Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Developing Countries
Yvon Gourhant, Elena Lukashova , Malla Reddy Sama, Sherif Abdel Wahed,
Djamal-Eddine Meddour and Daniel Philip Venmani
Orange Labs, Lannion, France
Emails: {yvon.gourhant, mallareddy.sama, sherif.abdelwahed, djamal.meddour, danielphilip.venmani}@orange.com,
elena.lukashova@eurecom.fr
AbstractThe emergence of Internet access and advanced spots that are out of range of existing sites and increase end-
wireless technologies has its limitations across the globe, i.e. user throughput.
today there exist several rural regions, especially in developing A Spot Cell encompasses a Home e/Node-B(HNB) con-
countries, that do not afford Internet connectivity. In this
paper, we present a design of a cost-effective wireless network nected to a Home Gateway (HGW) which is connected to the
architecture that aims at providing Internet in fix-usage within traditional Node-B (NB)/eNode-B (eNB) through a directive
those countries. We claim that with few design changes to the antenna that increases the signal strength (see Fig. 1).
3GPP architecture, it is possible to extend Internet connectivity
within suburban and rural areas by deploying numerous hotspots
Secondary Link
based on sharing tasks and revenues with local actors. (3G wireless P2P)
Index TermsDeveloping countries, Internet, 3GPP, Small L-GW
Cells (Local Service)
MSC HLR
PCRF OCS
I. I NTRODUCTION Node B Iub
Gs
CS
Gr
I2
G
HGW + Yagi
Gx
The penetration of Internet is nearly at the beginning in
y
Iu-
HNB Antenna
most of the developing countries even if it is increasing day by RNC
GGSN
day in some of these countries; 16% of Africans have access SGSN
Gi
Iub
to the Internet whereas 75% in Europe and 61% in America HGW + Yagi Packet
Antenna Switch PDN Network
according to 2013 Global Internet Usage [1]. We expect that IPSec
Gateway
Service
Global Operator traffic Optional
the arrival of sub-marine cables in developing countries will UE I1 Node B Infopreneurs traffic Services
HNB UE Infopreneurs traffic
bridge this gap. However, building mobile access networks in L-GW with untrusted link HNB-Core-GW
(Local Service) Secondary link
these regions presents radically different challenges than in Primary Link Secure tunnel
(3G wireless P2P)
western countries, considering low ARPU customers [2].
In this paper, we target wireless Internet connectivity in
developing countries. The current way is to deploy 4G e- Fig. 1. Proposed architecture providing 3G connectivity spots. Green colored
Node B or 3G Node B at the same locations than the existing links represent the traffic coming from infopreneurs HNB with a secure tunnel
set up between the HGW and the core network; orange colored links represents
2G sites, but the question of improving the throughput at the the traffic of traditional devices connected to the global operator. In the same
border of cells and extending the broadband coverage beyond vein, it applies to LTE/EPC architecture.
those existing sites is still open.
In order to go faster than with traditional business models, Thus, hotspots of connectivity for fix-usage Internet are
we propose to share passive infrastructure, tasks of marketing provided outside coverage of a traditional NB without adding
and management operations with infopreneurs rather than extra back-haul link since access from traditional NB is used
between Mobile Network Operators. An infopreneur acts as for back-hauling the HNB.
a local virtual access operator: she/he owns and manages The motivation to design a new architecture rather than a
the site, increases the operator customers by bringing more new algorithm is that in the context of emerging countries we
clients within his/her vicinity, taking care of sales, etc. This expect major cost savings from reusing mass-market products.
new business model fits developing countries because it takes Typically, the price of femtocells has critically reduced during
roots on existing agents in charge of recharging prepaid the last months due to the high number of units sold in mature
cards (and/or mobile money account) who may extend their markets. Typically the cost of a femtocell is being now roughly
business. This is also an opportunity for Mobile Network equal to the price of a WiFi Access Point.
Operators (MNO) thanks to cost savings. The counter part Therefore, we propose a new way of integrating femto
is that the site locations will be chosen by infopreneurs. cells into the 3GPP 3G/4G architectures and a new business
In this paper, we propose a design of a cost-effective model based on sharing risks and revenues with infopreneurs.
wireless network architecture that calls for deploying spot cells The related works are presented in section II. Our proposed
in order to extend 3G/4G coverage in the some-what-dense architecture is described in section III. Section IV discusses the
978-1-4799-5350-9/14/$31.00
c 2014 IEEE
practical feasibility of the proposed solution, and performance and the end-users), accounting, backhaul and interconnection
evaluations are presented in section V. Finally, section VI connectivity, and end-to-end (e2e) security issues.
concludes the paper and gives some perspectives. Spot Cells include outdoor HNB directly connected to
the MNO network through HGW equipped with a 3G/LTE
II. R ELATED W ORKS interface and passive directive antennas in order to get a better
There exist several ways to improve the throughput at the signal strength than simple UE.
border of cells and to increase coverage beyond existing sites. Backhaul Connections/Resiliency: a HGW may have
Site sharing and/or outsourcing have been widely adopted, two 3G/LTE wireless point-to-point connections with 2
especially in rural areas of developing countries. Active net- different nearest NB, one as primary link and other
work sharing has been set up by mobile network operators as secondary link, for resiliency purpose (Fig. 1). No
but mostly in Europe due to the ease of political/regulatory additional backhaul links is therefore required for the spot
issues [3]. It has not been adopted in developing countries cell (as in the case when it would be needed if a new
because the network sharing models defined in 3GPP standards traditional NB is added) thanks to the licensed 3G/4G
[4] do not allow competition at network flow level. In recent spectrum provided by the traditional NB acting as the
literature ([5], [6]), they have introduced network operator HGW backhaul connection.
