Indoor deployment

strategies

White Paper
 Contents

1. Executive Summary 3
2. New revenue can be generated with indoor solutions 3
3. Technology options for operators 4
3.1. Outdoor deployment for indoor coverage 4
4. Indoor deployment 5
4.1. Distributed antenna system 5
4.2. Indoor small cells 6
4.2.1. Indoor coverage and capacity complemented by small cells 6
4.2.2. Indoor coverage and capacity with picocell cluster 7
4.2.3. Ultra-dense indoor deployment 8
5. Cost considerations 9
5.1. Indoor small cell business case 9
5.2. Solutions for coverage and capacity 10

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1. Executive Summary
The growing demand for affordable mobile broadband connectivity is driving the development of
Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets). A range of Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and Wi-Fi will co-exist,
while macrocell networks will be complemented by small cells, such as femtocells, picocells and microcells,
as well as Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS).
With around 80 percent of all mobile broadband traffic being consumed inside buildings, operators have an
opportunity to win new revenue by delivering fast and seamless indoor connectivity.
There are multiple deployment options for providing indoor mobile broadband:
• The first step is to maximize indoor mobile broadband coverage via existing macro base stations
• Outdoor small cells can be deployed to increase outdoor macro capacity and coverage for busy areas,
such as city center shopping streets
• High value locations can be cost-effectively addressed by deploying indoor small cells in congested
network areas, such as apartment complexes, office blocks, train stations, shopping malls, stadiums,
exhibition centers and airports
• Indoor small cells provide the lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for coverage and capacity in indoor
hot spots in enterprises and public buildings.
This white paper outlines key deployment strategies for providing the best mobile broadband indoor user
experience. It discusses how to design roadmaps to expand the outdoor macrocell and microcell layers and
how to use indoor deployment to handle increasing traffic.

2. New revenue can be generated with indoor solutions

With some 80 percent of mobile broadband traffic being generated and consumed inside buildings, the
challenge facing an operator’s segment manager is how to create higher value for its business customers
and consumers where they most often need it – indoors.
Generating business growth depends not just on identifying lucrative new opportunities, but being able
to address them quickly. Delivering the highest Quality of Service (QoS) in the face of high demand and
growing traffic volumes underpins every initiative to create new business. Yet conventional outdoor-in
coverage from external macrocell base stations often falls short of providing the coverage needed.
The main limitations of the existing macro network are:
• Limited indoor coverage because of building penetration loss (especially from modern buildings built
with energy insulating materials)
• Inefficient use of spectrum particularly in urban and dense urban deployments
• Capacity limitations
• High cost of new deployments and upgrades in urban locations
Many of these limitations can be overcome with various deployment options based on indoor coverage and
capacity.

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• Inefficient use of spectrum resources particularly in urban and dense urban deployments
• Capacity limited
• Relatively high cost for new deployments and upgrades
Many of these limitations can be overcome with various deployment options based on indoor coverage
and capacity. These options are described in this white paper. Finally, the paper provides answers on how
indoor solutions can be used to prepare networks for one Gigabyte per mobile user per day by 2020.

3. Technology options for operators

3. Technology options for operators
Today’s operators have many deployment options to enhance coverage and capacity for indoor users.
Macro cell enhancements,
Operators outdoor options
have many deployment small cells
to and dedicated
enhance indoor
coverage anddeployment
capacity forare all options
indoor users.that can be
Macrocell
used to further enhance the indoor user experience. Figure 1 shows the general deployment options
enhancements, outdoor small cells, indoor small cells and other dedicated indoor technologies can all forbe
operators
used to evolve
to enhance thetheir networks.
indoor These general deployment options have been described in the Nokia
user experience.
white paper ‘Deployment Strategies for Heterogeneous Networks’.

