Mobility Management and Capacity Analysis for
High Speed Downlink Packet Access in WCDMA
Klaus I. Pedersen, Antti Toskala, Preben E. Mogensen
Nokia Networks
Email: Klaus.I.Pedersen@nokia.com
Abstract—In this paper we discuss two options for supporting mobility
management for HSDPA-users. Especially issues related to direct change
of the serving HS-DSCH cell are addressed, where a handover from a HS-
DSCH in the source cell to a HS-DSCH in the target cell is made. It is
concluded that change of the serving HS-DSCH cell without any interme-
diate channel switching to DCH seems to be a promising solution from
a performance point of view as it allows to have full HSDPA cell coverage
and high capacity gain from introducing HSDPA. Uplink HS-DPCCH cov-
erage is also addressed for users with their DCH in soft handover mode.
I. I NTRODUCTION
High speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) was intro-
duced in 3GPP UTRAN Release 5 [1]. HSDPA includes a
number of downlink performance enhancing features such as
adaptive modulation (QPSK/16QAM) and coding, a new phys-
ical layer retransmission mechanism with soft combining of re-
transmissions (Hybrid ARQ), and location of the medium ac-
cess control layer (called MAC-hs) in the base station (Node-
B). Location of the MAC-hs in the Node-B implies that data for
HSDPA-users are being buffered in the Node-B, and also the
HSDPA packet scheduler is in the Node-B. The shared trans-
port channel for HSDPA is the high speed downlink shared
channel (HS-DSCH).
Not many studies have been published where mobility man-
agement for HSDPA-users is addressed in details. Mobility
management, or equivalently handover management, is quite
different for HSDPA compared to dedicated channels (DCH) as
specified in Release’99. Mainly because the HS-DSCH is only
transmitted from one cell to the user (i.e., soft handover trans-
mission from multiple cells as for the DCH is not supported)
and secondly, because the system architecture for HSDPA is
more decentralized so functions are moved from the central ra-
dio network controller (RNC) to the Node-B. The architecture
for HSDPA is sketched in Fig. 1, where part of the protocol
stack and the functional split between the serving RNC, the
Node-B, and the user equipment (UE) is illustrated. The choice
of handover strategy for HSDPA-users also influences the cell
coverage and capacity of HSDPA. We will therefore discuss
two different handover algorithms for HSDPA-users. In this
context, issues related both to downlink and uplink coverage,
as well as capacity considerations are addressed.
The paper is organized as follows: Two different options for
handling HSDPA mobility are discussed in Section II. Section
III includes results for the soft handover statistics, uplink cover-
age considerations for HSDPA-users in the soft handover area,
and capacity results. Concluding remarks are in Section IV.
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II. M OBILITY MANAGEMENT FOR HSDPA USERS
A. Mobility options
Let us assume that an HSDPA-user is receiving data on the
HS-DSCH in the source cell as indicated in Fig. 2. As there can
only be one cell transmiting data on the HS-DSCH to the user,
this cell is called the serving HS-DSCH cell. If the user moves
to a new target cell, there are basically two different methods
for implementing mobility management. One option is first
to make a channel switching from HS-DSCH to DCH when
the user moves into the soft handover area and then potentially
again make channel switching from HS-DSCH to DCH when it
exits the soft handover area. In this context, the soft handover
area is defined as the area where the user is having an active
set size larger than one for its DCH. However, by using this
method users in the soft handover area are excluded from using
the HS-DSCH and are therefore not able to benefit from the po-
tential advantages that HSDPA offers. An alternative option for
handling mobility is therefore to make a direct handover from
the HS-DSCH in the source cell to the HS-DSCH in the target
cell. The latter option is referred to as changing the serving
HS-DSCH cell. The advantage of changing the serving HS-
DSCH cell without using an intermediate channel switching to
DCH is that full HSDPA coverage is thereby supported, i.e.,
all HSDPA-users in the network can receive data on the HS-
DSCH independently of their position. Notice from Fig. 1 that
the serving RNC is responsible for both handover control and
channel type selection.
Serving
HS-DSCH
cell
Soft handover area
(potential channel
switching to DCH)
Active set size>1
User
Source Target
The user is moving from the
cell
source cell into the target cell
cell
Fig. 2. An HSDPA-user that is receiving data on the HS-DSCH is moving
from the source cell (currently serving HS-DSCH cell) into a new target
cell.
In order to compare the two considered candidate options
for HSDPA mobility handling, we will compare the methods in
terms of performance and also take a closer look at the impli-
cations of performing a change of the serving HS-DSCH cell.
Due to the de-centralized HSDPA architecture, intra and in-
 Serving RNC Node-B User equipment (UE)

