How Big is VoLTE Voice Call?

Global Challenges

The third generation mobile telecommunication technologies and the

increasing popularity of Smartphone have greatly driven user demand for
mobile broadband services. Explosive growth of data traffic and the challenge
of increasing network capacity force mobile carriers to upgrade their networks
and increase the network transmission rate. The LTE technology is the best
option for all the operators across the globe.

In the LTE era, the time has come for mobile operators to move to voice over
LTE (VoLTE). Globally, voice is still the major revenue source for the
telecommunications industry, and will probably still be when LTE goes
mainstream. However, basic voice may not be enough to remain relevant in
an LTE environment, because subscriber communication is shifting from plain
voice to rich & quality voice.

So, What is VoLTE? and how does the VoLTE will impact operator’s network
when it comes to us, here we will have a deep dive into the VoLTE voice calls
and to discover the possibilities of the VoLTE, both to benefits Huawei &
Operators.

VoLTE Architectures

Before we starts, let’s have a look into the complete network architectures
proposed by 3GPP on this VoLTE, which is to replace the CSFB currently,
that’s experiencing delay, long latency, and also no significant voice quality
improvements compare to legacy 2G/3G CS calls.

Below is the complete network architecture of VoLTE interworking between

EUTRAN, EPC, CS Domain, PS Domain & IMS network.

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Huawei VoLTE network consists of the operation support layer, service layer,
core layer, access layer, and terminal layer. In the LTE or 2G/3G networks,
subscribers can use CSFB, Single Radio, and Dual Radio terminals to access
the VoLTE network.

Huawei VoLTE solution builds IMS and LTE on a live CS domain to provide
E2E quality of service (QoS) guarantee, high-quality voice and video calls,
and rich data services. With this solution, carriers can evolve their 2G/3G
networks to LTE networks to extend their business from offering voice-only to
multimedia-rich voice. Subscribers can use various LTE terminals such as
CSFB, Single Radio, and Dual Radio terminals to access an LTE network or
2G/3G network. When subscribers move out of LTE coverage, the LTE
network smoothly hands over calls to a 2G/3G network. Centralized service
provisioning, network management, and charging are available in the VoLTE
architecture.
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VoLTE (Voice over LTE) will be a reality soon, as operators around the world
are completing their field tests and prepare to roll out voice and other IMS-
based services to the eagerly awaiting public and to gain the leading position
in their respective countries in order to win the market shares.

Actually, in real life, the public probably doesn’t care about VoLTE. All they
want is good quality, high definition HD voice calls to complement their high-
speed wireless data services. VoLTE is positioned to deliver the goods, but
how does it compare with other wireless voice solutions such as 2G/3G CS
calls? We can answer that question in a few manners, but let’s start with
something easy, which is [how many VoLTE calls can an LTE cell support?]

VoLTE Packet Size

As it turns out, that question doesn’t have a simple answer. It depends on a lot
of variables, including the voice coder choices, the RF conditions in the cell,
the Huawei eNB’s scheduler algorithm, the 3GPP protocol releases options,
and so on. To keep this discussion at manageable levels, let’s concentrate on
one particular aspect of VoLTE capacity: how many Physical Resource Blocks
(PRBs) are needed to deliver the traffic for one VoLTE call over a typical LTE
Uu air interface?

Let’s assume for the moment that the operator has deployed channel
bandwidth of 10 MHz LTE radio channels(Which is most operators are
deploying their LTE services at phase 1 stage). This is fairly typical to provides
50 PRBs per millisecond on the downlink (somehow it will be lesser than 50
PRBs resources on the uplink, due to the PUCCH configuration & limitations).

Let’s further presume that VoLTE is configured to use the Adaptive Multi-Rate
Wideband (AMR-WB) 12.65 coder, and that Robust Header Compression
(RoHC) is enabled over the air interface which to reduce the overhead
consumption over the LTE air interface.

Huawei VoLTE scheduling are based on 20ms per Time-Transmission-

Interval, TTI( Huawei Proprietary), and the AMR-WB 12.65 coder generates
253 bits of coded speech every 20 ms (a net data rate of 12.65 kbps). In order
to deliver each voice services to the UE, additional protocol headers are
needed, such as an RTP header (typically 12 bytes), a UDP header (8 bytes),
and an IPv6 header (40 bytes). This brings the total packet length up to some
733 bits every 20 ms.

