2012 IEEE 8th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob)
Dimensioning of the Shared Transport Network for
Collocated Multiradio: LTE and HSDPA
X. Li1, M. Li2, U. Toseef 1, A. Timm-Giel2, C. Goerg1
1 3
ComNets, University of Bremen, Germany
e-mail: {xili | umr | cg} @comnets.uni-bremen.de
2
ComNets, Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
e-mail: {ming.li | timm-giel }@tu-harburg.de
Abstract—Due to the coexistence of different generations of mobile
radio technologies, more and more mobile network operators are
keen on deploying multiple radio technologies on a single cell site
and carry their traffic over a common transport network. This
paper studies such a collocated multiradio system: collocated LTE
and HSDPA. Firstly, we investigate the potential gain by using a
shared transport network to carry different radio technologies.
Furthermore, this paper proposes analytical models to dimension
the shared transport network for elastic traffic (TCP-based traffic)
from the different radio technologies, by taking traffic
characteristics, QoS requirements of each radio technology and
the deployed transport QoS function and packet scheduling into
considerations. The proposal for modeling the shared transport
network is to apply the M/G/R-PS model per QoS class while
taking the potential multiplexing gain of bandwidth sharing
among the different QoS classes into account. For validating the
analytical models, a system simulation model is developed. The
analytical results derived from the proposed dimensioning models
are validated by comparing with the simulation results for various
traffic and network scenarios. Presented results demonstrate that
proposed analytical models are well suitable for dimensioning of
the shared transport network. With the help of the proposed
analytical models, we analyze the potential sharing gain of such a
shared transport system under different traffic loads and mix of
different radio technologies.
Keywords-Multiradio; shared transport; LTE; HSDPA;
dimensioning; IP DiffServ; WFQ; QoS
I. INTRODUCTION
Along with the development and evolution of mobile
communication networks, several radio technologies starting
from 2G/GSM, 3G/WCDMA and HSPA (High Speed Packet
Access), towards LTE (Long Term Evolution), have been
introduced, deployed and expanded in the world. The further
spread of WCDMA, HSPA and LTE will still take years until
they reach the penetration of GSM. Thus, there will be a long
period in which all these radio technologies will coexist. More
and more mobile network operators are keen on deploying
multiple radio technologies on a single cell site and carry their
traffic over a common transport network. In such situations, the
transport network resources will be shared among the different
radio technologies. For the mobile operators, this is a very
beneficial and cost-effective approach, as it can not only bring
considerable savings from reduced rental costs on transport
978-1-4673-1430-5/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE 308
D. Dulas3, M. Nowacki3, R. Ruchala3
Nokia Siemens Networks Sp. z o.o., Wroclaw, Poland
e-mail: {dominik.dulas | michal.nowacki |
radoslaw.ruchala}@nsn.com
resources and maximized reuse of existing infrastructure, but
also provide a smooth migration to new technologies like LTE
and LTE-Advanced.
Next generation mobile backhaul network has been defined
to be fully IP based [1]. Using a common IP based transport
network to carry different radio technologies is a challenging
task especially on providing proper bandwidth dimensioning. In
this work, we present a multiradio shared transport system
shown in Fig. 1, which combines several base stations of
different radio technologies that are collocated on a single site.
In this system, we deploy IP DiffServ (Differentiated Service)
QoS framework and Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) scheduling
function on the shared transport network to carry the traffic of
different radio technologies such that their individual QoS
requirements can be met while at the same time a sharing gain
by using the same transport network can be achieved. As a case
study in this paper two radio technologies are considered:
collocation of LTE and HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet
Access).
In recent years, most research work has been focused on
dimensioning the radio capacity e.g. [2, 3], and only a few
studies are given on developing analytical models to dimension
the access transport network for WCDMA systems [4, 5] and
LTE systems [6]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there
has been not much work yet on developing analytical
dimensioning models for a shared transport network integrating
2G, 3G and LTE. This paper proposes efficient analytical
models to dimension the IP-based shared transport network
carrying elastic traffic (TCP-based traffic) from different radio
technologies. In the context of this work, the task of
dimensioning is to properly determine the required transport
network bandwidths in order to provide a cost-efficient
transport, which is to maximize the utilization of transport
network resources and thereby minimize the costs for leasing IP
bandwidth while ensuring desired QoS requirements. To
validate the proposed analytical models, a system simulation
model is developed in this work to validate the analytical results
with the simulation results. The proposed analytical models can
be applied in practice to efficiently dimension the transport
network bandwidths (suitable for both online and offline
dimensioning) for different traffic and network scenarios. In this
paper we also use them to analyze the sharing gain of using
shared transport network to carry different radio technologies by
comparing to the bandwidth requirements by individual radio
technologies. The main contributions of this paper are then
summarized as follows:
• A multiradio shared transport system is presented, and
developed in a system simulation model in OPNET. Its
gain on network performance and bandwidth saving are
investigated by simulations.
• Analytical models are proposed to dimension the shared
transport network for elastic traffic, considering the
applied QoS mechanism to carry the traffic of different
radio technologies and QoS classes. The analytical
results derived from the analytical models are validated
by comparing with the simulation results.
• The potential sharing gain of using the shared transport
system is analyzed for different traffic loads and various
mix of radio technologies.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section
II presents the multiradio shared transport system. Section III
describes the developed simulation models. Section IV
introduces the proposed analytical models. Section V shows the
detailed validation results and dimensioning results. Finally
there are conclusions and an outline of future work.
II. MULTIRADIO SHARED TRANSPORT SYSTEM
Fig. 1 illustrates a general collocation scenario where three
different radio technologies of 2G, 3G and LTE are collocated
on a single cell site sharing a common IP based transport
network. For such scenarios, the mobile network operator can be
an incumbent operator, already providing 3G and 2G services to
its customers and wants to use LTE as capacity extension for
carrying data traffic. As shown in Fig. 1, the base stations of the
different radio technologies namely 2G BTS (Base Station), 3G
NodeB (denoted as NB), and LTE eNodeB (denoted as eNB) are
collocated on a single cell site. The traffic from different radio
technologies are combined via an aggregation entity which will
forward the aggregated traffic to a common shared transport
network. The aggregation entity is considered as the end-point in
the access transport network. The aggregation entity is often
integrated into the transport module of a base station serving as a
cell aggregation point for merging the traffic of different base
stations, or it can also be a separate cell site device such as a
carrier Ethernet switch. Note that in the real deployments, one
of the base stations on a site may act as a chaining base station B. The Task of Dimensioning
which provides the connectivity to the transport network for the
other base stations deployed on different sites. Such case with bandwidths on the shared transport network to carry the traffic
chaining of several base stations is out of scope of this paper.