RLC
Data
Handover MAC-hs:
Control MAC-d
- MAC-hs packet scheduler
RLC - Data buffer for each user
MAC-hs:
- Hybrid ARQ manager
Channel - Hybrid ARQ manager
- MAC-hs flow control
type selection MAC-d - Re-ordering
- etc.
Uu - etc.
HS-DSCH Iub HS-DSCH (air interface)
Physical Layer Physical Layer
Frame Protocol Frame Protocol

Fig. 1. Simplified block diagram of the functional split between the serving RNC, the Node-B, and the user equipment (UE) for HSDPA.

ter Node-B change of the serving HS-DSCH cell are discussed cell.
separately.
Serving RNC Drifting RNC
B. Inter Node-B HS-DSCH cell change Iur

Both synchronized and asynchronous change of the serving
HS-DSCH cell is supported in Release’5. However, in this
study we focus on synchronized cell changes. The decision to
make an inter Node-B change of the serving cell is made by the
serving RNC and is typically triggered by a measurement from
the user, such as measurement event 1d, which is called mea-
surement event for the best serving HS-DSCH cell [7]. This
measurement event reports the best serving HS-DSCH cell to
the serving RNC based on a measurement of the primary com-
mon pilot channel (P-CPICH) for the potential candidate cells
for serving HS-DSCH cell.
Once the serving RNC decides to initiate an inter Node-B
change of the serving HS-DSCH cell as indicated in Fig. 3, a
synchronized radio link reconfiguration prepare message is sent
to the drifting RNC and the Node-B that controls the target cell,
as well as a radio resource control (RRC) physical channel re-
configuration message to the user1 . Among others, these mes-
sages specify the time where the actual cell change is made,
which is typically 300-500 ms from the time where the serv-
ing RNC decides to make the cell change. However, until the
time where the actual cell change is made, the source cell is
still allowed to transmit to the user on the HS-DSCH. At the
time where the cell change is implemented, the MAC-hs for
the user in the source cell is reset, which basically means that
any buffered protocol data units (PDU) for the user are deleted,
including the pending PDUs in the Hybrid ARQ manager. At
the same time index, the flow control unit in the MAC-hs in
the target cell starts to request PDUs from the serving RNC. It
is therefore desirable to control the amount of buffered PDUs
in the source cell, so that only few PDUs are buffered at the
time where the actual cell change is made. This can for in-
stance be achieved by stop forwarding PDUs from the RNC to
the source cell at the time where the RNC decides to make the
cell change. Provided that the source cell is able to transmit the
buffered PDUs within the 300-500 ms time-window before the
actual cell change is made, no PDUs are deleted in the source
1 For a detailed signaling flow diagram for change of the serving HS-DSCH
cell, see the 3GPP specifications [9]-[10].
Iub Iub
Node B
Source cell
Node B
1 2 3 1 2 3
Target
cell
The user is moving to cell #1
under another Node B User
Fig. 3. Sketch of an HSDPA user that is making an intra Node-B change of
the serving HS-DSCH cell.
However, if it anyway happens that PDUs are deleted in the
source cell prior to the change of the serving HS-DSCH cell,
then these PDUs must be recovered by higher layer retrans-
missions such as RLC retransmissions. When the RLC pro-
tocol realizes that the PDUs it has originally forwarded to the
source cell are not acknowledged, it will initiate retransmis-
sions, which basically means forwarding the same PDUs to the
target cell that was deleted in the source cell. In order to re-
duce the potential PDU transmission delays during this recov-
ery phase, the RLC protocol at the user can be configured to
send an RLC status report to the UTRAN at the first time in-
cident after the serving HS-DSCH cell has been changed [8].
This implies that the RLC protocol in the RNC can immedi-
ately start to forward the PDUs that were deleted in the source
cell prior to the HS-DSCH cell change.
C. Intra Node-B HS-DSCH cell change
A synchronized intra Node-B serving HS-DSCH cell change
is similar to the synchronized inter Node-B serving HS-DSCH
cell change. The only difference is that potentially buffered
PDUs in the source cell’s MAC-hs are not necessarily deleted
at the time where the actual cell change is made. Provided that
the Node-B supports MAC-hs preservation, the buffered PDUs
in the source cell are moved to the target cell’s MAC-hs, so that
no PDUs need to be recovered by higher layer retransmission.
In this respect, an intra Node-B serving HS-DSCH cell change

