IPlanner WiMax (802.

16) Module
Version 0.1
Chu Rui Chang Core RF Engineering September, 2005

Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Technology Backgrounds
1.1 1.2 OFDM Technology Useful Terms and Values
1.2.1 Inter-Tone Spacing and Orthogonal Conditions 1.2.2 Cyclic Prefix (CP) and Useful Symbol Time 1.2.3 802.16D and 802.16E Systems 1.2.4 Channel Bandwidth, FFT Size, Sampling Frequency 1.2.5 Channel, Sub-channel, Sub-carrier (tone) 1.2.6 WiMax Frame Durations 1.2.7 WiMax Overheads 1.2.8 OFDM vs. OFDMA 1.2.9 FUSC vs. PUSC in OFDMA

Chapter 2 Details on WiMax (802.16) OFDM & OFDMA Systems

2.1 2.2 Definition of Signal-to-Interference & Noise Ratio (CINR) Resource Allocations: Comparing CDMA, 1xEV-DO, OFDM and OFDMA
2.2.1 CDMA / 1xRTT 2.2.2 DO Forward link 2.2.3 WiMAX Forward & Reverse Link 2.2.3.1 802.16 E System (S-OFDMA) 2.2.3.2 802.16 D System (OFDM)

2.3

S-OFDMA Forward Link

2.3.1 Forward Link FUSC 2.3.2 Forward Link PUSC 2.3.3 Forward Link Power Allocations

2.4

S-OFDMA Reverse Link

2.4.1 Reverse Link PUSC 2.4.2 Reverse Link Power and Bandwidth Allocations

2.5

Modeling the WiMax Scheduler

2.5.1 1xEV-DO Scheduler 2.5.2 WiMax Scheduler 2.5.2.1 Proportional Fairness Scheduler 2.5.2.2 Linear Biased Scheduler 2.5.2.3 Other Schedulers 2.5.2.4 Difference between D and E Scheduler

2.6

Handoffs in 802.16 E
2.6.1 Hard Handoff 2.6.2 Fast-BTS-Switching (FBSS) Handoff 2.6.3 Soft Handoff

Chapter 3 How to Model WiMax in iPlanner?

3.0 Items need to be Modeled
3.0.1 Call Models 3.0.2 Maximum Supported Number of Active Users per Sector per Carrier 3.0.3 Coverage and Link Budget 3.0.4 Per-User and Per-Sector Throughput

3.1

How to model WiMax Forward Link in iPlanner?

3.1.1 802.16E S-OFDMA Forward Link & Scheduler 3.1.1.1 What is the maximum achievable forward rate for a single user? 3.1.1.2 Forward throughput with multiple users per sector 3.1.1.3 An example with Frequency Reuse of N=1 (FUSC) 3.1.1.4 An example with Frequency Reuse of N=3 (FUSC) 3.1.2 802.16D OFDM Forward Link & Scheduler 3.1.3 Forward Link Coverage 3.1.4 Forward Link Out-of-Cell Interference for OFDMA 3.1.4.1 Instant Interference Power Density vs. Average Interference Power Density within a channel bandwidth 3.1.4.2 Data Activity Factor 3.1.4.3 Forward interference contributed from multiple cells

3.2

How to Model WiMaX Reverse Link in iPlanner?

3.2.1 802.16E S-OFDMA Reverse Link & Scheduler 3.2.1.1 What is the maximum achievable reverse rate for a single user? 3.2.1.2 Reverse throughput with multiple users per sector 3.2.2 802.16D OFDM Reverse Link & Scheduler 3.2.3 Reverse Link Coverage 3.2.4 Reverse link Out-of-Cell Interference for OFDMA 3.2.4.1 Instant Interference Power Density vs. Average Interference Power Density within a channel bandwidth 3.2.4.2 Reverse interference contributed from multiple cells

3.3

How to Model Handoffs for 802.16 E in iPlanner?

3.3.1 Hard handoff 3.3.2 FBSS handoff 3.3.3 Soft handoff

Chapter 4: IPlanner WiMAX Module Roadmaps

4.1 4.2 First Release of WiMaX Module Future Releases of WiMaX Module

References

Chapter 1 Technology Backgrounds

1.1 OFDM Technology
One of the major advantages of OFDM (Othrogonal-Frequency-Division-Multiplex) is that it is extreme robust under multipath environment. The basic operating principle is that the transmit channel is divided into a large number (N>>1) of parallel sub-channels. The data stream from the source is split into each subchannel. Because of this 1:N split, the data rate of each sub-channel becomes 1/N as the main string, consequently, the symbol duration in the sub-channel becomes N times longer than the symbol duration from the source. Also each sub-channel is transmitted via a very narrow bandwidth so the fading is basically flat within the sub-channel (no frequency-selective fading). The longer symbol duration and flat fading make OFDM very robust under multipath fading with little or no inter-symbol-interference (ISI), as shown in Fig. 1.
Two-ray model = rms delay spread

Received Power

Delay

Channel Input

small
T
0 2T

Channel Output

1 0 T

2T

large
T
0 T 2T

significant intersymbol interference, which causes an irreducible error floor Fig. 1 Time domain Inter-Symbol-Interference (ISI) caused by delay spread T
This can be illustrated by an example. Assume the data rate of the main data stream is 1 Mbps. If this data stream is transmitted via one carrier, the bit duration in this channel 4

T small large

negligible intersymbol interference

will be 1*10^(-6) sec. If the multipath delay spread is comparable to 1*10^(-6) sec, at the receiver, the symbols from the multipath will be superimposed on top of the symbols in the main path, causing inter-symbol-interference (ISI). On the other hand, if the carrier is divided into 1000 sub-carriers (in parallel, as shown in Fig. 2), then each sub-carrier will only be transmitting 1/1000 of the data rate, i.e., 1 kbps (1000 sub-channels adding together results 1 Mbps). The bit duration of each sub-carrier will become 1000 times longer, or 1*10^(-3) sec. Then the multipath delay spread will have to be 1000 times larger in order to cause the same level of ISI.
Sub-Carrier #1, Rate = R/N

Sub-Carrier #2, Rate = R/N

Data Carrier Rate = R

Serial To Parallel

Sub-Carrier #N, Rate = R/N

Fig. 2 Splitting a carrier into N (N>>1) parallel sub-carriers, data rate from each sub-carrier will be 1/N as much as the main carrier, and the symbol duration will be N times longer. Conceptually, the OFDM transmitter and receiver are equivalent to many narrow-band transmitters and many narrow-band receivers operating in parallel, as show in Fig. 3. Note that each narrow-band receiver has a channel filter that only allows the signal energy within this channel to go through. Therefore, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), or carrier-to-interference and noise ratio (CINR), of OFDM is defined as SNR per subcarrier, or SNR per tone1. However, an OFDM transmitter and receiver in real-life do not really work like Fig. 3. It is only conceptually equivalent to Fig. 3. There are two disadvantages of the schemes in Fig.3: (1) Requires a large number of narrow Tx filters and Rx filters (filter banks) at the transmitter and receiver. If a system were really implemented like this, it would be too expensive and too complicated

Because the bandwidth of one sub-carrier is so narrow, one often calls a sub-carrier as one tone. From now on, a tone or one sub-carrier is used interchangeably.

(2) Spectrally inefficient, because no filters can be infinitely sharp, so the guard bands between the channels must be sufficiently large (i.e., there must be sufficient frequency separations between f1 and f2, between f2 and f3, ) in order to avoid adjacent channel interference (like AMPS channels) Transmitte
R/N b/s R/N b/s R/N b/s QAM QAM QAM
filter

d0(t) d1(t) dN-1(t) f0 RF f1 fN-1 D(t)

filter

filter

Bandlimite signal
f0 f1
filter f0 filter f1

f2 QAM f0 QAM f1
filter fN-1

Receive

RF

QAM fN-1

Fig. 3 Conceptually, OFDM transmitter and receiver are equivalent to many narrow-band transmitters and many narrow-band receivers operating in parallel. The beauties of OFDM are that: (1) It does not need the complicated and expensive filter bands, instead digital-signalprocessing techniques (FFT) are used so that under idea condition there will be no adjacent channel interference from neighboring sub-carriers, as if the system does have very sharp filter bands. (2) Not only one does not need guard band between the sub-carriers, the sub-carriers can overlap (Fig.4). If fact, as long as the frequency separation between adjacent sub-carriers satisfy the orthogonal relation (in Fig.5 and defined in Eq.[1]), there is no adjacent channel interference between sub-carriers (these sub-carriers are said to be orthogonal to each other).

d(0) d(1) d(n) QAM R b/s serial to parallel converter d(N-1) fN-1 f0 f1 D(t) RF
N-1

Time-Limited Signals (Block Processing)

D(t) = Re

n=0

d(n) exp [- j n t]

OFDM increases the spectral efficiency by allowing subchannels to overlap.

f0 f

f1

f2

f3

f4

f5

How do we separate the subchannels in the receiver?

Fig. 4 A basic OFDM Transmitter. The adjacent sub-carriers are allowed to overlap, thus results much higher spectrum efficiency.

f0
RF

d(0) d(1) parallel to serial converter

f1 d(N-1)

QAM

f N-1

Subchannel separation

choose fn = f0 + nf, with f =

1 NT ^ integrate over NT, then d(m) = d(m)

A guard interval can virtually eliminate ISI

(or, interblock interference) lower spectral or power efficiency.
Fig.5 A basic OFDM Receiver, and the orthogonal condition

(3) Fig.6 shows the comparison between OFDM and conventional multi-carrier deployment. The adjacent channels of a conventional narrow-band system can never overlap or intolerable adjacent-channel-interference will result. For example, in AMPS system, a 7/21 frequency re-use will have adjacent channels 21 AMPS channels apart. However, adjacent sub-carriers of OFDM do overlap and no adjacent channel interference from sub-carriers (orthogonal).

Fig. 6 Comparison between OFDM and conventional multi-carrier modulation. Conventional multi-carrier modulation must have guard bands between carriers. OFDM allows adjacent sub-carriers to overlap. Because many narrow sub-carriers are involved, the overall transmit spectrum of one OFDM carrier looks like the Tx spectrum of a spread-spectrum CDMA system (Fig.7, Fig. 8)

Fig. 7 The power spectrum of OFDM signal looks like a spread spectrum CDMA spectrum.

Fig. 8 Measured OFDM Tx spectrum from BTS. Although the Tx spectrum of one OFDM carrier looks like Tx spectrum of a CDMA carrier, the two systems do not operate the same way. In CDMA/DO, every channel occupies 1.25 MHz of spectrum. Each channel / user may only use a different fraction of power (power control) or a different fraction of service time (time division in DOs forward link), but the channel bandwidth is fixed. In OFDM, each channel / user can use different bandwidth (i.e., a different number of tones), different power, and different percentage of service times. So OFDM system has a higher degree of freedom. This makes OFDM more flexible and can be better optimized for different types of services, but it also makes OFDM system more complicated to model.

Note that OFDM itself is a special kind of Frequency-Division-Multiplex (except it is Orthogonal Frequency-Division-Multiplex). But one can add further Time-Division or Code-Division or both on top of OFDM, making it a Time-Division OFDM or a CodeDivision OFDM, or a Time and Code Division OFDM. OFDM can also work by itself without further TDM or CDM. Similar to Code-Division-Multiple-Access (CDMA) and Time-Division-Multiple-Access (TDMA), for OFDM, there is also OFDMA, which is what 802.16e (the mobility version of WiMax) uses. WiMax Module of OFDMA should use OFDMA.

1.2 Useful Terms and Values

In this section, some of the key parameters used in WiMax are defined. Some of them are generic to OFDM, but others are specific to WiMax.

1.2.1 Inter-Tone Spacing and Orthogonal Conditions

An OFDM system must satisfy the following condition in order for the tones to be orthogonal [1]

T =

1 1 , or F = F T

where T = time duration of an OFDM symbol (useful portion, to be defined later), and F = frequency separation between two neighboring tones, as shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9 Orthogonal Condition: Relation between Inter-Tone Spacing and Symbol Duration.

Orthogonal condition is general to OFDM. That is, any OFDM system must satisfy this condition.

1.2.2 Cyclic Prefix (CP) and Useful Symbol Time

Cyclic-Prefix (CP) is a guard time within an OFDM symbol, with CP the actual useful symbol duration T = Tuseful = TSymbol TCP (Fig. 10).

10

CP is actually a copy of the last portion of the data symbol appended to the front of the symbol during the guard interval. The main purpose of adding CP to OFDM symbols is to combat the effect of multipath. Without CP, multipath will mess up the orthogonal condition and cause Inter-Symbol-Interference (ISI). With CP, as long as the magnitude of multipath delay < CP duration, there will be no ISI. Therefore, the duration of CP must be designed to be > maximum multipath delay, which is typically around 10 microseconds. However, the amount of overhead increase with the increase of CP (thus useful symbol time reduces), therefore it is important to optimize the CP: large enough to cover the maximum multipath spread, but small enough to not significantly reduce the useful symbol time.

Fig. 10 OFDM Symbol Duration, CP Duration and Useful Symbol Duration

The total symbol duration T_symbol = (T_CP + T_Useful) = T_Useful * (1 + T_CP / T_Useful). CP is general to all OFDM systems, however, 802.16 standard defines 4 different (T_CP / T_Symbol) values for WiMax: (T_CP / T_Useful) = 1/32, T_ Symbol = 1.03125 * T_Useful (T_CP / T_Useful) = 1/16, T_ Symbol = 1.0625 * T_Useful (T_CP / T_Useful) = 1/8, T_ Symbol = 1.125 * T_Useful (T_CP / T_Useful) = 1/4, T_ Symbol = 1.25 * T_Useful Depends on the multipath characteristics, usually values or 1/16 to 1/8 are most common in WiMax. In iPlanner, use 1/8 as the default value, but do allow users to use other values defined in the standard.

1.2.3 802.16 D and 802.16 E Systems

There are two major WiMax systems: (1) 802.16 D system (also called 802.16-2004) is for fixed and nomadic terminals only. There is no handoff capability. That means although a terminal can move (with reasonable speed up to 40 ~ 50 km/hr), the connection can be maintained only if the

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terminals stay within the same cell. Once terminals move out of the sector, the connection must drop. The terminal will re-scan for new frequencies and re-establish a new connection with the new sector, but the call will be interrupted. (2) 802.16 E system is for mobility networks. Vehicle traveling speed can be over 120 km/hr and the system supports hard handoff, fast-switching handoff and soft handoff, just like cellular terminals. The E system is not backward compatible with D system. D system uses 256-tone OFDM. The E system purposely avoids 256-tone option, so it does not have to be backward compatible with D. E-System uses 128-, (no 256), 512-, 1024 or 2048-tone OFDMA. The difference between OFDM and OFDMA is explained in 1.2.8.

1.2.4 Channel Bandwidth, FFT Size, Sampling Frequency

802.16 D System (OFDM)

There are three sets of channel bandwidth values in the D system: The first set contains a set of channel bandwidth values that are multiple of 1.5 MHz, i.e.,

1.5 MHz 3 MHz (= 2x1.5 MHz) 6 MHz (= 4x1.5 MHz) 12 MHz (= 8x1.5 MHz) 24 MHz (= 16x1.5 MHz)

The second set of channel BWs that are multiple of 1.75 MHz:

1.75 MHz 3.5 MHz ( = 2x1.75 MHz) 7 MHz ( = 4x1.75 MHz) 14 MHz (=8x1.75 MHz) 28 MHz (= 16x1.75 MHz)

The third set of channel bandwidth values that are multiple of 2.5 MHz:

2.5 MHz 5 MHz (= 2x 2.5 MHz) 10 MHz (= 4x 2.5 MHz) 15 MHz (= 6x 2.5 MHz)

12

The number of tones per channel is called FFT2 Size N_FFT. For D-system (OFDM), the N_FFT is always 256, taking out the DC tone and 55 guard tones, N_used = 200 for all channel bandwidth values (Fig. 12). The bandwidth of each tone is = (Channel Bandwidth) / 200. Since the N_FFT is fixed, the wider the channel bandwidth, the wider the tone bandwidth. The following table summarizes common channel bandwidth for OFDM.

802.16 E System (OFDMA)

The most commonly used channel bandwidth values in E system are multiple of 1.25 MHz (except there is no 2.5 MHz in E system):

1.25 MHz 5 MHz (= 4x 1.25 MHz) 10 MHz (= 8x 1.25 MHz)

FFT = Fast Fourier Transform.

13

20 MHz (= 16x 1.25 MHz)

For E system, the N_FFT size scales with the channel bandwidth (the so-called ScalableOFDMA), that means the wider the channel bandwidth, the higher the N_FFT (by the same ratio), so the bandwidth of each tone is always the same regardless of channel bandwidth.

For 1.25 MHz channel bandwidth, it uses 128 tones (N_FFT = 128) For 5 MHz channel bandwidth, it uses 4x128 tones (N_FFT = 512) For 10 MHz channel bandwidth, it uses 8x128 tones (N_FFT = 1024) For 20 MHz channel bandwidth, it uses 16x128 tones (N_FFT = 2048)

WiMax (D or E) uses a sampling factor of 8/7. The inter-tone spacing for a given channel bandwidth and N_FFT is:

[2]

8 Channel _ BW Floor 8000 8000 7 F = N FFT

In E system, first the channel bandwidth is chosen. From the channel bandwidth one determines FFT size. From equation [2] and [1] the symbol duration can be calculated. The following table gives the common parameters for 802.16 E, which should be used as default values for iPlanners 802.16 E Module:
Table 1: Common 802.16E OFDMA parameter values

Channel BW [MHz]

N_FFT (# of Tones)

F [kHz] (Inter-Tone Spacing)

T [msec] (Useful Symbol Duration)

T_Symbol
[msec] (Total Symbol duration when 1/16 CP used)

T_Symbol
[msec] (Total Symbol duration when 1/8 CP used)

1.25 5 10 20

128 512 1024 2048

11.16 kHz

0.0896 msec

0.0952 msec

0.1008 msec

As was mentioned previously, for Scalable-OFDMA, the inter-tone spacing F and the symbol duration T are both constant regardless of the channel bandwidth.

