EPL 657

Network Design and Planning Issues

and Performance Evaluation
Outline
 Network Design
 Radio Network Planning
 Performance Evaluation
 Case Study 1:
 WLAN Coverage Planning
 Case Study 2:
 WLAN Performance Evaluation
Introduction
 Wireless networks rely on an inexpensive but
prone to errors medium (air) with limited
bandwidth
 We require wireless networks to be
 Functional
 Affordable
 Scalable
 Flexible
 Manageable
 Secure
 Resilient and Reliable
 Meet the growing user demands (e.g. of bandwidth)
 Low cost of ownership consistent with these objectives
 Network Design and Planning is very essential!
Coverage

Figure 2.13 A predicted coverage plot for three access points in a modern large lecture hall. (Courtesy of
Wireless Valley Communications, Inc., ©2000, all rights reserved.)
Figure 2.15 A typical neighborhood where high speed license free WLAN service from the street might be
contemplated [Dur98b].
Figure 2.16 Measured values of path loss using a street-mounted lamp-post transmitter at 5.8
GHz, for various types of customer premise antenna [from [Dur98], ©IEEE].
Network Design
 Specify network architecture
 Define radio access network design and engineering
 Define core network design and engineering
 Provide detailed protocol design
 Traffic Modeling
 Decide on voice and data applications
 Mobility Modeling
 Mobility assessment and design is important
 Complete area plans
 Provide performance and bottleneck analysis
 Specify security and redundancy plans
Network Design: considerations
 Services & Traffic:
 How much and where?
 Impact on network quality, efficiency and cost

 What is best design strategy (given an

imprecise demand forecast)?
 Coverage vs. capacity, cell breathing (UMTS)
 Ability to use existing sites (e.g. GSM)

 Meet budget and cash flow constraints

Radio Network Planning
 RNP includes:
 Dimensioning
 Detailed Coverage & Capacity Planning
 Network Optimization
 Dimensioning estimates:
 an approximate number of base station sites
 base stations and their configurations
 other network elements
 based on the operator’s requirements and the radio
propagation in the area
 Dimensioning must fulfil certain requirements
for:
 Coverage
 Capacity
 Quality of Service (QoS)
Radio Network Planning
 Coverage and Capacity Planning
 Determine the coverage regions, area type information
and propagation conditions
 Determine the available spectrum and traffic density
information
 Note: In W-CDMA networks (e.g. UMTS),
capacity and coverage are closely related
 both must be considered simultaneously in the planning
process
 Network Optimization
 Provide optimal coverage probability, blocking
probability and end user throughput
Radio Network Planning
 Outputs during RNP:
 Rough number of base stations and sites
 Base station configuration

 Site selection

 Cell specific parameters for RRM & adjusting of

RRM parameters to optimal values
 Analysis in the issues of capacity, coverage
and QoS
Performance Evaluation
 Takes place prior to the deployment of a
system
 Assesses a system’s capabilities
 Evaluates any new mechanisms the
system will use
 Note: System = a collection of related
entities that interact together over a time to
accomplish a goal
 E.g.to deliver telecommunication services that
satisfy specific QoS requirements
Performance Evaluation
 Two ways to achieve performance evaluation of
any system
 Experiment with the actual system
 Experiment with a model of the system
 Experiment with the actual system
 Set up the system and run it
 Collect measurements that will aid in the assessment of
the system
 Exact results but costly
 Often the system is not available
Performance Evaluation
 Experiment with a model of the system
 The model can be physical or abstract
 abstract = representation of the system containing
structural, logical or mathematical relationships
 The physical model is evaluated similarly to an actual
system
 The abstract model may be evaluated in two ways:
 Analysis (mathematical analysis)
 Simulation
 Mathematical analysis
 Costly
 Requires specialized knowledge
 Often several approximations need to be made (for
complex systems)  hard to generalize results
 Simulation becomes more and more popular
Performance Evaluation
 Simulation
 Simulation models may be categorized
according to the type of input data they accept
 Deterministic
 Stochastic

 Simulation models may be categorized

according to the factors that cause system state
to change
 Continuous (time-based)
 Discrete event-based (still requires a time-keeping

mechanism to advance from one event to another)

