Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

Thinking in a New Dimension

– Adding Vertical Sectors and
Capacity in the UMTS Network

David Barker, Global CTO, Quintel

and Keith Radousky, Americas CTO, Quintel

WHITE PAPER
Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 1
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 3
The Capacity Challenge 4
Think in Another Dimension 5
SVP Benefits 7
SVP Economics 9
SVP Implementation 9
Quintel’s SVP Solution 10
About Quintel 11
Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

Executive Summary

Global mobile data traffic is expected to double every year through 2013, a 66-
fold increase between 2008 and 2013. To keep up with the explosive growth,
wireless network operators are continuing to implement standard solutions
such as more sites, more spectrum and more sectors. The standard solutions
are not always possible because of zoning restrictions, tower loading and
spectrum limitations. While the challenges can be daunting, leveraging
Quintel’s antenna solutions to deploy Sectorization in the Vertical Plane (SVP)
is a proven and fast alternative, and provides significant benefits:
• Greater spectrum efficiencies giving increased capacity by up to 40%
• Significantly decreased/eliminated call blocking
• Increased data rates
• No additional antenna positions needed with Quintel’s SVP solution
• No additional spectrum required
• Lower capital and operating costs
• Efficient use of capital resources
• Increased revenue and reduced churn

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 3

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

There is an innovative and cost-effective approach to solve

capacity problems in UMTS wireless networks by adding sectors
in the vertical plane, or Sectorization in the Vertical Plane (SVP).
In dense urban areas, SVP also improves coverage and capacity
into tall buildings, while minimizing interference. The ability to
increase carriers’ capacity, quality and coverage leads to improved
customer satisfaction and lower churn.

The Capacity Challenge

Operators are aggressively migrating to new network air interfaces, such as UMTS, EVDO
and soon LTE, to provide users with higher speed data, and higher quality of service.
Increased network traffic and explosive growth in higher profit margin data usage are driving
the investment. However, bandwidth availability,
cumbersome regulatory processes, deployment delays, “Operators have spent billions on
and the cost of adding new antennas (many towers 3G, and are reaping the benefits of
are already loaded) are proving to be bottlenecks increased data revenue. Operators are
in the rollout process. For example, in some dense so worried about not having the fastest
urban areas, it has become physically impossible to wireless network, that they will spend
add more antennas. Consequently, operators have billions more on LTE and WiMAX.”
concluded that they need to look at more innovative
ways to quickly and cost-effectively add multiple - Alan Nogee, In-Stat
services using existing antenna real estate.

Sectorization in the Vertical Plane (SVP) implementation only involves swapping existing
antennas for Quintel. SVP does not require any additional spectrum, azimuthal or horizontal
antenna sector positions, or tower sites to add capacity in UMTS networks. With SVP, an
operator can effectively squeeze more out of precious existing spectrum and leverage more
out of existing sites by simply increasing the number of quality bits carried per hertz of
spectrum per unit area. SVP can also be used to increase coverage into tall buildings where
one vertical sector is directed upward toward the tall building(s), ensuring users in the
building are in cell dominance, and another vertical sector is conventionally directed toward
the street level.

By deploying SVP in congesting networks -- capacity is increased, network quality is

improved, and coverage is enhanced -- and using Quintel solutions for SVP, this can then be
deployed without adding additional antenna positions or other costly infrastructure.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 4

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

Think in Another Dimension

SVP creates a cell-sector split in the vertical plane, producing an “overlayed” sector and an
“underlayed” or smaller sector topology in the congested UMTS original sector. SVP can also
be viewed as being similar to traditional overlayed/underlayed sectors, concentric cells, or
frequency re-use partitioning techniques as used in GSM. Cell site selection criteria for SVP
needs to consider the following:
• The efficiency of SVP increases
when there is a significant
proportion of traffic near
the base station that can be
absorbed by the newly created
underlayed sector. UMTS Underlay Cells
• The cell site must be tall enough
(above average terrain and
clutter height) to produce a
“clean” non-scattered radio UMTS Overlay Cells

propagation cell- split in the

elevation plane.

SVP benefits from using independent antenna tilt for the two vertical beams. Intercell site
interference into the overall network is reduced by enabling spatial filtering in the vertical
dimension where a significant proportion of the radiated power to and from adjacent cell
sites is reduced or removed. This also provides for additional capacity at neighboring cell
sites through the WCDMA soft capacity mechanism (the cell breathing effect which transfers
served traffic between cell sites).

SVP creates the underlayed sector by simply adding an RF transceiver (an additional radio),
and hence similar to when adding extra spectrum, e.g., F2 or F3 channels for capacity. But,
SVP for UMTS can use the same carrier frequency, although with a different scrambling code
as the existing or original UMTS cell.

RF isolation and coverage separation between the overlayed and underlayed sectors is
achieved by separately and independently tilting the sectors in the vertical plane.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 5

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

The overlayed sector is designed to have similar RF coverage as the current sector. The
underlayed sector is designed with more downtilt in order to serve traffic near the base
station, and thus off-loading traffic from the overlayed sector to create traffic headroom.