1.2.5 Channel, Sub-Channel, Sub-Carrier (Tone)

This is a summary of what was discussed in previous sections.

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Channel: The largest frequency unit. One channel bandwidth can be Nx1.25 MHz (for E systems), or Mx1.5MHz, Jx2.5 MHz or Kx1.75 MHz (for D systems). N, M, J, K are integers starting from 1.

For D-system (OFDM), one channel always contains 256 tones. For E-System (S-OFDMA), one channel contains many sub-channels, each subchannel in turn contains many sub-carriers (tones).

Sub-Channel: Only used in E-system (S-OFDMA) and in reverse link of D system with sub-channelization. The forward link of D-system does not use sub-channels.

Sub-channel is the finest frequency unit that can be allocated to a user by the scheduler. That means one or more sub-channels can be allocated to a user, but not a fraction of a sub-channel. One sub-channel contains multiple sub-carriers (tones). The number of tones per sub-channel is different for different sub-carrier allocation mode, which will be discussed later. The tones belonging to the same sub-channels are not necessarily adjacent. Using adjacent tones has no advantage (except may be conceptually simpler) because it offers no frequency diversity. To provide frequency diversity, which is important under mobility condition, the tones should be randomlized. 802.16 E-sysytem uses a permutation scheme to randomlize the tones for each sub-channel.
Sub-Carrier (Tone): The finest frequency unit in OFDM or OFDMA. Inter-tone spacing and symbol duration must satisfy Eq.[1] for all tones within a channel to be orthogonal.

Note that

For S-OFDMA, channel bandwidth may vary from 1.25 MHz all the way up to 20 MHz, but the N_FFT scales with the channel bandwidth (as shown in Table 1) so the bandwidth of a sub-channel and the bandwidth of a sub-carrier will never change. The bandwidth of a sub-carrier must satisfy Eq.[1], which is fixed for the fixed symbol duration. For a given sub-carrier allocation mode, the number of tones per subchannel is also fixed, which means the bandwidth of a sub-channel is fixed. For OFDM, it is N_FFT = 256 that is fixed. If the channel bandwidth increases, the bandwidth of a tone increases with the channel bandwidth.

1.2.6 WiMAX Frame Durations

WiMAX defines 7 frame duration values, from 2.5 ms to 20 ms, as shown in Table 2 (D or E has the same set of frame durations, as defined in Table 232 from the 802.16D standard or Table 384b from the 802.16E standard). Frame duration of 5 ms is most commonly used. Therefore, 5 ms should be the default value for iPlanner, however, do allow users to use other values defined in Table 2. The details of WiMax frame structure will be discussed in the next chapter, this chapter only defines the common parameters and list their values.

15

Table 2 Common parameters defined in WiMax

1.2.7 Overheads
Since WiMax resources has two dimensions, Frequency and Time, we discuss the % of overhead in each dimension.
Overheads in Frequency Domain

We first discuss the E system, then discuss the differences between D and E systems. For E-system, although each OFDMA channel can contain 128, 512, 1024 or 2048 tones, not all of these tones can be used to carry traffic. Traffic tones = Total # of tones (Guard Tones) (overheads tones). The tones can server different purposes:

16

(1) Guard Band: In order to satisfy the out-of-channel emissions, there must be guard bands on both sides. That means some of the tones located on both edges must be turned off and cannot transmit. The actual number of tones that are actually on is therefore = (total # of tones) (# of guard tones). (2) There is a DC tone in the down link. (3) Pilot Tones. Under mobile environment, mechanisms are needed to provide time and frequency domain synchronization and track the frequency shift (due to Doppler effect). WiMax uses pilot tones for both forward link and reverse link (Fig. 11). (4) When calculate power per tone, one should use N_used. When calculate throughput, one should use number of traffic tones. Fig. 11 gives an example illustrating tone-allocations for guard band, pilot and data traffics for E-system (OFDMA).

Fig. 11 Overheads in Time Domain (E-System). Only those black arrows are traffic tones.

E-System also added the option of Full-Usage of Sub-Carriers (FUSC) and Partial-Usage of Sub-Carrier (PUSC). Depends on different channel bandwidth and whether it is FUSC or PUSC, the % of overheads are different. The details will be discussed in the next section. Fig. 12 gives channel structure in frequency space for D-system. The total number of tones that are on = 256 56 = 200 = N_used. Taking out 8 pilot tones, the total number of data tones = 192.

17

Fig. 12 Pilot, Guard Tones and Traffic tones in 802.16D-System. The total data tones are divided into 16 sub-sets, which can form 16 sub-channels in the reverse link (12 data tones each).

18

Overheads in Time Domain

As was mentioned previously, the most common frame duration is 5 msec. Within this 5 msec, part of the frame must be used for other purpose, only a portion of the 5 ms can be used for carrying traffic. (1) TDD or FDD: WiMAX can support Frequency-Division-Duplex (FDD) or TimeDivision-Duplex (TDD).

FDD requires a paired spectrum allocation, one for up link, one for down link. For this reason, many operators do not prefer FDD option. However, for FDD, a down-link (DL) frame is 100% for DL transmission, an up link (UL) frame is 100% for UL, no guard time is needed so bandwidth is used more efficiently. Also the time synchronization for FDD is not so critical. TDD only requires one single block of frequency, for both UL and DL. For this reason, many operators prefer TDD option. However, for TDD, a frame is divided into DL sub-frame and UL sub-frame.
o There must be a guard time between DL sub-frame and UL sub-frame, called TTG; and another guard time between the UL sub-frame and DL sub-frame, called RTG. During these guard times neither BTS nor mobile is transmitting. o These guard times serve two purposes: (a) allow the transmitter to have enough time to turn on or turn off; (b) take care of the effect of propagation delay so the Tx energy from a remove transmitter will not cause interference to a receiver (Fig. 30). o Time synchronization for TDD system is very critical. Without time synchronization, severe BTS-to-BTS interference or mobile-to-mobile interference will occur if one BTS / mobile is transmitting but the other BTS / mobile is receiving. As a result, GPS is almost always required for TDD ssytems.

For TDD option, part of the frame is used for TTG (typically 0.2 ms) and part of frame is used for RTG (typically < 0.1 ms). The steps to determine TTG + RTG are: first determine symbol duration, then determine # of symbols needed for overhead, # of symbols needed for DL and UL sub-frames (there are some rules which will be discussed later), then

(TTG + RTG) = (Frame Duration) (# of DL Symbols) (# of UL Symbols) (2) Preamble, DL_MAP, UL-MAP, etc are all overhead. In additional to carry data traffic, a frame must also carry preambles and other control / signaling messages. All of these are considered overheads and must be subtracted from the total frame duration to get the % of time a frame is actually carrying data traffic. Fig. 13 shows an example in OFDMA, how a TDD frame is divided between data traffic and overheads (only areas that are covered by bursts are used for carrying data traffics, all others areas are overheads). Note that:

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The DL control channels (e.g. DL MAP, FCH) are shared. Also UL control channel (UL_MAP) is in DL sub-frame, not in UL-sub-frame. However, UL subframe has a control channel for UL Ranging. The sizes of DL-MAP and UL-MAP are flexible, unlike CDMA where the control channels are fixed sizes with dedicated Walsh codes assigned. No hard constraint on the number of DL/UL bursts assigned per frame Dynamic Resource Allocation is a purely frame-by-frame resource allocation, i.e. no dedicated traffic channels on either DL or UL even for real-time services There is no dedicated control channel for UL resource request. UL resource request is performed by contention-based random access.
o It is costly to assigned dedicated control channel for OFDMA since each dedicated control channel will occupy hard overhead in terms of subcarriers and OFDMA symbols, regardless whether there is request to be sent.

Fig. 13 Overheads in Time Domain for OFDMA. Only those areas covered by bursts are for carrying data traffics.

Fat-pipe operation is similar to 1xEV-DV/DO or HSD(U)PA

o The exception is 802.16e has additional degrees of freedom in frequency domain, OFDMA symbol domain and spatial domain. The tradeoff is between scheduling flexibility and control signaling overhead.

Each frame can be dynamically partitioned into different permutation zones, e.g. PUSC, FUSC, AMC etc.

20

o This allows for better inter-sector interference control by applying PUSC mode for MSS in cell edge, and for taking advantage of frequency selective fading using AMC mode for MSS in low speed.

Fig. 14 shows an example in OFDM of how a TDD frame is divided between data traffic and overheads. Again, only DL Bursts and UL Bursts are used for carrying DL and UL data, all the rests are overheads.

Fig. 14 Overhead in Time Domain for OFDM.

1.2.8 OFDM vs. OFDMA

The main difference between OFDM and OFDMA is sub-channelization, OFDM does not support sub-channelization; OFDMA does. The forward link of D system uses OFDM. The reverse link uses OFDMA if it supports sub-channelization. For iPlanner, we can assume all mobiles support sub-channelization feature in the reverse link. Both the forward link and reverse link of E system use Scalable-OFDMA. The forward link of 802.16D system does not use sub-channelization. The entire 256-tone channel (minus guard tones) must be used. Therefore, modeling the forward link of D 21

system is very similar to modeling the forward link of 1xEV-DO. When multiple users exist in a sector, the scheduler time divides the channel to serve each user. D systems reverse link can use OFDM, just like the forward link. But due to the limitation of handset Tx power level, most of time reverse link coverage is limited. For this reason, most D systems use sub-channelization, i.e., dividing one channel into 16 sub-channels.

If the handset is located very close to the BTS, it can use the entire 16 sub-channels so the reverse throughput is maximized; If the handset is located far from the BTS, and if all sub-channels are used, the C/I per tone may become too low to support even the lowest rate. In this case, the handset can concentrate the power to a smaller number of sub-channels, which increases the energy per sub-channel. As a result, the mobile can move farther away and still be able to have service. In effect, sub-channelization is trading reverse throughput for extra coverage. The smaller the number of sub-channels used, the thinner the pipe, the lower the reverse throughput, but the higher the C/I per tone so the longer the reverse range. If all handset power is concentrated in only one sub-channel, the power density per subchannel is increased by 16 times compared to the case when all 16 sub-channels are used, so the range can be significantly extended. Of course, the reverse throughput is also dropped because the pipe size drops to 1/16 as much as before.

Due to the capability of sub-channelization, each user may use a different bandwidth value (different number of sub-channels), therefore, it becomes OFDMA instead of OFDM. OFDMA adds one more dimension to the reverse link scheduler: (1) Bandwidth used by each user (# of sub-channels used) (2) % of service time allocated to each user (3) The peak rate achieved for this particular user The 802.16 E-system uses scalable-OFDMA. For E systems, both the forward and reverse scheduler work with three dimensions (1) (3) mentioned above. In summary:

An OFDM scheduler is similar to a DO scheduler, the only variable to be scheduled is % of service time. An OFDMA scheduler must add one more variable, that is, the % of channel bandwidth allocated to each user.

1.2.9 FUSC and PUSC

The 802.16 E (S-OFDMA) defines two kinds of sub-channel allocation modes: FullyUsed-Sub-Channelization (FUSC) and Partially-Used-Sub-Channelization (PUSC).

22

FUSC: All sub-channels are allocated to the transmitter. FUSC is used for DL only. PUSC: Only part of the sub-channels are allocated to the transmitter. UL must use PUSC. DL may use PUSC or FUSC.

Note that FUSC or FUSC are defined on the transmitter side only. D system always uses frequency-reuse of 3 (N=3). It cannot support N = 1 because it cannot do soft handoff. In this case, the total available spectrum is divided into 3 sets, one for alpha-sector, one for beta-sector and one for gamma-sector. There is no concept of PUSC or FUSC in D system. However, in E system there is an option for PUSC or FUSC. It is very confusing which one corresponds to N =1 and which one corresponds to N = 3.

N = 1 will require soft handoff and / or Fast-BTS_Switch (FBSS) handoff, otherwise cell edge performance will not be acceptable. Initially E system may or may not have these handoff capabilities, so it is highly likely that N = 1 is not supported initially. A true N = 1 is deployed by FUSC. As an example, if the channel bandwidth is 5 MHz, every sector uses the same channel of 5 MHz, FBSS and soft handoff must be supported. The total spectrum usage is 5 MHz. This situation is very similar to UMTS. Except the reverse link always use PUSC, and the maximum total bandwidth the reverse link can use is 5 MHz, the same as forward link. FUSC can also be used to deploy a true N = 3. As an example, if the bandwidth of one channel is 5 MHz, there will be a total of 15 MHz of spectrum required. This 15 MHz of spectrum is divided into three 5 MHz channels (F1, F2 and F3). Alpha-sector uses F1, Beta-sector uses F2 and Gamma-sector uses F3. Hard handoff must be used for mobile to move from one sector to the other. Reverse link always use PUSC. The channel bandwidth used by the reverse link is the same as the channel bandwidth used in forward link, i.e., if the forward link is using F1, then reverse link will also use F1, etc. Forward link PUSC causes most confusion. Some time people call it virtual- or pseudo- N = 1, others call it virtual- or pseudo- N = 3, depends on how one looks at it.
o From a channel usage point of view, PUSC should be considered as N = 1, because there is only one channel used, and the cells can support FBSS and soft handoff. Reverse link theoretically can use the entire channel bandwidth. So if one looks at it from the channel usage point of view, it is N = 1 because every sector uses the same channel. o However, from a sub-channel usage point of view, PUSC should be considered N=3 because in the forward link, total sub-channels of the BTS

23

are divided into three disjointed sub-sets. One subset is for alpha-sector, one for beta-sector and one-for gamma-sector. For this reason, the total number of sub-channels in forward link PUSC is always a multiple of 3, as shown in Table 5. The fact that the neighbor sectors do not use the same set of tones makes the PUSCs forward link interference like the situation of N = 3.

Note that channel configuration may change with time within a frame. The standard defines many possible zones (in time dimension) within a frame. The DL sub-channel overhead (in time dimension) must always be PUSC. However, forward data traffic portion of the sub-frame can be PUSC, FUSC, AMC, etc. UL sub-frame must start with PUSC, the rest part can be PUSC or AMC, as shown the following figure.

Fig. 15 Mandatory Zones and Optional Zones in a frame.

24

Chapter 2

Details on WiMax (802.16) OFDMA System

2.1 Definition of Signal-to-Interference+Noise Ratio (CINR)

In WiMax, the CINR is defined on a per-tone basis (Fig. 16).
Power Density BW of one Tone

Out-of-Cell Interference Thermal Noise Density Frequency

BW of one Channel

Fig. 16 Definition of CINR in WiMax. Thermal noise density is a constant across the channel. However, out-of-cell interference will not likely be a constant across the channel.

Signal is received in-cell energy (from the home BTS or from the home mobile) within one traffic tone (for scalable-OFDMA, bandwidth = f = 11.16 kHz as given in Table 1) Noise is total thermal noise energy within one tone (11.16 kHz) Interference is the sum of all energies from out of cell within one tone. o On the reverse link, this is the sum of all out-of-cell interference contributed from all mobiles Tx power from neighboring cells. No in-cell interference (Fig.37). o On the forward link, this is the sum of all out-of-cell interference contributed from the Tx power of all neighboring BTSs (Fig. 35).

25

This C/I definition is very different from the C/I definition in CDMA or DO, in which both signal and interference and noise are all defined on a per 1.25 MHz basis. Another important difference is that

CDMA only has orthognality in the forward link (via Walsh codes) within the cell and within the same multipath. That is, forward link energies within the same cell and the same multi-path are orthogonal. Out-of-cell energy are interference. In-cell energies that do not belong to the same multi-path (with path delay differences > 1 chip) are also interference. There is no orthognality in the CDMAs reverse link. All mobile Tx power from other mobiles, whether they are in-cell mobiles or out-of-cell mobiles, are interference. OFDM and OFDMA has orthogonality in both forward link and in reverse link. There is no multi-path interference as long as Cyclic-Prefix (CP) > Multi-path delay. That means Tx power within the cell does not contribute to interference. Only energy from out-of-cell causes interference. OFDM and OFDMA can achieve much higher CINR than CDMA or DO. The maximum C/I value a DO system can achieve is about 13 dB due to the finite Rho Factor. The OFDM/OFDMA can achieve 30+ dB CINR.