Figure 1: Collocation of 2G, 3G and LTE over a shared transport network
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Typically the transport network is owned either by the
mobile network operator (MNO) or by a transport network
operator (TNO), selling or leasing transport capacity to the
MNO following a strict Service Level Agreement (SLA). In this
work, we consider that the shared transport network is IP based
on L3 (layer 3) and Ethernet on L2 (layer 2) where either
physical Ethernet links or Ethernet Virtual Connections (EVCs)
are used. After shared transport network, the traffic of different
radio technologies will be separated and go to their individual
peer network elements (i.e. 2G/GSM traffic going to the BSC
(Base Station Controller), WCDMA traffic going to the RNC
(Radio Network Controller) and LTE traffic going to the aGW).
Depending on the deployments of MNOs, there are various use
cases with different combinations of radio technologies
transported over a single transport network. In this paper we
study the case of collocated LTE and HSDPA scenario on
downlink, as a case study and prove of concept.
A. QoS Mechanism and QoS Mapping
To allow for differentiated treatment of different traffic
classes from the different radio technologies, we apply the IP
DiffServ QoS framework on the shared transport network. In the
transport network, the different types of traffic from the different
radio technologies are mapped to a number of per hop behaviors
(PHBs) corresponding to different service levels in a transport
network. The most common PHBs are Expedited Forwarding
(EF) mainly used for the delay-sensitive Real Time (RT)
services such as voice, Assured Forwarding (AF) and Best
Effort (BE) for different types of non-RT video/streaming and
data services. Moreover AF PHB also provides four forwarding
AF classes each with three levels of dropping precedence
(AF1x, AF2x, AF3x and AF4x). ). In this work, BE and AF
PHBs are used to carry the elastic traffic through the shared
transport network, and Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ)
scheduling is used to serve the elastic traffic of the different
PHBs according to their priorities. In this work, the QoS
mapping (i.e. PHB mapping) is based on the type of services and
radio technologies. We map the data traffic from the HSPA to
AF2x and AF3x PHBs and the data traffic from the LTE to
AF1x and BE PHBs, considering the fact that the data traffic in
the HSPA networks is usually treated as higher priority than the
data traffic from the LTE networks.
The task of dimensioning is to determine the required IP
of different radio technologies guaranteeing their individual QoS
requirements. In this paper, we are focused on dimensioning the
last mile, i.e. the shared transport link from the aggregation
entity to the next router within the transport network. When
dimensioning the shared transport links, it is necessary to take
the traffic characteristics, the service requirements of each radio
technology and the deployed QoS function and scheduling in the
shared transport network into consideration. Normally, it is also
expected that using shared transport link to carry different radio
technologies would require less transport bandwidths than
transmitting the traffic of different radio technologies separately
on different transport links. That means, by using the shared
transport link, sharing gain and in turn bandwidth savings are
expected.
 III. SIMULATION MODEL
Fig. 2 shows the developed system simulation model for the
collocated LTE and HSPA scenario with a shared transport
network. The simulation model is developed in OPNET (version
15.0). As seen in Fig. 2, the presented system consists of a LTE
network and a HSPA network, which are combined in the access
transport domain via a shared transport network. Each radio
technology contains its own network entities, cells with
individual radio technology, and own mobile users (UEs). Over
the shared transport, the LTE S1 interface that connects the LTE
eNB and the aGW is sharing the same transport network with
the HSPA Iub interface that connects HSPA NB and RNC.
A. Modeling of HSDPA and LTE
In our simulation model, the individual radio technology
including their related radio protocols are modeled in detail
according to the 3GPP specifications. The LTE radio (Uu)
protocols consist of PDCP (Packet Data Convergence Protocol),
RLC (Radio Link Control) and MAC (Medium Access Control)
protocols between the eNB and the UE. The HSDPA defines
MAC-hs (hs for high speed) protocol between the UE and the
NB, and in addition RLC and MAC-d (d for dedicated) between
the UE and the RNC. Besides in our simulation model for each
radio technology, a radio interface scheduler (or named as MAC
scheduler) is implemented to schedule the radio resources
among the different users. In HSDPA the well known PF
(Proportional Fair) scheduler is used, whereas in LTE system a
QoS-aware scheduler is used that enhances the support for
multi-QoS (for serving multiple services) by allocating the radio
resources for each QoS class according to its priority while
keeping a reasonable level of fairness. In the access transport
network, both LTE S1 interface and HSDPA Iub interface are
based on IP, where the addressed QoS mechanism and transport
scheduler in section II are implemented. For both HSDPA and
LTE systems, the users (UEs) and their peer end-to-end
communication entity (remote server) providing the users
corresponding services are modeled with full protocol stacks.
Various applications like FTP, video, VoIP are supported.
forwards the aggregated traffic to the shared transport network.
In the shared transport network, the aggregation entity as well as
IP routers deploy the above introduced QoS mapping and
DiffServ-based QoS mechanism (section II) for differentiated
treatment of different traffic classes from different radio
technologies on the IP layer. On the downlink, the LTE traffic
(originating from LTE aGW) and HSPA traffic (originating
from HSPA RNC) are combined at the IP router “R1” applying
the same QoS mapping and QoS mechanism as on the uplink.
To control/limit the bandwidths on the shared transport paths,
bandwidth shaping is applied to the IP layer at the aggregation
entity and the routers such that the IP bandwidth on a transport
path can be shaped according to the dimensioned bandwidth.
IV. ANALYTICAL DIMENSIONING MODEL
In this work we consider the elastic traffic as TCP-based
traffic. According to TCP flow control, the data rate of TCP
flow adjusts itself to adapt to the available bandwidth in the
network. When TCP works ideally, all elastic traffic flows going
on the same link will share the bandwidth resources equally and
thus such system is essentially behaving as a Processor Sharing
(PS) system [7]. This important property enables the
applicability of M/G/R-PS model for analyzing elastic traffic.
The M/G/R-PS model characterizes the TCP traffic at the flow
level. It is assumed that there are large numbers of independent
TCP flows, each referring to transferring a file or downloading a
web page (where file/page size distributions are arbitrary). The
average application delay of elastic traffic flows can be
calculated by computing the expected sojourn time of the
M/G/R-PS model. In the past, the M/G/R-PS model has been
applied and extended extensively to dimension the UMTS [4, 5]
and the LTE [6] access networks for elastic traffic. In this paper,
we propose how we apply and extend the M/G/R-PS model for
dimensioning the shared transport network to carry elastic traffic
in collocated LTE and HSDPA scenario, where the HSDPA and
LTE system are modelled individually.
A. Modeling of the HSDPA Radio Interface
As mentioned earlier, in this work HSDPA applies the well
known PF (Proportional Fair) scheduler as the radio interface
scheduler (MAC scheduler). The PF scheduler is aimed to
explore the best user channel condition while trying to keep
fairness among all users in the cell over the time. Since that all
users are moving randomly in the cell and thus their channels
share the same statistical property, thus it can be assumed that all
elastic flows share the radio resources equally and therefore we
can model the HSDPA air interface as a Processor Sharing (PS)
system. For the modeling of HSDPA radio interface we define
the following input parameters in Table I.

