USE CASE: ELISA’S DEPLOYMENT OF C-RAN:

LESSONS LEARNED AND APPLICATIONSTeemu Karhima 17.10.2016

Elisa in a nutshell

• Telecommunications, ICT and online service

company

• Market leader in Finland in both fixed and mobile

• 2.3 million customers, 4.74 million mobile

subscriptions

• Population coverage

• 2G and 3G >99.8 %, LTE >98 %

• Multi-vendor network (Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei)

• Mobile data usage 13 GB / user / month. Elisa is

number 3 in the world in the total data amount

(source Tefficient).

CRAN for Elisa

Centralized RAN for Elisa is a solution whichbrings improvedbroadband connectivity to large concentrations of people generating big amount of uplinktraffic within a defined area.

3

Why, Where and How CRAN has been implemented will be revieled in next

30 minutes.

Why?

4

Interferece Limitation

High UL Usage

DL Volume

UL Volume

Continuous Data Growth

+129% per year

13 GB/month/user

201620152014

Where?

5

Hartwall Arena

Cell on Wheels

Ratina Stadium

Helsinki Icehockey Stadium

CRAN Implementation – Hartwall Arena

6

Hartwall Arena Information

• Main indoor areena in Finland: Hockey

games, concerts, events

• Capacity: Sport Events = 13 349 Concerts

= 15 000

• 8 RRH

• 4 CoMP sets, each containing 6 cells

• LTE2600, 20 MHz BW

IRCmax(SINR)per UE

per TTI

6

CRAN Load Test – Hartwall Arena

7

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

16000

CLPCsettings 1

CLPCsettings 1

OLPC OLPC CLPCsettings 1

CLPCsettings 1

CLPCsettings 2

CLPCsettings 2

CRAN off CRAN on CRAN off CRAN on CRAN off CRAN on CRAN off CRAN on

Throughput

ThrCRAN_on – ThrCRAN_off

ThrCRAN_off

CRAN Thp gain [%]

=

×100%

Mass events + loading UEsLoading testsTest scenarios

• 30 friendly UE’s (6 x 4UE’s, 2 x 3UE’s)

• Users having 100% load on cell edge

• CRAN on/off

• Different power control settings

Test set 1 Test set 2 Test set 1 Test set 2

CRAN Load Test – Hartwall Arena

8

0

5

10

15

20

25

0 10 20 30 40 50 60Time [sec]

Cell throughput [Mbps]

CRAN OnRSSI = -95dBm

SINR = +23dB after up to

8Rx IRC antenna combining

UEs could transmit at less

power

creating less interference

the remaining interference

part is totally cancelled

CRAN OffRSSI = -85dBm

SINR = 0dB after 2Rx

MRC antenna combining

extremely interference

limited scenario

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

MC

S [

#]

MCS distribution

CRAN off CRAN on

Results

• BTS log analysis from one cell shows the impact of CRAN

• SINR and MCS have improved which leads to better throughput

• UE power consumption was also reduced

• Ideal conditions for maximum gain (cell edge and 100% load).

Only friendly users load during the test.

UL Quality distribution

LTE Performance During Mass Events

9

2.9 Nickelback

8.9 Finland – Sweden ice hockey

13-14.9 Red Hot Chili Peppers

17.9 Jokerit - Avangard Omsk

19.9 Jokerit - Sibir Novosibirsk

21.9 Jokerit – Metallurg

23.9 Jokerit – TsSKA Moskova

26-27.9 Justin Bieber

• Events during September

Event Traffic Profile

10

Finland – Sweden

ice hockey

Red Hot Chili

Peppers

Jokerit – TsSKA

Moskova (KHL)

Justin Bieber

• Traffic and performance were analysed in different events during September 2016.

• Uplink is much more loaded in concerts than in sport events

• Events that attract younger people generates more traffic

DL Datavolume

UL Datavolume

Performance Analysis

11

During the most congested event (Justin Bieber)

the premium class user performance was still

good. Average DL user throughput was 5 Mbps

and UL user throughput 3 Mbps. People using

the lowest LTE subscription had 2 Mbps (DL)

and 1 Mbps (UL) average throughput.

Cell

1DL User Throughput

UL User Throughput Cell

2

Cell

3

Cell

4

Cell

6

Cell

7

Cell

8

Cell

5

”2 sectors were

carrying nearly 200

RRC users during the

peak hours.

Otherwise load was

nicely balanced

between cells.”

UL Quality

MC

SM

bps

”UL MCS clearly degraded during the event.

PUSCH MSC was below 10 during the concert.”

COW (Cell On Wheels) Concept

12

High capacity movable base station

- 6 sectors

- 40 MHz LTE BW -> 1.8 Gbps

- CRAN

Problem

Typical events last just for 2-3

days per year

Fixed solution is not cost

efficient. In many cases only

1-2 sectors are serving the

event area, and capacity is not

sufficient to provide good

performance.

Huge amount of UL traffic

Events in Finland: Summer

concerts and festivals

Multibeam CoW Implementation

13

First trial in Blockfest in

Tampere

Antenna placed to

manlift

CRAN was not

activated in initial trial

Multibeam Cow Results and Learnings

14

Quality could have been

better. It is expected that

CRAN activation is

required to improve the

performance in uplink

direction during big

events.

Multibeam Cow Results and Learnings

There were clear

dominance areas for

each sector, however

antenna should have

been located closer to

the event.

15

Multibeam Cow Results and Learnings

16

LTE2600 and LTE1800

antenna patterns were

not identical and thus

load was not balanced

in optimal way

Summary

• CRAN is designed for mass events where UL usage is expected to be

huge

• Elisa have implemented one Nokia CRAN solution with positive results

• Due to increasing number of LTE subscribers and applications requiring

high UL speed, more CRAN implementations are being planned

• Arenas and high capacity Cow solution are next targets for CRAN

17

Thank You!