2019/3/21 Security Level:

Factors Impacting
the HSPA+
Throughput
www.huawei.com

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD. Huawei Confidential

Factors Impacting HSPA+ Throughput
3. Equipment
4. Parameter/License Configuration

Node B IuB IuPS

Antenna
System RNC

5. Transmission (IuB & IuPS)

DATA CQI

DATA 2. Uu CQI

Interface CQI
DATA

DATA CQI

1. UE (UE & Laptop)

7. Server (FTP) 6. Core Network

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Factors Impacting HSPA+ Throughput
Since WCDMA is a self-interfered system, there will be quite some number of
factors will have the major impact on the HSPA+ Throughput:

1. UE (UE & Laptop)

 UE Capability
 CAT Category
 Antenna sensitivity
 Firmware
 etc
 Laptop capability
 CPU Processing
 Window TCP size
 USB port
 Logging tool
 etc

2. Uu Interface
 RF Environment (RSCP & EcIo)
 CQI
 SBLER
 RTWP
 etc

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Factors Impacting HSPA+ Throughput
3. Equipment
 Antenna System
 Node B
 RNC

4. Parameter/License Configuration
 Basic HSPA+ parameter
 Power configuration
 Code configuration

5. Transmission (IuB & Iu-PS)

 Bandwidth
 Packet loss
 RTT

6. Core Network
 SIM Card subscription rate
 SGSN & GGSN Limitation
 Firewall

7. Server (FTP)
 Server capability (CPU Processing, Window TCP/IP, etc)
 FTP software

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Factors Impacting HSPA+ Throughput

Among all the factors, Uu interface is one of the major and most critical factor
that will impact on the HSPA+ throughput:

 Uu Interface
 RF Environment (EcIo & RSCP)
 CQI
 SBLER
 RTWP
 etc

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RF Environment (RSCP & EcIo)

 RSCP is the signal level for the WCDMA system, similar to Rx Lev for GSM
System.

 Since WCDMA is a self-interfered system, thus EcIo (Signal to Noise Ratio) is

more critical in WCDMA system.

 EcIo = Signal Level (RSCP) / Noise Level.

 From the formula above, it shows that the higher the noise level, the worse EcIo
will become.

 Increased of Noise level can be caused by a lot of factors, such as: Adjacent
Cell with same frequency, Number of Users, other interference source, etc.

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CQI

 In HSPA+ system, CQI is the Channel Quality Indicator provided by UE to Node

B in order for Node B to determine the Transport Block Size and corresponding
throughput allocated to the UE.

 ***CQI provided by UE = EcNo + 10 * Log (16) + MPO + 4.5

 EcNo is similar to EcIo, which the Io is measured including own cell’s power
 10 * Log (16) is the spreading factor (SF=16) for calculating HS-PDSCH
 MPO = Measure Power Offset
 4.5 is a fixed constant, obtained from simulation result
*** The CQI is relevant to factors like multipath conditions, and thermal noise of
laptops.
*** This formula neglecting the impact from thermal noise

 Based on the formula above, the interference/noise level did have a big impact
on the measurement of CQI. Thus, this will impact on the throughput as well.

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CQI (Modulation)

 In HSPA+, a higher modulation (64QAM) has been deployed.

 This higher modulation is to enable user to obtained higher throughput compare

to the previous HSDPA modulation (16QAM).

 However, in order to obtain the higher modulation, such as 64QAM, higher CQI is
need. This means that the better channel quality, the higher modulation scheme
will be deployed.

 The CQI to Modulation & Throughput mapping can be find in the latter table.

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CQI to Modulation & Throughput Mapping

Table below shows the CQI to 3GPP Theoretical Throughput Mapping according
to the 3GPP TS 25.214 6A.2.3 Table 7G:
Transport Number of Theoretical
CQI value Modulation
Block Size HS-PDSCH Throughput (Mbps)
1 136 1 QPSK 0.068
…

…
15 3328 5 QPSK 1.664
16 3576 5 16-QAM 1.788
17 4200 5 16-QAM 2.100
18 4672 5 16-QAM 2.336
…

…
23 9736 7 16-QAM 4.868
24 11432 8 16-QAM 5.716
25 14424 10 16-QAM 7.212
26 15776 10 64-QAM 7.888
27 21768 12 64-QAM 10.884
28 26504 13 64-QAM 13.252
29 32264 14 64-QAM 16.132
30 38576 15 64-QAM 19.288

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CQI Distribution

 The CQI distribution over the whole network are as below:

* This CQI distribution figure is obtained from “WCDMA for UMTS:

* This CQI distribution figure is obtained from Nokia Siemens
HSPA Evolution and LTE (By Harri Holma, Antti Toskala)”
White Paper

 From this graph, most of the CQI are concentrated around CQI 21.

 There’s hardly any CQI measurement above CQI 29 in practical network.

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SBLER

 SBLER is abbreviation for Sub-Block Error Rate

 This rate shows ratio of number of error blocks / total number of blocks

 MAC Layer Rate = Served Rate * (1-SBLER)

 Based on the formula above, the SBLER will impact on the HSPA+ throughput
as well.

 The higher the SBLER rate means more error blocks are sent to the UE, and
this will cause more re-transmission is needed and this will lower the actual
data sent. Therefore the throughput received will be lower.

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RTWP

 RTWP is the Received Total Wideband Power, which reflects the total Uplink
noise level within the WCDMA frequency band of one single cell.

 When performing HSPA+ downloading, the UE need to acknowledge back to

Node B on the information it received whether is correct or not.

 Thus, the UE need to have a clean Uu interface (no interference) in order to

correctly send the information (acknowledgement) to Node B.

 However, when the RTWP is high, the Node B will have a difficulty to receive
the information from UE, and this will lower the throughput.

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Reference

 Below the reference about the HSPA+ Throughput:

Dubai
3G America

Bahrain

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HSPA+ Summary

 There are a lot of factors which can have a big impact on the HSPA+ throughput

 Uu interface is one of the MAJOR and most CRITICAL factor which will impact
on the HSPA+ Throughput badly.

 RF environment can improved through optimization, BUT cannot be eliminated

 A Good and Stable CQI is very difficult to find in a normal RF environment.

 In a live network, the typical value of CQI is around 21~27, which correspond to
3~12Mbps.

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 Thank You!
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