differentiation along with sharing at the network flow level. AAA Server: the SIM details (e.g., IMSI) are registered
In fact, serious changes are required on the 3GPP architecture in the MNO AAA system (Authentication, Authorization
(e.g., impacts on GTP protocol or Node B). and Accounting). This registration is based on info-
3G/LTE relays ([7], [8]) is a serious option for improving preneur slices shown in Fig. 2. The MNO takes care of
coverage, especially where wired infrastructures are lacking, supplying a bunch of SIM cards to infopreneurs, so its
but the cost saving is not enough for targeting ARPU of authentication server knows any User Equipment (UE)
developing countries. This is mainly because of the major costs as well as the infopreneur HGW. The MNO bills all
coming from passive infrastructure (tower or site rent, energy, the clients and share revenues with infopreneurs. The
civil works). We propose to reuse the infopreneur house and to HGW authenticates with global operator AAA server.
share revenues. In that context, current relays implementations After successful authentication, the AAA server allocates
do not fit the requirements of our proposed business model due the APN address for the HGW. All HNBs connected
to the following reasons: (1) relays are usually under control to HGW may start SIM authentication process with
of MNO for security issues, but they cant be trusted in our AAA server which sends the HNB policies to HGW.
business model; (2) their location is usually chosen by MNO Then the HGW allocates the local IP address for HNB.
in order to optimize coverage [9] and to reduce interferences; The enhanced AAA server detects end-users connected
an update of radio planning is required each time a new site is through a HNB in order to avoid charging traffic twice,
deployed. Instead of this, spot cells should be plug-and-play since the architecture leads to a loop inside the core
in order to ease deployment and their location will be chosen network.
by the infopreneurs. Add New Users
Change Users Policies
Our business model requires also counting the traffic going Change User Profile Add New Users
Etc.. Change Users Policies
through every spot cells in order to share revenues with Change User Profile
Infopreneur_N Etc..
infopreneurs, and consequently to identify each spot cell. Infopreneur_2
Infopreneur_1
III. A RCHITECTURE D ESCRIPTION
Add New Users Infopreneur_1
Users N1, N2,... Nn
In the 3GPP standardized femtocell architecture ([10], [11] Change Users Policies
Change User Profile Infopreneur_2
and [12]), HNB are connected to the mobile core network Etc.. Users N1, N2,... Nn
Infopreneur_n
by a fixed network access through a HNB Gateway (HNB- Users N1, N2,... Nn
Global Operator
Core-GW). A typical HNB is a residential/entreprise femtocell AAA Server Users N1, N2,... Nn
Data Base
with limited coverage range radius (<100m) but also low
power consumption. This architecture is not often applicable SGSN GGSN
in developing countries because wired infrastructures are not Global Operator Core Network
Dir
ec
validated to make sure that core loop issue does not affect
tL
ink
MUE
customer experience.
nk s
Li ces
c
A
coding rate step by step, allowing to increase the amount tached and served by the He-Node B on access link (AL).
of transmitted information without changing the modulation According to the proposed architecture, there are several
order, and then when maximum of coding rate is achieved, ways for macro e-Node B to distinguish the Random Access
the modulation order will be switch to the higher [14]. In its Preamble message from He-Node B and MUE, and one
turn, MCS defines Transport Block Size Index (TBS Index), of them is DoA (Direction of Arrival). Each small cell is
and for particular number of Physical Radio Blocks (PRB) divided into inner and outer region as well following the same
TBS itself [15]. Using LTE Transmission Mode 1 (SISO), one principle as the macro cell. Small cells work on Frequency
transport block can be transmitted during one Transmit Time Division Duplex (FDD) mode. The UE can be served by at
Interval (TTI) of 1ms, and TBS defines how many bits can most one e-Node B/He-Node B.
TABLE I
As a main metric of physical layer down-link performance S IMULATION PARAMETERS .
evaluation end-user throughput was chosen. For two-hop links
e2e throughput is defined as a minimum throughput between Parameters Values
the access and back-haul link [16]. Global parameters
Deployment Outdoor
One of the most challenging parts of the proposed solution
Access Open Access
is to tackle the co-tier and cross-tier interference which lead For HetNets in outdoor rural
to significant degradation of the user throughput. In this work Pathloss model environment recommended by
we investigate the FFR (Fractional Frequency Reuse) scheme 3GPP in [16]
System Bandwidth 5MHz
in order to mitigate both types of interferences. The entire Spacing Difference 15 kHz
system bandwidth of the macro e-Node B is statically divided Power Noise Density -174 dBm/Hz
into five sub-bands: the sub-band A is dedicated to the inner BER 101
region of macro-cell, sub-band B is assigned to the SUEs in the e-Node B
inner region of small cells, and the rest of spectrum resources e-Node B Total Transmit
43 dBm
Power
are equally split between the outer regions of the small cells Averaged e-Node B Antenna
with frequency reuse factor 3 (C1, C2 and C3). The frequency 10 dBm
Gain3
pattern is depicted in the Fig. 7. Losses 7 dBm
He-Node B
He-Node B Maximum
10 dBm
Inner region
Outer region of macrocell Transmit Power
of macrocell
Averaged He-Node B Trans-
3 dBm
mit Antenna Gain
He-Node B Receive Anten-
A B C1 C2 C3 21 dBi
na Gain
Losses 3dBm
MUE1,center MUE2,center ... MUEn,center SUE1,center SUE2,center ... SUEn,center SUE1,boarder SUE2,boarder ... SUEn,boarder
1MHz
e-Node B
1MHz
1MHz
He-Node B