and Performance
Anders Furuskar, Tomas Jonsson, and Magnus Lundevall
Ericsson Research, Sweden
Abstract-Mobile broadband usage is taking off, demanding
improved services and increased capacity of mobile networks. To
meet tbese requirements, 3GPP bas defined LTE (tbe 3GPP Long
Term Evolution). Tbis paper presents some key cbaracteristics of
tbe LTE radio interface, including pbysical layer and radio resource management functions, and evaluates tbeir impact on
system performance. As compared to a reference system witb
more basic cbaracteristics, represented by Mobile WiMAX, results point to a combined gain in spectrum efficiency of 60% in
downlink and 100% in uplink. Cell-edge bitrate gains are about
100% in botb downlink and uplink. A closer analysis of tbe individual system cbaracteristics indicates tbat tbese performance
differences are due to ratber uniform contributions from a set of
distinctive features.
Index Terms-L TE, Performance, WiMAX
I. INTRODUCTION
sage of mobile broadband services, supported by the introduction of High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), is taking off. To meet the future increased demand for such services, corresponding improvements in the supply of services are
required, including higher bit rates, lower delays, and higher
capacity. This is the target of 3GPP's two radio access networks HSPA and LTE [1], of which the latter is the focus of
this paper. LTE brings unprecedented performance. Examples
include peak data rates exceeding 300Mbps, delays below
10ms, and manifold spectrum efficiency gains over early 3G
system releases. Further, LTE can be deployed in new and
existing frequency bands, has a flat architecture with few
nodes, and facilitates simple operation and maintenance.
While targeting a smooth evolution from legacy 3GPP and
3GPP2 systems, LTE also constitutes a major step towards
IMT-Advanced systems. In fact, LTE includes many of the
features originally considered for future fourth generation system.
General LTE concept descriptions are available in [1]. In
this paper, the focus is on key characteristics of the LTE radio
interface. A set of such key characteristics are both qualitatively discussed and quantitatively evaluated in terms of
downlink and uplink user data rates and spectrum efficiency
generated by means of system level simulations. For reference, the LTE characteristics are compared to more conventional solutions. These are represented by corresponding functionalities in Mobile WiMAX with Partial Usage of SubChannels (PUSC) [2].
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TABLE I
LTE KEy CHARACTERISTICS
Function
LTE
Performance impact
Multiple access
OFDMinDL,
DFT-spread OFDM in UL
OFDM in DL and UL
Scheduling
(Scheduling)
MIMO scheme
(MIMO)
Hybrid ARQ II
(HARQ)
Frame duration
(CQI delay)
Incremental redundancy
Chase combining
Ims subframes
5ms frames
Overhead / control
channel efficiency
(OH I CCH eft)
Relatively high OH
gianuiaritY
Parameter
Traffic Model
User location
Site-to-site distance
Carrier frequency
Carrier bandwidth
Distance-dependent
pathloss
Lognormal shadowing
Channel model
Terminal speed
BS I Terminal power
Antenna configurations
Scheduler
MIMO
Power control
Receiver type
TOD asymmetry
TABLE II
MODELS AND ASSUMPTIONS
Value
a) Full buffer (10 users per sector) or
b) File transfer (100KB fixed file size) with
variable load
Uniform distribution
500m
2.0GHz
IOMHz
L= I + 37.6log lO(R) + P, Rin kIn, 1= 128.1 for
2GHz, P = 20dB penetration loss
8dB std dev, 50m correlation distance, 0.5 correlation between sites
3GPP SCM, Urban Macro High Spread (15 deg),
extended to IOMHz
3kmlh
46dBm / 23dBm
BS: 2-4 transmit and receive
Terminal: 1transmit, 2-4 receive
LTE: DL: Proportional fair in time and frequency, UL: Quality-based FDM
WiMAX: DL: Proportional fair in time domain,
UL:FDM
LTE: Codebook-based pre-coded adaptive rank
MIMO
WiMAX: Dynamic switching between spatial
mu~tiplexing MIMO and STC
LTE: Open loop with fractional pathloss compensation (a=O.8), SNR target 10dB at cell edge
WiMAX: Open loop, SNR target I5dB (full
pathloss compensation)
LTE: MMSE with SIC in DL
WiMAX:MMSE
LTE: 4:3, WiMAX: 22:15
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Downlink
Uplink
ii
--------j-----I
-----,------
1
... 0.8
Q.