The following table shows the simulation result under AWGN of achieved peak rate per tone as a function of CINR:
Table 3 Simulation Results of Achieved Peak Rate per Tone vs. CINR

CINR [dB] [Stationary]

-3.59 -2.43 -0.84 1.26 3.21 4.14 5.17 6.75 9.16 10.25 11.44 13.95 15.68

CINR [dB] [Mobility] (0.7 dB Penalty) -2.89 -1.73 -0.14 1.96 3.91 4.84 5.87 7.45 9.86 10.95 12.14 14.65* 16.38*

Modulation Order

Coding Rate

Bits carried per unitarea** 2/5 1/2 2/3 1 4/3 3/2 8/5 2 8/3 3 16/5 4 9/2

2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 2 (QPSK) 4 (16QAM) 4 (16QAM) 4 (16QAM) 4 (16QAM) 6 (64QAM) 6 (64QAM) 26

1/5 1/4 1/3 1/2 2/3 3/4 4/5 1/2 2/3 3/4 4/5 2/3 3/4

Rate contributed by one unit-area in 5 ms Frame 0.08 [kbps] 0.1 [kbps] 0.133 [kbps] 0.2 [kbps] 0.266 [kbps] 0.3 [kbps] 0.32 [kbps] 0.4 [kbps] 0.53 [kbps] 0.6 [kbps] 0.64 [kbps] 0.8 [kbps] 0.9 [kbps]

16.80

17.5*

6 (64QAM)

4/5

24/5

0.96 [kbps]

*: 64 QAM can be achieved under stationary condition; it is unlikely achieved under mobility condition **: One unit-area = (one tone) * (one symbol)

Table 3 is based on 802.16 E system using S-OFDMA, i.e., the bandwidth of one tone = 11.16 kHz (Table 1). For 802.16 D system, the bandwidth of one tone scales with the channel bandwidth, so the values from Table 3 cannot be directly used. However, note that Table 3 is based on Shannons channel capacity formula, which says that the rate supported by one channel is proportional to the channel bandwidth, and the rate increases as the channel SNR increases, using the following relation (Equation [3]): [3]
S Rate = B * log1 + N

Therefore, for the same SNR value, the wider the channel bandwidth, the higher the supported data rate, and vice versa. If the bandwidth of one tone in D system is different from 11.16 kHz, the supported rate per-tone per-symbol can be obtained by a simply equal-area approach: To achieve the orthogonal condition, Eq.[1] says that the symbol-duration T must inversely scale with the tone bandwidth F [= (Channel Bandwidth) / 256]. If the channel bandwidth increases, the symbol-duration must decrease accordingly. One unit-area is (one tone = F ) * (one symbol=T). Assume for E-system the unitarea is A_e, for D-system the unit-area is A_d, if the peak rate supported per unit-area for E-system is known (=R_e), then the peak rate per unit-area for D-system can be calculated as:
RD = AD RE AE

A simple example3 can be used to illustrate the above equal-area scaling.

o Assume for X-system the tone bandwidth F = 10 kHz, and symbol-duration T = 0.1 ms. A frame-duration = 2 ms, so one frame-duration can contain 20 symbol-durations. A 1 MHz channel contains 100 tones. A frame of 1 MHz by 2 ms can contain 100*20 = 2000 (unit-areas) o Assume for Y-system the channel bandwidth is twice = 2 MHz, but N_FFT is the same. So the tone bandwidth F = 20 kHz. To maintain orthogonal condition, the symbol-duration becomes half as before: T = 0.05 ms. The frame-duration is the same = 2 ms. With everything else being equal, according to Shannons theory, the throughput per frame from Y-system

This is for illustration purpose only. The values used here have nothing to do with the values used in a real WiMax System.

27

should be twice as much as the throughput per frame for X-system. A frameduration = 2 ms, so one frame-duration can now contain 40 symbol-durations. A 2 MHz channel contains 100 tones. A frame of 2 MHz by 2 ms can contain 100*40 = 4000 (unit-areas)
o Since one unit-area of (one tone)*(one symbol) in X-system is the same as one unit-area of (one tone)*(one symbol) in Y-system, using equal-area argument, both unit-areas support the same data rate. Therefore, the throughput per frame in Y-system, containing twice as many unit-areas, is exactly twice as much as the throughput per frame in X-system, as indicated by Shannons theory. The following figure illustrates the concept.

=
One unit-area of (1 tone)*(1 symbol) in X-system = One unit-area of (1 tone)*(1 symbol) in Y-system

Y System
Channel BW =1 MHz

Channel BW =2 MHz

X System

Frame Duration = 2 ms

Frame Duration = 2 ms

Fig. 17 Illustration of equal-area scaling. Y-System having twice as much channel bandwidth should support twice as much throughput.

Table 3 specifies the peak rate achieved per unit-area in 5 ms frames. To obtain what is the achieved throughput per user, one has to calculate how much total area (i.e., how many symbols per second and how many traffic tones) this user can get. This will depend on what % of resources allocated by the scheduler to this user, and for a particular channel configuration. These details are discussed in Chapter 2.5. The picture will become clear after the discussions of channel structures (Chapter 2.3 and 2.4) and the discussions of forward and reverse schedulers (Chapter 2.5).

28

2.2 Resource Allocations: Comparing CDMA, 1xEVDO and OFDM and S-OFDMA
2.2.1 CDMA / 1xRTT
There is only one dimension in order to model a CDMA/1xRTT voice link resource, that is, power. CDMA technology uses power control. Each CDMA link will always occupy 1.25 MHz of bandwidth, this is a constant and will never change. Each active CDMA voice link is always on (with a voice-activity-factor). No concept of scheduling. Voice rate is always VAF*9.6 kbps. Data rate, within a burst, is fixed at 9.6, 2x9.6, 4x9.6, 8x9.6 or 16x9.6 kbps. Therefore, to model a CDMA link, the only variable is: how much traffic power required by the traffic channel in order to meet a particular Eb/Nt target for that rate.

2.2.2 1xEV-DO Forward Link

The reverse link of DO is very similar to that of 1xRTT. It is also a continuous transmission and also supports soft handoff. However, DOs forward link is very different. It gives 100% of power to the user that is currently under service, so power is a constant. It is the achieved rate (DRC) that is changing (rate control). Also it has a scheduler to determine who is served next and for how long. There are two dimensions in order to model a DO forward link, they are (1) The achievable peak rate (= DRC) which is a function of forward link SNR; (2) The only forward link resource the scheduler can control is the % of service time the BTS is serving a particular mobile, which is a function of the number of simultaneous active users per sector. On the other hand, the forward power is a constant (= 100% of PA power). The DO link will always occupy 1.25 MHz of bandwidth.

2.2.3 WiMAX Forward & Reverse Link

2.2.3.1 E system (S-OFDMA)
OFDMA is more complicated than DO + 1xRTT combined together. First of all, to model a WiMax link, it requires at least 4-dimensions. They are: (1) Bandwidth; (2) % of Service Time; (3) Power and (4) Achievable Peak Rate (equivalent to DRC). There is a forward scheduler and a reverse link scheduler. Consequently, a mobile may or may not

29

transmit at the same time or using the same amount of bandwidth in the forward link as in the reverse link. WiMax has so much flexibilities, which makes the technology more powerful, but also makes it extremely complicated to model. We now discuss each of these 4 dimensions.
(1) Bandwidth: In OFDMA, the allocated bandwidth to each user is usually a fraction of the channel bandwidth. Suppose one WiMax channel bandwidth is 5 MHz. This channel is divided into multiple sub-channels. Each sub-channel is further subdivided into a large number of tones. Although a tone is the smallest frequency unit in OFDM, the smallest frequency unit the scheduler can allocate to each user is one sub-channel.

On the forward link, the BTS may give all sub-channels to a user, but it may also only give 1 or a subset of sub-channel(s) to a user. On the reverse link, a mobile can transmit via the entire channel bandwidth or via 1 or a few sub-channels. This allows a mobile to trade throughput for extra coverage. a. If the mobile is located near cell edge, it can transmit all of its power in 1 or a few sub-channels(s), consequently the power density per sub-channel is higher so SNR per-tone can be higher. This allows the mobile to go farther away from the BTS while still be able to maintain the connection. b. If the mobile is located near the center, it is allowed to use the entire channel BW to achieve a higher reverse link throughput.

As a result, bandwidth is no longer a constant like the cases for CDMA / DO. Instead, it is a new variable. One mobile may use different amount of bandwidth from another. Also for the same mobile, forward link may use different amount of bandwidth from the reverse link.

(2) % of Service Time: Because there is a scheduler for the forward link and a scheduler for the reverse link, depends on the forward / reverse loading condition, QoS, call models,, etc., a mobile may or may not transmit @ forward link at the same time as @ reverse link.

If a sector supports N active users at the same time, then no two users will be allowed to collide in the time-frequency space. That is, if multiple users use the same set of frequencies, then they cannot use the same time slot; if multiple users are transmitting at the same time slot, then they cannot use the same set of frequencies. This is somewhat similar to the scheduler in DOs forward link, except DO scheduler only needs to work with one dimension: the time-dimension; but OFDMA scheduler must simultaneously work with two dimensions: timedimension and frequency-dimension.

(3) Power: WiMax power allocation can be similar to DO, or similar to 1xRTT. The WiMax reverse link has power control, just like CDMA. However, it can also behave

30

like DOs forward link. If the up link traffic is full-queue, the mobile will transmit maximum power to achieve the highest reverse link throughput. This is similar to DOs forward link. On the other hand, if the up link traffic is constant-rate (like VoIP), then reverse link will behave very similar to 1xRTT. The mobile will only transmit enough power to support the reverse rate required for VoIP. In the forward link: a. If there is only one single full-queue user in the sector, the system can give 100% of traffic power to this user to achieve the maximum throughput. This is similar to DO. b. On the other hand, if a sector contains many constant-rate users (e.g., VoIP), the system will allocate just enough bandwidth (smaller number of sub-channels and smaller % of service time) to these user to maintain the VoIP rate. c. WiMax standard does not mention forward link power control, therefore one can assume that there is no forward link power control. But the forward link scheduler can still change each users throughput by allocating different % of resources (= area in frequency-time space). d. The standard does not define how a scheduler will work. This gives each vendor complete freedom of designing its own scheduler. Therefore, different vendors WiMax system will likely behave differently.
(4) Achieved Rate: Once Tx power level and path loss is given, the achieved SNR pertone can be calculated. Once SNR is known, the achievable peak rate is also known. This is very similar to DRC vs. SNR in DO, except WiMax has rate control on both forward and reverse links. DO only has rate control on the forward link.

Since resources in OFDMA have two-dimensions, to model what % of resources is given to each user, one needs to work with a two-dimensional Area4, with one dimension being Time (the minimum unit is 1 symbol duration) and another dimension being Frequency (the minimum unit is 1 tone, but in terms of scheduling, the minimum frequency unit is one sub-channel), as shown in Fig. 18. If there is only one full-queue user in the sector, this user may use the entire area, and the achieved throughput = (Achieved Peak Rate)*(Total Area for data traffic). If there are N (N>1) full-queue users in the sector, then these users share the total area available for traffic, and one particular users achieved throughput = (Achieved Peak Rate for this user)*(% of traffic area allocated for this user).

The formal name of area used in 802.16 standard is called Data Region. In this document area and Data Region is used interchangeably.

31

Frequency Dimension

This Area is for User A

Symbol Duration

This Area is for User C

SubChannel

This Area is for Overhead

This Area is for User B

Time Dimension

Fig. 18 A sub-frame (can be DL sub-frame or UL sub-frame) can be represented by an area. The overhead occupies part of the area. The rest can be shared by all users in the sector.

2.2.3.2 D system (OFDM)

There are two main differences in D System: (1) D Systems Channel structure is different (Fig. 12), one channel contains 256 tones (N_used = 200). E system does not use 256 tones, to avoid the requirement of backward compatibility with D system. (2) D systems forward link does not use sub-channels. Therefore, the forward link scheduler has one less dimension to worry about, it is similar to the forward link in DO. Although reverse link of D also use sub-channelization, the sub-channel structure in D and sub-channel structure in E are different. One sub-channel in reverse link of D contains 192 / 16 = 12 data tones. A sub-channel in E uses a tile structure, which contains 4 * 6 = 24 tones (Fig. 22), among which 16 are data tones. Reverse link tile structure is discussed in Chapter 2.4.

32

2.3 802.16 E Forward Link

As was mentioned previously, the two most commonly used sub-channel configurations in E Systems forward link are FUSC or PUSC. Additionally, there are several other optional configurations, but they will not likely be implemented in the early releases of E products, so they will not be implemented by the first release of iPlanner.

2.3.1 Forward Link FUSC

For forward link FUSC, each sub-channel contains 48 data traffic tones. These 48 tones are randomized via permutation schemes5 in order to gain frequency diversity. But for iPlanner modeling purpose, the main important thing is that
For FUSC, One Sub-Channel = 48 Data Traffic Tones.

The following table summarizes the details of sub-channel structure for channel bandwidth of 1.25, 5, 10 and 20 MHz. The information contained in this table is important to determine the forward link throughput under FUSC.
Table 4 Forward Link Distributed Sub-Carrier Permutation for FUSC Parameters Channel Bandwidth [MHz] Tot. # of Tones (FFT Size) Number of Guard Tones Value
1.25 128 21 (11 left, 10 right) 107 5 512 85 (43 left, 42 right) 427 10 1024 173 (87 left, 86 right) 851 20 2048 345 (173 left, 172 right) 1703

Number of used Tones (N_used)* Number of Tones used for Data Traffic* Number of Sub-Channels Per Sector Number of Data Tones per SubChannel
5

96

384

768

1536

16

32

48

Permutation has similar functionalities as frequency hopping, the main purpose is to randomize the subcarriers to gain frequency diversity, so these 48 tones are not adjacent.

33

*: N-used is used to determine the power density per tone. Number of traffic tones is used to determine the forward link traffic throughput. The minimum time resolution for forward traffic under FUSC is 1 OFDM symbol. That means the data traffic portion of the DL frame can be even or odd number of frames (divisible by 1). The finest resolution the scheduler can allocate to a user is 1 slot6. One slot for FUSC is an area of one Sub-Channel (48 tones) by one OFDM Symbol = 48 tone-symbol. From Fig. 15, all DL sub-frames must start with a PUSC configuration, so even for FUSC, the beginning part (overheads) of the DL sub-frame is PUSC. After the initial part, the rest of DL sub-frame is zone-switched into FUSC, so the data traffic portion of the DL frame is FUSC. Since frames from all BTSs are synchronized, when calculating CINR, it is the data portion that counts. So if the data portion is FUSC, the CINR must be calculated according to FUSC.

2.3.2 Forward Link PUSC

In DL PUSC mode, total sub-channels of the BTS are divided into three disjointed sets that can be allocated to the alpha-, beta- and gamma- sector of the same BTS. The adjacent sectors from neighbor BTSs do not use the same set of frequencies so the out-ofcell interference is significantly reduced. A permutation mechanism is designed to minimize the probability of hits between adjacent / sectors / cells by reusing sub-carriers. The main advantage of PUSC is reduced interference, because the forward interference produced from PUSC is like the situation of N = 3. The disadvantage is that for the same channel bandwidth, the amount of bandwidth allocated to each sector is much smaller. If the traffic densities among three sectors are uniform, each sector gets 1/3 as much bandwidth, the frequency planning in this case is easy. On the other hand, if the traffic densities among three sectors are not uniform, the service provider can allocate more subchannels to the sector with the heaviest loading. However, this uneven sub-channel allocation involves re-planning of the frequencies of the neighboring cells in order to make sure that the adjacent sectors do not use the same set of frequencies. Theoretically, it is possible to have a dynamic sub-channel allocation scheme so these sub-channels are like pooled resources among three sectors, but this requires the entire network to be very smart in order to make sure that neighboring sectors never use the same set of subcarriers. PUSC defines a new unit of (frequency * time) space called a cluster. A cluster consists of 14 adjacent tones in frequency dimension (2 pilot tones + 12 data tones) and two OFDM symbols in time dimension, as shown in Fig. 19:
A slot in 1xEV-DO has a time dimension, and the value is 1 / 600 (sec) = 1.6667 msec. However, a slot in WiMax has the dimension of an area in (Frequency * Time) space.
6

34

Fig. 19 A Cluster defined in PUSC consists of an area of 14 tones by 2 OFDM symbols.

Because of this cluster structure, the smallest time resolution for PUSC DL frame is 2 OFDM symbols. That means the data portion of DL frame duration must be even number of symbols (divisible by 2). In frequency dimension, one PUSC sub-channel contains two clusters (= 2 * 14 = 28) tones, taking out the 4 pilot tones, the # of data tones per sub-channel is 24. That means:
For PUSC, One Sub-Channel = 24 Data Traffic Tones.

Although the 14 tones (12 traffic + 2 pilots) within a cluster are adjacent, each subchannel contains 2 clusters, these two clusters are not adjacent in frequencies so each sub-channel does have frequency diversity. The following table summarizes the details of forward PUSC sub-channel for channel bandwidth of 1.25, 5, 10 and 20 MHz.
Table 5 Forward Link Distributed Sub-Carrier Permutation for PUSC Parameters Channel Bandwidth [MHz] Tot. # of Tones (FFT Size) Number of Guard Tones Values
1.25 128 43 (22 left, 21 right) 85 5 512 91 (46 left, 45 right) 421 10 1024 183 (92 left, 91 right) 841 20 2048 367 (184 left, 183 right) 1681

Number of used Tones Number of Tones used for Data Traffic Number of Clusters per

72

360

720

1440

30

60

120

35

Sector Number of Sub-Channels Per BTS Number of Clusters per Sub-Channel Number of Tones (data + Pilot) per Subchannel Number of Data Tones per SubChannel

15

30

60

28

24

From the above table, one can see that 1.25 MHz PUSC has only 3 sub-channels. This channel pipe-size is too thin and the Erlang efficiency will be poor. A channel BW of 5 MHz will be much more efficient. Note that the first part of DL sub-frame always starts with PUSC (Fig. 15). If the data portion of the DL sub-frame is also PUSC, there is no need for zone switching. One slot for PUSC is an area in (frequency * time) space of one Sub-Channel (24 data tones) by two OFDM Symbols. Comparing to a slot in FUSC, because PUSC has only half as many data tones per sub-channel, the time dimension is doubled. Consequently, in PUSC, the area in (frequency * time) space of 1 slot is still the same as FUSC. Fig. 20 shows an example of mapping OFDMA slots into sub-channels (frequency) and symbols (time) in the down link in PUSC mode. Note that Sub-Channel i and SubChannel (i+1) are not necessarily physically adjacent.

