White Paper

UMTS Femtocell as Wireless Residential Gateway

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2007 Aricent, Inc. All rights reserved.

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CONTENTS

1. Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Key Business Drivers for UMTS Femtocell 4. Networks Integration Models 5. Key Challenges 6. Competition and Threats 7. Aricent Edge 8. Summary 9. References

4 4 4 5 6 7 7 8 8

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1. ABSTRACT Mobile operators today are trying hard to overcome the challenges posed by intense competition in the wireless communication space. There is an ever-increasing demand from operators to increase ARPU while decreasing cost. New competitors entering the market are posing a big threat to existing players apart from the alternative technologies such as Voice over WiFi. Vendors are under intense pressure to come up with innovative solutions for providing better quality and coverage to mobile subscribers at lower cost. UMTS operators believe that the killer applications for their networks in future would be the high bandwidth streaming applications like IPTV, video telephony, movie-on-demand. Studies indicate that majority of usage of these applications would be when the user is indoors. Clearly, there is a compelling requirement for mobile network operators for providing an effective coverage for these The discussion about UMTS based Femtocell (also called 3G Access Point`) that is doing rounds for quite sometime to counter the challenge posed by unlicensed access technologies like WiFi and WiMAX. The concept is of a UMTS Femtocell is to make a UMTS NodeB cheap enough to be deployed for residential use by a very limited number of users. This NodeB is connected to the backhaul network via subscribers broadband connection and is deployed in huge volumes. This would deliver the same services to a subscriber as other alternative technologies and, most importantly, would use the existing UMTS handset, with no need to upgrade to a dual-mode handset. A few years ago, an indoor base station would have seemed impossible especially because of the lack of appropriate hardware While there are several challenges faced by vendors in making such a system like network integration, security, provisioning, radio interference and cost; solutions to these problems exist enabling the vendors and operators to build a strong and viable business case for low cost UMTS Femtocell. The subscriber gets a benefit of reduced call costs, increased quality and convenience of using an existing UMTS handheld device. The operator benefits by increase in ARPU and customer loyalty. and also considering the impression of a typical base station. Today the reality is different, with different companies thinking seriously about developing an extremely low-power femtocell (home base station), of size comparable to an existing WiFi access point and a price of less than $200. It is predicted that there will be 102 million worldwide users on 32 million home base stations by 2011 [1]. Overall, UMTS has a tremendous potential to take up a significant share of this indoor wireless access market. Using a UMTS femtocell in the home environment will help minimizing the transmit power levels both for the femtocell and the UE as there would be a significant decrease in the signal attenuation. The lower output power from the UE will reduce the interference generated while decreasing the drain on battery. High signal attenuation through walls further reduces the impact of interference of the indoor traffic on the outdoor environment. applications where it is needed the most inside the buildings. indoor users causing significant interference to the outdoor users, thereby further reducing the macro cell capacity.

This paper takes a closer look at the key business drivers in this space as well as advantages/opportunities available with the operators and vendors in this nascent market. The paper also captures the key challenges that need to be focused on for developing a Femtocell solution viable for mass-market deployment and the various network integration models for the Femtocell. 3. KEY BUSINESS DRIVERS FOR UMTS FEMTOCELL What are the business drivers for this kind of solution? To answer this, consider the following points: . Competiion: Mobile Operators today are under tremendous pressure of balancing the relentless technology advances and new services with increasing costs, reducing revenues and growing competition from other service providers. As mobile and 2. INTRODUCTION WCDMA is an interference-limited technology, in which the cell capacity is limited by the interference caused by transmission from each user in the cell. To increase cell capacity, all transmissions (from base station as wellhandsets) are kept at minimum transmit power. However, in the in-building coverage area, there is significant attenuation of the radio signal from the macro cells, which results in the lower voice quality and higher call drops for CS services and lower user data rate for PS services. To maintain the QoS, UMTS fixed-line markets become saturated and voice revenues decline, the home is the primary focus for capturing market share by offering attractive service bundles: voice, data and television as the so-called triple play. Mobile access adds another dimension for some . Backward Compatbility: This solution does not require the subscriber to purchase an expensive dual-mode handset for getting indoor and outdoor coverage from a single handheld device