Strategic Decision Options Expected Benefits

Tilt optimizations Minimize interference to increase capacity at very low cost

Macro Multicarrier
Enhance capacity with high coverage
Including refarming
Extension
Horizontal and vertical sectorization increases coverage and
Sectorization capacity w/o macro densification

Deployment for coverage especially macro cell edge or hot

Micro & Pico zone capacity deployment
Existing Outdoor
Deployment with fiber front haul to existing macro sites
Network Small Cells RRH enabling intra-site coordination

Deployment for capacity enhancements, especially in indoor

Wi-Fi high traffic areas.

Deployment for indoor coverage and capacity for large indoor

Offload to Small cells hot zones
Indoor Suitable to provide cost-efficient shared coverage in large-
DAS sized buildings

Figure 1: Strategic deployment options for outdoor macro, micro, and indoor solutions
Figure 1. Strategic deployment options for indoor coverage.

3.1. Outdoor deployment for indoor coverage

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Traditionally, cellular networks have been deployed outdoors for continuous coverage. Indoor coverage
varies depending on many parameters, such as distance from the cell tower, outdoor-to-indoor
penetration and the services requested. However, there are many options for operators to provide better
indoor coverage and capacity. One of the most efficient is to use their spectrum assets smartly. The
coverage layer should be deployed at the lowest frequency available, while capacity should be provided
using higher frequencies.
Deploying outdoor small cells for dense urban areas can provide indoor coverage and capacity. However,
for high-rise environments, outdoor small cells do not always solve the challenge of indoor coverage.
These environments will require either an in-building solution or a macrocell / microcell based solution,
with directional antennas providing the required coverage and capacity.

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4. Indoor deployment
Indoor deployment provides an efficient way to overcome the path loss from walls, windows and other
obstacles and provide superior indoor coverage and capacity. This section outlines some options to
enhance indoor coverage and capacity.

4.1. Distributed antenna system

A Distributed Antenna System (DAS) is the distribution of cellular Radio Frequency (RF) to a network of
antennas within a building to provide coverage. The DAS distributes RF from a centralized radio source
throughout the building using a network of RF cabling, splitters, couplers and antennas, fiber optic cabling
and RF repeaters.
The aim is to create an indoor coverage layer seamlessly integrated with the macro layer and handling all
voice and data traffic internal to the building, offering better quality and user experience. This indoor layer
will form an underlay to the macro layer, offloading valuable capacity from the macro layer and creating
potential revenue for the operator.
The benefit of DAS comes from its ability to support multiple operators (neutrality) using the same system
and to be technology agnostic. Upfront costs for DAS are typically high, but are offset by the ability to
split the cost between operators, making it more suited for large and very large buildings where the high
expense can be amortized across many users. However, DAS has quite a rigid architecture, making it
complex and costly to scale up capacity.
DAS solutions can be passive, active, or hybrid systems:
• Passive DAS: the wireless signal from the RF source is distributed to the antennas for transmission,
without amplification, through a series of passive components
• Active DAS: the RF signal from a source is converted to a digital signal for transmission over fiber optics
or cable
• Hybrid DAS: a combination of passive and active systems. In a hybrid DAS, fiber optic or Ethernet cable
is still used to connect the head end to the remote units. Passive DAS is used for distributing the RF to
the antennas from the remote units.

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4.2. Indoor small cells
While DAS supports good indoor coverage, it is unable to provide the needed capacity. Instead, indoor
small cells are more cost-effective at meeting the capacity requirements for dense indoor locations.

4.2.1. Indoor coverage and capacity complemented by small cells

The potential for indoor offload is significant, since a large percentage of global wireless data traffic is
generated indoors and most smartphones and laptops are equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity. The indoor
offload will connect users to the nearest connectivity node, reducing interference and transmission power,
increasing capacity and reducing battery consumption.
Load-based traffic steering between the macrocell, microcell, picocell clusters and Wi-Fi layers will use
spectrum efficiently. Furthermore, automatic authentication for Wi-Fi offload overcome the issue of some
users being unwilling to go through a manual registration process.
The number of users getting less than 10 Mbps is significantly reduced from 12 percent to 5 percent with
only 200 Wi-Fi cells in a 1 km2 area. An alternative would be to deploy more indoor Wi-Fi cells and fewer
outdoor cells as shown in figure 2 with an example of 1,700 Wi-Fi access points and 100 microcells. The
split between outdoor and indoor cells depends on which one is the most cost-effective.

