www.femtoforum.

org

The Best That LTE Can Be

Why LTE Needs Femtocells

Published by the Femto Forum

May 2010
 What is the Femto Forum?

The Femto Forum is the only organisation devoted to promoting femtocell technology
worldwide. It is a not-for-profit membership organisation, with membership open to providers
of femtocell technology and to operators with spectrum licences for providing mobile services.
The Forum is international, representing more than 120 members from three continents and
all parts of the femtocell industry, including:

l Major operators
l Major infrastructure vendors
l Specialist femtocell vendors
l Vendors of components, subsystems, silicon and software necessary to create femtocells

The Femto Forum has three main aims:

l To promote adoption of femtocells by making available information to the industry and the
general public;

l To promote the rapid creation of appropriate open standards and interoperability for
femtocells;

l To encourage the development of an active ecosystem of femtocell providers to deliver

ongoing innovation of commercially and technically efficient solutions.

The Femto Forum is technology agnostic and independent. It is not a standards-setting body,
but works with standards organisations and regulators worldwide to provide an aggregated
view of the femtocell market.

A full current list of Femto Forum members and further information is available at
www.femtoforum.org

The Best That LTE Can Be is published by the Femto Forum

© May 2010. All rights reserved.

www.femtoforum.org
telephone +44 (0)845 644 5823 • fax +44 (0)845 644 5824 • email [email protected] • PO Box 23 GL11 5WA UK
The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

Contents
1 Executive Summary 2
2 Introduction 3
3 LTE Drivers and History 5
4 Why Femtocells for LTE? 6
4.1 Business Issues 6
4.2 Indoor coverage issues 8
4.3 Shannon’s and Cooper’s laws 10
5 Uses of femtocells in different environments 12
5.1 Femtocells for Residential / SOHO Use 12
5.2 Femtocells for Enterprise Use 13
5.3 Femtocells for Outdoor Use 13
6 LTE Femtocell Standards, Architectures & Services 13
6.1 Standardization 14
6.2 Architectural Aspects 14
6.3 Service Aspects 16
7 Technical Deployment Considerations & Challenges 18
7.1 Interference Management 18
7.2 Spectrum 19
7.3 Backhaul 19
8 Conclusions 21

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

1. Executive Summary

LTE is being standardized by 3GPP to provide multi-megabit bandwidth, more efficient use of
the radio network, latency reduction, improved mobility, and potentially lower cost per bit. LTE
femtocells, also known as Home eNodeB (HeNB) in 3GPP, form part of the LTE standard. Already
deployed in 3G networks, femtocells are low-power access points that operate in licensed spectrum
and provide mobile coverage and capacity over internet-grade backhaul.

Femtocells can strengthen deployments in residential, enterprise, indoor hotspot, and outdoor
hotspot environments. This Femto Forum white paper discusses how femtocells may be used to
realize the full potential of LTE, provide a better LTE experience for users including higher bit rates,
support new services, offer alternative rollout models, and provide an improvement to the mobile
broadband business case by lowering network costs while increasing network capacity.

Numerous mobile operators have publicly stated that femtocells are expected to play a role in LTE,
just as 3G femtocells are making an effective contribution to 3G networks today. This paper outlines
the case for deploying femtocells1 in an LTE environment, including:

●● Realizing the full potential of LTE

●● Coverage
●● Throughput
●● Capacity
●● Cost savings
●● Optimizing the macro rollout
●● Operational savings – especially power, backhaul, site rental
●● Churn reduction – contract extension
●● Revenue impact
●● New revenue streams from value-added services
●● Location-specific tariffs without leakage
●● Family contracts

To realize the full potential of LTE requires the use of a fine-grained network architecture that
includes femtocells from the outset. In addition to this white paper, the Femto Forum has
developed a quantitative business case study2 on using femtocells in next generation mobile
network deployments (both LTE and WiMAX based). The Femto Forum study suggests there is a
compelling business case for LTE femtocells.

These might be standalone LTE femtocells or dual mode LTE/3G femtocells.

1

“The Business Case for Femtocells in the Mobile Broadband Era”, Femto Forum white paper, March 2010, available from www.femtoforum.org
2

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2. Introduction

3GPP Release 8 specifies the Evolved Packet System (EPS), which includes the Evolved UTRAN, the
LTE radio access network; and the Evolved Packet Core (EPC), the next generation packet core. LTE
is designed to provide multi-megabit bandwidth, more efficient use of the radio network, latency
reduction, and a lower cost per bit. This combination aims to enhance the user’s experience and
further drive the demand for mobile multimedia services. With LTE, people will more readily access
their Internet services from mobile devices, including real time and on demand television, blogging,
social networking and interactive gaming.