TABLE I. NOTATIONS - HSDPA RADIO INTERFACE MODEL

Parameter
Figure 2: Collocated LTE and HSPA simulation model
CUu_HS
B. Modeling of the Shared Transport Network
The shared transport network is based on IP at L3 and rHS
Ethernet at L2. It consists of aggregation entity and a number of
IP routers over the transport network. The aggregation entity LUu_HS
merges the LTE traffic (originating from LTE eNB) and the
HSPA traffic (originating from HSPA NB) on the uplink and
Descriptions
Air interface capacity of a HSDPA cell (in bits/s), which
depends on the UE category, and the maximum number of UEs
scheduled per TTI (e.g. 2 or 4).
Peak data rate (bits/s) of a HSDPA bearer (for each TCP flow),
depending on the UE category.
The total average traffic load in a cell (in bits/s) by summing up
the elastic traffic of all users. It is calculated based on the traffic
models and total number of active UEs in the cell.

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 The HSDPA technology defines different UE categories. different QoS classes. The required model input parameters are
Depending on the UE category, the peak data rate of a HSDPA given in Table II.
bearer (to carry each TCP flow) is different (the higher UE
category is defined with higher peak data rate). It is assumed in TABLE II. NOTATIONS - LTE RADIO INTERFACE MODEL
this work that all users in a HSDPA cell are in the same UE Parameter Descriptions
category, i.e. all TCP flows have the same peak data rate rHS. In CUu_LTE Air interface capacity of a LTE cell (in bits/s), which depends
this case, the HSDPA air interface with the cell capacity CUu_HS is on the given LTE cell bandwidth (MHz).
modeled as an M/G/R-PS queuing system with RHS servers w (k ) In the LTE MAC scheduler, the defined QCI weight for the
QCI
where RHS = ⎣CUu _ HS / rHS ⎦ . That means, only up to RHS flows QoS class k

