On the Potentials of Traffic Steering Techniques between HSDPA and LTE

Niels Terp Kjeldgaard Jrgensen#1, Daniela Laselva#2, and Jeroen Wigard#2 #1 Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark #2 Nokia Siemens Networks, Aalborg, Denmark #1 nj@es.aau.dk #2{name.surname}@nsn.com
Abstract In this paper traffic steering between a HighSpeed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) network and a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) network with different carrier frequencies is investigated. First, two traffic steering algorithms, relying on static network information, are assessed from a traffic theoretical point of view and numerically. Furthermore, numerical analysis of two traffic steering algorithms, relying on dynamic information such as user SINR and cell load, is also performed. It is shown that the dynamic traffic steering algorithms outperform the static methods in terms of end user performance. Finally, it is investigated how the LTE terminal penetration affects the performance of the proposed traffic steering algorithms. For low LTE terminal penetration all LTE capable terminals should be pushed to the LTE network, and for high LTE terminal penetration a more dynamic traffic steering scheme should be used.
I.

INTRODUCTION

Future generation wireless networks are envisioned to deploy overlay networks whose coverage areas may partially overlap. Those emerging networks may integrate new radio access technologies such as 3GPP Long Term Evolution and LTE-Advanced [1] over the existing legacy systems such as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) [1], 3GPP Universal Mobile Telecommunications System / High Speed Packet Access (UMTS/HSPA) [1], and Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) [2]. This is for instance due to partial availability of multimode mobile terminals. Additionally, the different networks may operate at multiple frequencies and may introduce different sized cells. Cell sizes may range from macro layers with large coverage areas to pico or femto cells, which can be used to provide additional capacity, but in small coverage areas. Figure 1 depicts an example of overlaying multi RAT networks. The interworking of such heterogeneous networks poses several new challenges. The most critical issues to be tackled are in the following areas: terminal mobility support for providing optimised and seamless service across the networks; interference management to control and reduce the interference level in case of co-channel deployment; range extension of small cells; and traffic steering to steer users towards the network capable of providing the optimal performance from the user and network point of view. In

general, traffic steering is about assigning the traffic towards a certain network layer, where a network layer is one frequency carrier of a certain RAT, which then delivers the requested service to the user. Such assignment can be performed keeping several objectives in mind such as to increase the overall resource utilisation; to optimise user satisfaction while considering subscription and application differentiation, and to minimise signalling overhead and handset power consumption. The exact definition of the objective priorities will depend on the operator goals and policies for traffic steering. The topic of traffic steering is discussed in several papers. For instance, the mobility parameters to enforce load balancing such as handover settings, are explored in [3],[4],[5] in the context of LTE. Potential traffic steering architectures are presented in [6]. This paper discusses traffic steering techniques between HSPA and LTE macro cells in the downlink direction and focuses on optimising the end user performance, measured in user throughput. A theoretical model of traffic steering between two layers is presented, and the optimal load balancing ratio between the layers is evaluated. Numerical results are provided, and their match with the theoretical model is discussed. The impact of the terminal capability is also investigated. The rest of the paper is organised as follows. Section II is a brief of the principles of traffic steering and introduces the proposed traffic steering techniques. Section III describes a theoretical model of traffic steering between two layers. In Section IV the system model is presented, and the numerical results are discussed in Section V. Finally, Section VI concludes the paper.
Macro / rural Micro Pico Femto / indoor solutions / WiFi

HSPA/LTE UMTS/HSPA/LTE GSM/UMTS/HSPA Figure 1 - Illustrative example of wireless overlaying network structure.