36

Fig. 20 How to map data slots into the (Frequency * Time) space to form a Data Region in DL PUSC.

2.3.3 Forward Power Allocation

1xEV-DO uses Rate Control which gives 100% of power for an active user at a given time. Therefore, forward link power never changes, it is the achievable rate that is changing depends on the RF condition. On the other hand, 1xRTT uses Power Control. The BTS only gives a certain maximum allowed power to a user (PTxMax). The actual power allocated to a user at any given time is different, but the maximum power is not allowed to go over PTxMax. Forward power control is not mentioned in the WiMax standard, therefore we can assume that 802.16 forward link does not have power control. However, OFDMA can allocate a smaller bandwidth to a particular user. If the PA power is uniformly allocated to each sub-carrier, by allocating a smaller number of sub-carriers to a user, the total power allocated to this user is also reduced. On the other hand, the forward link of D system (OFDM) does not use sub-chanelization, so the situation will be like DO.

37

The next question is how much power to allocate to pilot tones and how much power to allocate to data tones. The simplest approach is the equal power allocation, i.e., one pilot tone has the same power as one data traffic tone. Then all tones have the equal power. The pilot tones are used for CINR estimation. If the pilot tone has the same power density as data tones, then CINR of pilot tones will be the same as CINR of data tones. For equal power allocation, the total power allocated to a user is proportional to the total bandwidth given to this user. It is possible to allocate different power to pilot tones from data traffic tones. As long as the difference is a constant, one can still estimate traffic CINR from pilot CINR. For example, if pilot tones are always 1 dB stronger than traffic tones, than traffic CINR will always be 1 dB lower than pilot CINR. In iPlanner, use equal power allocation as default, but do allow users to change the default and give pilot tones more or less power compared to traffic tones.

38

2.4 802.16 E Reverse Link

2.4.1 Reverse Link PUSC
Fig. 15 shows that uplink can use PUSC or AMC mode. AMC is not modeled in the first release, so only PUSC will be modeled. Uplink PUSC defines another new unit for area in the (Frequency * Time) space called a Tile. A tile consists of 4 adjacent tones in frequency dimension and three OFDM symbols in time dimension, as shown in Fig. 21. The only exception is the case for 20 MHz channel bandwidth, in that case there are only 3 tones per tile (Table 6).

Fig. 21 Definition of an UL Tile. Left: for 1.25, 5 and 10 MHz channel BW; Right: for 20 MHz channel BW.

Although a tile uses adjacent tones, a sub-channel contains 6 tiles chosen from a permutation scheme. This permutation scheme tries to randomize frequencies by choosing tiles that are not adjacent to each other, as a result, each sub-channel containing 6 tiles does have frequency diversity. Because of this tile structure, the smallest time resolution for UL frame is 3 OFDM symbols. That means the data portion of UL sub-frame duration must be a multiple of 3 symbols. For example, the UL sub-frame data portion can be 12, 15, 18, symbols, but cannot be any number that is not divisible by 3. One slot in UL PUSC is an area of 1 sub-channel (in frequency dimension) by 3 OFDM symbols (in time dimension). Each UL sub-channel contains 6 tiles. For 1.25, 5 and 10 MHz channel bandwidth, one sub-channel contains 6 * 4 = 24 tones, only part of them are data tones. For 20 MHz channel bandwidth, one sub-channel contains 6 tiles = 6 * 3 = 18 tones, only part of them are data tones. To calculate the average number of data tones per UL sub-channel, one must average it over three symbols, because the number of traffic tones per sub-channel is different at different symbol time (Fig. 21, 22).

39

Time Dimension (# of

Frequency Dimension (# of Tones)

Time Dimension

Frequency Dimension

Fig. 22 UL Sub-Channel Structure: 6 Tiles per Sub-channel. Top: One Slot = area of one sub-channel (= 24 tones, only 16 are data tones) in frequency space and 3 symbols in time space, for channel bandwidth of 1.25, 5 and 10 MHz. Bottom: for channel BW = 20 MHz, one slot is still one sub-channel (= 18 tones, only 16 tones are data tones) by 3 symbols, the number of traffic tones per slot is the same, but the number of pilot tones is smaller.

For 1.25, 5, ad 10 MHz channel bandwiths: In the 1st symbol it is 12 pilots tones + 12 data traffic tones; In the 2nd symbol it is 24 data traffic tones with no pilot tones; In the 3rd symbol it is 12 pilots tones + 12 data traffic tones (same as the first symbol) On the average (averaged over 3 symbols), the number of traffic tones per subchannel = (12 + 24 + 12) / 3 = 16. The averaged number of pilot tones (averaged over 3 symbols) = (12 + 0 + 12) / 3 = 8. One slot = (16 Data Tones / sub-channel) * (3 symbols) = 48 (Data Tones) * (Symbols)

If channel bandwidth = 20 MHz, each tile has only 3 tones. Out of these 3 tones, on the 2 average there are (3 + 2 + 3) / 3 = 2 data traffic tones and 1/3 pilot tones. So each sub3 channel contains 6 tiles = 16 data traffic tones in frequency dimension. One slot also contains 3 symbols in the time dimension. So 1 slot is an area of = (16 data tones / sub40

channel)*(3 symbols) = 48 (data tones) * (symbols), the same as the case for channel bandwidth of 1.25, 5 and 10 MHz. The total number of data traffic tones within a UL sub-frame will be used to calculate UL throughput. The following table summarizes the details of sub-channel and sub-carrier allocation for UL PUSC for channel bandwidth values of 1.25, 5, 10 and 20 MHz.
Table 6 Reverse Link Distributed Sub-Carrier Permutation (Always PUSC) Parameters Channel Bandwidth [MHz] Tot. # of Tones (FFT Size) Number of Guard Tones Values
1.25 128 31 (16 left, 15 right) 97 5 512 103 (52 left, 51 right) 409 10 1024 183 (92 left, 91 right) 841 20 2048 367 (184 left, 183 right) 1681

Number of used Tones Number of Tones per Tile Number of Tiles per SubChannel Number of tones (data + pilot) per SubChannel Number of Data Traffic Tones per Sub-channel Number of Sub-Channels

4 6

24

18

16

16

17

35

92

From Table 6, one can see that the total number of sub-channels in the reverse link is not divisible by 3 (unlike the situation in forward link PUSC). Since sub-channel is the finest frequency unit that can be allocated by the scheduler, there is no easy way to allocate exactly 1/3 of the total channel bandwidth to each sector to emulate N=3 frequency reuse in the reverse link7.
Using BW = 1.25 MHz as an example, there is a total of 4 sub-channels. If each sector uses 1 sub-channel, then it uses 25% of total bandwidth; if a sector uses 2 sub-channels, it uses 50% of bandwidth. The scheduler cannot allocate a fraction of sub-channels.
7

41

We now compare a slot for forward link FUSC, forward PUSC and reverse link PUSC. Because in UL a sub-channel contains less number of data traffic tones (averaged over 3 symbols = (12+24+12)/3 = 16), the time dimension is increased to three. Consequently, the area (frequency * time) of 1 slot in all three cases are the same: DL FUSC: 1 slot = (48 traffic tones)*(1 symbol) = 48 (tone*symbol) DL PUSC: 1 slot = (24 traffic tones)*(2 symbols)= 48 (tone*symbol) UL PUSC: 1 slot = (16 traffic tones)*(3 symbols)= 48 (tone*symbol)

Fig. 23 shows an example of mapping OFDMA slots into sub-channels (frequency) and symbols (time) in the up link. Note that Sub-Channel i and Sub-Channel (i+1) are not necessarily physically adjacent.

Fig. 23 Data Region (=area in Frequency * Time Space) in UL PUSC. Note that the minimum time resolution is 3 symbols.

2.4.2 Reverse Link Power and Bandwidth Allocations

In reverse link, WiMax offers both power control and rate control. For constant-rate traffics (like VoIP) that do not need high reverse rate, the rate is fixed but mobiles Tx power is varying (power control). In this case, the mobile will 42

transmit just enough power to achieve the required Eb/Nt for the required VoIP data rate. Power control reduces reverse link interference. For full-queue kind of traffics, the mobile will transmit maximum power which results maximum reverse CINR and the maximum achieved reverse link rate. In this case, the mobiles Tx power is fixed (=Max power), the achieved rate is varying (rate control). The pro of rate control is that it produces maximum reverse link throughput; the con is that it also produces maximum reverse link interference.

Additionally, the sub-channelization feature allows mobiles to trade used channel bandwidth with service range (Fig. 24). If this mobile is located very close to the BTS (so CINR of each UL tone can be very high even if the total mobile power is spreaded to all tones), the mobile can use all UL traffic tones (i.e., all UL sub-channels) to achieve the maximum reverse rate. If this mobile is located far from the BTS, so that if the total power is spreaded to all tones, the achieved CINR per tone will be too poor to support the minimum rate, the mobile can use a smaller number of sub-channels so the power can be concentrated to a smaller number of tones so each tone can have a higher CINR. The reduced number of sub-channels will result a smaller pipe size which means lower overall UL throughput, but the mobile can be moved farther away from the BTS, thus trading UL throughput with extra coverage.
Power Density Per Tone

4 Subchannels

3 Subchannels

2 Subchannels

1 Subchannel

Distance to BTS

Figure 24 Reverse Link Sub-channelization: Coverage vs. Rate trade-offs.

For power allocation between pilot and data tones, use equal power allocation as default in iPlanner, but do allow users to change the default and give pilot tones more or less power compared to traffic tones.

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2.5 Modeling the WiMax Scheduler

Since iPlanner has implemented the effect of Proportional Fairness Scheduler for DO, it is useful to compare a DO scheduler with a WiMax Scheduler.

2.5.1 1xEV-DO Scheduler

In DOs forward link, each mobile determines what is the peak rate (DRC) the current air link condition can support based on the measured C/I value. Once the DRC value is send to the BTS, the BTS must honor the rate requested. The only parameter the BTS can control is: Time. That is, when to serve this user and what % of service time to be allocated to this user. The PF Scheduler is fair, in the sense that over a long period of time, the % of service time to each active user is approximately equal. Therefore if there are N users in a sector, each user gets about 1/N as much service time (the so-called 1/N effect). However, over a short period of time, if there are N users in the sector, the scheduler tends to serve users that are on good RF condition. Because of this, there is a multi-user diversity gain. When there are N users in a sector, the average per-user throughput is approximately = (DRC / N)*(Multi-User-Diversity-Gain)

2.5.2 WiMax Scheduler

The WiMax standard only specifies there will be forward and reverse link schedulers, but it does not specify what or how to implement forward / reverse Schedulers. Therefore the scheduler is very product specific, each vendor is free to implement its own scheduler. Currently, the detailed information on schedulers of Nortels WiMax system is not yet available, since the product is not yet available. Therefore, in this document we can only describe two simple schedulers. They are the simplest to implement, when actual system is ready, it may use different schedulers. Like DO, WiMax mobile / BTS also determine what are the fwd / rev peak rates the current air link condition can support, based on the measured fwd / rev CINR values measured from the mobile / BTS. Peak rates are equivalent to DRC, except WiMax can have rate control in both directions, DO only has rate control in the forward direction. Once the fwd / rev peak rates are determined, what the scheduler can control is when to send a burst to this user, and how large is the area of the burst in (Frequency * Time) space (Fig. 13, Fig. 18).

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2.5.2.1 Proportional Fairness Scheduler

Assume there are N active users in a sector. A PF scheduler will try to give every use equal % of total available area for traffic. However, if there are multiple users in a sector, a PF scheduler tends to server users who is currently at peak of the signal (consequently it also has a multi-user-diversity-gain MUDG), although over the long run it servers every user with approximately equal % of time. The per-user throughput = (% of traffic areas) * (peak rate supported based on CINR) * (Multi-User-Diversity-Gain) The per-sector throughput = Sum of (per-user throughput) for all users

With PF scheduler, assume there are N full-queue users in a sector, within one second, assume the total area (= (Total Service Time)*(Total # of Traffic Tones) ) = A, then each user gets about the same % of resources, or A/N as much area. The per-user throughput will be (Peak_Rate) * (% of Area). So, per-user-throughput can be graphically illustrated as a Volume = (Area) * (Height), with height been (Achieved Peak Rate)*(MUDG), area been % allocated resources in 2-dimensions, as shown in Fig. 25, 26. A PerUserTput = * PeakRateperTone(CINR ) * MUDG N = ( Area ) * (Height )

Area = (% of Area allocated to a user) in Frequency * Time space Height = Peak_Rate (CINR) * (Multi-User-Diversity-Gain)
Frequency Dimension Total # of Traffic Frames

User #1

User #2

User #3

User #4

User #5

User #6

Total Number of Traffic Tones

Time Dimension

Fig. 25 Example showing 6 active users per sector. The fair scheduler gives approximately 1/6 of the total resources (equal area) to each user.

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User #3 User #4 User #1 User #2 User #6 User #5

Height = Achieved Peak Rate Of this User

Fig. 26 Each users achieved throughput is represented by a Volume, where the Height is the (achieved peak rate based on the CINR) * MUDG; the Area is (% of resource allocated to a user) by the scheduler.

2.5.2.2 A Linear Biased Scheduler

It is possible to trade fairness with throughput. If the scheduler allocates a higher % of resources to users who are currently under good RF conditions (so can achieve higher peak rates) and less % of resources to users who are currently under poor RF conditions (so can achieve lower peak rates), the aggregate sector throughput will be higher. The drawback is that the scheduler is less fair, and a user under poor condition will experience even worse throughput. As an example, assume there are two users, User A and User B.

User A is under extremely good RF condition, so the peak rate it can achieve is 10 Mbps User B is under bad RF condition so the peak rate it can achieve is 0.1 Mbps. Under a Fair-Scheduler, each user will get 50% of resources:
o The per-user-Throughput of User A = 50% * 10 Mbps= 5 Mbps o The per-user-Throughput of User B = 50% * 0.1 Mbps = 0.05 Mbps o The aggregate sector throughput = 5 + 0.05 = 5.05 Mbps.

Suppose the scheduler is biased, it gives 75% of resources to User A, and only 25% of resources to user B.
o The per-user-Throughput of User A = 75% * 10 Mbps= 7.5 Mbps o The per-user-Throughput of User B = 25% * 0.1 Mbps = 0.025 Mbps o The aggregate sector throughput = 7.5 + 0.025 = 7.525 Mbps. o The aggregate sector throughput becomes much higher, but User B gets only half as much throughput as before.

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One can use a simple linear approach by defining a variable called degree of fairness = Max-to-Min-Ratio, i.e., the ratio of maximum % of resources to min % of resources (Fig. 27).

For a fair scheduler, this ratio is 1. For a linear biased scheduler, this ratio > 1. For the example given above, the ratio = 0.75 / 0.25 = 3.
% of Resource Allocation

Biased Scheduler Fair Scheduler Max

Min
RF Condition CINR [dB]

Fig. 27 Illustration of Linear Biased Scheduler (Orange) vs. Fair Scheduler (Green)

Fig. 28 shows the per-user throughput as a result of the biased scheduler. Note that the difference of the volumes becomes much more significant compared to the case of Fair Scheduler. A user under a good RF condition gets a double gain: it has a higher peak rate, also gets higher % of resources. A user under a poor RF condition gets a double hit: it has a lower peak rate, also gets lower % of resources.

User #3 User #4 User #1 User #5 User #2 User #6

Height = Achieved Peak Rate Of this User

Fig. 28 Illustration of per-user throughput (= Volume) under biased scheduler.

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With sub-channelization, some users use fat pipes, some users use medium pipes, and others use thin pipes. Therefore, the scheduler must work with a mix of fat pipes and thin pipes.

For a fair scheduler, each user get the same area, therefore, the thin pipes will be served for a longer duration (in time) than fat pipes, as shown in Fig. 29.
Frequency

Fat Pipe

Medium Pipe

Thin Pipe

Time

Fig. 29 Fair scheduler gives each user the same area, therefore thin pipes will be allocated more service time than fat pipes.

On the other hand, if all pipes (regardless of sizes) are allocated with equal % of service time, then the fat pipes will have larger areas than the medium pipes, which will have larger areas than the thin pipes, then this is a linear biased scheduler with Max-to-Min-Ratio = (Fat Pipe Size)/(Thin Pipe Size).

2.5.2.3 Other Schedulers

A commercial WiMax system will likely have some kinds of priority schedulers to give higher priority to real-time applications. However, the detail of such priority scheduler is unknown for the time being, so it cannot be implemented. The two examples given in previous two sections are the simplest to implement, and are mainly used for full-queue applications. Only these two schedulers will be implemented initially, most complicated schedulers are left to future releases.

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2.5.2.4 Difference Between D Scheduler and E Scheduler

Most discussions in 2.5 are for 802.16 E systems. As far as scheduler is concerned, the scheduler for D system can be considered as a special case of the schedulers discussed above.

Forward Link of D System As was mentioned previously, forward link of D system (OFDM) does not us sub-channelization, therefore, the channel bandwidth is not a variable, the only variable is % of service time. So the scheduler has one less dimension, and two-dimensional resources become one-dimensional. The situation is very similar to 1xEV-DO. The PF Scheduler works almost identical as DO. The linear biased scheduler simply allocate higher % of service time to users at good RF conditions. Reverse Link of D System Reverse link of D system also uses OFDMA with subchannelization, except the channel structure is different from System Es channel structure. It is not a scalable-OFDMA, and the reverse link does not use Tile Structure. For full-queue user, how many sub-channels a mobile should use is a function of the reverse link budget. If a mobile is located very close to the BTS, it will use all 16 subchannels. If it is located on cell edge, depends on its reverse link budget limit, it may use less than 16 sub-channels, the number of used sub-channels can drop all the way down to 1. Fair Scheduler and Biased Scheduler work the same way, except to D systems channel structure.