RF parameters are also optimized to shift traffic from the overlayed sector to the underlayed
sector. The more traffic is shifted, the higher the capacity gain. This solution addresses both
power and OVSF code exhaustion conditions (i.e., soft and hard capacity limiting cases).
Capacity gains of up to 40% are possible in qualified cell sites.

When splitting in the elevation plane, there naturally will be intercell interference and
softer handover overhead between overlay and underlay cells. Softer handover overhead
consumes OVSF channelization codes. It is important to note, however, that the total OVSF
channelization codes have been doubled within the original sector footprint. Although softer
handover overhead increases as a percentage for each of the split cells when compared
to the softer handover overhead percentage for the original sector, we still have created
significantly more OVSF codes to serve traffic, although this won’t be exactly double.

Intercell interference (Ec/Io quality for downlink and noise rise for uplink) will be re-distributed
when compared to the original sector. As there will be a reduced number of users served per
split cell, this will reduce the underlying uplink noise rise per cell. Users close to the cell will
be in dominance of the underlay and will receive an improved Ec/Io; users at the cell edges
will not “see” a downlink interference component associated with traffic transmission power
to users served on the underlay cell. However, if a particularly significant traffic load is or can
be generated within the softer handover boundary between overlay and underlay, then Ec/Io
quality could be reduce in this region.

However, from a network optimization point of view, it is generally more desirable that users
at the cell edges (who also see interference components from surrounding cell sites) have an
adequate Ec/Io. Therefore, SVP can be viewed as re-distributing Ec/Io with the aim that cell
edge quality can be improved, thereby making HSDPA throughput more “equitable” across
the original sector footprint.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 6

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

Cell splitting can be best optimized using variation and tuning of cell parameters such as:
• Cell CPICH power for both overlay and underlay sectors.
• Cell level softer handover offset variables or cell-preference variables to artificially
increase or change traffic served on the underlay. RAN variables normally exist for
both idle and connected modes.
• Sector mechanical tilt.
• Independent electrical tilt for overlay and underlay sectors.
• The use of ACP tool or process, which can consider all interactions of variations
of antenna patterns, CPICH powers, traffic, softer handover overhead and intercell
interference across a cluster of cell sites, can also be used as part of a cell site
selection or network design.

In addition, SVP gains can be further optimized by taking advantage of any natural terrain
undulations, or more specifically, the traffic distribution over terrain height and clutter
variations, and variations in adjacent cell site antenna heights. For example, traffic close into
the cell site which is also below-average terrain height should reveal additional gains for SVP
(i.e., deployments where “null-fill” antennas would be normally deployed), and in the SVP
case, could be considered as an enhanced, optimized or active “null-fill” application.

By deploying SVP to congesting sectors, not only is capacity increased, but the network
quality is improved due to less overall intercell site interference, particularly at cell edges and
close into the site. Furthermore, SVP can be deployed in dense urban applications to ensure
that upper floors of surrounding tall buildings are in cell dominance using one vertical sector,
while at the same time ensuring existing street level and lower floor coverage is maintained.
By deploying SVP, subscribers experience less blocking, fewer dropped calls, and higher data
rates, thereby lowering churn.

SVP Benefits
1. SVP preserves overall cell and sector tessellation geometry of the network which
other capacity enhancing techniques compromise such as adding sectors in horizontal
plane (azimuthal cell splitting) or adding interstitial sites (classic cell splits). SVP
permits much simpler neighbor list planning and neighbor re-optimization than with
other techniques. With proper optimization of the SVP via CPICH and electrical tilt
variations, no change in existing network “coverage” and original cell site boundaries
can be readily achieved.
2. Unlike adding sectors in the horizontal plane, Quintel’s SVP solution requires no
additional antennas, no increase in antenna width (required to create narrower, e.g.,
33o azimuthal beamwidths), or additional horizontal plane antenna sector positions.
3. Quintel’s SVP is optimal for restricted or antenna limited sites with respect to wind
loading, rentals, lease, rent or zoning costs and delays.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 7