can be transmitted with peak data rate; when more than RHS LUu _ LTE ( k ) Mean traffic load of the elastic traffic of QoS class k
flows are active then they start sharing the cell capacity. Based
on the expected sojourn time formula of the M/G/R-PS model Given the LTE cell capacity CUu_LTE and the mean traffic load of
[6], we derive the air interface delay factor fUu_HS with equation each QoS class, we estimate the mean available radio capacity
(1). CUu _ LTE (k ) that can be used by the QoS class k with equation
⎛ E ( R , R HS ⋅ ρ HS ) ⎞ (4).
f Uu _ HS = ⎜⎜1 + 2 HS ⎟ ⎧ ⎫
⎝ R HS ⋅ (1 − ρ HS ) ⎟⎠ (1) ⎪ wQCI (k ) ⎛ ⎞ ⎪ (4)
CUu _ LTE ( k )= max ⎨CUu _ LTE ⋅ , CUu _ LTE − ∑ LUu _ LTE ( j ) ⎟ ⎬
⎜ ⎟
⎢ CUu _ HS ⎥ LUu _ HS ⎪ ∑i wQCI (i) ⎜⎝ j ≠k ⎠⎪
where R HS = ⎢ ⎥ and ρ HS = ⎩ ⎭
⎣ rHS ⎦ CUu _ HS
It shows that CUu _ LTE (k ) has a minimum capacity allocated by
Here ρHS is the average air interface utilization, and E2 denotes
Erlang’s second formula (Erlang C formula) given in (2) with the MAC scheduler according to its QCI weight wQCI (k ) and in
R=RHS and A= RHS ⋅ ρ HS . It is known that the Erlang C formula addition considers any additional capacity which is not utilized
calculates the delay probability (i.e. the probability that a job has by other QoS classes. With CUu _ LTE (k ) for the QoS class k, we
to wait) of Erlang’s delay system. can derive its average utilization (normalized load) denoted as
AR
R
ρLTE (k)= LUu _ LTE ( k ) / CUu _ LTE (k ) .
⋅ (2)
R! R −A In this work, we consider that there is no maximum bearer rate
E2 ( R, A) = R −1 i
A AR R limitation for each LTE bearer. In this case, the M/G/1-PS
∑
i =0 i!
+ ⋅
R! R − A model can be used, since the M/G/1-PS model is defined for the
situations where the flow rate is not restricted. Thereby we
The air interface delay factor fUu_HS (larger or equal to 1) apply the M/G/1-PS model per QoS class. Based on the
quantifies the increase of transfer time (or decrease of effective formula of the M/G/1-PS model, we can get the air interface
throughput) of TCP flows as a result of the air interface delay factor fUu_LTE (k) for the elastic traffic of the QoS class k
congestion. When the air interface utilization ρHS is higher the with equation (5).
delay factor fUu also becomes higher, which implies that the file
transfer time will be increased with the radio resource fUu _ LTE ( k ) = 1 /(1 − ρ LTE ( k )) (5)
utilization. With fUu_HS we can derive the estimated peak data
Similar to equation (3), we can derive its estimated peak data
rate over the Iub interface in equation (3). That means, rIub_HS is
rate at the LTE S1 interface in equation (6).
only a result of the air interface model assuming that there is no
congestion in the transport network given sufficiently large rS 1 _ LTE ( k ) = CUu _ LTE ( k ) / f Uu _ LTE ( k ) (6)
transport capacity. If the air interface capacity and cell load are
given, rIub_HS represents the estimated peak data rate on the Iub The derived rS1_LTE (k) will be used in the next step for
interface, which will be used in the next step for dimensioning of dimensioning the transport network.
the transport network.
C. Modeling of the Shared Transport Network
rIub _ HS = rHS / f Uu _ HS (3)
As introduced in section II-B, in this work the shared
transport network applies the IP DiffServ QoS framework and
B. Modeling of the LTE Radio Interface WFQ scheduling to serve the elastic traffic of the different QoS
Compared to the HSDPA, the LTE enhances multi-QoS classes from the different radio technologies according to their
support by introducing a number of QCIs (Quality Class defined priorities. The proposal for modeling the shared
Indicator) to identify different LTE QoS classes and transport network is to apply the M/G/R-PS model per PHB
corresponding LTE bearers to transfer the traffic of different class (i.e. per transport priority), while taking the potential
QoS classes. In this work we use a QoS-aware radio interface multiplexing gain of bandwidth sharing among the different
scheduler, which distributes the radio resources among the PHB classes into account.
different QoS classes according to their priorities. Here for each
Let BWTN denote the shared transport network bandwidth.
QoS class that is identified by a QCI, a QCI weight is defined to
For each PHB class, we define LTN (j) be the mean elastic traffic
identify its priority ranking. To model the impact of this QoS-
load carried on the PHB class j and wWFQ (j) denotes its assigned
aware scheduler, we propose M/G/1-PS model per QoS class to
WFQ weight. For each radio technology, the estimated peak data
estimate the radio interface performance of the elastic traffic for