Users < 10Mb/s [%]

18
Wi-Fi
16
14 Micro

12 Macro
10
8
6
4
2
0
No Wi-Fi 1700 Wi-Fi 200 Wi-Fi
200 Micros 100 Micros 200 Micros

Figure
Figure 2.
3:Example
Exampleof
ofindoor
indooroffload
offloadvia
viaWi-Fi
Wi-Ficells in in
cells a dense urban
a dense area
urban with
area 20 20
with macro sites
macro andand 200 micro
sites
200 microcells.
cells.
The
withdeployment
an exampleof ofindoor small and
1700 Wi-Fi cells100
faces the same
micro cells. challenges as outdoor
The split between small cell
outdoor anddeployments, apart on
indoor cells depends
from the interference management benefits
which one is the most cost efficient solution. for natural shielding provided by the structure of the building.
However, interference management is still required between the indoor cells and between indoor cells
The the
and deployment of indoorIn-band
outdoor network. small cells faces the
deployment is same challenges
the default optionasbecause
outdoormost
small cell deployments,
operators have
apart from
limited the interference management benefits for natural shielding provided by the structure of the
spectrum.
buildings. However, interference management is still required between the indoor cells and between indoor
cells and the outdoor network. In-band deployment is the default option due to operators having limited
spectrum resources.

4.2.2. Indoor coverage and capacity with pico cluster

Many indoor public or enterprise areas are evolving into hot zones or are strategically important areas
to serve for operators, and a new approach that combines the benefits and simplicity of Wi-Fi with the
robustness and guaranteed Quality of Experience (QoE) of 3GPP pico cells will be required. Our studies
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have shown that, where allowed, high power indoor small cells of 30 dBm can reduce the number of cells
needed by up to 50% compared to small cells of 20 dBm.
4.2.2. Indoor coverage and capacity with picocell cluster
Many indoor public or enterprise areas are evolving into hot zones or are strategically important areas
to serve. A new approach that combines the benefits and simplicity of Wi-Fi with the robustness and
guaranteed Quality of Experience (QoE) of 3GPP femtocells and picocells will be required. Nokia studies
have shown that, where allowed, higher power indoor small cells can reduce the number of cells needed by
up to 50 percent.
Nokia indoor solutions consider the future need for very high cell density with a femtocell/picocell cluster
approach. This provides a solution that can use the installed Ethernet network as backhaul (slashing the
cost of deploying dedicated cabling and providing faster deployment), with aggregation of connected
Access Points (APs) and local breakout to limit network impact and provide local routing to enterprise
Local Area Network (LAN) servers if required. For more economical deployments, Self-Optimizing Networks
(SON) principles simplify operations and maintenance, in addition to innovative interference management
techniques that ensure scalability (low impact/fast deployment of femtocells and picocells).
An older DAS can be complemented by adding overlay LTE capacity from indoor small cells. This is explored
in a Nokia study of a 60-floor high rise building with different indoor deployment options.
Figure 3 shows an example of the capacity of different indoor solutions in the building, with each scenario
providing 95 percent coverage. The first case uses DAS for indoor coverage and the second uses the DAS
infrastructure with a small cell on every floor to double the capacity. Deploying further small cells improves
capacity significantly. The final case shows a combination of DAS in the common area and small cells in
the dedicated office areas. The indoor deployment with distributed small cells provides significantly more
capacity, with the same coverage as DAS, for a lower cost.