978-1-4244-8329-7/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

II. TRAFFIC STEERING FUNCTIONALITY In the following the proposed traffic steering techniques are presented. Those range from the random strategy where the assignment of users is done purely randomly to the scheme where the instantaneous user load and user SINR are used as input for the steering. It is assumed in this paper that the steering of users is performed only during the connection setup, and later each user will stay active and receive the service in the layer assigned during the setup phase until it finishes its call. The capacity of a layer is defined as the average cell throughput and the load is defined as the number of users in a layer. A. Random Algorithm (RA) The RA method steers the users randomly towards a layer. On average 50 % of the users are steered to each layer, but instantaneously the user distribution per layer may vary. No a priori information is required when the RA is used. B. Push-to-Best Layer Algorithm (PBLA) The PBLA method is a static traffic steering algorithm that exploits knowledge of the layer capacities. A predefined amount of the users is steered to each of the layers. In this paper the ratio of users steered to each layer is chosen such that the user throughput is maximised. This will lead to a load balancing ratio between the layers which is determined by the layer capacities. The particular users to be steered to each of the layers are chosen randomly, according to the predefined ratio, i.e. the instantaneous load of the layers and the SINR of the users are not considered. C. User Load based Algorithm (ULA) In contrast to the previous two algorithms, which steer the traffic based on static information, the ULA method steers the traffic dynamically based on the load per layer. The users are steered to the layer with the lowest normalised load. The normalised load is defined as the number of users in each layer divided by the layer capacity:

TPu, l =

SINR2TP (SINRu, l ) , nUEl + 1

lL

(2) (3)

arg min(TPu ,l ) ,

where SINRu,l is the SINR of user u in layer l, SINR2TP is the assumed function that maps the user SINR to the user throughput for a single user scenario, and TPu,l is the estimate of the average throughput for user u in layer l. III. ANALYTICAL MODELLING In this section an analytical model of traffic steering for a two layer model is presented. The two layers are characterised by capacity C1 and C2, respectively, and the traffic steering is modelled by a Markov process. The twodimensional process is illustrated in Figure 2. The states in the model are denoted Px,y, where x and y are the number of users in layer 1 and layer 2, respectively. 1 and 2 are the arrival probabilities of new calls in layer 1 and layer 2. It is assumed that the arrival probability of new calls is independent of the number of users in a layer. 1 and 2 are the probabilities of a call finishing in respectively layer 1 and layer 2. It is also assumed that each user carries the same amount of data and that the available cell capacity in each layer is equally shared by the users in that layer. The maximum number of users in layer 1 and layer 2 are denoted N1 and N2.

nUEl arg min C lL l

(1)
Figure 2 - Markov process illustrating the traffic steering mechanisms between two layers.

where l is the layer index, nUEl is the number of users in layer l, Cl is the capacity of layer l and L comprises the set of available overlay layers. D. User Throughput based Algorithm (UTA) The UTA method first estimates the average throughput which could be achieved in each layer by a user connecting to the network. The throughput estimate is based on the user SINR as determined by a stochastic model, the number of active users present in each layer, and a SINR-to-userthroughput mapping curve per layer. The latter could for instance be based on Shannon bound formulation or derived from system level studies. User u is steered to the layer l which offers the highest average achievable user throughput TPu.l:

The above is a Poisson arrival process, which implies equal probabilities as time average rates of arrivals and departures (PASTA property). The probability of a call finishing its session while connected to one of the layers in a state with n users can then be expressed as:

=n

C C , = callsize n callsize

(4)

where C is the capacity in bps of the cell the user is connected to and callsize is the size of the call in number of bits. It is assumed that callsize is independent of the system, but C can be different for the different layers.

Assuming a M/M/1/N queue for both layers we calculate the state probability Px,y as [7]:
Px, y = Px Py =

System bandwidth Antenna Configuration HSDPA User Class Traffic model LTE penetration level Traffic steering algorithms Offered load User generation Packet scheduler

(1 ) (1 ) , 1 1
x 1 1 N HSPA +1 1 y 2 2 N LTE +1 2

(5)

HSDPA: 5 MHz or otherwise specified LTE: 5 MHz 1x2 antennas Up to 15 codes and up to 64 QAM Finite buffer @600 kB 100 % or otherwise specified {RA, PBLA, ULA, UTA} {1 Mbps, 2 Mbps,,8 Mbps} Poisson arrival Round robin

where z equals z/z. The average user throughput is calculated as the average throughput per state weighted with the state probability. The average user throughput in for example layer 1 is expressed as follows:
TP1 = Px , y
x =1 y =0 N1 N 2