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rates on the transport network interface are derived individually dTN ( j) = RTT( j) − RTTmin( j) (9)
from above: rIub_HS for HSDPA calculated from equation (3) and
rS1_LTE (k) for the LTE QoS class k calculated from equation (6). Here RTT(j) is derived from the estimated application delay
The following gives the detailed steps to calculate the average T(xj) with equation (10), based on the TCP delay model in [9].
application delay of the elastic traffic flows transmitted with the RTTmin (j) represents the minimum RTT under a low-utilized
PHB class j. (e.g. link utilization < 30%) transport network such that there
Step 1: Estimate the available bandwidth that can be used for are no additional queuing delays and no retransmissions due to
the PHB class j, denoted as BWTN (j), using equation (7). It congestion over the transport network. It is as well derived from
shows that BWTN (j) has a minimum bandwidth that equals to equation (10) by giving the minimum application delay Tmin (xj)
the allocated bandwidth assigned by the WFQ transport which is computed by equation (8) with fTN (j) =1.
scheduler according to its weight, and also consider any When ( E [Wss ] > W max )
additional bandwidth if the other PHBs do not fully utilize their T (x j )
allocated bandwidth share. RTT ( j ) = (10)
⎡ ⎛ W max ⎞ 1 ⎛ γ ⋅ W max − w1 ⎞ ⎤
⎧ ⎛ ⎞ ⎫ ⎢ log γ ⎜ ⎟ +1+ ⎜⎜ d MSS − ⎟⎟ ⎥
⎜ wWFQ ( j ) ⎟ ⎛ ⎞ ⎢ ⎝ w1 ⎠ W max ⎝ γ −1 ⎠⎥
⎪ ⎜ BWTN − ∑ LTN (i) ⎟ ⎪ (7)
BWTN ( j ) = max⎨ ⎜ BW ⋅ ⎟, ⎜ ⎟ ⎬
∑
TN
⎪ ⎜ wWFQ (i) ⎟ ⎝ i≠ j ⎠ ⎪
⎩ ⎝ i ⎠ ⎭ When ( E [Wss ] ≤ W max )
Step 2: With BWTN (j) and LTN (j), the normalized traffic load of RTT ( j ) = T (x j )
the PHB class j, denoted as ρTN(j), can be derived with ρTN(j) = ⎡ ⎛ d MSS ⋅ (γ − 1) ⎞⎤
⎢ log γ ⎜ + 1⎟ ⎥
LTN (j)/BWTN (j). ⎢ ⎝ w1 ⎠⎥
Step 3: For the PHB class j, apply the M/G/R-PS model to Here E[Wss] is the window we would expect TCP to achieve at
estimate the application performance. Here R is determined by the end of slow start, assuming there is no maximum window
R j = ⎣BWTN ( j ) / rTN ( j )⎦ . Here rTN ( j ) is the estimated peak data constraint. It is calculated with (11).
rate as the result of the radio interface model of HSDPA and ⋅ (γ − 1) w1
d (11)
LTE: for the HSDPA traffic rTN ( j ) =rIub_HS as calculated from E [Wss ] = MSS +
γ γ
equation (3) and for the LTE traffic flows of QoS class K
rTN ( j ) =rS1_LTE (k) as calculated from equation (6). TABLE III. TCP DELAY MODEL PARAMETERS
Step 4: For the elastic traffic carried on the PHB class j, the Parameter Descriptions
expected sojourn time (or average application delay) T(xj) for γ The rate of exponential growth of the TCP congestion window
transferring a file of length xj can be derived from the basic (denoted as cwnd) during slow start, here γ = (1+1/b), where the
M/G/R-PS model [6], as given in equation (8). TCP receiver sends an ACK for every b-th TCP segments that it
receives, e.g. b=2 and then γ=1.5.
x j ⎛ E2 (Rj , Rj ⋅ ρTN ( j)) ⎞ x w1 TCP sender starts with an initial cwnd of w1 segments, e.g. 2
T (x j ) = ⎜1 + ⎟ = j fTN ( j) (8) Wmax Maximum TCP window, imposed by sender or receiver buffer
rTN ( j) ⎜⎝ Rj (1 − ρTN ( j)) ⎟⎠ rTN ( j) limitations, e.g. 64Kbyte
dMSS The total number of TCP segments for sending a file size xj
In equation (8), E2 represents the Erlang’s second formula as MSS TCP Maximum Segment Size in bits
defined in equation (2), and fTN (j) is the transport network
delay factor for the elastic TCP flows on the PHB class j over D. Dimensioning of the Shared Transport Network
the shared transport network. fTN (j) is larger or equal to 1, it This section discusses how to apply the above proposed
quantifies the influences of the shared transport network on the analytical models to dimension the shared transport network for
application delay (or throughput) of TCP traffic flows. In case elastic traffic to guarantee the average application delay (or
we need to consider the impact of TCP slow start especially for throughput) requirement, or to guarantee an average transport
small file transactions and longer round trip times, an extended network delay target on the shared transport network. For
M/G/R-PS model proposed in [8] can be used to improve dimensioning a single transport link, the dimensioning
approximations on application performance. procedure is described in the following.
Step1: define an initial shared transport link bandwidth BW0;
With the above calculated average application delays, we can
Step2: use the radio interface model of HSDPA (part A) and
further estimate the average transport network delay for different
LTE (part B) to derive the estimated peak data rate on the
PHB classes in the shared transport network, based on a TCP
delay model proposed in [9] that relates the application delay transport network interface;
with the transport network delay. This TCP delay model is based Step3: for the given shared transport link bandwidth, estimate
on the fact that the end-to-end application delay is a function of the average application delay for the traffic of each QoS class in
Round Trip Time (RTT) that is directly dependent on the HSDPA and LTE system with equation (8). Then we can
experienced transport network delay. For the elastic traffic flows further derive the mean transport network delay of each PHB
carried on the PHB class j, given its average application delay class from the estimated application delay. The mean transport
T(xj) calculated from equation (8), we can estimate its network delay is calculated with equations (9) to (11). If the
corresponding transport network delays dTN (j) in equation (9) estimated application delay or transport network delay of one
and the model parameters are defined in Table III. QoS class exceeds its defined QoS target, then the shared
transport link bandwidth needs to be increased, otherwise the

