1. DETAILED RF DESIGN
WSP A:
WSP B:
WSP C:
Table 1: Data traffic distribution at the stadium by service type, call duration
(in mE), data rate and call probability (in %) during busy hour
It is assumed that voice traffic is carried over WCDMA (R99) protocol, while
3G and 4G Data is carried over HSPA and LTE protocols respectively. It is
also assumed that video conferencing and video streaming are very rarely
used at the venue; instead, most of the traffic at the venue is Internet
browsing and data download, with some email included. Further, it is also
assumed that half of the subscribers use HSPA and the other half uses LTE
network, which are reasonable assumptions for practical stadium scenarios.
Next, SINR coverage in the seating area is calculated, and broken down into
intervals based on modulation scheme that can be achieved in each interval.
As example in Table 2 shows that in the region where LTE PDSCH SINR 20
dB, 64 QAM modulation with coding rate is possible, which gives spectral
efficiency of 5.5 b/s/Hz. With SINR between 15 and 20 dB, spectral efficiency
is 3.9 b/s/Hz, with SINR between 9 and 15 dB, the efficiency is 2.4 b/s/Hz,
etc.
Modulation MCS efficiency SINR
QPSK 1.18 3
16 QAM 2.40 9
64 QAM 3.90 15
64 QAM 5.55 20
Let us assume that propagation analysis produced SINR coverage map of the
stadium bowl that can be split into 4 SINR ranges, as in Figure 9. Each SINR
range has specific modulation type with specific spectral efficiency value, as
seen in Table 2. Spectral efficiency dependence on SINR is important,
because spectral efficiency ultimately determines maximum achievable data
rate (MADR) within the SINR range. A uniform distribution of spectators within
the bowl is considered a reasonable assumption, so as SINR Range 1 covers
30% of the seating bowl, there are 30% of the spectators within SINR Range
1.
Figure 12: LTE PDSCH SINR coverage used for data dimensioning example
As we see from Figure 11, LTE SINR Range 1, (3 SINR 9), covers 30% of
the area. SINR Range 2 (9 SINR 15) covers 25% of the area. SINR
Range 3 (15 SINR 20) covers 25% of the area, and SINR Range 4 (SINR
20) covers 20% of the area. To have uniform distribution of spectators
means that the percentage of LTE users within a SINR range is the same as
SINR coverage percentage in that range. For brevity sake repeating this
exercise with HSPA SINR is omitted; after calculating HSPA SINR distribution
it is determined that percentage of 3G users is 50% in SINR HSPA Range 1,
30% in Range 2, 15% in Range 3 and 5% in Range 4.
Let us assume that there are 1,000 subscribers in a sector and that they are
equally split among LTE and HSPA network. For WSP A, we calculate 3G
and 4G busy hour traffic in Erlangs based on the number of subscribers per
SINR Range and busy hour traffic per subscriber as per Table 1. The results
are shown in Table 3:
Table 3a: Offered HSPA busy hour traffic (Erlangs) per SINR range
Table 3b: Offered LTE busy hour traffic (Erlangs) per SINR range
The number of resources needed to support the service types across the
zones is calculated. This is readily determined if the relationship between
SINR vs. spectral efficiency is known, which is taken either from research
papers [3] or directly from vendors. As an example, the distribution of
resources for HSPA and LTE networks per SINR range for WSP A is shown
in Table 4:
Table 4a: Number of HSPA codes per service type and SINR range
Service Type Range 1 Range 2 Range 3 Range 4
Emails 6 3 2 2
Web Browsing 11 5 4 3
Video Conferencing 31 15 10 7
Data Download 51 25 16 11
Video Streaming 101 50 31 22
Table 4b: Number of LTE PRBs per service type and SINR range
Based on tables 3 and 4 and given the total number of HSPA and LTE
resources in a sector, blocking probability for each service may be calculated.
The blocking rate formula for multiple services that is used is taken from ITU-
R recommendation for calculation of spectrum requirements [4].The
calculated blocking rate for HSPA and LTE technologies per SINR range is
shown in Table 5:
If these blocking rates shown in Table 5 are not acceptable for network
planners, then the number of subscribers per sector should be reduced and
the calculations repeated. This is iterative process that is continued until
blocking rates are found to be acceptable. Once the optimum number of
subscribers per sector is found, the total number of subscribers for that WSP
is divided by the number of subscribers per sector, to determine the number
of sectors needed for that WSP.
Carried busy hour traffic is calculated based on offered traffic (Table 3) and
encountered blocking rate (Table 5) for each service type. Results are shown
in Table 6 below
Table 6a: Carried HSPA busy hour traffic per SINR range
Table 6b: Carried LTE busy hour traffic per SINR range
To get offered busy hour traffic, entries in Table 3a and 3b are summed up.