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is simpler to control, compared to an inter Node-B cell change. a relatively high transmit power when the user is in soft han-
dover mode [6].
III. A NALYSIS
HS-DPCCH with L1 Ack/Nack/CQI
A. Soft handover statistics
Return channel for TCP ack’s (DCH)
Fig. 4 shows the probability for different soft handover
states, such as the probability of being in 2-way softer han- 12.2 kbps AMR speech (DCH)
Node-B User
dover between cells on the same Node-B, 2-way soft handover equipment
between cells on different Node-Bs, etc. These results are
TCP download on HSDPA (HS-DSCH)
obtained from Monte-Carlo network simulations, assuming a
standard 3-sector network topology where each cell is using a 12.2 kbps AMR speech (DCH)

65 degree antenna. Users in the network are assumed to be

uniformly distributed. A simple single slope path loss model Fig. 5. Sketch of uplink and downlink channels for the considered uplink
is applied with a path loss exponent of 3.5. Shadow fading is coverage example.
modelled with a lognormal random variable with 8 dB stan-
dard deviation. The soft handover state of the different users Let us therefore consider the example pictured in Fig. 5,
depends on the relative received quality of the P-CPICH from where it is assumed that the user is in soft handover mode
the different cells and the soft handover window which triggers while downloading data on the HS-DSCH over the transmis-
addition of a cell to the users active set. It is observed that sion control protocol (TCP) in parallel with an ongoing 12.2
for a soft handover window of 4 dB, 5% of the users are in 2- kbps speech call on DCH. In the uplink, the user also trans-
way softer handover. Hence, these 5% of the users are likely mits a 12.2 kbps speech call on DCH in parallel with a DCH
to require an intra Node-B change of the serving HS-DSCH return channel for TCP Ack’s and the HS-DPCCH. Assuming
cell. However, some of users in 3-way soft handover may also that a TCP Ack of 40 bytes is sent on the uplink DCH return
be candidates for intra Node-B serving HS-DSCH cell change channel for every received TCP packet of 1500 bytes on the
if two of the soft handover legs are associated with the same DS-DSCH (i.e., header compression is not being used), we can
Node-B. calculate the required bandwith of the DCH return channel. For
50
a HSDPA-user on the cell edge that is receiving data on the
Percentage of users in different soft handover states [%]

Users with
active set size>1 HS-DSCH with 500 kbps, the required uplink bandwidth of the
45
DCH return channel is thus 13.4 kbps, so it is assumed in the
40 following that the bit rate of the DCH return channel is set at 16
35 kbps. In addition to the channel pictured in Fig. 5, there is also
30
a 3.4 kbps signaling radio bearer on DCH in both the uplink
Users in 3-way soft handover
and downlink.
25
Let us assume that the network has been dimensioned for
20 64 kbps uplink data coverage on DCH for cases with no HS-
15 Users in 2-way soft handover DPCCH transmission, for a maximum user transmit power of
(under different Node-Bs) 125 mW. Given this starting point, the uplink link budget is
10
known so the required transmit power for the uplink speech
5
Users in 2-way softer handover channel and the DCH return channel can be found, and there-
(on the same Node-B)
0 fore also the available power for HS-DPCCH transmission.
2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
Soft handover window [dB] Given these assumptions, link level simulations have been con-
ducted for a user in 3-way soft handover. The link level simula-
Fig. 4. Soft handover statistics from a homogeneous 3-sector network.
tions have been repeated for different power offsets between the
HS-DPCCH and the uplink dedicated physical control channel
(DPCCH) using different degrees of Ack/Nack repetition for
B. Uplink coverage considerations the HS-DPCCH. The link level simulations assumes a Node-B
It only makes sense to allow HSDPA-users in the soft han- with two receive antennas per cell and a standard Rake receiver.
dover area to receive data on the HS-DSCH if there is suf- It is found that the HS-DPCCH detection error probabilities
ficiently good uplink coverage for the high speed dedicated listed in Table I can be fulfilled for a user in soft handover pro-
physical control channel (HS-DPCCH) that carries the Layer- vided that the Ack/Nack is transmitted on the HS-DPCCH with
1 Ack/Nack’s and the channel quality indicator (CQI) report. repetition two, i.e. is sent twice before being decoded [11]. The
The HS-DPCCH is power controlled relative to the uplink DCH latter is possible without reaching the maximum user transmit
that the user also transmits. However, as the DCH is in soft power. Hence, under the discussed assumptions, uplink cover-
handover mode while the HS-DPCCH is only decoded at the age is not a problem for HSDPA users in the soft handover area.
serving HS-DSCH cell, this creates some potential power con- Notice that without transmission of the uplink speech channel,
trol imperfections, which implies that the HS-DPCCH requires the bit rate of the uplink DCH can be much higher than in the