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bandwidth will be decreased. This iteration repeats until the A.
The Gain of Using the Shared Transport Network
defined QoS target of that QoS class is met with a certain To investigate whether any gain can be achieved by
shared transport link bandwidth. This step will be done for eachtransmitting the HSDPA and LTE traffic over a shared transport
QoS class and the derived bandwidth required for the QoS class network, we compare through simulations the attainable network
k is given as BWTN (k). and user performance in HSDPA only, LTE only system against
Step 4: we take the maximum bandwidth of all QoS classes to the performance obtained using the shared transport network.
be the required shared transport link bandwidth: BWTN = max. The settings for the individual LTE and HSDPA part are listed
{BWTN(k)}, as it satisfies the QoS targets of all QoS classes. in Table V. In the transport network, the same QoS mapping (or
PHB mapping) between the different traffic class and the
If there are additional IP bandwidths reserved for the transport PHB as well as their WFQ weights is also applied in
signaling traffic or the real time traffic, then these extra the shared transport network.
bandwidths also need to be added for the total shared transport
link bandwidth. It needs to be noticed that the above TABLE V. SETTINGS – ANALYZE GAIN OF USING SHARED TRANSPORT
dimensioning process can be as well used for dimensioning the
LTE Part, 64KB TCP receive buffer size, 10MHz cell bandwidth
transport network for HSDPA only or LTE only system. If we
want to estimate how much gain on the bandwidth saving can Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
be achieved by using the shared transport system, we can FTP (QCI9) 6Mbps BE (1)
HTTP (QCI8) 2Mbps AF11(10)
compare the total bandwidth requirements by the HSDPA only
system (denoted as BWHS) and the LTE only system (denoted HSDPA Part, 64KB TCP receive buffer size, 5MHz cell bandwidth
as BWLTE) against the shared transport bandwidth (denoted as Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
BWShared_TN). From this comparison, we can compute a FTP 4Mbps AF21 (100)
“LTE/HSDPA sharing gain” for the shared transport network HTTP 2Mbps AF31 (1000)
with equation (12).
Transport Network Delay [ms] - AF31 Transport Network Delay [ms] - AF21
⎛ BW Shared _ TN ⎞ (12) 1 120
Sharing _ G = ⎜ 1 − ⎟ ⋅ 100% Shared TN
HSPA only 100
Shared TN
BW HS + BW LTE ⎠
0.8 HSPA only
⎝
TN delay [ms]

TN delay [ms]
80
0.6
60
V. RESULT ANALYSIS 0.4
40
This section presents the simulation and analytical results to 0.2
20
analyze the shared transport network for the collocated LTE and 0 0
Ideal80% 85% 90% 95% 99% Ideal80% 85% 90% 95% 99%
HSDPA scenario as shown in Fig. 2 in three parts: (1) Transport link utilization Transport link utilization
investigation of potential gain of using a shared transport Transport Network Delay [ms] - AF11 Transport Network Delay [ms] - BE
2 120
network; (2) validation of the proposed analytical models for Shared TN Shared TN
dimensioning the shared transport network; (3) investigation of 1.5
LTE only 100 LTE only
TN delay [ms]

TN delay [ms]