Femtocells are low-power access points that operate in licensed spectrum and provide mobile
coverage and capacity over internet-grade backhaul. Femtocell applications include residential,
enterprise, indoor hotspot, and outdoor hotspot deployments. Femtocells are lower in cost than
typical macrocells while retaining full operator management even if they are located on the
customer premises.

Figure 1: Generic residential femtocell network architecture3

This paper illustrates why realizing the potential of LTE requires the use of fine-grained network
architectures that include femtocells from the outset. The benefits of these fine-grained
architectures include:

●● Improved performance, coverage and capacity through the use of more, smaller cells.
●● Compelling business case economics including new revenue streams, potentially faster
time-to-market for carrier LTE deployments, and cost savings in deploying LTE.
●● Next-generation femto-enabled services to enhance the user experience and encourage
LTE adoption.

The architecture may vary for business and public femtocell deployments (e.g. alternative IP backhaul technologies may be used).
3

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

This white paper is structured as follows:

●● Section 3 provides an introduction and history of LTE and femtocells.

●● Section 4 discusses the need for femtocells in the next generation mobile networks.
●● Section 5 discusses the uses of femtocells in different environments.
●● Section 6 describes the role of LTE femtocells, including architecture, services, and standards.
●● Section 7 discusses some of the technical considerations and challenges.
●● Section 8 provides conclusions and recommendations.

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

3. LTE Drivers and History

LTE standardization was initiated in 2004. One of the main goals for LTE was to reduce the
network cost per bit as the data traffic growth is outpacing the corresponding growth in revenue.
This cost reduction is possible with LTE due to its high spectral efficiency, its all-IP flat network
architecture, and its intelligent management capabilities such as Self-Organizing Network (SON)
functionality. The latter two are key aspects of femtocell architectures and have allowed a smooth
introduction of LTE femtocells into the 3GPP standard. In addition, the intention was to develop a
universal terrestrial radio access network (UTRAN) which would provide a “framework for the
evolution of the 3GPP radio-access technology towards a high-data-rate, low-latency and
packet-optimized radio-access technology” as described by 3GPP. With LTE, mobile operators will be
able to offer a broadband wireless experience that rivals fixed-line offerings.

In September 2006, OFDMA modulation was selected for the downlink and Single Carrier Frequency
Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) for the uplink. The standard also called for the use of MIMO to
increase capacity and provide spatial diversity.

LTE is designed to provide high data rates and spectral efficiency. In addition to its high spectral
efficiency, the standard has been planned to facilitate deployment in many different frequency bands
with very little change to the radio interface. It is resistant to interference between cells and spreads
transmission efficiently over the available spectrum. The peak theoretical downlink data rates for
LTE are up to 326 Mbps over a 20 MHz channel with a 4x4 MIMO configuration. Figure 2 shows a
comparison of LTE with other technologies in terms of peak data rates.

At the same time, 3GPP has continued its evolutionary work on WCDMA within Releases 5, 6, 7, 8,
and 9. The most significant development along the way has been the introduction of HSPA/HSPA+,
and the inclusion of higher order modulation techniques such as 16QAM, 64QAM, 2x2, 4x4 MIMO,
as well as multicarrier. In addition, 3GPP Release 8 added femtocells to 3G (WCDMA) as well as LTE.

While femtocells are a later addition to other standards, LTE standardization took into account
femtocell architectures from the beginning, increasing the value of their coverage and capacity
offering to the operators from day one.

Technology Downlink Uplink

EV-DO Rev A 3.1 Mbps 1.8 Mbps
WCDMA R99 384 kbps 384 kbps
HSPA 14.4 Mbps 5.76 Mbps
HSPA+ 84 Mbps4 11.5 Mbps
LTE 326 Mbps 170 Mbps

Figure 2: Peak data rates5

4
With 64QAM modulation, MIMO and dual cell transmission.
5
Note that these figures do not present a like-for-like comparison between the different technologies – for example, 20 MHz of spectrum is assumed
for LTE versus 5 MHZ for HSPA (a comparison on the basis of bits/hertz/sector would look rather different).

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4. Why Femtocells for LTE?