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

4. Since traffic demand across the UMTS network can be “lumpy,” SVP is ideal for
“problem sites” which carry higher traffic than surrounding cell sites. SVP can solve
capacity issues on a per sector (surgical) basis without disruption to neighbor sectors
at the cell site or even for the entire cell site, creating up to six sectors (3 underlay and
3 overlay sectors). SVP in high traffic sectors creates a more equally loaded cluster
of cells (load-balancing) which is a key UMTS network optimization technique. This
load balancing is additionally enhanced due to the WCDMA soft capacity mechanism.
Thus, SVP provides for better overall utilization of UMTS spectrum at a sector level,
cell level, and over a cluster of cell sites.
5. SVP requires no additional spectrum and better utilizes existing spectrum within the
same area.
6. SVP can be deployed in approximately two weeks (including design, installation
and optimization) versus an additional RF carrier which takes much longer (several
months) due to spectrum clearing in spectrum-liberalized markets where GSM
spectrum needs to be re-farmed to make room for more UMTS spectrum (e.g., U.S.
markets, and UMTS900 markets in Europe). With Quintel’s SVP, the limiting factor is
not the antenna.
7. Quintel’s SVP is compatible with maintaining or re-enabling space diversity
configurations (where there are two antenna positions per sector) on antenna-limited
sites.
8. GSM/GPRS/EDGE network performance will not suffer by deploying SVP, in spectrum-
liberalized markets. Re-farming to free up another 5MHz too early for an additional
UMTS carrier will likely cause significant degradation of the GSM/GPRS/EDGE
network which will increase churn.
9. SVP grows with the network. When the initial SVP configuration (F1 overlay/F1
underlay) exhausts, UMTS F2 can be deployed. The SVP configuration can then
be leveraged to tilt the UMTS F2 independent of UMTS F1 to achieve better load
balancing. This ability has been deemed desirable to better optimize the F1/F2
configuration.
10. The SVP underlay/overlay antenna system can also be applied to enhance GSM
spectral efficiency by creating a GSM cell-sector split, thus ensuring GSM capacity
and QoS are optimized. This may be useful in GSM only spectrum-limited markets
(e.g., India), or alternatively in spectrum-liberalized markets when UMTS F2 is
eventually re-farmed, thus the remaining GSM channels can then use the SVP
configuration to ensure GSM spectral efficiency is maximized..
11. SVP can be deployed in dense urban areas to improve cell dominance coverage into
surrounding tall buildings.
12. When an additional F2 UMTS carrier is ultimately required, all SVP radio equipment
and antennas can be leveraged, thus decreasing the time-to-market for the additional
UMTS carrier. When sectors with F1 & F2 begin to experience capacity blocking again
in the future, SVP can be applied again to create F1+F2 overlay/F1+F2 underlay, thus
delaying the need to re-farm for an F3 UMTS channel (if at all possible), and so on.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 8

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

SVP Economics
SVP cost-effectively increases UMTS capacity and quality in congested cell sites or individual
sectors, thus deferring spectrum clearing engineering effort and cost in spectrum liberalized
markets where, for example, GSM and UMTS share the same band. The longer additional
UMTS carrier deployment is deferred, the more capital and operating expenses are reduced.
SVP is a no-risk, high-reward endeavor that enables operators to lower cost, increase
revenue, and improve network quality. Valuable UMTS spectrum is used more efficiently at all
levels: per sector, per cell site, per cluster, over the network.

Deploying SVP has the same UMTS Node B equipment requirements as if adding another
UMTS carrier or adding another sector through a conventional azimuthal sector cell-split. The
advantage with SVP is that spectrum does not have to be cleared, and with a Quintel SVP
solution, no more additional antenna positions have to be used. This will help maintain GSM/
GPRS/EDGE quality and capacity, thus helping to control churn. Also, as time goes by, more
GSM usage will offload to UMTS, thus easing spectrum clearing pain when it must be done.
Accordingly, deploying SVP has no write-off of equipment.

SVP Implementation
SVP can be implemented quickly and easily by either:
• Adding an extra conventional antenna in the blocking sector having a different tilt
angle to the existing sector antenna
• Alternatively, Quintel antennas with dual tilt capability per array are the only practical
solution when the number of antenna positions is limited. In particular, if spatial
diversity is required and/or needed to maintain the critical capability of separating tilts
on GSM and UMTS (to maximize the flexibility to optimize each service) in spectrum-
liberalized markets, then Quintel solutions are unique.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 9

Thinking in a New Dimension — Adding Vertical Sectors and Capacity in the UMTS Network

The figure below depicts one example of using a Quintel triple-array antenna to deliver
existing GSM900 or 800 band service plus SVP for UMTS2100 and SVP for GSM1800,
supporting the “on-air” combining of up to 8xTRX for GSM1800.

Because Quintel’s SVP requires no additional antenna positions, operators can implement
new services quickly.

Quintel’s SVP Solution

Operators should include SVP to their rollout tool-
kits as an option for adding sectors to increase UMTS Quintel solutions enable
capacity, increase quality and improve coverage in tall
buildings, either with additional existing conventional
global wireless operators to
antennas or with the Quintel Independent dual-Tilt increase QoS, rapidly deploy
Antenna System in antenna limited cases.
new services, and realize
Quintel excels in overcoming the challenges of
spectrum band liberalization, spectrum re-farming, and cost savings of up to 40%.
increasingly constrained (physical, legal/regulatory, or
economic) sites.

Quintel White Paper | July 2009 Page 10

About Quintel
Quintel is a leading innovator in the design, development, and delivery of network-efficient
antenna independent tilt solutions for wireless operators worldwide. Our products and
services overcome prior limitations of network deployment to maximize your investment in
wireless infrastructure.

In 2007, Quintel was spun-out by QinetiQ, a world-class research and development

organization with hundreds of technical innovations. As a privately held company, Quintel
and its investors share an unwavering commitment to commercialization of pioneering
innovation. Quintel has enabled the development of next-generation wireless antenna
solutions for an ever-expanding global wireless market. Quintel holds over 140 combined
patents in 20 countries, and serves many leading global wireless operators across the
Americas, Europe, and Asia. Quintel operates headquarters offices in Mountain View,
California and Bicester, United Kingdom, with additional points of presence in the Americas,
Europe, and Asia.

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