achievable LTE/HSDPA sharing gain by using a shared 80

transport. All following investigations are based on the default 1 60

simulation settings given in Table IV. 0.5

TABLE IV. DEFAULT SIMULATION SETTINGS
User Profile Definition
Number of active users per cell 10
Number of cells per eNB/NB 3
FTP traffic data File size: constant 5 MByte
HTTP Web traffic data Average page size: 600 Kbyte
Simulation time 3000 seconds
Network Configuration
10 MHz (50 PRBs) or 20MHz (100 PRΒs)
for LTE system
Cell Bandwidth
5MHz for HSDPA system with 2*2 MIMO
(15 codes, UE category 14)
TCP version: New Reno
TCP Parameters
MSS: 1460 byte
(default)
Receive Buffer Size: 64Kbyte
Mobility Model Random Direction (RD) with 50km/h
HSDPA MAC scheduler Proportional Fair scheduler
QoS-aware scheduler
LTE MAC scheduler QCI8 (HTTP)- QCI weight: 5
QCI9 (FTP): QCI weight: 1
Transport scheduler Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ)
40
20
0 0
Ideal80% 85% 90% 95% 99% Ideal80% 85% 90% 95% 99%
Transport link utilization Transport link utilization
Figure 3: The gain on the transport network delay performance
Fig. 3 compares the average transport network delay
(denoted as TN delay) of the diverse traffic classes over different
transport link utilizations. Here “ideal” represents the case of
low link utilization (e.g. 10%). It can be seen that the mean
HSDPA TN delays (i.e. Iub delays) on both AF31 PHB (for
streaming service) and AF21 PHB (for FTP service) are reduced
significantly (especially the AF21 class) in the shared transport
system compared to the HSDPA only system. This is because
that by sharing the transport resources with LTE in the shared
transport system, the HSDPA traffic can take the transport
resources from the LTE part, and moreover it has higher chance
than the LTE to acquire transport resources to fulfill the QoS
requirement due to that it is given higher priority than the LTE
traffic over the shared transport network. Besides, the LTE TN
delays (i.e. S1 delays) are also improved by using the shared
transport. It can be seen that the TN delays of the lower priority
LTE traffic (on the BE PHB) in the shared transport system is

313
lower than the TN delays obtained from the LTE only system, Next is to validate the accuracy of applying the proposed
while at the same time the high priority LTE traffic (carried on analytical models for dimensioning the shared transport network
the AF11 PHB) can still keep its TN delay performance (i.e. bandwidths. In this example, the dimensioning QoS target is to
have similar TN delays as in the LTE only system) even though guarantee the mean Iub delay for HSDPA traffic below 50ms
it has lower priority than the HSDPA traffic in the shared and the mean S1 delay for LTE traffic less than 15ms. Fig. 6
transport network. These results reveal that there is significant shows the bandwidth dimensioning results.
gain on the transport network delay performance for both
15
HSDPA and LTE traffic by transmitting them over a shared
BE PHB: Analytical
transport network. Furthermore, similar gain can be also

TN Delay [ms]
BE PHB: Simulation
achieved on the user application performance. Fig. 4 compares 10
AF21 PHB: Analytical
the mean file download delay (in seconds) of FTP service in AF21 PHB: Simulation
HSDPA (left diagram) and in LTE (right diagram) over different 5
transport link utilizations. It is shown that the FTP file download
delays of both HSDPA and LTE traffic are improved 0
44% 55% 66% 77%
considerably with the shared transport network under different

File download delay [s]

utilizations. 20 BE PHB: Analytical
BE PHB: Simulation
18
FTP file download time [s] - AF21 FTP file download time [s] - BE AF21 PHB: Analytical
20 16
Shared TN Model AF21 PHB: Simulation
Shared TN Model
File download delay [s]

File download delay [s]

HSPA only 15 LTE only 14

15
12
10 10
10 44% 55% 66% 77%
Transport link utilization
5 5
Figure 5: Validation of analytical model for App. & TN delay (with 95%CI)

0
Ideal LM 80% 85% 90% 95%
0
Ideal LM 80% 85% 90% 95%
TABLE VI. SETTINGS - DIMENSIONING OF ELASTIC TRAFFIC SCENARIO
Transport link utilization Transport link utilization
LTE Part, 1GB TCP buffer size, 20MHz cell bandwidth
Figure 4: The gain on the application delay performance (with 95%CI) Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
FTP (QCI9) 8, 12, 16Mbps BE (1)
The above results demonstrate that transmitting the HSDPA
and LTE traffic over a shared transport network can bring HSDPA Part, 64KB TCP buffer size, 5MHz cell bandwidth
significant gain on the transport network delay performance as Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
well as the user application performance for both HSDPA and FTP 6Mbps AF21 (100)
LTE traffic. This implies that using the shard transport approach Transport Network Bandwidth [Mbps] Transport Network Bandwidth [Mbps]
can achieve higher link utilization (i.e. need less bandwidths) for 120 120
guaranteeing certain TN delay or end user application QoS 100
Analytical
Simulation 100
Analytical
Simulation
requirements. That also means, with the shared transport we can
Bandwidth [Mbps]

Bandwidth [Mbps]

80
achieve saving on the total required transport bandwidths for the 80

given QoS and hence have a more cost-efficient transport 60 60

network. In the part C we will present the achievable 40 40

LTE/HSDPA sharing gain from using the shared transport to 20 20
carry LTE and HSDPA in different scenarios.
0 0
HSPA only LTE only Shared TN Model 8Mbps 12Mbps 16Mbps
B. Validation of the Analytical Dimensioning Models
Scenarios LTE cell load [Mbps]
Here we give an example for validating the proposed
analytical models on application delay and transport network Figure 6: Validation of analytical model for bandwidth dimensioning
delay estimations. In this example, only FTP traffic is In Fig. 6 the left figure gives the dimensioned transport
transmitted in both LTE and HSDPA systems, where the FTP network bandwidths for satisfying the above defined TN delay
traffic from LTE is mapped to BE PHB and FTP traffic from targets for HSDPA only system with 6Mbps cell load (requires
HSDPA is mapped to AF21 PHB over the shared transport. The 24 Mbps on the Iub), LTE only system with 16Mbps cell load
detailed settings are given in Table VI. Fig. 5 shows the average (requires 79Mbps on the S1), and the shared transport system
transport network delay (in ms) and FTP file download time (i.e. (requires 100Mbps on the shared link) individually. It can be
application delay in s) over different transport link utilizations found out that there is a positive sharing gain of using the shared
for both HSDPA and LTE traffic. It can be seen that both TN transport network, since the required bandwidth on the shared
and application delays of the LTE traffic increase significantly transport link is less than the sum of the transport bandwidth
with the increased transport link utilizations due to its lower required by the LTE only and the HSDPA only systems.
transport priority whereas the HSDPA traffic can keep its Furthermore the dimensioned bandwidths estimated from the
performance well. Further it shows that for the traffic of proposed analytical models are compared against the
different QoS classes the analytical estimations for both TN and dimensioning results from the simulations for all three systems.
application delays match well with the simulation results. It can be seen that the estimated bandwidths with our analytical