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2.6 Handoffs in 802.16 E

802.16 D system cannot do handoff. 802.16 E system defined three kinds of handoff: 1. Hard Handoff (HO) 2. Fast-BTS-Switching Handoff (FBSS) 3. Soft Handoff (SHO) Hard handoff is used in N=3 frequency-reuse, and is a mandatory feature, since N = 3 is mandatory. N = 1 frequency reuse is optional. If N = 1 is used, the system must support at least one of FBSS or SHO, preferably both. The cell edge reliability would be very poor if N = 1 is used but the system only supports hard handoff. Since N = 1 is optional, both FBSS and SHO are also optional. The main reason that both FBSS and SHO are optional is because it is more challenging to deploy them in OFDMA systems (compared to CDMA systems). Consequently, it is highly possible that early versions of 802.16 E systems only use N = 3 with hard handoff. N = 1 with FBSS and SHO will probably not be supported until later releases.

2.6.1 Hard Handoff

Hard handoff is well-defined in the standard. However, most sections discussed in the standard are how mobile scan for neighbor list, cell-reselection, HO decision & initialization, hand-shaking messaging, ranging, HO process.etc. these dynamic processes cannot be modeled by a static tool like iPlanner, so they are not important from an tool implementation point of view. What iPlanner will model is to produce a contour plot for the footprints of the best-server for F1, F2 and F3, and assume hard handoff is 100% efficient (no dragging handoff), so mobiles that are physically located in the best-server footprint of F1 will belong to sector 1, mobiles that are physically located in the best-server footprint for F2 will belong to sector 2, , etc. The details of implementing hard handoff in iPlanner are given in Chapter 3.3.1.

2.6.2 Fast-BTS-Switching Handoff (FBSS)

One key difference between FBSS and hard handoff is that FBSS is fast (that is why it is called fast switching). Because it is fast, FBSS does not afraid of ping-ponging (very little hysteresis is needed), thus it has practically no handoff dragging. In fact, because it can quickly switch to the best-server, there is a selective diversity gain. The reason FBSS is fast compared to hard handoff is that FBSS has an Active Set (just like the situation of soft handoff) and all potential servers that are strong enough 50

(strong enough means the mean CINR 8 > H_add Threshold) are pre-setup so these servers are like hot standbys. A mobile can pick the best server out of the servers from the Active Set. Because the servers from the Active Set are already setup, when mobile decided to use one, it can just use it instead of going through a time consuming handshaking process (sending handoff-request, receiving handoff-grant,, etc), consequently the speed is much faster. FBSS is somewhat similar to the forward link inter-DOM / Intra-DOM switching in DO. However, in DO, only forward link uses fast switching, in WiMax, both forward and reverse link can use FBSS. FBSS requires that all sectors use the same carrier frequency (N = 1). This means either a true N =1 (FUSC) or a virtual N = 1 (PUSC). The main challenging part in FBSS is that it requires all BTS in the Active Set to transmit data frames for this user at the same time (a small timing error is allowed, but timing misalignment cannot exceeding a limit (= CP)). For example, if a mobile adds three BTSs A, B and C into its Active Set. All three A, B and C must transmit the same data frame for this user at the same time, so the mobile can pick one copy (from the strongest link). Which one of them the mobile decided to use is mobiles decision, BTSs do not know. Each BTSs must transmit as if the mobile is using the data frame from it, which means they all must transmit this data frame at the same time. If A sends the data frame much earlier than B, and B sends it much earlier than C, then at any given time, there is only one copy of the data frame available, then the mobile cannot pick the same data frame from either A, or B, or C, which means there is no diversity gain. That means BTS A and B and C cannot have completely independent schedulers. If the scheduler is completely independent, then one does not know when other parties will schedule for the transmission of this data frame, as a result, data frames from each BTS
For handoff purpose, the CINR is based on the CINR of the Preamble, as shown in the following language from the standard:
8

51

will miss each other (in time). Some mechanisms are needed (maybe a centralized scheduler?) in order to make sure data sent to this user from each BTSs belonging to the Active Set are synchronized. In terms of resource utilization, all BTSs in the active set must schedule and transmit data to this user. Therefore, FBSS uses as much extra resources as soft handoff. The requirements for FBSS are summarized as follows:

The details of implementing the FBSS in iPlanner are given in Chapter 3.3.2.

2.6.3 Soft Handoff (SHO)

Soft handoff is the main reason why CDMA systems can operate with frequency-re-use of one (N=1). If it only has hard handoff, the cell edge performance will be unacceptable. Under the situation of no dominant server (i.e, there are a large number of servers present in a location, but none of them is good), even FBSS cannot help much, because if every one is equally poor, it does not matter which one the mobile is using, the result will still be poor. However, soft handoff can combine the energy from these servers using maximum-ratio-combing, thus improve the final CINR. Generally speaking, in OFDMA systems (not just WiMax), there are two basic softhandoff (both for uplink and downlink) methods possible. A requirement for both methods is that the transmission from and to base stations are synchronized such that the delay difference at the two base stations are well within the guard time of the OFDM symbols.

Method 1: Use the same set of sub-carriers and same hopping sequences in two cells. Mobile receives identical stuff from two links. This is similar to CDMA soft-handoff. This is simpler implementation, no additional hardware needed at mobile, only some protocol features to connect to two base stations simultaneously. Method 2: Use different sets of sub-carriers in two cells. Mobile need to identify transmissions from two cells, demodulate each, and then combine. This is similar to soft handoff in non-CDMA network. There is increased CINR gain due to receiver diversity. Base stations have more freedom to allocate resources. But the mobile will

52

need additional hardware to demodulate extra set of sub carriers i.e. more than one Rx chain. WiMax systems do not use frequency-hopping, different permutation schemes are used to randomize the sub-carriers, which has the same effect as frequency hopping. For forward link PUSC, because it is possible that a mobile can be in SHO with alpha of A, beta of B and gamma of C, which all use disjointed sub-carriers, WiMax will likely use Method 2. SHO in any system requiring scheduling is much more complicated than in CDMA system. In WiMax handoff, the degree of difficulties has the following order: SHO > FBSS > Hard Handoff. There are two main challenges for SHO in 802.16 E: (1) Time Synchronization of sending and receiving data frames to / from a mobole. This requirement is the same as the case of FBSS. The only way the mobile / BTS receiver can combine multiple data frames from multiple BTSs / mobiles is if those data frames from multiple sources can arrive at the same time. If one frame arrives at the mobile / BTS much earlier or much later than the other frame, they will miss each other (in time), so it is impossible to combine them. (2) The transmitted rate from each source must be the same. SHO cannot combine a fatpipe link with a thin-pipe link. This is true for any technology using soft handoff: if the data rates from two links are not the same, they cannot be combined. For example, in CDMA, SCH of 2x- can only be combined with another SCH of 2x-. SCH of 2x- cannot be combined with a SCH of 4x-. Same situation in WiMax: if a mobile is at a location having different RF channel conditions with three BTSs A, B and C (say A > B > C). Then the peak rate that can be supported by each BTS will also likely be different: Rate_a > Rate_b > Rate_c. How to combine three links with 3 different rates? If forcing all three links to transmit the minimum rate, then the service rate will always be determined by the weakest link, the throughput will be poor. So using the weakest link is not a good approach. Other method must be used. Why is SHO much easier to implement in CDMA?

First, CDMAs transmission is not scheduled, instead it is continuous transmission via dedicated channels, so there is no issue of different data packets from different BTSs got scheduled at different times and missing each other. DOs forward link does use independent scheduling, but DOs forward link does not use soft handoff. Next, CDMAs FCH or SCH data rate are pre-allocated, so their data rate will not be fast changing as a result of C/I change (like DRC in DO). If one link has SCH of 4x, but other links cannot support SCH of 4x, then the system will simply not add another link. Only links supporting 4x can be added. DOs forward rate does change with DRC, but DOs forward link does not support SHO, having different rates is not an issue.

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In reality, FBSS and SHO will probably both be implemented in a system using N = 1. This way, if the situation is that one server is definitely stronger than the others, FBSS will be used so the mobile is served by the best server, not by the weakest link. On the other hand, if the situation is that all servers are almost equally poor (no dominant server), then SHO will be used to get a combing gain. 802.16 E list conditions that must be satisfied in order to support SHO (note that it requires the same MAC / PHY PDU to be sent by all links so the rates are the same, no such a requirement from FBSS):

The details of how to implement SHO in iPlanner are given in Chapter 3.3.3.

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Chapter 3 How to Modify CDMA Simulators For WiMax?

The previous two chapters summarized how OFDM technology works and how 802.16 D, 802.16E systems work. This chapter will concentrate on how to model the two systems using iPlanner. The WiMax Module should be built using both 1xEV-DO Module and 1xRTT Module, because WiMax Module can reuse some features from both.

Full-Queue users will use rate control instead of power control, i.e., transmit maximum power to achieve the maximum rate. The maximum rate achieved is a function of the achieved CINR. This is similar to the forward link of DO. Constant-Rate users in the reverse link will use power control instead of rate control, i.e., the rate does not change (since it is constant rate) but the power needed to achieve this rate changes. This is similar to CDMA voice. The discussion for the forward link situation is more lengthy and will be delayed until Chapter 3.0.4.

3.0 Items need to be modeled

The items need to be modeled are items most people will ask for in a typical RF design task. Given a terrain profile and a particular traffic distribution,

What is the maximum number of simultaneous active users that can be supported per sector per carrier? What is the forward link per-user throughput & peak rate? What is the forward link sectors aggregate throughput (per-sector forward capacity)? What is the reverse link per-user throughput & peak rate? What is the reverse link sectors aggregate throughput (per-sector reverse capacity)? What are the forward coverage ranges vs. achieved peak rates (forward coverage contour)? What are the reverse coverage ranges vs. achieved peak rates (reverse coverage contour)? Next, answer the above questions with mixed data call models and different QoS targets.

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3.0.1 Call Models

It is not easy for iPlanner to model the effect of different QoS and the behaviors of complicated call models. Therefore, we will only do two simple call models:
(1) Full-Queue (e.g., FTP applications)

A full-queue user always has more than enough data to send, so it will always want as much resources as possible. So a full-queue user always needs maximum power and requests maximum bandwidth to achieve the highest rate possible It is the % of resource the scheduler allocated to a full-queue user that limits its resource usage. If this user is the only user in the sector, it will take 100% of available resources.
o A mobile doing full-queue up-load will always transmit full power, and want as many sub-channels as it can get.

(2) Constant Rate (e.g., VoIP applications)

A constant-rate user does not need data rate higher than it requested, even if it is under a very good location and can get a very high rate. If it is under good RF condition, the scheduler does not need to give this user more resources than necessary for this particular rate, the extra resources can be given to other users that need more resources. In terms of bandwidth usage, the scheduler only needs to allocate to this user just enough sub-channels to achieve a data rate >= the requested rate, and no more. In terms of reverse link power usage, a constant-rate mobile will transmit just enough power to achieved the requested data rate, and no more. This is like the situation in CDMA voice.

3.0.2 Maximum Number of Active Users per Sector Per Carrier

To enable fast DL adaptive modulation and coding, fast CQI feedback is supported on the CQICH. A hard-limit of 64 frame-by-frame CQICHs can be supported due to the constraint on allocation index. If the above hard-limit is removed, the UL OFDMA subcarrier/symbol resource can theoretically support ~140 - 190 CQICHs per sector for 5MHz (512-FFT). For the case of CDMA, ~180 active users with R-PICH and R-CQICH can be supported per sector if normalized to 5MHz bandwidth. For the initial release of iPlanner, we can set this maximum limit to be 190 active users per sector per 5 MHz. This number will scale with the channel bandwidth: the wider the channel bandwidth, the larger the number of simultaneous active users per sector, and vice versa. For example, for channel bandwidth of 10 MHz, the number of simultaneous active users per sector per carrier will be 2*190 = 380.

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3.0.3 Coverage and Link Budget

To model forward link and reverse link coverage of any technology, link budget is the key. There are three major components in link budgets that are technology-dependent and therefore must be calculated for each specific technology. The rest items in the link budget are technology-independent. The three technology-dependent items are: (1) Receiver Sensitivity per tone. Receiver Sensitivity defines what is the minimum power level needed (for a given interference + noise floor) by the receiver to support a particular data rate. The receiver sensitivity is a function of (1) Bandwidth per tone; (2) Noise + Interference Floor Level; (3) Data Rate and Coding Gains which, in turn, determines required CINR per tone; (4) BTS or Mobile receiver noise figure. (2) Tx Power Level per tone. This defines what is the maximum Tx power level that can be provided by the transmitter. This is determined by (1) How much power from the BTS / Mobile PA; (2) How many tones are on per channel (= N_used) and (3) How is the PA power distributed to each tone (uniform / non-uniform). (3) If applicable, FBSS/SHO Handoff Diversity Gain (Only applicable to N = 1; not applicable for N >1). Once receiver sensitivity (per-tone) and Tx power level (per-tone) are known, the link budget is known. Link Budget = (Tx Power Level) (Receiver Sensitivity (May be SHO Gain)) + [Technology Independent Terms]. [Technology Independent Terms] include items such as cable loss, antenna gain, fade margin, building- / car- penetration loss, .. Some of these items are frequencydependent, but they are not technology-dependent. For Coverage Footprint vs. Rate contour plot, the situation is very similar to the situation in DOs forward link:

In the forward link: assume there is only one full-queue user. The maximum DL rate that can be achieved by this user vs. distance is a function of forward achieved CINR at this location, assuming the BTS is transmitting 100% of PA power to this one single user. In the reverse link: assume there is only one full-queue user. The maximum UL rate that can be achieved by this user is a function of reverse link achieved CINR at this location, assuming the mobile is transmitting 100% of its power.

3.0.4 Per-Sector and Per-User Throughput

For per-sector aggregate throughput and per-user throughput:

57

Assume a certain user density distribution (usually given by the customer, from market prediction, clutter information, etc) and traffic mix (e.g., 50% full-queue, 50% constant rate). Calculate the achieved CINR at each users location, in both DL and UL directions. Full-queue users require maximum power; constant-rate users use power control in the reverse link. No power control in the forward link, but OFDMA can give each user a larger or smaller number of sub-channels. Next, assume a certain scheduler used, which determines what % of resources (Bandwidth * Service_Time) allocated to each user. The per-user throughput for a full-queue user is the [Achieved Peak Rate (as a function of CINR)] * [% of resources allocated to this user], and maybe a multi-userdiversity gain if it is PF scheduler. The per-user throughput for a constant-rate user is more complicated
o If the situation is that the system has more resources than requested by the user (for example, if a VoIP user is the only one in the sector so it can have 100% of resources from the sector, but it does not need so much resources)

In the reverse link, a constant-rate user will try to achieve the exact data rate it requested, no more. Because in reverse link it has power control, a mobile will simply transmit minimum power to reduce the achieved rate. In the forward link, the minimum bandwidth an OFDMA scheduler can allocate to a constant-rate user is one sub-channel. If the requested data rate is low, one sub-channel may be more than enough. In this case, the scheduler can give the user less % of service time. However, if it is the only user in a sector, then it gets 100% of service time. Also QoS requirement for VoIP says the delay between packets cannot exceed a certain threshold. Therefore, if a VoIP user happens to located very close to the BTS, its physical layer rate can be higher than the requested rate. The system simply pads the data packet9, just like the situation in DO.

o Under the opposite situation, if the loading is too high (too many users per sector) so that the scheduler cannot give enough resource to each user to satisfy their requested throughput, then each user can only get what it can get, even if this is lower than the rate requested. This is true regardless whether it is a full-queue user or a constant-rate user.

The aggregate sector throughput is the sum of per-user throughput in the sector

In DOs forward link, if a VoIP user does not need a high data rate but it is located in a good RF condition so it has a very high DRC, the system is forced to send this user a high data rate, because the achieved rate is determined by the DRC only, it does not matter what rate the application requests. The extra bandwidth is filled in with garbage (padding). So in this case, the physical layer rate can be much higher than the application rate.

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3.1 How to model WiMax Forward Link in iPlanner?

We first describe the modeling of 802.16 E (S-OFDMA) system. Once that is in place, the modeling of 802.16 D system (OFDM) system will be relatively easy, involving only a few changes. In terms of forward link interference, there are three possible cases in 802.16 E system:

FUSC, N = 3. Similar to the situation as CDMA N = 3. Hard handoff is required when mobiles move from one sector to another. No interference from direct neighbors. Current version of iPlanner already has this capability. FUSC, N = 1. Similar to the situation as CDMA N = 1, when mobiles move from sector to sector, the system must support SHO and FBSS (at least one, preferably both). Direct neighbors do cause interference, the same case as CDMA / DO. Current version of iPlanner already has this capability. PUSC, Pseudo N = 1 or Pseudo N = 3. In terms of forward link interference, the situation is like N = 310. However, reverse link interference will not be calculated this way, as will be discussed in Chapter 3.2. This is a new feature that needs to be added into iPlanner.

3.1.1 802.16E S-OFDMA Forward Link & Scheduler

3.1.1.1 What is the Maximum Achievable Rate for a Single User?
We first give an example to calculate the maximum achievable forward link throughput, if the sector only contains one single full-queue user, therefore 100% of forward resources is given to this one user. For this purpose, assume that this user is located right under the BTS so the best CINR value is achieved.