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considered example.
TABLE I
U PLINK HS-DPCCH ERROR DETETCTION PROBABILITIES .
User in User in
soft handover non-soft handover
Pr(Ack|N ack) 0.01% 0.01%
Pr(N ack|Ack) 1% 1%
Pr(Ack|DT X) 4% 1%
The HS-DPCCH detection error probabilities listed in Table
I for users in non-soft handover mode can be achieved without
using Ack/Nack repetition as there are no HS-DPCCH power
control problems for such users. Furthermore, in the special
case where the user is in softer handover, the HS-DPCCH can
be received at both cells in the user’s active set and thereby ben-
efit from the same softer handover diversity combining as the
DCH so that Ack/Nack repetition is not needed in this special
case. However, minimizing the HS-DPCCH transmit power
allows more power for DCH transmission and therefore higher
uplink DCH data rates while at the same time downloading data
on HS-DSCH.
C. Downlink capacity considerations
Let us first estimate the HSDPA bearer gain over DCH for a
user with an active set size of one and two. The HSDPA bearer
gain is defined as
PDCH
W = (1)
PHSDP A
where PDCH is the average require transmit power to serve
a user on DCH with a given average bit rate and PHSDP A is
the average required power to serve a user on HSDPA with the
same bit rate. Notice here that PHSDP A includes the aver-
age transmit power used for the user on both the HS-DSCH,
the high speed shared control channel (HS-SCCH), and associ-
ated DPCH. The associated DPCH is assumed to only carry
Layer-3 signaling with a bit rate of 3.4 kbps. As the HS-
DSCH is assigned constant transmit power and is time shared
between multiple HSDPA-users, the average HS-DSCH trans-
mit power used to serve the user with a given bit rate depends
on the scheduling frequency of the user, and therefore also on
the MAC-hs packet scheduling strategy. Here we will consider
two cases; (i) Blind scheduling where the user is scheduled in-
dependent of the radio channel conditions and (ii) Intelligent
scheduling where the user is only scheduled during good fast
fading conditions. Hence, the scheduling frequency is higher
for blind scheduling compared to intelligent scheduling. As an
example, the popular proportinal fair (PF) scheduler [3]-[4] can
be characterized as an intelligent scheduler, while the simpler
sequential round robin (RR) scheduler belongs to the class of
blind schedulers.
Results for (1) at a target bit rate of 64 kbps are obtained
from Monte-Carlo simulations, where link adaptation and Hy-
brid ARQ with chase combining is simulated for the HS-DSCH
[2]. The HS-DSCH link adaptation algorithm is assumed to
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perfectly track the radio channel quality at the HSDPA-user.
The HS-SCCH is assumed to be power controlled with a tar-
get BLER of 1%. The DCH is simulated with both inner loop
fast power control every slot and an outer loop power control
algorithm. The radio channel between the Node-B and the user
is modeled according to the ITU Vehicular-A power delay pro-
file. Results for the HSDPA bearer gain over DCH are plotted
in Fig. 6 as a function of the G-factor for a user with an active
set size of one. The G-factor is defined as the ratio between the
average experienced own cell interference and other cell inter-
ference at the user. It is observed that the HSDPA bearer gain
is on the order of 2.7 for intelligent scheduling, while it equals
1.2-1.4 for blind scheduling. For both schedulers, the HSDPA
bearer gain increases slightly as function of the G-factor.
3.0
2.8
Intelligent scheduling
2.6
Bearer gain of HSDPA over DCH [-]
2.4
2.2
2.0
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
Blind scheduling
1.0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
G-factor [dB]
Fig. 6. Estimated HSDPA bearer gain over DCH for a bit rate of 64 kbps. The
active set size equals one.
Fig. 7 shows the HSDPA bearer gain over DCH for a user
in 2-way soft handover. Hence, the DCH is in soft handover
mode and is transmitted from two cells with equal power. The
fast fading in the two soft handover legs is assumed to be un-
correlated. The HS-DSCH and HS-SCCH is only transmitted
from one of the cells. The results are presented for an average
branch power ratio of 0 dB and 3 dB between the two soft han-
dover legs. Notice that the HSDPA bearer gain is slightly lower
for a user in soft handover compared to a user in non-soft han-
dover for the case where the branch power ratio equals 0 dB.
This behavior is observed because the DCH benefits from the
additional diversity that soft handover provides, and therefore
the HSDPA bearer gain over DCH decreases. However, for a