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. Threat from voice over IP, voice-over-WiFi: The threat from unlicensed technologies, which are currently eating up the revenue share of licensed spectrum operators, will get reduced if cheaper wireless coverage can be provided indoors . Threat from wireless technologies like WiMax: WiMax based

integration of femtocell into this existing infrastructure

Femtocell ADSL ADSL Femtocell ISP Network ADSL Security Gateway RNC lub Tunneling luCS ADSL Femtocell ISP Network ADSL luPS SGSN MSC

lub over secured IP

solutions, which are able to provide higher data rates than UMTS are also gaining ground for indoor wireless access market but UMTS have some clear advantages over WiMax. Apart from being able to work without requiring a dual-mode handset, UMTS would be able to provide better security on the radio interface and a unified billing solution to the subscriber for outdoor and indoor access
Femtocell Femtocell

Mobile Operators Network

ADSL

. Increased Network Coverage and Capacity: Providing high QoS in indoor coverage from macro/micro cells has inherent limitations due to a significant radio signal path loss that happens while permeating walls. The indoor solution will be much better equipped to provide a better coverage and high QoS (due to reduced path loss). At the same time, if the UMTS Femtocell takes care of the bulk of traffic generated by indoor users, the load on macro network will get eased significantly. This would simplify the RF Planning issues and increase cell capacity for the UMTS macro network . Increased Customer Loyalty: A customer that purchases a femtocell will not abandon the operators service so easily. Apart from creating a psychological barrier, there are other benefits to the customer, such as improved in-home coverage, improved in-home data rates, and cheap or maybe free calls. If a femtocell can deliver on these benefits, the probability of a subscriber switching the service provider will reduce significantly

Femtocell

Illustration 1: Iub over public IP

. IP Concentrator with standard RNC: An alternative architecture is possible that uses an aggregator node to connect multiple femtocells to the existing RNC. The Concentrator node is connected to the RNC over the standard Iub interface and looks like a normal Node B . UMA based network with modified UTRAN architecture: The UMA approach provides an option of using the existing Core Network infrastructure while re-architecting the UTRAN to support the unlicensed spectrum deployment [2]. The interface to the existing Core Network is through the UMA Network Controller (UNC), which is the equivalent to an RNC. This concept can be extended to support a UMTS femtocell through the UNC [3]. The UMA client function moves into the femtocell allowing any standard UMTS handset to communicate with the network through the UMA network. The advantage in this architecture is that it uses

4. NETWORK INTEGRATION MODELS An operators Femtocell network must be connected into its mobile core to interconnect the Femtocell user to the PSTN and people on the operators macro network. Several options are available for network integration. Each option comes with a tradeoff in terms of scale (proprietary gateways and UMA) and/or time to market (IP Iub and IMS). The best option will depend on an operators existing

most of the existing network elements and will be able to support integration of a large number of end-user devices into the mobile network

UMTS Femtocell ADSL ADSL UMTS Femtocell ISP Network ADSL UMA Signalling

network capabilities and their network evolution roadmap. Some of the network integration models possible have been described here:
UMTS Femtocell

UNC

. Iub over public IP: This architecture is quite similar to the existing 3G-network architecture where each femtocell (equivalent of NodeB) is connected to the RNC over an IP interface as shown in figure below. The Iub signaling takes place over an IP network. Network security can be handled by the IP security (IPsec) protocol between the femtocell and the security gateway node. This architecture is suitable for operators who have an existing UMTS infrastructure deployed and are looking for a fast