Case A: FDD Frames

First consider FDD option, so no guard time (TTG, RTG) needed. Frame duration = 5 ms is chosen because it is commonly used. From Table 1, if CP = 1/8 symbol duration, one total symbol length T = 0.1 ms. That means one frame (= 5 ms) can fit in about 50 symbols in the time dimension. Further assumes 2 symbols are used for overheads, thus the number of data symbols per frame = 50 2 = 48. Assume the widest channel bandwidth of 20 MHz per channel.
(a) Example for N = 3, forward link FUSC
In the future, if some dynamic sub-channel allocation features are used, one hot spot may require several sectors from neighboring cells to use more than 1/3 of the total sub-channels, in that case there will be some overlaps of frequencies from neighboring sectors so extra interference introduced. This first version of iPlanner will not implement dynamic sub-channel allocation features, so forward interference will be the same as N = 3
10

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Table 4 shows that the maximum number of forward sub-channels a 20 MHz channel FUSC can have is 32, with 48 traffic tones per sub-channel. The maximum number of traffic tones a 20 MHz channel can support (in frequency domain) is 48*32 = 1536. One DL frame can support a total area of 1536 (tones) * 48 (symbols) = 73,728 (unit-areas) From Table 3, the maximum peak rate contributed from one unit-area (for 5 ms frame) is 0.96 kbps (64 QAM with 4/5 coding rate). The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz channel (under stationary) is therefore = 73,728 (unit-areas) * 0.96 kbps / (unit-area) = 70,778 kbps ~ 70 Mbps. This peak rate is under stationary condition. Under mobility condition, 64-QAM is unlikely achieved, so we use the peak rate for 16QAM instead. Again from Table 3, for 16 QAM, the maximum peak rate contributed from one unit-area for 5 ms frame is 0.64 kbps. The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz channel under mobility condition is therefore = 73,728 * 0.64 = 47,186 kbps ~ 47 Mbps. That is why in many marketing packages, the peak rate of up to 70 Mbps for fixedwireless and up to 40 ~ 45 Mbps for mobility are often quoted.
(b) Example for Virtual N = 1, forward link PUSC

In frequency domain, Table 5 shows that the maximum number of forward sub-channels a 20 MHz channel PUSC per BTS is 60. For equal sub-channel allocations, each sector gets 20 sub-channels. Each sub-channel in PUSC contains 24 data tones. 20 sub-channels contain a total of 24*20 = 480 traffic tones. In time domain, because for PUSC DL frame, the data portion must be even number (in DL PUSC, one slot = 1 sub-channel * two symbols), so we assume the overhead occupied 2 symbols, the number of data symbols per frame = 50 2 = 48. In (Time * Frequency) space, one DL frame can support a total of 480 (tones) * 48 (symbols) = 23,040 (unit-areas) From Table 3, the maximum peak rate contributed from one unit-area (for 5 ms frame) is 0.96 kbps (64 QAM with 4/5 coding rate).

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The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz PUSC channel (under stationary) is therefore = 23,040 (unit-areas) * 0.96 kbps / (unit-area) = 22,118 kbps ~ 22 Mbps. This peak rate is under stationary condition. Under mobility condition, 64-QAM is unlikely achieved, so we use the peak rate for 16QAM instead. Again from Table 3, for 16 QAM, the maximum peak rate that can be supported for 5 ms frame per-tone persymbol is 0.64 kbps. The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz channel under mobility condition is therefore = 23,040 * 0.64 = 14,745 kbps ~ 15 Mbps.

Case B: TDD Frames

The forward throughput for TDD frames can be calculated in a similar way. First, one needs to determine what % of times within a frame are used for RTG and for TTG. Next, one needs to determine the Forward Sub-Frame and Reverse Sub-Frame ratio. Remember:

The data portion of UL sub-frame must be a multiple of 3 symbols (because of the tile structure) For FUSC, the data portion of DL sub-frame must be a multiple of 1 symbols (because of the FUSC channel structure) For PUSC, the data portion of DL sub-frame must be a multiple of 2 symbols (because of the PUSC cluster structure)

With these constraints, one can obtain the DL sub-frame and UL sub-frame durations. From the sub-frame durations, subtracting the overhead, one obtains how much is the data portion in a sub-frame.
Example: TDD Frame duration of 5 ms with DL / UL ratio of 2:1

Again assume CP = 1/8 so the symbol duration T ~ 0.1 ms. If the frame duration = 5 ms, one frame can fit it about 50 symbols. With 2:1 DL / UL ratio, the DL sub-frames should be about 50*(2/3) ~ 33 symbols; and the UL sub-frame should be about 50*(1/3) ~ 16 symbols. Since UL sub-frame duration must be a multiple of 3 symbols (see the reverse tile structure Fig. 21, Fig. 22), we choose UL sub-frame = 15 symbols. Next we consider the requirement of guard time, TTG + RTG. Guard time TTG is used to prevent the Tx energy from remote BTSs from entering the receiver, when all BTSs are

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changing from Tx to Rx. TTG must be long enough so if propagation delay from a remote BTS > TTG, the Tx energy will become too weak to cause interference (Fig. 30). RTG is for similar purpose, except it is used to prevent mobile-to-mobile interference.
Propagation Delay

TTG
Tx Rx

Propagation Delay

Tx

Rx

TTG

Interference!

Fig. 30 Illustration of required guard time TTG to prevent BTS-to-BTS interference. If (guard time) > (Propagation delay), then Tx energy from a BTS far away will not hit the receiver

Usually TTG value of ~ 0.2 ms is used, this value can protect remote BTS within 60 km from causing interference to the local BTS. RTG can be set smaller, since for mobile-tomobile the interference, the energy cannot propagate too far. We assume RTG ~ 0.1 ms, which can prevent remote mobiles within 30 km from causing interference to local mobile. Therefore, the total guard time (TTG + RTG) ~ 0.3 ms ~ 3 OFDM symbols. Note that the value of (TTG + RTG) does not need to be an integer number of symbols, but the durations of DL sub-frame and UL sub-frame must be integer number of symbols. In summary, in this example, we use:

UL Sub-frame duration = 15 Symbols Guard time (TTG + RTG) ~ 3 symbols

The rest 50 15 3 = 32 can be used for DL sub-frame durations. Whether you choose 31 or 31 frames will depends on (1) What is the % of overhead (Fig. 13, Fig. 14)? (2) DL is PUSC or FUSC? If DL is FUSC, the data portion can be any integer number of symbols. If DL is PUSC, the data portion must be an even number of symbols. For example, if overhead occupies 3 symbols:

If DL uses PUSC, then DL sub-frame must use 31 symbols, because 31 3 = 28 symbols for data, which is even. So you give the extra time to guard time.

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If DL uses FUSC, then DL sub-frame can use 32 symbols, because data portion can be either even or odd number of symbols.

Once the DL / UL sub-frame durations are determined, the % of area for data in DL and UL sub-frames are determined. The rest steps to calculate the DL rate and UL rate are the same as the FDD examples given above.

3.1.1.2 Forward Throughput with Multiple users per sector

In the first release, one can assume no power control in forward link, 100% of PA power is uniformly allocated to all active tones. Power per tone = (PA Power) / N_used. This, together with Tx power level & propagation losses from other cells, forward achieved CINR per tone can be calculated. Similar to the case with DO, there are two components contributed to the achieved peruser throughput: (1) Achieved peak rate (equivalent to DRC in DO); (2) % of resources allocated to each user. To calculate the % of resources allocated to each user, it will require the implementation of scheduler and types of user traffic. As was mentioned earlier, there are two kinds of users to be modeled: full-queue users and constant-rate users.

A Full-Queue user wants as much resource as possible, it is the scheduler that limits how much resource the sector can give it to this user. A Constant-Rate user does not need higher throughput, even if the sector can provide it with higher throughput. Therefore, choose the smallest rate >= the requested rate. The smallest bandwidth the scheduler can allocate to one user is one sub-channel.

The following steps can be used: (1) Determine the achievable peak rate for a user from Table 3 based on forward CINR.

For example, for 5 MHz channel bandwidth with FUSC, Table 4 shows N_used = 427. Assume equal power allocation, the power allocated to each tone will be (total PA power) / N_used. Together with path loss and antenna gain, we get received signal level per tone (= C) Assume out-of-cell interference power density is uniform. Sum of all received power from neighbor BTSs, we get the total out-of-cell interference within one channel bandwidth 11. Dividing it by N_used, we get interference power per tone. Together with thermal noise per tone, we get (I + N).

11

No in-cell interference in OFDM, not even multipath will cause interference, because of orthogonality.

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With C and (I + N), we obtain CINR per tone.

(2) Determine the % of resource allocated to each user. This task is divided into two steps. As a first step, assume all users are full-queue, calculate the % of resource that can be allocated to each user, based on total area (in time * frequency space) for DL traffic.
o For example, if frame duration = 5 ms, there will be 1000 (ms) / 5 (ms/frame) = 200 frames per second. o Calculate the area for carrying data traffic in one DL sub-frame (Fig. 13, Fig. 18). o Total area per second is the area per DL frame * 200. This total area is total DL resources for data traffic per second (Fig. 31) o The total area is divided and allocated to each user by the scheduler. If it is a fair scheduler, then each user gets equal area; if it is a biased scheduler, then each user get part of the area based on its CINR. o The (Achieved Peak Rate)*(Area Allocated to This User) = This users throughput.
Overhead 5 ms Overhead 5 ms Overhead 5 ms

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

Frame #1

Frame #2

Frame # 200

Total forward link resources For Data (shared by N users)

Fig. 31 Total forward link resources in one second (yellow area) is the sum of all DL resources of the 200 DL sub-frames, and is shared by N users in the sector

(3) As a second step, see if there are any constant-rate users in the sector. If there are, and if the calculated (per-user throughput based on full-queue) > rate requested, then set this const-rate users throughput = rate requested, and return the unused resources to the resource pool to be shared by full-queue users.
o For example, if there are two users in a sector, one full-queue user (that wants all resources it can get) and a constant-rate user (only needs 100 kbps). Suppose the link can support 1 Mbps. Under fair scheduler, each one would

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get 500 kbps. But since constant-rate user only needs 100 kbps, it will actually only get 100 kbps, and the full-queue user gets the rest 900 kbps.
o On the other hand, if there are 20 users in a sector so each user can only get 1 Mbps / 20 = 50 kbps, then 50 kbps is the rate every one can get, no more.

3.1.1.3 An Example with Frequency Reuse of N=1 (FUSC).

IPlanner DO Module was used to calculate forward link CINR for the case of N = 1 (FUSC). The purpose is to calculate what % of cell coverage area can achieve what kind of CINR, assuming all cell radii are equal. Since this is a DO simulator, the maximum CINR it can generate is about + 13 dB, no more. Also, DO simulator cannot be used to simulate reverse link of WiMax, because reverse link of WiMax is orthogonal, reverse link of DO is not, so the reverse CINR calculated from a DO simulator will not be correct. To make an apple-to-apple comparison with the case of one single user, we assume the exact same conditions as Chapter 3.1.1: 20 MHz channel bandwidth, 5 ms frames with FDD configuration. The total number of data symbols per frames = 48. Fig. 32 shows the CINR plot generated from iPlanner DO simulator. One can see that when N = 1, CINR > 12 dB can only be achieved in a small % of area. Near cell edge, CINR can go down to < -4 dB. When CINR < -4 dB, not data rate can be supported without some kind of diversity gains. That is why we said that cell edge performance will not be acceptable for N =1 without SHO / FBSS handoff. Note that this is a DO simulator so it cannot model the effect of soft handoff in the forward link. In WiMax, N = 1 must use soft handoff. Soft handoff provides a diversity gain which enhances the final CINR at the cell edge. User density is assumed to be perfectly uniform, as a result, % of users and % of area are equivalent, i.e., % of users with CINR > 12 dB is equivalent to % of area with CINR > 12 dB. A fair scheduler is used, so % of users and % of resources are equivalent since each user gets equal % of resources.

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Fig. 32 CINR Plot for N = 1. Table 7: Calculated aggregate sector throughput for N = 1, FDD & Fair Scheduler
N=1, FUSC, FDD Frame Duration = 5 ms, Data Symbols per Frame = 48, Ch_BW = 20 MHz, Single User Tput [kbps] Weighted Tput [kbps] Peak Rate per (If this user gets 100% of = (Single_User_Tput) * symbol per (% of Area) resource) tone[kbps] Surface (km) CINR (dB) % Area 0.9207 13 5.2 0.8 58982.4 3067.0848 1.1826 12 6.7 0.64 47185.92 707.7888 1.4742 11 8.4 0.64 47185.92 802.16064 1.8162 10 10.3 0.6 44236.8 840.4992 2.2095 9 12.6 0.53 39075.84 898.74432 2.6505 8 15.1 0.4 29491.2 737.28 3.1608 7 18 0.4 29491.2 855.2448 3.7386 6 21.3 0.4 29491.2 973.2096 4.3821 5 24.9 0.32 23592.96 849.34656 5.1084 4 29.1 0.3 22118.4 928.9728 5.9121 3 33.6 0.266 19611.648 882.52416 6.7851 2 38.6 0.2 14745.6 737.28 8.0307 1 45.7 0.2 14745.6 1046.9376 9.5949 0 54.6 0.133 9805.824 872.718336 12.2472 -1 69.6 0.133 9805.824 1470.8736 16.1244 -2 91.7 0.1 7372.8 1629.3888 16.9254 -3 96.3 0.08 5898.24 271.31904 17.3736 -4 98.8 0.08 5898.24 147.456 17.6499 -5 100 0 0 0 Aggregate Sector Throughput (Weighted according to % of CINR area) = 17718.82906

C/I >=13 C/I >=12 C/I >=11 C/I >=10 C/I >=9 C/I >=8 C/I >=7 C/I >=6 C/I >=5 C/I >=4 C/I >=3 C/I >=2 C/I >=1 C/I >=0 C/I >=-1 C/I >=-2 C/I >=-3 C/I >=-4 C/I >=-5

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In the above table,

The % of area with CINR >= X is calculated at the center cell which experiences the maximum out-of-cell interference IPlanner predicts the % of area with C/I > X_i for each contour i. First, the achieved peak rate (from Table 3) for each user (based on its CINR) was calculated. Peak rate is the per-user throughput if this full-queue user is the only one in the sector so it gets 100% of resources. Next, assume there are infinitely number of users uniformly distributed in the cell, so % of area is % of users; and because of the fair scheduler, % of users is the same as % of resources. Because some users are located at good CINR and some are located at poor CINR, the aggregate sector throughput is weighted according to the % of cell area with CINTR >= X_i. If there is one full-queue user, and it is located under CINR > 13 dB, this user gets about 58.9 Mbps (this is a limitation from DO module since it cannot generate anything higher than +13 dB). If there are infinitely number of users uniformly located in the sector, the aggregate sector throughput drops to about 17.7 Mbps

3.1.1.4 An Example with Frequency Reuse of N=3 (FUSC).

Using exactly the same assumptions as before, except use N = 3, FUSC. Because N = 3 removes out-of-cell interference from direct neighbors, the CINR increases significantly. The cost, of course, is that you are now using 3 times as much spectrum as the case of N = 1. Fig. 33 shows the CINR plot using iPlanner. One can compare this with Fig. 32, and sees that most areas now can have CINR > 10 dB. Even near the cell edge, CINR values are >= 5 dB. The following table shows aggregate sector throughput, again using fair scheduler and assume user distribution is perfectly uniform. The aggregate sector throughput now increases to 46 Mbps (Table 9), much higher than 17.7 Mbps for the situation of N = 1, but did not reach 3 times the throughput. Since N = 3 uses 3 times more spectrum, the spectrum efficiency (defined as aggregate sector throughput per sector per Hz) for N = 3 is still lower than the spectrum efficiency for N = 1. However, the spectrum efficiency for N = 3 does not drop to 33%, instead, it is much higher than 33% of the case of N =1. See discussions after Figure 34.

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Fig. 33 CINR Plot for N = 3. Table 8 Calculated aggregate sector throughput for N = 3, FDD & Fair Scheduler
N=3, FUSC, FDD Frame Duration = 5 ms, Data Symbols per Frame = 48, Ch_BW = 20 MHz, Weighted Tput Single User Tput Peak Rate per [kbps] (If this user [kbps] = Surface (km) CINR (dB) % of cell Area symbol per gets 100% of (Single_User_Tput) * tone[kbps] resource) (% of Area) 6.7131 13 38.7 0.8 58982.4 22826.1888 7.7058 12 44.4 0.64 47185.92 2689.59744 8.7894 11 50.6 0.64 47185.92 2925.52704 9.9945 10 57.6 0.6 44236.8 3096.576 11.349 9 65.4 0.53 39075.84 3047.91552 12.8448 8 74 0.53 39075.84 3360.52224 14.4675 7 83.3 0.53 39075.84 3634.05312 16.0281 6 92.3 0.4 29491.2 2654.208 16.9956 5 97.9 0.32 23592.96 1321.20576 17.2611 4 100 0.3 22118.4 464.4864 Aggregate Sector Throughput (Weighted according to % of CINR area) = 46020.28032

C/I >=13 C/I >=12 C/I >=11 C/I >=10 C/I >=9 C/I >=8 C/I >=7 C/I >=6 C/I >=5 C/I >=4

Fig. 34 shows a comparison of achieved CINR values for N = 1 and for N = 3. One can see that when N = 3, for 50% percentile values, there is approximately 10-dB 68

improvement of CINR compared to N = 1. The improvement on the cell edge is even larger: for 90-percentile vale (cell edge), the CINR improvement is about 25 dB.
CDF of Geometry
(Frequency Reuse-1x1 or 1x3)
1.0 0.8

CDF

0.6
CIR (Reuse-1x1)

0.4 0.2

CIR (Reuse-1x3) CNIR (Reuse-1x1) CNIR (Reuse-1x3)

-10

10

20

30

40

Geometry or CIR (dB)

Fig. 34 Comparing forward CINR for N = 1 and for N = 3.