LTE is the evolutionary path of choice for many WCDMA and CDMA networks, but some mobile
operators are still not certain about the right timeframe or strategy for market deployment. With
LTE products becoming commercially available, the decision on the right timeframe will depend on
several factors unique to each operator and market such as:

●● Capacity growth rate as the traffic per subscriber and number of connections increases
●● Spectrum availability and regulatory environment
●● Service provisioning strategy
●● Availability of suitable backhaul options
●● Competitors’ movements

In the past both 2G and 3G were deployed at the macro layer as operators aimed at reaching as
many end users as possible for provision of voice and data services. This strategy has resulted today
in typically 90% or greater population coverage in developed countries6.

While some propose that LTE should follow the same deployment strategy as 3G, the Femto Forum
believes that including femtocells as part of initial LTE deployments makes sense in many of today’s
markets for the following reasons:

●● To improve performance it is important to bring the user closer to the transmitter; reduction of
the average size of cells is the most powerful way to increase the capacity of a wireless system
(Cooper’s Law).
●● High data traffic and capacity requirements exist mostly at specific hotspots that are
mainly located indoors where stationary or portable usage is most common. Deploying the
higher capacity of LTE initially in these areas (using femtocells) and then gradually increasing
coverage when users and LTE traffic increases could help operators reduce their initial LTE
spending.
●● Although traditional macro base stations will still be essential for providing widespread
surface coverage, operators can use both indoor and outdoor femtocells from the outset to
carry substantial amounts of data traffic, thereby realizing major savings on backhaul and
other associated capacity costs. Combining femtocells and macrocells in this way allows
operators to build their LTE networks incrementally in line with demand and avoid the need to
second guess user uptake.

4.1 Business Issues

One of the major industry challenges with the rapidly increasing demand for mobile broadband is
that data traffic growth is out-pacing the growth in revenue. As Figure 3 illustrates, there is a clear
need to dramatically reduce the cost per bit for data, as growth is projected to accelerate over the
next 3-5 years, and the corresponding revenue must adequately compensate operators. There is
also a clear need to find ways to increase revenue per subscriber.

6
See for example Ofcom’s sixth annual Communications Market Report for mobile population coverage figures in the UK (http://www.ofcom.org.uk/
research/cm/cmr09/cmr09.pdf).

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Figure 3: Traffic / revenue challenge

Femtocells allow operators to create a more compelling mobile broadband/LTE business case, as
outlined in Figure 4, through cost savings and new revenues. Femtocells significantly reduce the
delivery cost per bit through savings in both CapEx and OpEx, and they will be essential to driving
down the cost per bit, reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and matching costs to revenues.
In addition, femtocells can potentially improve time-to-market by enabling quick deployment of LTE
and provisioning of new services. Finally, femtocells can enable new revenue streams through, for
example, value-added services and family contracts.

“LTE can revolutionise mobile broadband – and femtocells can play a role in helping it to
deliver its potential” according to Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum. “By adopting
femtocells, operators can roll out a much better performing LTE network than they could with
macro base stations alone and at a lower cost and with less risk. All these factors are crucial in the
current uncertain economic environment.”

Figure 4: Business case drivers for LTE femtocells

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

The Femto Forum has commissioned independent research into the LTE (and WiMAX) femtocell
business case. Conducted by Signals Research Group (SRG), this study2 included two key studies into
the opportunities for LTE.

In the first study, SRG examined the case of an operator providing dual-mode HSPA/LTE
femtocells to households which use significant quantities of mobile broadband data. Using
conservative assumptions regarding the take-up and use of LTE devices, the study showed that
the femtocell operator is able to realize a substantial return on their LTE/HSPA femtocell service
investment across a wide range of mobile broadband customers.

Figure 5: Network cost savings from deploying femtocells as part of an operator’s LTE network
rollout strategy (femtocells allow slower deployment of the macro network)2

In the second study, SRG examined the case of an operator deploying a new LTE network. The
operator provides each new subscriber with a fully-subsidized LTE femtocell in order to
guarantee great performance and customer experience indoors. This ensures a high quality LTE
experience in the place where most data is accessed, and supports aggressive LTE adoption rates by
fixing one of the most challenging issues in new network deployment – poor indoor coverage and
data speeds. The study indicated that the operator could fully fund a mass deployment of femtocells
by temporarily delaying the deployment of just 5.5% of its macro cell sites7 (see Figure 5).