 Performance Evaluation
Evaluation of a system

Experiment with the actual system Experiment with a model of the system

•Costly Physical model Abstract model

•Often the system is not available
Simulation

Analytical evaluation (mathematical Categorized according Categorized according

analysis) to the type of input data to the factors that
•Costly it accepts: cause system state to
change
•Approximations due to complexity •Deterministic
•Continuous
•Stochastic
•Discrete Event Based
Conclusions
 Review your existing applications and infrastructure
 Incorporate, as needed, wireless access points, routers,
gateways, security devices and middleware
 Determine connectivity requirements for your network
and mobile devices
 Integrate seamlessly with your current and future IT
infrastructure
 Evaluate performance, scalability, and availability metrics
 Leverage simulation and modeling tools to help ensure
consistent quality of service
 Assess server capacity and network coverage
 Ascertain security and management requirements
 Provide maximum security for the whole network infrastructure
Case Study 1: WLAN Coverage Planning

 Paper: WLAN Coverage Planning:

Optimization Models and Algorithms, E.
Amaldi, A. Capone, M. Cesana, F.
Malucelli, F. Palazzo
Case Study 1: WLAN Coverage Planning

 WLAN medium access mechanism:

 “listen before talk” approach
 if a user terminal is covered by more than 1 AP
and is transmitting/receiving to/from one of
them, the other APs cannot transmit/receive
to/from other users.
 causes limited system capacity when coverage
areas overlap
 Appropriate positioning of APs is crucial
Case Study 1: WLAN Coverage Planning

 Simple way to plan coverage

 consider a set of possible positions of user terminals in
the service area
 consider a set of AP candidate sites
 select a subset of sites in which to install APs so as to
guarantee a high enough signal level to all user
terminals
 Problem
 Minimizing the number of APs that cover the complete
set of user terminals is an NP-hard task (a.k.a.
cardinality set covering problem)
Case Study 1: WLAN Coverage Planning
 Heuristics are adopted to provide a sub-optimal
solutions
 Not all such solutions provide acceptable levels
of capacity and QoS
 Proposed solution:
 2 phases: greedy approach & local search
 The greedy phase starts from an empty solution and
iteratively adds to the current solution the candidate site
which maximizes a certain benefit function (calculated
for each candidate site)
 The local search phase takes as an input the solution
provided by the greedy phase. Then the site
“neighborhood” is explored for a better solution, using
an objective function. The final solution is the one with
the highest objective function.
Case Study 1: WLAN Coverage Planning

 Conclusions
 Coverage planning for WLANs is a hard task
 An optimal solution is NP-hard
 A sub-optimal approach is usually taken
 Proposed approach uses heuristics and is
composed of two phases: the greedy phase
and the local search phase
 Results show that this approach achieves
better overall capacity than the classical
approach, which is based on the minimum
cardinality set covering problem.
Performance evaluation
IEEE 802.11 (XIV)
 Unicast data transfer
DIFS
data
sender
SIFS
ACK
receiver
DIFS
other data
stations t
waiting time contention

– station has to wait for DIFS before sending data

– receivers acknowledge after waiting for a duration of a Short
Inter-Frame Space (SIFS), if the packet was received correctly
Masters thesis

http
://eeweb.poly.edu/
dgoodman/fainber
g.pdf
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Paper: Enhancements and Performance
Evaluation of Wireless Local Area
Networks, Jiaqing Song and Ljiljana
Trajkovic.
 Performance Evaluation is done using the
OPNET simulation tool.
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Known problems with WLANs
 WLAN media is error prone (very high BER)
 Hidden Terminal problem decreases performance
 Carrier Sensing (for collision detection) is difficult
 a station is incapable of listening to its own transmissions
 Investigate 3 approaches for improving WLAN
performance
 tuning the physical layer related parameters
 tuning the IEEE 802.11 parameters
 using an enhanced link layer (MAC) protocol
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 OPNET WLAN models
 WLAN station
 IEEE 802.11 WLAN station
 includes ON/OFF traffic