Therefore, although N = 3 uses 3 times more spectrum compared to N = 1, because the average CINR value for N = 3 is so much higher than the average CINR value for N = 1, the spectrum efficiency for N = 3 will be significantly higher than 33% of spectrum efficiency for N = 1. In this particular example, it reaches over 46 Mbps / (3 * 17.7 Mbps) = 86 %.

3.1.2 802.16D OFDM Forward Link & Scheduler

If we understand how to calculate the per-user rate and per-sector throughput in E system, then D system is simpler. The forward link in D system does not support subchannelization, so the situation is very similar to DOs forward link. The main items in D system that are different from E system is that each tone has a different bandwidth (because it is not scalable-OFDMA), as a result, each symbol duration is also different. Since Table 3 assumes Scalable-OFDMA, if used in D system, one must use the equal-area-conversion (Fig. 17) in order to calculate the achieved rate as a function of CINR for D system. Other than the difference in channel bandwidth (and therefore symbol durations T) and differences in the channel structure (Fig. 12), the two systems are similar from an iPlanners implementation point of view. IPlanner can calculate achieved rate vs. coverage footprint, per-user throughput and per-sector throughput using similar ways (the main difference is scaling!).

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3.1.3 Forward Link Coverage

It is the maximum BTS Tx EIRP and handset receiver sensitivity that determines the forward link coverage. The receiver sensitivity is the minimum required Rx signal level, for a particular (noise + interference) floor, to achieve a particular data rate: MS Sensitivity (per-tone) = (Noise + Interference) Floor + Noise Figure + (Required CINR) Using 802.16 E as an example, tone channel BW = 11.16 kHz. Assume mobile Noise Figure = 8 dB. From Table 3, a different data rate requires different CINR. For example, data rate = 0.4 kbps per unit-area, requires CINR = 6.75 dB. The receiver sensitivity per tone for this rate is: -174 dBm/Hz + 10*log(11.16*10^3 Hz) + Fwd_Interference + 8 dB + 6.75 dB = - 118.77 dBm + Fwd_Interference Fwd_Interference Level is calculated by iPlanner (see next section, Chapter 3.1.4). Interference acts like noise and will increase the noise floor. BTS EIRP (per tone) = (Total PA power) / N_used + BTS Tx Antenna Gain. The number of active tones (N_used) is N_FFT total guard tones DC tone. N_used is different for PUSC or FUSC, and for different channel bandwidth values, as shown in Table 4 and Table 5. The forward coverage of D system can be calculated using a similar method, except the parameters are different. The Achieved Forward Rate vs. Coverage contour can be calculated by assuming there is only one user per sector (so it has 100% of resource), what is the achieved peak rate as a function of mobiles location. The default BTS Tx power for scalable-OFDMA is 20 Watts per 1.25 MHz. That means if the channel bandwidth = 5 MHz, the total BTS Tx power should be 4*20 = 80 Watts, if the channel bandwidth = 10 MHz, the total BTS Tx power should be 8*20 = 160 Watts, etc. However, please allow this default value to be changed by end-users. For D system using OFDM, please let the BTS default power to be scaled according to the E system. That is, if the D system also use 5 MHz channel bandwidth, then the default value for BTS Tx power is the same as E system; if the D system use channel bandwidth of 3.5 MHz, then default BTS Tx power is (3.5 / 5) * 80 = 56 Watts. Again, please allow this default value to be changed by end-users.

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3.1.4 Out-of-Cell Interference for OFDMA

Forward link of 802.16 D systems (OFDM) do not use sub-channelization, so the out-ofcell interference of D system is calculated in a similar way as DO system, except D system always uses N = 3 but DO system always uses N = 1.

3.1.4.1 Instant Power Density vs. Average Power Density within a Channel Bandwidth
Since 802.16 E systems (OFDMA) use sub-channelization, if the sector contains only constant-rate users (low-rate VoIP users), each user will use a thin pipe and the situation is similar to 1xRTT voice. In this case, the sector will not likely transmit full power at forward link. The smaller the number of VoIP users in a sector, the lower the average forward Tx power will be, and the lower the out-of-cell interference this sector will produce. If only one sub-channel or part of sub-channels is / are transmitting from a sector, this sector (at a given time) will only cause interference to other cells in those sub-carrier frequencies that are transmitting; those sub-carriers that are not transmitting will not cause interference to other cells. So the instant interference energy density is not uniform within a channel bandwidth if not all sub-carriers are on (unlike DO or CDMA). For PUSC, if assuming each sector gets 1/3 as much total channel bandwidth and if at any given time not all sub-channels within this 1/3 bandwidth are on, then the instant interference energy density is not uniform within this 1/3 channel bandwidth. Modeling this non-uniform interference energy density will require one more dimension, that is, which sector is using which set of sub-carriers (so will cause interference on these tones) and not using which set of sub-carriers (so will not cause interference on those tones). Note, however, that 802.16 E system uses permutations to randomize the sub-carriers, which in effect, is like frequency hopping and has a effect of smoothing out the interference energy density across a channel so when averaged over a long period of time, there should no be high interference density concentrated on some sub-carrier frequencies. When modeling a large number of cells, the law of large numbers says that everything will approach to average. Therefore, in iPlanner, it will be much simpler to model an average interference instead of instant interference. To model average interference one can assume that the out-of-cell interference energy, averaged over a long period of time and averaged over a large number of neighbor cells, is approximately uniform. In this case, if a sector uses only part of the sub-channels, it only means that the average interference power is lower. Since the forward link the PA power is assumed to be uniformly distributed to each tone, the average interference power from a sector scales with (used bandwidth) / (total available bandwidth).

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3.1.4.2 Data-Activity-Factor
Also, if a sector contains only VoIP users that talk only part of time, one can also define voice- or data-activity-factor for forward link (VAF_f or DAF_f)12. This activity factor is defined as the % of time the forward link is actually transmitting to this user. Since the forward link to this user is on only part of time, the time average of transmitted power to this user is (Power when it is on) * (DAF_f). DAF / VAF can be calculated from the % of area allocated to this user per second (Fig. 25). Since area = (Bandwidth)*(Service Time), the total (Service Time) per second = (Allocated Area per Second) / (Average Bandwidth used). DAF = (Service Time) / (One Second). When putting everything together, one can see that the average forward Tx power to a user scales with the area of resources allocated to this user.

3.1.4.3 Forward Interference contributed from Multiple Cells

The total average forward link transmitted power from a sector containing M constantrate users is the sum of each users average forward power usage:

Channel _ BW _ Used _ by _ User _ i Fwd _ PowerSectorJ = (DAF )i * * (PA _ Pwr ) Total _ Channel _ BW _ Available i =1 i
M

The total forward link interference to a mobile from K neighbor BTSs is the sum of forward Tx power from each BTS divided by the path loss from that BTS to this user (Fig. 35):
Total _ Fwd _ Interference =
j =1 K

(Fwd _ Power ) j
PL j

where PL_j is the path loss from the j-th BTS to the mobile.

Note that the forward link and reverse link may have different activity factor because there are two independent schedulers in the forward and in the reverse links.

12

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PL_j

PL_k Mobile i Home BTS PL_i

Fig. 35 Calculating forward link interference from K BTSs to a mobile

The concern that the forward BTS does transmit full power only applies to the situation if the sector does not contain any full-queue users. If the sector contains any full-queue user, then there should be no unused bandwidth left. A full-queue user will take any bandwidth that is available, so if a sector contains one or more full-queue users, the sector will transmit full power; and all available sub-channels of the sector will be used. The interference to other cells will be the same situation as DO.

3.2 How to Model WiMaX Reverse Link in iPlanner?

We first describe the modeling of 802.16 E (S-OFDMA) system. Once that is in place, the modeling of 802.16 D system (OFDM) system will be very similar, involving only a few changes. Fig. 15 shows that 802.16 E system reverse link may use PUSC or AMC. AMC is not modeled in the first release, so in the first release, reverse always use PUSC. In terms of reverse link interference, there are three cases: When forward link uses FUSC, N = 3. Similar to the situation as CDMA N = 3. A mobile will do hard handoff when it moves from sector to another. No interference from direct neighbors. Current version of iPlanner already has this capability. When forward link uses FUSC, N = 1. Similar to the situation as CDMA N = 1, when mobiles move from sector to sector, the system must support SHO and FBSS (at least one, preferably both). Direct neighbors do cause interference, the same case as CDMA / DO. Current version of iPlanner already has this capability. When forward link uses PUSC, it is Pseudo N = 1 or Pseudo N = 3. In terms of forward link interference, the situation is like N = 3. However, reverse link

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interference will not be calculated this way. It is reverse link scheduler that determines how much bandwidth a mobile in a sector can use. Because of the reverse link sub-channel structure (Table 6), there is no way to allocate exactly 1/3 of the entire channel bandwidth to a sector. How much reverse bandwidth allocated to mobiles is a dynamic process. In the first release, we can assume the entire channel is available for the reverse link, so the situation is similar to CDMA (N = 1)13. However, one major difference from CDMA is that OFDM / OFDMA has no in-cell interference in the reverse link. Interference only comes from out of cell. This is a new feature that needs to be added in iPlanner.

3.2.1 802.16E S-OFDMA Reverse Link & Scheduler

Table 3 gives Achieved Rate vs. CINR. As a default, both forward link and reverse link use the same values from Table 3. However, in iPlanner please keep two separate tables, one for forward link, one for reverse link. If future studies show that forward link and reverse link indeed have different performances, one can easily change the values for the two links.

3.2.1.1 What is the Maximum Achievable Rate for a Single User?

We first give an example to calculate the maximum achieved reverse link throughput, if the sector only contains one single full-queue user, therefore 100% of reverse resources is given to this one user. For this purpose, assuming that this user is located right under the BTS, so the best CINR value is achieved.

Case A: FDD Frames

First consider FDD frame, so no guard time (TTG, RTG) needed. Frame duration = 5 ms is chosen because it is commonly used. From Table 1, if CP = 1/8 symbol duration, one total symbol length T = 0.1 ms. That means one frame (= 5 ms) can fit in about 50 symbols in the time dimension. Further assumes 2 symbols are used for overheads, thus 48 are used for carrying data traffic. In time dimension, the number of data symbols per reverse frame must be divisible by 3, so 48 data symbols = 16 tiles. Now work in the frequency dimension. Assume the widest channel bandwidth of 20 MHz per channel.
13

In the future, there may be some interference avoidance algorithms implemented in the reverse scheduler, so if the scheduler sense that there are strong interferences in some sub-channels, those sub-channels will not be allocated to the mobiles. If the algorithm is perfect, then it is possible that if a sub-channel is used in a neighbor sector, it is not used again in this sector, so the reverse interference situation is like N = 3, no interference from direct neighbors. The pro is that the reverse CINR will be much higher; the con is that available channel bandwidth will be much smaller. Because we dont have a real-life WiMax E system, so we dont know actually how this works. At least in the first release, this interference avoidance algorithm will not be modeled in iPlanner.

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Table 6 shows that the maximum number of reverse sub-channels a 20 MHz channel can have is 92, with 16 traffic tones per sub-channel, together it gives 92*16 = 1472 traffic tones. One UL frame can support a total area of 1472 (tones) * 48 (symbols) = 70,656 (unit-areas) From Table 3, the maximum peak rate that can be supported per-tone per-symbol (for 5 ms frame) is 0.96 kbps (64 QAM with 4/5 coding rate). This is the maximum rate. Table 3 also gives other rates, depends on the calculated CINR as a function of this mobiles location. The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz channel (under stationary) is therefore = 70,656 (tone*symbol) * 0.96 kbps / (tone*symbol) = 67,830 kbps ~ 67.8 Mbps. This peak rate is under stationary condition. Under mobility condition, 64-QAM is unlikely, so we use the peak rate for 16QAM instead. Again from Table 3, for 16 QAM, the maximum peak rate that can be supported for 5 ms frame per-tone per-symbol is 0.64 kbps. The maximum peak rate can be supported by a 20 MHz channel under mobility condition is therefore = 70,656 * 0.64 = 45,220 kbps ~ 45 Mbps. Under the best-case scenario, the reverse link throughput is slightly lower than the forward link throughput. This is due to the tile structure: in 20 MHz, the maximum number of traffic tones in the reverse link (=1472) is slightly lower than in the forward link (=1536).

Case B: TDD Frames

The reverse throughput for TDD frames can be calculated in a similar way. First, one needs to determine the percentage of time a frame is used for RTG + TTG. Next, one needs to determine the Forward Sub-Frame and Reverse Sub-Frame ratio. Remember: The data portion of UL sub-frame must be a multiple of 3 symbols (because of the tile structure) For PUSC, the data portion of DL sub-frame must be a multiple of 2 symbols (because of the tile structure) The FUSC data portion of DL sub-frame can be any integer number of symbols

With these constraints, one can obtain the DL sub-frame and UL sub-frame durations. From the sub-frame durations, subtracting the overhead, one obtains the data portion.

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Example: TDD Frame duration of 5 ms with DL / UL ratio of 2:1

Following exactly the same arguments used when calculating the DL sub-frame, we can calculate the UL sub-frame duration to be about 15 symbols, for 5 ms frame duration. The maximum area for UL frame (20 MHz channel BW) is therefore 1472 (tones) * 15 (symbols) = 22,080 (unit-areas) From Table 3, one gets the peak rate that can be achieved per unit area. That value multiplied by the total area gives the maximum single users UL throughput, if there is only one user in the sector.

3.2.1.2 Reverse Throughput with Multiple Users

Most of the steps are the same as those used in the forward link, so they will only be briefly summarized: Model the full-queue and constant-rate traffics. Sum of all RF resources for reverse link for one second, which is the sum of 200 frames (for FDD) or 200 UL sub-frames (for TDD), as shown in Fig. 36. Dividing the total reverse link resource and calculate the % of resources allocated to each user, based on scheduling algorithm. Fair scheduler and linear biased scheduler should be modeled. This gives the area in time & frequency space each user will get.
5 ms Overhead 5 ms Overhead 5 ms

Overhead

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

DL Frame Data Portion

UL Frame Data Portion

Frame #1

Frame #2

Frame # 200

Total reverse link resources For Data (shared by N users)

Fig. 36 Total reverse link resources in one second (blue area) is the sum of all UL resources of the 200 UL sub-frames, and is shared by N users in the sector

The following steps are different from the forward link.

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The total power available from a mobile is much smaller than the power from a BTS. Therefore sub-channelization is used to extend the reverse coverage. Because the reverse link uses sub-channelization, one must determine what is the number of sub-channels used by each user. o If it is a full-queue user, the number of sub-channels used corresponds to the case with maximum rate: The full-queue mobile will always transmit maximum power to achieve maximum UL rate. If the total mobile power is spread to all sub-channels, the bandwidth is high, but the CINR per tone is lower. In this case, what is the best throughput the reverse link can achieve? If mobile power is spread to a smaller number of sub-channels, the CINR per tone will be higher, but the channel bandwidth will be lower. In this case, what is the best throughput the reverse link can achieve? The one with the highest reverse rate will be chosen, which in term, determines the number of sub-channels used. o If it is constant-rate user, give the mobile the lowest channel bandwidth that can satisfy the requested rate. The smallest channel bandwidth the scheduler can give one user is one sub-channel. If one sub-channel can provide more than enough UL throughput, simply reduce the mobile Tx power. This is the same situation as reverse link power control in CDMA. Once the number of UL sub-channel is used for each mobile is calculated, the CINR per-tone is known14. From the CINR and Table 3, one can get the peak rate achieved by this mobile. From the peak rate and % of resources allocated to this user, one can calculate the UL throughput of the user.

3.2.2 802.16D OFDM Reverse Link & Scheduler

The reverse link of D system is similar to the reverse link of E system, both uses OFDMA. Except the channel structure in D system is different (Fig. 12). D system always used 256 FFT size, N_used = 200. D system reverse link has a total of 16 sub-channels. A mobile can use as many as 16 sub-channels, or as little as one sub-channel. No handoff in D system.

14

Remember, no in-cell interference from mobiles within the cell! Interference can only come from out of cell.

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3.2.3 Reverse Link Coverage

It is the maximum mobile Tx power per tone and the BTS receiver sensitivity per-tone that determines the reverse link coverage for each data rate. The BTS receiver sensitivity is the minimum required Rx signal level, for a particular (noise + interference) floor, to achieve a particular data rate: BTS Sensitivity (per-tone) = (Noise + Interference) Floor + Noise Figure + (Required CINR) Using 802.16 E as an example, tone channel BW = 11.16 kHz. Assume BTS Noise Figure = 4 dB. From Table 3, a different data rate requires different CINR. The BTS receiver sensitivity per tone for this rate is: -174 dBm/Hz + 10*log(11.16*10^3 Hz) + Rev_Interference + 4 dB + CINR_required dB Rev_Interference Level is the sum of out-of-cell interference calculated by iPlanner (see next section, Chapter 3.2.4). Interference acts like noise and will increase the noise floor. CINR_required is the required CINR value to achieved a certain rate, which is given in Table 3. Mobile EIRP (per tone) = (Total mobile power) / N_used + Mobile Tx Antenna Gain. The number of active tones (N_used) is the number of tones that is transmitting (traffic + pilot + overhead). N_used is a function of reverse sub-channels actually used. The default value for maximum mobile Tx power is 23 dBm. Please allow this value to be set by end user.