Offered traffic is 19 Erlangs for both HSPA and LTE. To get carried busy hour
traffic, entries in Table 6a and 6b are summed up. Carried HSPA traffic is
18.05 Erlangs, whereas carried LTE traffic is 18.26 Erlangs. Composite call
blocking rate is calculated as 1-carried/offered traffic, and is 5% for HSPA and
3.9% for LTE. While both technologies have similar statistics, we need to
remember that UMTS has 4 channels (20 MHz), while LTE channel is 10
MHz.
Duty cycle is defined as the ratio of carried traffic versus total available traffic
and is 6% for HSPA and 4.1% for LTE. HSPA data usage is 4.42 Gigabytes,
while LTE data usage is 4.51 Gigabytes. Since WSP A has 24,000
subscribers, the traffic and data usage numbers need to be multiplied by 24 to
get the total WSP A traffic.
Similar calculations can be done for WSP B and C. WSP C has half the
number of subscribers, but also has half UMTS channels and half the LTE
bandwidth, and therefore WSP C needs 12 sectors. WSP B has half the
subscribers that WSP C has, but has the same LTE capacity under the
assumption that 10 MHz LTE-TDD channel is configured symmetrically in
uplink and downlink. Under that assumption, WSP B needs half the sectors,
but with lower blocking rate, lower data traffic in Erlangs and lower data
usage in Gigabytes than WSP C. The final sectorization breakdown based on
data traffic dimensioning only is as follows:
WSP A: 24 sectors
WSP B: 6 sectors
WSP C: 12 sectors
Only OVSF codes with spreading factor up to SF128 are used for the service
types shown in table 8. The required number of OVSF codes per service type
and Eb/No range is shown in Table 9:
Service type Range 1 Range 2 Range 3 Range 4
Voice 1 1 1 1
Emails - 4 4 4
Browsing - - 8 8
Data download - - - 16
Table 9: Number of OVSF codes per service type and / 0 range
As was the case with HSPA and LTE technologies, call blocking rates are
calculated as per [4] and are shown in Table 10:
For a sector with 1,000 subscribers, R99 voice blocking rate is 2% across the
seating area. Just as it was the case with data blocking, R99 blocking rate is
the percent of attempted network connections during busy hour that were
denied due to insufficient network resources. 2% blocking rate is common
target call blocking rate in many macro UMTS networks. Other R99 service
types have higher blocking rate, but that is not of a great concern because
they are supported with better rates in 3G and 4G networks. The conclusion
is that the since we have acceptable call blocking rate for 1,000 subscribers
are in a sector, then the same number of sectors that are used to support 3G
and 4G data traffic can support voice (R99) traffic as well.
number of sectors also imply numerous sector overlaps, which may cause
interference and lower SINR. An example of 24 sector LTE PDSCH SINR plot
is shown in Figure 14:
2. CONCLUSION
A neutral host DAS solution is cost efficient for stadium networks, where multiple
commercial and non-commercial networks must share infrastructure. Stadium networks
are characterized by very high density of users, who need many sectors to satisfy their
data consumption needs. The high sectorization requirement is addressed by using
highly directional DAS antennas, which provide good spatial signal isolation. This also
helps to control sector overlap and minimizes inter-sector interference.
RF propagation environment vastly differs throughout stadiums, from pure LOS in the
seating area, to LOS with a lot of reflections in retail areas underneath the bowl, to
NLOS in locker rooms and conference rooms. To properly model the coverage, 3D
modeling of the venue is essential. Most stadiums have open-air seating areas, and
thus many have significant residual macro coverage there. As the stadium network
signal must be dominant everywhere inside the venue, performing an RF survey to
determine the residual signal prior to designing the DAS is essential. Since spectators
tend to mingle outside the venue before and after the event, the design area should be
extended to parking lots, side streets, and nearby bus and train stations.
Finally, neutral host DAS networks with high power amplifiers are susceptible to PIM
generation, which can severely impact the stadium network. LTE is particularly sensitive
to PIM, as it has low thermal noise power (-121 dBm). Care must be taken at the design
stage to avoid PIM generation, by using high rated PIM equipment, with PIM rating of -
162 dBc @ 2x35 dBm or higher. Also, antennas must not be placed near metallic
structures, as they tend to generate PIM as well.
REFERENCES
[1] http://worldstadiums.com/
[3] System level simulations of LTE networks, J.C. Ikuno, M. Wrulich, M. Rupp, IEEE
71st VTC conference, VTC 2010-Spring
[4] ITU-R M.1768-1 (04/2013) Methodology for calculation of spectrum requirements for
the terrestrial component of International Mobile Telecommunications