luPS

SGSN MSC

luCS ADSL UMTS Femtocell ISP Network ADSL ADSL UMTS Femtocell UMTS Femtocell

Mobile Operators Network

Illustration 2: UMA based on modified UTRAN architecture

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. IMS core based with Integrated RNC, SGSN and GGSN: Illustration 3 shows another approach that moves away from the existing network architecture completely to an all-IP network defined in 3GPP IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). The voice is carried using Voice over IP (VoIP) protocol using Session Initiated Protocol (SIP). The RNC and packet core functionality is now fully integrated into the femtocell and the Gateway node, which enables proper interworking with the IMS or a pre-IMS core network. The SIP signalling can happen directly between the IMS core and IMS enabled handset in which case the UMTS Femtocell just provides the UTRAN and packet core functionality. In case UE is not SIP enabled, the Femtocell shall additionally function as an IMS client and terminate the SIP signalling on behalf of UE. The Femtocell shall then interwork the IMS session towards the IMS core to a standard CS Call on the Radio side towards the UE. The main advantage of using this architecture is that it doesnt need the packet core infrastructure, which might get congested in an eventual large-scale deployment of femtocells. This approach is more suitable as a long-term strategy in the femtocell evolution path . Network Integration Model: The network integration model adopted for femtocell (some models shown above) will also play a key role in enabling easier integration with existing network infrastructure while at the same time being able to meet the end user requirements. . Upgrades: With the new technologies like HSUPA evolving over a period of time, a femtocell has to be made upgradeable to support these new requirements. This can be achieved by relying on software-defined radio or DSP based solutions but it has cost implications associated with it. . Access Control: The radio access cannot be open to everyone in the coverage area of a femtocell. The subscriber would pay for the femtocell installation and backhaul (lets say DSL) access charges, therefore the subscriber would need to have an option to control the set of users (UEs) authorized to make or receive calls through that femtocell. Anyone else should be barred from using the services of that femtocell. This kind of access restriction mechanism is not provided by the standard UMTS protocols and therefore some innovation is required to make this happen. . RF Planning: The RF planning needs to be done very carefully for deriving the desired benefits from femtocell environment. While a
SIP Enabled UE

separate carrier for the femto environment may help mitigate interference with the macro network, this option may not be available with operators who are tight on the allocated spectrum

SIP Signalling

UMTS Femtocell ADSL ADSL UMTS Femtocell ISP Network ADSL ADSL UMTS Femtocell Gateway IMS CORE

and want to maximize the capacity by frequency reuse. Other consideration could be the use of such scrambling codes that are not in use in the neighboring cells. Configuration of scrambling codes from the operator could be a problem because of the ad-hoc nature of femtocell deployment. The femtocell could emulate the UE behavior to listen the neighbor cell environment and read the primary scrambling codes of the cells around to select a scrambling code that is not in use

UMTS Femtocell

. Network Planning: Network configuration with respect to allocation of cell identifiers, location and routing area identifiers etc. to the femtocell needs to be done in such a way that it does not create integration issues with the core network. Careful planning is also needed for providing seamless handover and

Illustration 3: IMS based architecture

5. KEY CHALLENGES Like any new technology, the femtocell space is also facing a number of challenges. The ones that are concerning operators and vendors the most for a successful commercial deployment of femtocell, are discussed below: . Subscriber BoM cost: Pricing of the femtocell needs to be kept in the range of $200 or even lesser to make it a viable FMC solution. This is not going to be an easy task considering its typical performance requirements (4 HSPDA/HSUPA users with cumulative data rate above 1 Mbps).

mobility between the femtocell and macro network. These aspects, if not taken care properly, can create operational issues or the UMTS network operator . Radio Resource Management: The radio resource management strategy and algorithms need to be developed specifically for the indoor deployment model. Smart algorithms need to be defined which enable high radio resource utilization and better service (lower call drops, higher QoS, seamless handovers) while minimizing the interference to the neighboring environment