4.2 Indoor coverage issues

Studies have shown that a large percentage of calls and an even larger percentage of mobile data
sessions are initiated indoors8. It will be a major challenge to meet the traffic and bandwidth

2
“The Business Case for Femtocells in the Mobile Broadband Era”, Femto Forum white paper, March 2010, available from www.femtoforum.org
7
Acknowledging that in many countries operators are committed to a certain percentage population coverage under the terms of their
spectrum licence.
8
See for example Informa Telecoms & Media, Mobile Broadband Access at Home, Aug 08

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demand using outdoor macro network coverage alone. Addressing indoor capacity through
macrocells alone may be very costly in many scenarios. The number of macrocell sites needed to
provide deep indoor coverage and/or high data-rate services will increase very rapidly. However,
many operators may not have the opportunity or possibility to add new sites.

With mobile broadband, residential and enterprise coverage becomes critical to the business case.
The issue is heightened for operators deploying LTE at higher frequencies (e.g. 2.6 GHz) which do
not penetrate buildings as well as lower frequencies (e.g. 700 MHz), but the issue is likely to occur
for all frequencies.

While it is challenging to provide coverage and capacity indoors from a macrocell network, serving
users with a local indoor femtocell has a number of significant advantages, including:

●● Enhanced indoor propagation environment:

The building provides site shielding from macrocells. Through-wall attenuation that normally
reduces signal strength to the handset now provides shielding which reduces interference
with and from the macro network.

This is a benefit of femtocells which is often overlooked: while the femtocell improves service
to the users, the site shielding benefits all network users, including those not connected to the
femtocell.

●● Rich angular multipath, maximising gains available from MIMO

The benefits from MIMO come from having several independent paths between the
transmitter and receiver. The cluttered environment indoors with many walls and reflections
provides the multiple paths needed to make MIMO effective (see Figure 6).

●● Greater LTE efficiency

Femtocells allow LTE to work at its highest modulation rates and spectral efficiency, allowing
the air interface to deliver high-speed services to a large number of high-usage customers.

Figure 6: Indoor Environment Good for MIMO & OFDMA

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4.3 Shannon’s and Cooper’s Laws

The Shannon limit of a communications channel is the theoretical maximum information transfer
rate of the channel for a particular noise level. The performance of LTE as a next generation system
is close to Shannon’s limit (see Figure 7). In macrocells operated at significant load, the operating
point is typically near the lower throughput levels in the graph.

This means more cells with tighter interference controls will be needed to provide quality coverage
and service. This can shift the operating point towards much higher signal quality (SINR) levels and
realise higher throughputs as a result. This is supported by a detailed Femto Forum study9 which
demonstrates that the addition of femtocells to the network allows femtocell users to consistently
receive much closer to the headline LTE data rates than those connected to macrocells, even when
the femtocells are used in the same spectrum as the macrocells. Femtocell users also do not have to
contend for resources with as many users as those on the macrocells.

Paul Jacobs, the CEO of Qualcomm has said10 ,“the improvement of wireless links that enhance
user throughputs is reaching its limit... there is another method: densely deploying base stations
to shorten the distance between base stations and mobile terminals…According to the results of
our research, this effort will possibly result in eight times higher throughput per user. In retrospect,
an eight-times improvement is equivalent to that brought by the cell phone’s shift from analog to
digital. This is really an exciting fact.

Figure 7: LTE approaches Shannon’s Limit, while femtocells can control interference to
substantially increase throughput over macrocells

9
“Interference management in OFDMA femtocells”, Femto Forum white paper, March 2010, Available from www.femtoforum.org
10
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080905/157548/

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In addition, Cooper’s Law states that wireless capacity doubles every 30 months. Since 1950 capacity
has increased more than a million fold: much of this has come from better modulation, better
coding and using more frequencies – but the dominant factor is using smaller cells (see Figure 8).
Femtocells continue and extend this trend to allow cells to be even smaller while still being
cost-effective when serving only a few users.

Figure 8: Using smaller cells has made the dominant contribution to Cooper’s Law11

11
http://www.arraycomm.com/serve.php?page=Cooper

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5. Uses of Femtocells in Different Environments

Femtocells have initially targeted the consumer market, providing dedicated coverage at home or
in small offices. Nevertheless, femtocell standards and economies of scale can also deliver
cost-effective deployments in larger offices and in high-traffic indoor and outdoor locations.