branch power ratio of 3 dB, the aforementioned soft handover
gain on the DCH turns into a loss since the DCH is transmitted
with equal power from the two cells even though there is an
unbalance of 3 dB between the soft handover legs. The latter is
the reason for the higher HSDPA bearer gain over DCH when
the branch power ratio is increased.
Given the results for the HSDPA bearer gain over DCH, the
HSDPA cell capacity gain over a cell with only DCH-users can
 3.0
2.8
2.6
Bearer gain of HSDPA over DCH [-]
2.4
Intelligent scheduling
2.2
2.0
1.8
1.6
Blind scheduling
1.4
1.2
1.0
-3 -2 -1
G-factor [dB]
Fig. 7. Estimated HSDPA bearer gain over DCH for a bit rate of 64 kbps. The
user’s DCH is in 2-way soft handover.
be approximated as
GainF T
Q[PnonSHO WnonSHO + PSHO WSHO ],
where Q expresses the fraction of the total Node-B power that
is allocated to HSDPA, PnonSHO and PSHO are the probability
that a user is in non soft handover and soft handover mode,
respectively. Similarly, WnonSHO and WSHO are the HSDPA
bearer gain over DCH for a user in non soft handover and soft
handover mode, respectively. If users in the soft handover area
are not allowed to use the HS-DSCH, then WSHO = 1. Notice
that (2) assumes fair throughput (FT) in cell, where all users
in the cell are served with the same bit rate. If a PF MAC-hs
packet scheduler [3]-[4] is used, the cell capacity gain can be
expressed as
GainP F
C · GainF T , (3)
where the constant C expresses the additional gain from given
higher bit rates to users that are close to the Node-B compared
to users that are far from the Node-B. According to [1], a good
approximation is to use C = 1.3.
According to [5] the cell capacity gain of HSDPA over DCH
in a macro cellular environment with a Vehicular-A power de-
lay profile is estimated to be a factor 2.4 (140%), in the case
where 75% of the Node-B power and 15 HS-PDSCH codes are
allocated for HSDPA, i.e. corresponding to Q = 0.75. The
results in [5] are obtained from quasi-static network simula-
tions, assuming PF MAC-hs scheduling. Using (2) and (3) with
WnonSHO = 2.7 and WSHO = 2.6 according to the results in
Fig. 6 and Fig. 7, and PnonSHO = 0.6 and PnonSHO = 0.4,
yields GainP F = 2.59. Hence, there is a reasonable good
match between the results in [5] and the estimate according to
(3) when comparing the two gain figures of 2.4 and 2.59. Thus,
(2) and (3) provide a reasonably good first order estimate of
the potential HSDPA cell capacity gain before running more
accurate system level simulations.
By setting WSHO = 1 we obtain an estimate of the HSDPA
capacity gain over DCH in the case where users in the soft han-
dover area are using the DCH, while users in the rest of the net-
work are using the HS-DSCH. For this case, GainP F = 1.96,
which indicates a reduced HSDPA cell capacity gain if mobility
for HSDPA users is supported via channel switching to DCH as
the users move through the soft handover area. The latter result
Branch power ratio between
assumes PF MAC-hs scheduling. However, if the soft handover
the soft handover legs: area is made smaller so it covers less than 40% of the users, the
0 dB
3 dB relative loss in HSDPA cell capacity from not supporting users
in the soft handover area on HS-DSCH becomes much less.
IV. C ONCLUDING REMARKS
Two different options for support of mobility management
for HSDPA-users have been discussed, using either channel
0 1 2 3
switching from HS-DSCH to DCH as the user moves close
to neighboring a cell, or by using a direct change of the serv-
ing HS-DSCH cell. The algorithm for making a change of the
serving HS-DSCH cell has been presented, where potential op-
timization options were addressed to avoid deletion of buffered
PDUs in the source cell. The results for the achievable HSDPA
cell capacity gain indicate that the best solution is to use direct
change of the serving HS-DSCH cell during handover. How-
(2)
ever, the option that involves intermediate channel switching
from HS-DSCH to DCH could also be applied with a marginal
loss of the HSDPA capacity gain if the soft handover area is
minimized by using a small soft handover window. The lat-
ter is possible by using different soft handover parametrization
for HSDPA-users so the area for DCH switching is reduced.
Notice furthermore that the potential temporary interruptions
during channel switching from HS-DSCH to DCH are not con-
sidered harmful for delay tolerant packet traffic.
It is furthermore demonstrated that good uplink HS-DPCCH
coverage can be maintained for users in the soft handover area,
even though the HS-DPCCH power control is sub-optimal,
since the uplink DCH is in soft handover mode.
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