314
models are quite close to the simulation results (the analytical
models can give accurate estimations on the bandwidth
dimensioning) for all three cases. This comparison shows that
the proposed analytical models can be applied to estimate the
required transport bandwidths for carrying the traffic of each
radio technology individually, and as well for carrying them
over a shared transport network. In Fig. 6 the right graph shows
the dimensioned transport network bandwidths when varying the
LTE cell loads, which proves that the analytical dimensioning
models are suitable for different loads.
C. Analysis of the Achievable Sharing Gain
The LTE/HSDPA sharing gain is used to evaluate the
amount of bandwidth savings achieved by sharing the transport
between LTE and HSDPA technologies, as calculated with
equation (12) in section IV-D. This part analyzes the achievable
LTE/HSDPA sharing gain for various traffic loads, TN delay
targets, and different mix of LTE/HSDPA radio technologies.
The traffic settings are given in Table below. The dimensioning
QoS target for both HSDPA and LTE traffic is to guarantee the
average TN delay below 15ms.
TABLE VII. SETTINGS – ANALYZE GAIN OF THE SHARED TRANSPORT
LTE Part, 64KB TCP receive buffer size, 10MHz cell bandwidth
Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
FTP (QCI9) 80% BE (1)
HTTP (QCI8) 20% AF11(10)
HSDPA Part, 64KB TCP receive buffer size, 5MHz cell bandwidth
Services Load per cell PHB (WFQ weight)
FTP 80% AF21 (100)
HTTP 20% AF31 (1000)
Fig. 7 (left graph) shows the sharing gain under different
LTE/HSDPA cell loads varying from 1Mbps to 8Mbps. It can be
noticed that the sharing gain decreases with the increased cell
loads. It is quite straightforward that with less traffic load in the
cell the users can acquire more resources to reach higher peak
data rate especially for transmitting the elastic traffic and thus
behave much more bursty which leads to more room for the
multiplexing. Fig. 7 (right graph) shows sharing gain against
different percentages of HSDPA traffic over LTE traffic. In this
example the HSDPA traffic consists of 20% HTTP (on AF31
PHB) and 80% FTP (on AF21 PHB) traffic, the LTE traffic also
carries 20% HTTP (on AF 11 PHB) and 80% FTP (on BE PHB)
traffic. It is shown that the LTE/HSDPA sharing gain becomes
the highest when the traffic share of HSDPA and LTE traffic are
almost equal (i.e. 50% load share). When the HSDPA load share
is further reduced from 50% to 10% or increased from 50% to
90%, the sharing gain decreases. The main reason is that when
one radio technology dominates more and more the traffic share,
the room for multiplexing with the traffic of the other radio
technology becomes smaller and hence results in lower sharing
gain. Further it can be observed that when the HSDPA load
share is less than the LTE (e.g. 20% HSDPA load), we can
achieve more sharing gain than the cases where the HSDPA load
share is more (e.g. 80% HSDPA load), as the LTE traffic can
contribute more gain on the bandwidth saving due to its higher
system capacity resulting in higher peak data rates and variations
for the multiplexing.
315
40
LTE/HSDPA Sharing Gain
20
LTE/HSDPA Sharing Gain
30 15
Sharing gain [%]
Sharing gain [%]
20 10
10 5
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
0
10 20 30 50 70 80 90
LTE/HSDPA cell load [Mbps] HSDPA load share [%]
Figure 7: Sharing gain over different cell loads/HSDPA load shares
VI. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
The paper proposes a multiradio shared transport system
dimensioning, and a system simulation model is developed. In
this work extensive simulations are performed to evaluate the
sharing gain on network performance and bandwidth savings.
From the simulation results it is found that both application and
transport network delays are improved considerably with the
shared transport network. Furthermore, analytical models are
proposed to dimension the shared transport network for elastic
TCP traffic. The proposed dimensioning models are validated by
comparing against the simulation results. In addition, we analyze
the achievable LTE/HSDPA sharing gain for various traffic
loads and mix of LTE/HSDPA radio technologies. The further
work is to extend the dimensioning models for multiple base
stations (eNBs, NBs) scenarios and other traffic types such as
VoIP, video conference, and streaming which have different
QoS requirements. Additionally, the upload data traffic (e.g.
LTE UL and HSUPA) will be as well explicitly considered,
given the increasing trend of symmetric user upload/download
behavior. Besides, adding other radio technologies like GSM
and Rel99 are also our future work.
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