C1 , x

(6)

where C1 is the capacity of layer 1. In order to get the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) of the user throughput we need to take into account the different bit rates that users experience in a cell, i.e. a cell centre user experiences a much larger throughput than a user at the cell edge. Therefore we define the probability of a user getting throughput k as P(k)= f(k), where we assume that the user is the only user in the layer utilising all resources. This function statistically represents the different bit rates a user experiences due to the location in the cell. The probability of getting bit rate m in layer 1 can be approximated as: N1 N 2 (7) P(TPu ,1 = m) = Px, y f ( xm) .
x =1 y =0

No admission control is assumed, since only best effort traffic is considered. This will result in rather low user throughputs at high user load. It is also assumed that the load information is ideally known e.g. without delays. Table I shows the default simulation parameters. V. SIMULATION RESULTS In this section the simulation results are discussed. Part A compares the results from the analytical approach with the numerical results of the static traffic steering schemes (RA and PBLA). In Part B the PBLA method with an optimal load balancing ratio is compared with the dynamic traffic steering algorithms (ULA and UTA) in terms of average user throughput and 5 % user throughput. Finally it is investigated how the LTE terminal penetration and layer capabilities affect the traffic steering performance. A. Comparison Analytical Model and Simulations In this part the performance of the RA and the PBLA schemes is assessed. Figure 3 illustrates the 5 % user throughput performance of the RA and the PBLA as a function of the offered load in the overall network. The curves named HSDPA and LTE show the 5% user throughput performance for the HSDPA and LTE layer separately when using the RA method. A significant gain is observed when using the PBLA over the RA. RA performance is limited because the HSDPA layer becomes congested as 50 % of the users are steered to each layer. Furthermore the figure shows that the analytical results and the simulation results match rather well.
3 RA - HSDPA - Analytical RA - LTE - Analytical RA - Analytical PBLA - Analytical RA - HSDPA - Sim RA - LTE - Sim RA - Sim PBLA - Sim

The analytical model can be used to determine the performance of the RA scheme by setting 1 = 2. The performance of the PBLA scheme can be analysed by sweeping through different values. IV. SIMULATION SETUP This section describes the simulation methodology, the used assumptions and settings adopted in the numerical analysis. In the simulations user arrivals are generated according to a Poisson distribution. The user SINR values are drawn from a SINR distribution, which depends on the simulation scenario. The considered scenario is the 3GPP macro 3 scenario with an inter site distance (ISD) of 1732 m. User SINRs are kept constant throughout the data sessions since users are assumed stationary, and neither fast fading nor shadowing is considered. The analysis is carried out in the downlink direction. Two layers are present, an HSDPA layer with carrier frequency at 800 MHz and an LTE layer at 2.1 GHz. The SINR CDFs differ less than 1 dB for the two frequencies. Radio system dependent SINR to user throughput mapping curves are used to compute the possible user throughput within HSDPA and LTE. Those curves reflect the system specific spectral efficiency and are derived from system level studies. It is also assumed that the cell resources are shared equally among the active users. All users are HSDPA capable so the LTE penetration level equals the percentage of dual-mode users.
TABLE I - SYSTEM SIMULATION PARAMETERS PARAMETER VALUE Propagation scenario Macro 3 (ISD=1732m) [8]

5% UE Throughput - [Mbps]

2.5

1.5

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

Offered Load - [Mbps] Figure 3 - 5% user throughput results as a function of offered load for the RA and the PBLA methods via analytical and simulation studies.

Similarly, in Figure 4 the average user throughput is shown versus the offered load for the same cases. As

Throughput - [Mbps]

expected, the average of the RA performance of the HSDPA and LTE layers equals the overall RA performance. The trends are the same as for the 5 % user throughput. The PBLA shows a significant gain over the RA. The analytical results match nicely the results from the simulations. Note that the analytical model is only valid for stable systems. In this investigation the system becomes unstable when the system load exceeds 4 Mbps. For higher loads the analytical model cannot be applied any longer.
12 RA - HSDPA - Analytical RA - LTE - Analytical RA - Analytical PBLA - Analytical RA - HSDPA - Sim RA - LTE - Sim RA - Sim PBLA - Sim

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

PBLA - 5%-tile TP ULA - 5%-tile TP UTA - 5%-tile TP PBLA - Avg UE TP ULA - Avg UE TP UTA - Avg UE TP

Avg UE Throughput - [Mbps]

10

Offered Load - [Mbps] Figure 5 - Average and 5% user throughput performance for the PBLA, ULA and UTA methods.