To address the above application scenarios, femtocells are being developed for:

●● Residential / SOHO use for indoor private deployment

●● Enterprise use for indoor public or private deployment
●● Outdoor use for public access deployment

Figure 9: Types of Femtocell Deployments

With 3G femtocells being deployed and LTE arriving, multi-standard femtocells are under
development. The dual mode 3G / LTE femtocell proposition is interesting as it reduces costs, avoids
the need for separate boxes and doesn’t require all users to adopt LTE at once12.

As mentioned earlier, femtocells can deliver higher data rates than the macro network, especially
to indoor users. This allows 3G/HSPA/HSPA+ femtocells to potentially deliver a service experience
indoors comparable to the LTE experience outdoors in the wider network. As such, an existing 3G
network operator may wish to consider how 3G femtocells can continue to be used to enhance the
deployment of an LTE overlay on an existing HSPA network.

LTE femtocells will benefit from the SON features available in LTE Release 8 and in the further
releases of LTE, especially from the data provided by the handset to help the system build and adapt
its configuration files in an automatic way.

5.1 Femtocells for Residential / SOHO Use

Femtocells for residential/SOHO use are deployed by the end user without requiring any manual
configuration. They are connected to the network of the mobile operator through xDSL, cable or

12
The study carried out by Signals Research Group (reference 2) includes analysis of the business case for deploying dual mode femtocells.

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fibre already present in the house, apartment or office premises. The fixed broadband link may place
a constraint on the maximum data rate available to the end user.

Residential femtocells are typically deployed in a Closed Access mode (allowing use only by
authorized handsets approved by the femtocell owner), supporting mobility with the
surrounding public layers (e.g. 2G/3G/LTE macrocells and microcells, which require no re-planning to
accommodate the femtocells).

The number of simultaneous users supported is typically between 4 and 8. The femtocell
access points are managed through a system based on TR-06913 protocols, possibly shared with the
management of the DSL lines, connected to the management system of the radio access network.

5.2 Femtocells for Enterprise Use

Femtocells for enterprise use may be deployed by IT staff from within the enterprise without any
additional specialist radio skills. More complex deployments may be carried out by a systems
integrator contracted by the enterprise, or by the mobile operator. The femtocells are connected to
the mobile operator’s network through the IP link already used for the data traffic of the enterprise
(including VoIP). In order to enable corporate users to access services on the enterprise LAN directly,
local breakout of packet data traffic will be an option. This also prevents the operator’s core network
from being affected by a large volume of data traffic from the enterprise.

Femtocells for enterprise use are typically deployed in an Open Access (or Hybrid Access) mode
(allowing use by any handset on the network), supporting mobility between femtocells belonging
to the enterprise and the surrounding public layers (2G/3G/LTE) which require no re-planning to
accommodate femtocells. LTE femtocells may make use of LTE’s capability to offer different levels of
service to different types of enterprise traffic, (including, for example. guaranteed bit rate and best
efforts service classes).

The number of simultaneous users supported on each femtocell is typically between 8 and 32.
Management of the femtocells is shared by the operator (for mobile network related parameters
using a TR-069 system) and the enterprise (e.g. to control user access to enterprise applications via
the femtocell).

5.3 Femtocells for Outdoor Use

Femtocells for outdoor use are expected to operate as public cells and are therefore likely to be
deployed by the operator. They require dedicated high speed backhaul links with sufficient
bandwidth to support the high throughput made possible by LTE.

The number of simultaneous users supported on each femtocell is typically between 32 and 64.
The main objective of these femtocells is to provide extra coverage and capacity by offloading slow
moving and data intensive users from the macro / micro layers. Outdoor femtocells are managed by
the mobile operator.

13
Broadband Forum, http://broadband-forum.org/

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6. LTE Femtocell Standards, Architectures & Services

LTE is the first cellular technology which will be able to take full advantage of femtocell standards
from the outset, as the first network deployments take place. LTE femtocells are designed to fit
seamlessly into the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) infrastructure using the same interfaces defined for
the macrocells. The same EPC can support a combination of femtocells and macrocells.

The remainder of this section provides an update on the status of LTE femto standards, describes
the architectures available for femtocell deployment, and discusses potential services that can be
deployed.

6.1 Standardization

The industry activity on femtocells, in particular the Femto Forum’s activity on WCDMA femtocells,
resulted in having the femtocell concept considered early in the standardization process of LTE, both
by NGMN in the definition of requirements and by 3GPP in the development of standards from
Release 8. With the standardization of LTE, it is possible to use 3GPP Release 9 for the definition
of standards-compliant LTE femtocells. Many solutions defined for WCDMA femtocells are being
reused for LTE femtocells, for example for management and security, which should result in reduced
time to market and in reduced costs.