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RoHC (Robust Overhead Compression), however, will replace with RTP, UDP
and IP headers with a much smaller RoHC header before the packet is
actually transmitted over the air. The length of the RoHC header will vary
depending on the particular circumstances, but it will average around 3 bytes,
or 24 bits. The RLC and MAC layers will add their own overhead, so the end
result is that the air interface will have to transport roughly 300 bits of data for
every VoLTE packet scheduled to one User.

VoLTE vs. PRBs

Now we need to relate the above data size back into our LTE Air Interface
resources. A single PRB has 12 subcarriers and 14 symbols over the course
of 1 ms, or 12 x 14 = 168 resource elements (REs).

Physical Resource
Block

NSCRB Subcarriers =12

NRBDL

Resource
Element

NSymbDL

Some of those REs are occupied by the PDCCH (Assuming max 3 symbols
are used for PDCCH) and the downlink reference signals RS, leaving about
120 REs per PRB to carry data on the downlink.
Subframe

x R
PDSCH
R x
Symbols
x R
x R
R x
x R

PDSCH R x R x
Symbol
x R x R
Mapping
R x R x

Reserved for x R x R
Control
R x R x

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Each RE carries 2, 4 or 6 coded bits, depending on the modulation scheme in
effect (QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM, respectively), but some of those bits will be
data bits, and some will be error protection bits. So how many data bits will fit
in a single PRB? That depends on the specific RF conditions in the cell which
will be feedback by the User on the uplink, that will be Channel Quality
Indicator, CQI table below.

Let’s see what happens under good (CQI = 15), average (CQI = 7) and poor
(CQI = 1) situations.

 CQI 15 transmissions use 64QAM modulation and a 948/1024 = 0.926

effective coding rate, which means that each RE holds 6 x 0.926 = 5.55

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 data bits on average. A single PRB can then carry 120 x 5.55 = 666
data bits, or the equivalent of two VoLTE voice samples. LTE can’t
allocate less than one PRB per user, though, so we’ll count this as one
PRB per VoLTE call.
 CQI 7 transmissions use 16QAM modulation and a 378/1024 = 0.369
coding rate, resulting in 4 x 0.369 x 120 = 177 data bits. In other words,
two PRBs are needed to carry a single VoLTE voice sample.
 CQI 1 transmissions use QPSK modulation and a 78/1024 = 0.076
coding rate, supporting 2 x 0.076 x 120 = 18 data bits per PRB. This
means that a single VoLTE packet requires about 16 PRBs.

VoLTE by the Numbers

So how many VoLTE calls can we squeeze into a 10 MHz LTE channel? Voice
samples are generated every 20 ms, so if everything lines up exactly right
(and no retransmissions are needed), then twenty VoLTE calls can share the
same set of PRBs, one after the other. The maximum number of VoLTE calls
that can be carried is then determined by:

((Number of Available PRBs) / (Number of PRBs per VoLTE Call)) x 20

Here are the results, per CQI:

Thus, how realistic are these numbers? There are many presumptions built in
to this calculation, most of which wouldn’t hold true out in the real world:

 All users in a cell would not report exactly the same CQI value, and a
cell where every UE reports CQI value 1 is basically unusable.
 VoLTE packet arrivals would not be perfectly distributed across the 20
ms coding intervals.
 Most packets would require at least one HARQ retransmission,
especially at lower CQI values, which consumes additional PRBs.
 Some capacity needs to be reserved for non-VoLTE (data) subscribers.
 The uplink has a lower capacity than the downlink, in terms of the
number of PRBs available and the efficiency of the transmissions.

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VoLTE Conclusions

Nevertheless, this document provides some hints into what the operators can
expect to see when VoLTE is turned on in the field. Under good RF
conditions, LTE can deliver VoLTE packets quickly and efficiently, with enough
capacity left over for other users. Under poor conditions, LTE will struggle to
support even a handful of users.

The reality is that, in general, VoLTE is expected to have a call capacity

comparable to other wireless voice solutions, like UMTS and CDMA2000 1x,
on the order of 200 to 300 users per cell under 10MHz bandwidth. The
challenge for the operators is to manage the end-to-end voice quality, and to
juggle the conflicting demands of voice and data users.

Happy reading Folks 

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