3.2.3.1 What is the Maximum Reverse Link Coverage?

In this example, we calculate the reverse link budget for the lowest rate, which corresponds to the maximum coverage footprint. For this purpose, we assume the mobile located on the cell edge only uses one reverse sub-channel, so power (23 dBm = 200 mw) is uniformly distributed in one sub-channel (=24 tones). The maximum power per tone is 200 / 24 = 8.33 mw = 9.2 dBm. The required CINR for the lowest rate (QPSK, 1/5 coding rate), according to Table 3, is 3.59 dB. For FDD, if one user gets 100% of service time, one sub-channel supports [16 (tones/sub-channel) * 48 (symbols/frame)] * (0.08 kbps / unit-area) ~ 61 kbps

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The BTS receiver sensitivity (per-tone) for this rate, assuming noise figure of 4 dB, interference margin of 1 dB15, and soft handoff gain of 4.2 dB, is RS_E [dBm] = [-174 dBm/Hz + 10*log(11.16*10^3 Hz)] + 4 dB + 1 dB 4.2 dB 3.59 dB = -136.3 dBm. The reverse link budget is the difference between (Max Offered Power per tone) and (Min Required Power per tone), which is Path Loss = 9.2 dBm (-136.3 dBm) + [Technology Independent Terms] = 145.5 dB + [Technology Independent Terms] [Technology Independent Terms] includes: (1) BTX Rx Antenna Gain (+); (2) Cable Loss (-); (3) Fade Margin (-); (4) Building Penetration Loss (-); (5) Body loss (-), (6) May be extra diversity gain (+) if MIMO is used. Now compare with CDMAs voice link of 9.6 kbps. Handset Tx power = 23 dBm in 1.2288 MHz. Same BTS parameters used, except reverse link interference margin = 3 dB. The required Eb/Nt for voice = + 4.5 dB, the processing gain = 21 dB. RS_CDMA [dBm] = [-174 dBm/Hz + 10*log(1.2288*10^6 Hz)] + 4 dB + 3 dB 4.2 dB + 4.5 dB 21 dB = -126.7 dBm Path Loss = 23 dBm (-126.7 dBm) + [Technology Independent Terms] = 149.7 dB + [Technology Independent Terms] So assuming all items in the [Technology Independent Terms] are the same, CDMAs voice link budget is about 4 dB better. However, WiMax supported higher rate (~ 61 kbps) even if there is only one sub-channel.

3.2.3.2 Reverse Link Coverage vs. Rate for Different Channel Bandwidth
Forward link total PA power scales with the channel bandwidth: N times the channel bandwidth, N times the total PA power. The power per tone is the same, regardless of the channel bandwidth. Therefore, for wider channel bandwidth, the forward throughput
For CDMA, typically the reverse link interference margin is 3 dB. However, WiMax has no in-cell interference, the only interference is from out of cell. In-cell interference contributes most of reverse link interference, for this reason, 1 dB of interference margin is assumed for WiMax.
15

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increases (more traffic tones per channel), but the forward coverage stays the same (same power per tone). However, in the reverse link, the terminal power cannot scale with the channel bandwidth. There is a maximum power limit regardless the channel bandwidth used. As a result, the wider the channel bandwidth, the lower will be the power per tone since the same total mobile power is shared by a larger number of tones. For a wider channel bandwidth, The mobile can still support higher rate (because there are larger number of tones) but the mobile must go closer to the BTS since each tone has less power If the mobile still wants the same coverage, it cannot increase the number of subchannels, then the mobiles rate cannot increase with the bandwidth. However, a wider channel bandwidth can accommodate a larger number of users.

3.2.4 Out-of-Cell Interference for OFDMA

Chapter 3.1.4 calculated the forward link interference. This chapter will calculate the reverse link interference. There is a difference between the situation in the forward link and the situation in the reverse link: In the forward link it is one PA serving multiple users. Therefore, to a constant rate user, the % of PA power allocated to this user is proportional to the bandwidth allocated to this user. Because each tone has equal power, the higher the number of tones to this user, the higher the total power to this user. In the reverse link, it is the situation of multiple mobiles (each has its own PA) transmit to one BTS receiver. How much power a mobile transmit has nothing to do with how much tones it gets. A mobile located near the BTS may occupy the entire reverse channel bandwidth but transmit very lower power; a mobile located on the cell edge may occupy only one sub-channel but transmits full power.

3.2.4.1 Instant Power Density vs. Average Power Density

In the calculation of reverse link CINR, we need to calculate (1) Signal per tone, (2) Noise per tone and (3) interference energy per tone. Signal and thermal noise are both uniform within a sub-channel. The question is: how about the out-of-cell interference density? For a wider channel bandwidth (such as 20 MHz), it is usually the reverse link coverage that limits the service area. As a result, most of time mobiles do not use the entire reverse link channel bandwidth unless they are located very close to the BTS. For mobiles located far from the BTS, only one or a few sub-channels are used to enhance reverse link coverage. Therefore, unlike the situation in the forward link, even if the UL traffic is full-queue, it does not mean that it can use the entire channel bandwidth. The reverse link budget determines how many sub-channels it can use.

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For this reason, if a sector contains only one or two users, the out-of-cell interference will likely be only concentrate on a small number of sub-channels. However, following the same argument in Chapter 3.1.4, in here we can also assume the number of users per sector is large, and use the law of large numbers to argue that on the average the interference energy can be considered uniform (over a long time period). If the interference energy is uniform, then (interference per tone) = (total interference energy of the sector) / N_used, where N_used is the maximum number of sub-carriers for this sector.

3.2.4.2 Total Reverse Interference contributed from all Neighbor BTSs

If a sector contains M (M>1) users, chances are each user will not be transmit 100% of time. In this case, one can also define a data-activity-factor for the reverse link (DAF_r). Similar to the forward activity factor, this reverse activity factor is also defined as the % of time the reverse link is actually transmitting from this user. However, the values of DAF_f and for DAF_r will not likely be the same, although they have the same mening. Since the mobiles reverse link is transmitting when it is on and not transmitting when it is off, the time average of transmitted power from this user is (Power when it is on) * (DAF_r). DAF / VAF can be calculated from the % of area allocated to this user per second (Fig. 25). Since area = (Bandwidth)*(Service Time), the total (Service Time) per second = (Allocated Area per Second) / (Average Bandwidth used). DAF = (Service Time) / (One Second). Full-queue users will always transmit at the maximum mobile power. So calculating the instant power from a full-queue user is easy: (Instant Tx power) = Max. handset power. Constant-Rate user will follow power control, so the instant Tx power level varies depends on the path loss to the home BTS. Calculate the instant power from a constant-rate user must follow the same way as the case for CDMA. The average transmitted power of one user = (This users Instant Tx power)*(VAF_r). The total reverse link power from one sector containing M users is: Re v _ PowerSectorJ = (DAF )i * (Ins tan t _ Pwr )i
i =1 M

For uniform user distribution, one can approximate the summation into a double integral. Fig. 37 shows the calculation of out-of-cell interference contributed from one neighbor cell located in the k-th tier. All users within this neighbor cell are power-controlled by its BTS. For path-loss-slope-exponent of r 4 , the mobiles Tx power vs. distance to the center of this neighbor BTS follows r 4 . The interference to the center cell contributed by this neighbor cell can be calculated as:

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I ( kth tier ,cell # j ) = (const )

0

0
R

(r

+ Rk

rdrd 4 + 2rRk cos r4

where R = cell radius, R_k = distance between the center cell BTS and the neighbor BTS in the k-th tier (Fig.37). The total reverse link interference power from K neighboring BTSs (each containing M users) to the center BTS is:
K M (DAF )i * (Ins tan t _ Pwr )i Total _ Re v _ Interference = PLi j =1 i =1 j

= I (Cell # j )
j =1

where PLi is the path loss from user #i to the center BTS (Fig. 37).

R_2

R_3
Center Cell BTS

D=

(r

+ R 2 k + 2 * r * Rk * cos( ) )

r R_k
K-th tier Neighbor BTS

R_1

Fig. 37 Reverse link interference to the center BTS (the red point in the center) contributed from users located in neighboring cells. Each users path loss to the center BTS is PL_i, i = 1, 2, based on the distance D_i to the center cell.

The (average received interference power per tone) from one sector = (Total received interference power from all neighbors) / (N_used), where N_used is the maximum number of sub-carriers a sector can have.

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3.3 How to Model Handoffs for 802.16 E in iPlanner?

As was mentioned previously, E systems can perform three kinds of handoff, depends on N = 1 or N = 3. All three will be modeled in iPlanner.

3.3.1 Hard handoff

What iPlanner need to implement for hard handoff are: (1) Allow the network to have frequency-reuse of 3, i.e., alpha-sector use F1, beta-sector uses F2 and gamma-sector uses F3. (2) Calculate the best-server footprint (in terms of CINR) for F1, F2 and F3. (3) Assume the HO is 100% efficient (i.e, no dragging handoff) so mobiles in the footprint of the best server of F1 will be 100% served by F1, mobiles in the footprint of the best server of F2 will be 100% served by F2, , etc. In reality, hard handoff cannot happen infinitely fast, it takes a while for the mobile to search for the neighbor and request / grant handoff. Also, if a mobile originally served by F1 now sees F2 becomes the best-server, to avoid ping-pong effect it will not switch to F2 right away, because (1) it takes time to switch server and (2) later F1 may becomes best-server again so the mobile will have to switch back. Unlike FBSS, hard handoff is quite slow, if a mobile gets into a ping-pong situation (switching servers back and forth), the end-user will always see no service. Hysteresis is commonly used to prevent pingponging. As a result, a fast-moving mobile (serving by F1) often moves deep into the footprint of F2 or F3 before hard handoff actually takes place. This dragging handoff effect will not be modeled by iPlanner, at least not initially. When a mobile is located near the cell edge of F1, there are several possibilities. It is possible that this mobile initiated the call from within the coverage footprint of F1, therefore it should stay in F1. But it also possible that this mobile is entering F1 region from F2 or from F3, in that case they can be physically located in F1 but are still served by F2 or in F3. Another question is how far should those mobile dragging on when entering F1 from F2 or from F3 region. This will depend on the speed of the mobile: high-speed mobile can drag in father, and vice versa.

In reality, the effect of dragging handoff does have a negative performance impact, because it means a mobile can be served by the best-server but is not. Initially we do not model this, but if field experience show that the performance impact is very significant, it will need to be modeled in the future. One would need to distinguish between mobiles originated from F1 vs. mobiles entering F1 from F2 or from F3 but are handing on to the old server. One will also need to model the speed of the mobiles and the direction of

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the motions. Therefore, modeling the effect of dragging handoff is not complicated but very labor intensive, unless iPlanner already has this capability from other Module such as GSM. Note that all systems using hard handoff will have this dragging effect.

3.3.2 FBSS handoff

For FBSS handoff, what iPlanner need to implement are: (1) Allow FBSS handoff for all systems using N =1 frequency-reuse. This includes a true N = 1 (forward FUSC) or a Virtual N = 1 (forward PUSC). (2) Calculate the coverage footprint of the best-server, in terms of CINR) for each sector. If it is a true N = 1 (FUSC), the calculation of CINR will be like the situation for CDMA or DO. If it is a Virtual N = 1 (PUSC), the forward link CINR must be calculated as N = 3.

(3) Assume the FBSS is 100% efficient (this time, it is a good assumption) so mobiles located in a sectors best-server footprint will 100% be served by that sector. If the bestserver footprints for forward link and for reverse link are different, forward link footprint should be used because handoff is based on forward CINR. (4) The FBSS handoff zone is defined very similar to soft handoff zone in CDMA. When to add a BTS into the Active Set is triggered by mean CINR > H_add, and when to delete a BTS from the Active Set is triggered by mean CINR < H_delete. One reason to define a FBSS handoff zone is to calculate the total resource usage due to FBSS. If a mobile is not located inside the FBSS handoff zone, only the home BTS needs to schedule for transmission to this mobile, thus no extra resources required. On the other hand, if a mobile located in the FBSS handoff zone, every BTS that is in the Active Set of the mobile must schedule transmission to this mobile, so additional resources are needed. For example, if a mobile is in FBSS with three BTSs A, B and C, then al A, B and C must all schedule for this user, the same way as if this user is in soft handoff with all three BTSs.

3.3.3 Soft Handoff

SHO is one step beyond FBSS handoff and has extra requirements, as was discussed in Chapter 2.6.3. Like FBSS, SHO also has Active Set, H_add, H_delete. The triggering condition for a mobile to add a BTS into its SHO Active Set is long-term CINR of the BTS > H_add; the delete condition is long-term CINR of the BTS < H_delete. For these reasons, iPlanner can also define a SHO zone based on H_add and H_delete, and mobiles in SHO

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zone has soft handoff gain, the same situation as FBSS. Therefore, the same Step (4) in FBSS can apply to SHO as well. IPlanner should assume that a system deploying N =1 (both FUSC and PUSC) will have both FBSS and SHO supported, so it can dynamically pick the one that results the best throughput. If the situation is that when a mobile is located in SHO / FBSS handoff zone, all links to this mobile are about the same16, then SHO may result a better throughput. On the other hand, if a mobiles condition is that one link (from one BTS) can support a much higher rate than the others, then FBSS handoff may result a better throughput. Therefore, one must calculate the achieved throughput via SHO and achieved throughput via FBSS, and pick the best one. To calculate the throughput achieved by using soft handoff, combine CINR values of all SHO links via maximum-ratio-combining, which gives a gain to the final CINR. Assume the supported rate based on the final CINR after SHO, is R_sho. Next, assume if FBSS is used so the final rate is the rate supported by the best link. Assume the supported rate based on the CINR of the best link is R_fbss. The final rate is MAX { R_sho, R_fbss }, assuming the mobile always makes the best choice. Mobiles in the SHO zone will need extra resources: all BTSs in the Active Set must schedule transmission for these mobiles, the same situation as in FBSS.

As default values, iPlanner can set H_add = -7 dB, H_delete = -9 dB for true N = 1. These values are the same as the values of Pilot_add and Pilot_drop in DO. If all BTSs are transmitting full power and with N = 1, the CINR values near cell edge should be very similar. But please allow iPlanner users to change these default values. Not sure what are the default values should be used for Virtual N = 1 (PUSC). Because in PUSC, the forward interference is like the case for N = 3, so CINR values on the cell edge will be much higher. One may needs some optimizations to determine the optimum H_add and H_delete values.

16

From Table 3, one can see that if two CINR values are not too far from each other, they can result the same rate. For example, CINR = 0 dB and CINR = 1 dB will result the same rate. On the other hand, if the difference is beyond a certain threshold, it will result two different rates

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Chapter 4: IPlanner WiMAX Module

WiMax 802.16 has a very complicated standard that defines many different options and advanced features (smart antennas, multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO),). Just like the situation in any cellular system, although standard defined many items, only a very small subset of them will be actually implemented in real commercial systems, the rest (most of them) will stay in the standard and in standard only. Time-to-market is most important to the success of any new product. In order to meet time-to-market target, the early version of commercial WiMax systems will likely only implement mandatory features defined in the standard. Only after the early products become successful, those advanced features will be implemented to the later releases of the products. IPlanner WiMax Module will use the same strategy. In the first release, only those mandatory features defined in the standard will be implemented, with the exception of FBSS and soft handoff. Only hard handoff and N = 3 are mandatory; N = 1, FBSS and SHO are all optional. Although N = 1 frequency reuse is optional, but many operators are interested, and FBSS / SHO are absolutely necessary for N = 1, so they will be implemented in the first release of iPlanner.

4.1 First Version of WiMaX Module

The first release of WiMax Module will include the following items:
Channel Configurations: o Forward Link: S-OFDMA (FUSC, PUSC) for 802.16 E; 256-FFT OFDM for 802.16 D. o Reverse Link: S-OFDMA (PUSC) for 802.16 E; reverse link subchannelization with 16-subchannels for 802.16 D.

Frequency-Reuse: o N =1, forward FUSC o N =3, forward FUSC o N > 3 (e.g., N = 6), forward FUSC o Virtual N = 1 (Virtual N = 3), forward PUSC

User Traffic Types: o Full-Queue o Constant Rate

Scheduler Types:

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o Proportional Fairness o Linear Biasd

Handoff Types: o Hard Handoff o FBSS Handoff o Soft Handoff

Outputs: o Forward and Reverse Coverage Footprint vs. Achieved Rate (contour plots) o Forward and Reverse CINR Footprint (contour plots) o Forward and Reverse Aggregate Sector Throughputs (sector capacity) o Forward and Reverse per-user Throughputs (single-user capacity) o Soft / FBSS handoff zones

4.2 Future Version of WiMaX Module

Future WiMax module will add product-specific features (after the product becomes available), advanced features, and whatever features that are found useful but are not modeled in this first release. The details are T.B.D.

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References
1. L. Hanzo, M. Munster, B.J. Choi and T Keller, OFDM and MC-CDMA for Broadband Multi-User Communications, John Wiley & Sons, 2003. 2. IEEE STD P802.16-2004, October, 2003. 3. IEEE STD P802.16-2004 Corrigendum, D4. 2005. 4. IEEE STD P802.16e/D10, August, 2005. 5. H. Yaghoobi, Scalable OFDMA Physical Layer in IEEE 802.16 WirelessMAN, Intel Technology Journal, Volume 8, Issue 3, 2004. 6. 802.16e System Level Performance Simulation, Wireless Technology Labs, Nortel, December, 2004.

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