1.5

2.5

3.5

Offered Load - [Mbps] Figure 4 - Average user throughout comparison for analytic results and simulation results.

The results show that the numerical results match the expected outcome from a theoretical point of view. It was also shown that the PBLA performed best, and the PBLA is used as a reference to the adaptive schemes in the next part. B. Performance of ULA and UTA over PBLA The PBLA is in this part compared to the ULA, and UTA. In Figure 5 the 5 % and average user throughput is plotted as a function of the offered load. The PBLA shows the worst performance and is used as reference in the rest of this section. It is seen from the 5 % user throughput that at an offered load of 6 Mbps the network becomes congested. For the reference algorithm starvation of the users at the cell edge happens, while the ULA and UTA are still able to provide a throughput significantly above zero. When a minimum 5 % user throughput of 0.5 Mbps is considered, the gain of the ULA and UTA is about 20 % and 40 % respectively in terms of the extra offered load they could accommodate. Also the average throughputs show large gains for the ULA and UTA over the reference case. For loads up to 4 Mbps the ULA and UTA perform similar, so it is concluded that no gain is achieved by taking the SINR of the user into account at low loads. For loads over 4 Mbps the UTA shows best performance. At a load of 6 Mbps the average user throughput for the reference, ULA and UTA is 1.3 Mbps, 2.7 Mbps and 3.4 Mbps, respectively. This is equal to gains of 112 % and 162 %. These large gains are possible because the reference algorithm does not use any instantaneous information and only relies on the layer capabilities. On the other hand the two more advanced algorithms steer the users based on

instantaneous information, e.g. the instantaneous load per layer, and is thus able to adjust to the dynamics of the system. The additional gain achieved by the UTA derives from additionally making use of the instantaneous user SINR information. The user SINR is used to estimate the expected user throughput in each layer at the current load. Figure 6 illustrates the LTE throughput curve divided by the HSDPA throughput curve vs. the SINR. Note that Figure 6 is not a result even though it is presented in the result section. At low SINR the LTE throughput is up to 8 times higher than the HSDPA-throughput and at high SINR the LTE throughput is only ~1.5 times higher than the HSDPA-throughput. This applies for the HSDPA bandwidth of 5 MHz. The consequence of this is that the UTA steers the low SINR users to the LTE layer and the high SINR user to the HSDPA layer in order to maximise the average user throughputs, equation (2) and (3).
8 7 6 HSDPA - 5 MHz, LTE - 5 MHz HSDPA - 10 MHz, LTE - 5 MHz

TPLTE / TPHSDPA

5 4 3 2 1 0

-5

10

15

20

SINR - [dB] Figure 6 - LTE throughput mapping gain over the HSDPA throughput mapping.

The potential gain from utilising the UTA depends on the ratio between the LTE and HSDPA throughput. Such ratio depends on system spectral efficiencies, usage of advanced network features such as Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), adopted user receiver type, etc. The closer the ratio is to 1 the lower gain can be achieved with the UTA over the ULA.

C. Impact of LTE Penetration and Layer Capabilities In this section it is shown how the LTE penetration level affects the performance of the PBLA and the UTA. Two cases with a HSDPA and LTE bandwidth of 5 MHz and load 3 Mbps and 5 Mbps are considered. The third case is with a 10 MHz bandwidth HSDPA layer (Dual-Carrier HSDPA) and a 5 MHz bandwidth LTE layer with load 5 Mbps. Figure 7 shows the average throughput gain of using the UTA over the PBLA for the three cases. The gain is plotted for different LTE penetration levels, ranging from 50 % capable LTE users to 100 % capable LTE users.
50 45 40 Avg UE TP, HSPA5LTE5, OL = 3 Mbps Avg UE TP, HSPA5LTE5, OL = 5 Mbps Avg UE TP, HSPA10LTE5, OL = 5 Mbps

