:
duration 16.7 µs (extended CP) = 4.7 µs / m whereby ∆f = 2m x 15 kHz

CP: Cyclic Prefix

∆f : Subcarrier spacing
44
Group Assignment Part 4
1.Analyze market status of 5G and its services
in the globe and Africa.
2.Select an innovative 5G service and make
argument that why 4G+ technologies are not
good enough for it.
Thank You!