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. Radio Emission Aspects: Radio Emission levels in the indoor environment needs to be kept much lower to avoid any undesirable impact on human beings. This is achievable due to much lesser signal attenuation in the indoor environment, which requires both the UE and the femtocell to transmit at very low power for achieving good signal strength on the receiver side. This actually leads to a safer radio environment as compared to macro network environment and there is a need for educating the end users for whom the idea of an indoor base station might create some amount of fear. . Automatic Configuration: It will be necessary for the femtocell to get configured, seamlessly connected with the subscribers ISP network and operators core without requiring much manual intervention either from the subscriber or from the operator. This plug-and-play feature is needed firstly to enable the subscriber to install a femtocell in his/her home independently without any hassles and secondly for lowering the operators customer support cost. . Customer Support Model: Though the customer expectations of providing support for a residential access point have been minimized by WiFi access points, still there would be some requirement for diagnosing the problems that could occur in a femtocell. Network monitoring tools need to be put in place to ensure that a femtocell is able to deliver good coverage and reliable service to the end user without which the operator will not be able to get the maximum value from such deployment. . Security Aspects: Registration and authentication of the femtocell need to be carried out in some way to provide a secure connection with the core network through subscribers ISP network. This could be achieved by including a SIM in the femtocell, which will store the subscriber identity and subscription preferences. Authentication can take place when the femtocell is powered on and tries to connect with the backhaul network. There could be other ways of achieving the same results depending upon the operators deployment scenario . Regulatory Restrictions: Mechanism needs to be provided in the femtocell to adhere to regulatory restrictions imposed in a geographical location/country For example, before the femtocell starts radio transmission, it needs to ensure that the carrier frequency/band could be used in that geographical location. The location where the end user purchases the femtocell cannot be used for this purpose since the user can easily carry the femtocell to a distant location/country and try to install the device in that location . Synchronization: There is a requirement of timing accuracy of 0.1 parts per million (ppm) for picocells as per the 3GPP Release 6 specifications [7] . A severe synchronization and accuracy

requirements, such as this, can make the equipment costly and therefore, unviable. Some innovative mechanism for providing synchronization needs to be in place until there is a relaxation for picocells in future versions of the 3GPP standards or an operator specific relaxation is provided.

6. COMPETITION AND THREATS The competition to the UMTS Femtocell market from other technologies like Voice over WiFi, WiMAX, UMA is for real. . Time-to-Market: The existing WiFi based solutions have got a major head start in terms of product development, trials, marketing etc. Potential Femtocell vendors need to start with an aggressive development plan and a marketing campaign to overcome this lead and position their product credibly with a fast Ztime-to-market. . High Speed Packet Data Services: WiMax, which uses a much-advanced radio interface with higher spectral efficiency, poses a big threat to the UMTS space for the residential market as well. WiMax technology, although theoretically boasting of supporting up to 75 Mbps of peak data rate per 20 MHz channel, might be able to provide a real world performance of around 45 Mbps in some fixed broadband applications [8] . The introduction of HSDPA and HSUPA channels in UMTS is trying to overcome this threat to some extent but the data rates achievable in WiMax still remain much higher as compared to UMTS.

7. ARICENT EDGE Aricent has more than 20,000 man years of telecom experience and expertise in different wireless systems to help vendors in architecting and developing femtocell solutions that have viable deployment scenario and a faster time-to-market. Aricent has developed a strong partnership with different eco-system vendors to keep ahead of the evolving standards and provide quicker solutions to OEMs.

Aricent service offerings in the Femtocell space includes: . Technical consulting - Migration to newer technologies, Defining and selecting right architectures . defining system architecture including system module definition, interface definition, definition for MIB, fault management, performance management, system dynamic behavior for a high availability solution. . designing high-level and low-level architectures for call control, resource management, user plane protocols and applications

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. Product development Compltete end-to-end software development, feature development . development of high availability, carrier grade solutions for UMTS Access Network nodes . Testing Test automation, system integration, interop testing . Integration of Femtocell with 3rd party UE (both Test UE & actual UE) to execute functional test scenarios Extensive Load, Soak & Performance Testing experience in the UMTS domain

Aricent IPRs in the Femtocell space include: . Control Plane Stacks RANAP, RNSAP, NBAP, RRC,RLC, MAC, MAC-es, MAC-hs, MAC-e . Transport Place Stacks SS7 stacks- SCCP, MTP3B/SAAL-NNI, M3UA/SCIP, ALCAP, SAAL-UNI . User Plane Stacks Iu-UP, Iub-FP, Iur-FP, GTP-U, PDCP

8. SUMMARY Every solution being conceived or developed will bring its own complexity and challenges. A mature solution to meet these challenges is evolving and industry experts are expecting the UMTS to come as a front-runner in the indoor solution.

9. REFERENCES . http://www.telecomredux.com/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=3478&Itemid=35 . Kineto Wireless, The Role of UMA in Mobile Network Evolution, White Paper, August 2006 . Kineto Wireless, The Case for UMA-Enabled Femtocells, White Paper, August 2006 . 3GPP TS 25.104,Base Station (BS) radio transmission and reception (FDD) . http://www.wimax.com/education/faq/faq38
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