Scenario # of eNB/small cells # of Antennas Capacity per Floor

per floor
20W eNB connected to DAS 1 per 2 floors 21 56 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS 1 21 112 Mbps

5W small cell with built-in antenna 8 543 Mbps

0.25W small cell with built-in antenna 18 1335 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS in COMMON 1 five-W and 19 (14 DAS + 5 Built In) 489 Mbps
AREAS ONLY and 0.25W in other areas. 5 quarter-W

Figure 3. Capacity of different indoor solutions in 60 floor high rise building.

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 20W eNB connected to DAS 1 per 2 floors 21 56 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS 1 21 112 Mbps

5W small cell with built-in antenna 8 8 543 Mbps

0.25W small cell with built-in antenna 18 18 1335 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS in COMMON- 1 five-W and 19 (14 DAS 489 Mbps
AREAS-ONLY and 0.25W in other areas. 5 quarter-W + 5 Built In)

Figure 4: Capacity of different indoor solutions in 60 floor high rise building.

4.2.3. Ultra dense indoor deployment
Increasing traffic density in areas like airports, campuses, bus stations and large shopping malls requires
4.2.3. Ultra dense indoor deployment
a combination of outdoor and indoor deployments to provide seamless coverage and capacity. Such an
Increasingisthe
example traffic
shown in density
Figure 4inwhere
deployment
indoorareas like airports,
LTE small cell andcampuses, bus stations
Wi-Fi solutions and large
complement shopping
outdoor macro
malls requires a combination of outdoor and indoor deployment to provide seamless coverage
and small cell deployment. The ratio of users getting more than 10 Mbps is increased from 80 percent to and
capacity.
90 Such
percent byan example an
deploying is shown
indoorincell
Figure 5 where every
for roughly indoor500LTE m
small
2
. cell and WLAN/ 802.11n/ac solutions
complement outdoor macro and small cell deployment. The ratio of users getting more than 10 Mbit/s is
In enterprise
increased fromdeployments,
80% to 90% bywhere the locations
deploying and
an indoor celltransmit
for everypower
~500mlevels
2
. of the indoor small cells (Wi-Fi
or picocell) can be optimized, the number of indoor small cells can be significantly reduced, thus providing
In enterprise
cost deployment
reductions of up toenvironments, where theto
45 percent compared locations
unplannedand transmit power levels
residential-like of the indoor
deployments.
small cells (Wi-Fi or pico) can be optimized, the number of indoor small cells required can be significantly
In public thus
reduced, deployments suchreductions
providing cost as large multi-floor
of up to 45%shopping
comparedmalls, a deployment
to the densityresidential-like
costs of un-planned of one indoor
picocell per solutions.
deployment 1,000 m floor area is sufficient to provide the minimum downlink user data rate of 10 Mbps
2

in a 2020 traffic growth scenario as shown in Figure 5. This shows an ultra-dense indoor deployment with
In public deployment
different environments,
transmit power such as
and spectrum large multi-floor
allocation. Sharingshopping
spectrum malls,
withaoutdoor
deployment density
macro and of onecells will
small
indoor pico cell per 1000 m2 floor area is sufficient in order to provide the minimum downlink user data rate
significantly increase the number of required indoor small cells
of 10 Mbit/s in a 2020 traffic growth scenario as shown in Figure 6.

Indoor small-cell Pico Macro

100%
90%
Users with throughput > 10 Mbit/s

80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Without indoor small-cells With indoor small-cells

Figure 5:
Figure 4. Example
Exampleofofoutdoor
outdoorand indoor
and small
indoor cellcell
small (4G/LTE andand
(4G/LTE Wi-Fi 802.11n/ac)
Wi-Fi coverage
802.11n/ac) probability
coverage probability
performance under a typical dense urban deployment scenario as expected in
performance under a typical dense urban deployment scenario as expected in 2020. 2020.