source
 includes sink

 includes WLAN interface

 includes receiver/

transmitter pair
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 OPNET WLAN models
 WLAN workstation
 workstation with client/server
applications running over TCP/IP and
UPD/IP
 supports IEEE 802.11 connections
at 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5Mbps or
11Mbps (speed is determined by
data rate of connecting link)
 WLAN server
 server with applications running over
TCP/IP and UDP/IP
 supports IEEE 802.11 connections
at 1Mbps, 2Mbps, 5.5Mbps or
11Mbps (speed is determined by
data rate of connecting link)
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 OPNET WLAN models
 WLAN access point
 wireless router
 Ethernet interface

 connects the wireless

network to wired networks

 Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 1: tuning the
physical layer related
parameters
 Modified OPNET wlan_mac
process to introduce 4
parameters
 Slot time
 SIFS time
 Minimum contention window
 Maximum contention window
 To enable choose
“customized” option for
“Physical Characteristics”
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 1: tuning the physical layer related
parameters
 Scenario with 2 WLAN stations
 WLAN stations have no TCP or higher layers, therefore
reflect the performance of MAC layer protocols more
accurately
 First set of simulations demonstrates the effect of Slot
time and Short Inter-frame Space (SIFS) on WLAN
performance
 Second set of simulations demonstrates the effect of
Minimum Contention window on the average media
access delay
 Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 1: tuning the
physical layer related
parameters
 Simulation set 1
 media access delay in first
node is collected
 media access delay =
queue delay + contention
delay
 Results: smaller slot time
and SIFS decrease the
average media access
delay  improved
performance
 Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 1: tuning the
physical layer related
parameters
 Simulation set 2
 media access delay is
again collected
 Results: setting Min
contention window to a
smaller value (in the case
when there are few WLAN
stations in the network)
decreases media access
delay  improved
performance
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 2: tuning the IEEE 802.11
parameters
 A BER generator was developed and
integrated in the wlan_station model
 Nine simulation scenarios with various
combinations of values for BER and
Fragmentation threshold
 to demonstrate the effects of the fragmentation
threshold
 Throughput is collected
 Throughput represents the rate of data successfully
received by other stations
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 2: tuning the IEEE 802.11 parameters
 Results show that for low BER various fragmentation
threshold have no significant effect on the WLAN
performance.
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 2: tuning the IEEE 802.11 parameters
 Results show that for relatively high BER, a small
fragmentation threshold can significantly improve WLAN
performance.
 Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 2: tuning the IEEE 802.11 parameters
 Results show that for relatively low BER, a very small
fragmentation threshold can significantly deteriorate WLAN
performance, because of the heavy packet overhead.
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 3: using an enhanced link layer
(MAC) protocol
 Adaptive back-off mechanism was examined
 This mechanism can be implemented on top of
the existing access scheduling protocol and
does not introduce additional overhead.
 The main idea of the mechanism is to estimate
the shared channel by calculating the slot
utilization ratio.
 High utilization  possible collision  back-off
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 3: using an enhanced link layer (MAC)
protocol
 adaptive back-off mechanism was implemented and
integrated into the wlan_mac process model.
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 3: using an enhanced link layer (MAC)
protocol
 Three simulation scenarios with various numbers of
identical WLAN stations
 Data is sent at an average rate of 820kbps
 Destination stations are randomly chosen by the source
station
 Results collected for analysis include:
 Throughput (rate of data successfully received by other
stations)
 Load (rate of data sent to other stations)
 Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 3: using an enhanced link layer (MAC) protocol
 Results: with the adaptive back-off mechanism load can be greatly
reduced while throughput can still achieve the same or higher value.
 the mechanism can effectively reduce the number of collisions and data loss
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Approach 3: using an enhanced link layer (MAC)
protocol
 Results: throughput/load behavior of WLAN with more nodes is
consistent
Case Study 2: Performance Evaluation of
Wireless LANs
 Conclusions
 3 methods for improving WLAN performance were
implemented in OPNET
 Tuning the physical layer characteristics can greatly
improve network performance
 Properly chosen values for fragmentation threshold
improves WLAN performance when BER is high
 The adaptive back-off algorithm in the MAC layer can
effectively reduce the number of collisions
 This case study used simulation as the performance
evaluation method and came to its conclusions after a
series of simulation sets for different scenarios