B 0.6 -
"8
C'I)
>
0.06r--------.--------,------.---------,
...
Q.
.a
0.04
I
:
0.03
LTETDD
WIMAXTDD
_ _ _ _ _ _1
0.01
--
- -
-, - - 1
- - -
0.02
WIMAXTDD
LTE FDD
- - - -I - - - - - -
LTETDD
0.04
I::s
LTE FDD
0.2
- -
~ 0.05
i...
.&
0.02
C'I)
c(
0.4
LTE FDD
LTETDD
WIMAXTDD
Uplink
Downlink
1
1
1
80 --------1----
60 - - - - - - -
------_..1_------
I
I
I
40
1
1
1
1
1
I
I
-~-------1-------
I
I
I
I
20 - --
;--------r-------~------1
ci
------~-------1-------
20 - - - --
60 - - - - --
-----_..1_------
u.:
---t-------
u.:
ci
80
----t-------
I
I
----r-------~-------
0.1
0.2
0.3
Normalised User Throughput [bps/Hz]
0.05
0.1
0.15
Normalised User Throughput [bps/Hz]
0.4
0.2
Uplink
Downlink
LTE
LTE
Scheduling
I
I
--,---
COl delay
OH/CCH eft
COl delay
_ _ _ _ .1 _ _ _
MIMO: precoding
-----T---
I
I
PC
----_..!_-I
MCS
------+---
Scheduling
I~.
HARO
I
1
LTE WiMAX-like
-------t---
WiMAX PUSC
------,---
I
I
0.5
1.5
---r----r----r----
____ L
MCS
HARO
----r----r----r----
MA(OFDM)
----1----1----1----
______ J. ___
--~----~----~---I
I
I
1----'-----1----
OH/CCH eft
---~----I-----
LTE WiMAX-like
In
WiMAX PUSC
I~
0.2
---1-----1-----1----1
0.6
0.8
----1----1----1----
0.4
1.2
Fig. 1. Summary of baseline downlink normalized user throughput and spectrum efficiency results, and feature analysis.
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Uplink
Downlink
";J
I
I
I
I
----j--------I----
~ 1.5
----(--------1----
So
8 0.5
~
c(
0.08..-------.-----------.---------r-------,
";J
a-
0.02
f
a
CIt
LTE2x2
LTE4x4
LTE 4x2
e....
60 ----
u.:
LTE 1x4
20
I
-
-I -
I
1
0.2
-------t------I
I
1
___ L
60 -----
1
~
I
-
T -
I
-
I- -
u.:
40 ---20 - --
0.8
total performance difference, lead by control channel efficiency (OR), faster channel quality feedback, and more flexible
power control.
The small difference between LTE FDD and TDD depends
on the TDD guard period and differences in channel quality
feedback delays.
B.
In addition to the full buffer traffic model, for LTE, evaluations with a file transfer traffic model have also been performed. For simplicity, a fixed file size of IOOKB is assumed.
0.6
----~-------1-------
0.4
80
C.
WIMAX 1x4
I
-
------,------,------,-----
40
r - - -
Uplink
-----+------1------
- -
0.02
____
- - - - -
I
I
- - - - :- - - - - - - - ~ - - -
Downlink
80
- - - -
::;,
WIMAX 1x4
O08r----..-----====------r- - - - - - . - - - - - - - - - - - ,
! 0.06
ai 0.04
0.06
::;,
CIt
";J
t 0.04
LTE 1x4
~1
~2
~3
0.4
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VI. SUMMARY
70....----..,.------,------r--------,--------.------,
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_____ 1
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1-
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10
25 ~-_r_--.--------r--__.___-__,_----,---_____,
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- 1- -
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- -
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-~----~----~----~--
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--1----,--I
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.c
"an
2
345
6
System throughput [Mbpslcell]
Fig. 5. Downlink and uplink bitrate percentiles v traffic load for file transfer
traffic
E. Dahlman et aI, "3G Evolution: HSPA and LTE for Mobile Broadband", Academic Press, Oxford, UK, 2007
[2]
[3]
[4]
WiMAX Forum, "Mobile System Profile", Release 1.0 Approved Specification, Revision 1.4.0.
NGMN, "NGMN Radio Access Performance Evaluation Methodology",
Version 1.2, June 2007, www.ngmn.org.
F. Gunnarsson et aI., "Downtilted Base Station Antennas - A Simulation
Model Proposal and Impact on HSPA and LTE Performance", in IEEE
VTC 2008 fall.
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