is more beneficial to use a more adaptive traffic steering algorithm. The breaking point where it is not sufficient to utilise a static algorithm anymore depends on the actual scenario. E.g. if the LTE layer capacity is increased, then the simple algorithm is sufficient at higher LTE penetration levels, and if the HSDPA layer capacity is increased, then the advanced algorithm is beneficial at lower LTE penetration levels. Another important aspect that must also be considered is the traffic volume. In all the simulations the traffic generated by a user is the same regardless of terminal capability. It may be expected that LTE users will generate more traffic than HSDPA users making dynamic traffic steering algorithms beneficial at lower penetration levels. VI. CONCLUSIONS This paper investigates the potentials of traffic steering between HSDPA and LTE. Four traffic steering algorithms were introduced. Two static approaches were assessed from an analytical point of view. The comparison of the analytical results against simulation results shows a fairly good match. Numerical results showed that the most adaptive UTA scheme significantly outperforms the other methods under high load conditions and at 100 % LTE penetration level. It was also shown that the dynamic schemes, ULA and UTA, started showing gain for an LTE penetration level above 75 %. Below that penetration level the static PBLA performs just as good as the ULA and the UTA. Notice that the breaking point, when more adaptive strategies are required, depends on e.g. the layer capabilities, the traffic volume generated per RAT. Based on the findings, the following recommendations are given. When the LTE penetration is low or medium, the best steering strategy is to push all LTE capable terminals to the LTE layer. When the LTE penetration level increases, it becomes beneficial to make use of instantaneous load information, and a dynamic traffic steering algorithm similar to the UTA may be considered. References
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] The 3 Generation Partnership Project. http://www.3gpp.org Wi-Fi Alliance. http://www.wi-fi.org H. Son et al., Soft Load Balancing Over Heterogeneous Wireless Networks, in Proc. of IEEE Veh. Tech. Transactions, July 2008. A. Lobinger et al, Load Balancing in Downlink LTE Self-Optimizing Networks, in Proc. of the 71st IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), May 2010. R. Nasri et al, Handover Adaptation for Dynamic Load Balancing in 3GPP Long Term Evolution Systems, in Proc. of the 5th Intern. Conf. on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia, Dec. 2007 J. Ha et. al, Dynamic load balancing architecture in heterogeneous wireless network environment, in Proc. Of Comm. and Inform. Tech., 9th Internat. Symposium, Sept. 2009 M. Schwartz, Telecommunication Networks: Protocols, Modeling and Analysis, Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1988 3GPP: TR 25.814, Physical layer aspects for evolved UTRA (release 7), Sept. 2006, Version 7.1.0.
rd

Throughput gain - [%]

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 50

55

60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

LTE penetration - [%] Figure 7 - Average user throughput gains versus LTE penetration of the UTA over the reference PBLA.

At 100 % LTE penetration the gain of using the UTA is larger for higher offered load, as was already visible in Figure 5. The reason for this is that at low loads the likelihood of just having one or no user per layer is high, and for that case there is no difference between the algorithms. For the Dual-Carrier HSDPA (DC-HSDPA) case the gain at any LTE penetration is larger than in the first two cases. The reason for this is that in case of DC-HSDPA the throughput of HSDPA is doubled, making HSDPA the preferred layer for good users, as can be seen in Figure 6, while for the worst users LTE is still the preferred layer. This makes the gain of UTA larger since the algorithm is able to exploit this information in contrast to PBLA, which selects users randomly. In case of a 5 MHz system, all users sent to LTE experience a gain, even though the gain of sending cell edge users to LTE is largest, but they have least impact on the average cell throughput, so therefore less gain from UTA. A general trend for all three cases is that the gain of using the UTA is decreasing when the LTE penetration is decreasing. This is explained by the fact that when not all users are LTE capable, some non LTE capable users are steered to the non-optimal HSDPA layer. At some point the best the UTA can do is to steer all LTE capable users to the LTE layer, just as the PBLA, and no gain is obtained using the UTA over the PBLA. The LTE penetration level investigation shows that when the penetration level is 50 % or below, then the simple PBLA is as good as the more advanced traffic steering algorithms. When the LTE penetration levels are 75 % or higher then it