30 Indoor 25dBm small cell (dedicated spectrum)

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Indoor deployment scale [cells]

Indoor 25dBm small cell (shared spectrum)

25 Indoor 20dBm small cell (dedicated spectrum)
Indoor 20dBm small cell (shared spectrum)
20

15

10

Figure
Figure6:5.Example
Exampleofof
dense indoor
dense deployment
indoor perper
deployment 10,000 m2 m
10,000 with
2 expected
with 2020
expected traffic
2020 levels.
traffic levels.

Figure
Page 8 6 shows an ultra-dense indoor deployment with different transmit power and spectrum allocation.
www.nokia.com
It can be seen that sharing spectrum with outdoor macro and small cells will significantly increase the
number of required indoor small cells.
5. Cost considerations
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is one of the most important deciding factors when choosing a network
deployment path. The section analyzes an example of indoor deployment with identical coverage
5. Cost considerations
for each deployment case.
TCO is one of the most important deciding factors when choosing a network deployment path. This section
analyzes an example indoor deployment with identical coverage for each case.
5.1. Indoor small cell business case
5.1. Indoor
For large small
indoor cell business
high capacity case
areas such as airports, shopping malls and high rise buildings, it was sho
in the
For previous
large section
indoor high thatareas
capacity indoor
suchsmall cells provide
as airports, shoppingsignificantly better buildings,
malls and high-rise capacity itwith
wassimilar
shown coverag
a DAS.
in the previous section that indoor small cells provide significantly better capacity with similar coverage to
a DAS.
Nokia has further done a study to compare the cost of indoor small cells compared with DAS in a large
Nokia has further
rise building with studied
mixedthe cost of indoor
residential, small cells
shopping, compared withand
entertainment DASleisure
in a large high-rise
areas. The building with provid
study again
mixed residential, shopping, entertainment and leisure areas. The study
the same coverage for all analyzed scenarios to enable a full comparison. again provides the same coverage
for all analyzed scenarios to enable a full comparison.
Figure68shows
Figure shows both
both thethe capacity
capacity andTCO
and the theofTCO
the of theindoor
Nokia NokiaFlexi
indoor
ZoneFlexi Zone compared
compared with passivewith
DAS,passive D
activeDAS
active DASandand CAT based
CAT-based DAS.DAS.
The The indoor
indoor small small cells provide
cells provide more
more than than 30%
30 percent lower
lower TCO TCO compared to
compared
cheapest
to DAS DAS
the cheapest solution, with
solution, a very
with large
a very largecapacity
capacity gain comparedtoto
gain compared anyany of the
of the DASDAS solutions. The cost
solutions.
of the
The costradio
of theequipment is higher
radio equipment for indoor
is higher small
for indoor cells
small compared
cells comparedto to the DASradio,
the DAS radiobut
butthe
the deployment
deployment, installation and other CAPEX are significantly reduced, creating a very attractive
installation and other CAPEX are significantly reduced, creating a very attractive business case business casefor indo
for indoor
small small cells.
cells.

Relative capacity Radio Source IMPEX CAPEX

10-15x
Capacity

30%

FZ Passive Active DAS CAT based

DAS (SISO) (MIMO) DAS

Figure6.8:Normalized
Figure Normalized coverage
coverage TCO TCO
for a for a public
large large public
indoor indoor
building.building

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5.2. Solutions for coverage and capacity
Nokia supports operators as they wrestle with the increasing complexities of their evolving networks. We
provide smart and unified heterogeneous networks together with our award-winning Flexi Zone solution,
Femtocell and Smart Wi-Fi ranges.
Nokia provides both products and services to enable operators to provide the best mobile broadband user
experience. Nokia Services for HetNets is a complete set of services to help operators achieve the best and
most cost-effective network to delier the right coverage and capacity and meet their business objectives.
By enabling operators to connect the city, they can serve the growing demand for mobile data while
keeping costs firmly under control.

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