6.2 Architectural Aspects14

Since LTE/SAE is based on a flat all-IP architecture, the architecture and interfaces are the same
for femtocells as for macrocells. LTE femtocells (Home eNodeBs) require no new interfaces to be
defined and no changes are required to EPC elements.

There are multiple possible architectures for connecting LTE femtocells to the core network.
A new optional element, called the Home eNodeB Gateway (HeNB GW), is defined to provide
aggregation of multiple Home eNodeBs in the core network, as shown in Figure 10. LTE femtocells
are fully compatible with the all-IP flat EPC architecture, resulting in the Home eNodeB Gateway
being optional. The HeNB GW aggregates S1 interfaces (S1-MME and S1-U), potentially improving
the scalability of the core network in regard to femtocells.

There are two variations of the HeNB GW defined, with one aggregating the control plane only while
the other aggregates both the control and bearer. Figure 10 shows the architecture where the HeNB
GW aggregates both the control and bearer plane traffic and sends the control traffic to the MME
and the bearer traffic to the S-GW.

14
Note that this section describes 3GPP’s HeNB architecture, which implies low power femtocells for residential and small business applications.
Large enterprise use may be based on HeNB or on higher power femtocells and may introduce, in future 3GPP Releases, more complex requirements
resulting in a different architecture.

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Figure 10: HeNB GW aggregates both the control and bearer plane traffic (source: 3GPP)

Figure 11 shows the variant of the architecture where the HeNB GW only aggregates the control
plane traffic from multiple HeNBs to the MME.

Figure 11: HeNB GW aggregates control plane traffic only (source: 3GPP)

Finally, as stated earlier, the HeNB GW is an optional element and the HeNB can be directly
connected to the MME and S-GW (see Figure 12), assuming that the MME and S-GW have sufficient
capacity to support large numbers of femtocell S1 interfaces.

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Figure 12: LTE femtocells without HeNB GW (source: 3GPP)

6.3 Service Aspects

Femtocells will enable a wide variety of services in the femtozone15 , including:

●● Great home coverage with greater capacity

●● Femtozone tariffs (cheaper use of mobile services via the femtocell)
●● Premium service quality (faster data, higher call quality)
●● Unlimited data services, or tiered data services
●● Compelling new femtozone services, including multimedia and convergence services

Figure 13: Enabling Femtocell Customer Propositions

Femtocells can act as a portal to in-building services and automation – femtozone services. This
includes high-bandwidth connected-home services, and services that require presence, context,
and location.

15
The region within which femtocell-specific tariffs and services are available.

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Femtocells can offer a wide range of new services. Examples relevant to the home include:

●● Legacy mobile services with higher Quality of Experience (QoE), higher speed services, and
reduced latency.
●● Access to services available today on personal computers and other home devices.
●● New services enabled by the combination of telecom and multimedia capabilities from the
integration of the femtocell in the digital home.
●● Mobile and interactive TV services, including mobility and integration with High Definition
IPTV services enabled via the femtocell.
●● Upgrading content based on femtocell coverage and device type, e.g., high definition dynamic
pictures on the mobile terminal for movie selection.
●● Home multimedia networking with device continuity, e.g., between PCs, TV, etc. These
applications may include machine-to-machine services within the home or business, e.g., local
appliances and web cameras.
●● Fixed mobile convergence integration of HDTV and home media services.

Figure 14: Enabling Next-Generation Femtozone Services

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7. Technical Deployment Considerations & Challenges

7.1 Interference Management

Detailed studies of interference management for LTE have been carried out in the Femto Forum9.
Several scenarios were identified as benign, while others can be handled through interference
mitigation techniques.

The fundamental interference scenarios are the same for LTE femtocells as for 3G WCDMA
femtocells, for example:

●● Femto to macro interference (both uplink and downlink)

●● Macro to femto interference (both uplink and downlink)
●● Femto to femto interference (both uplink and downlink)

The extent of the interference issue depends on several factors including:

●● Co-channel operation versus adjacent channel operation

●● Closed Access femtocells versus Open Access

Some scenarios (e.g. femto downlink to macro, femto uplink to macro, femto downlink to nearby
femto and femto uplink to nearby femto) could potentially have significant impact on performance.
However, it has been found that interference mitigation techniques can provide acceptable and
robust performance.

Some of the interference mitigation techniques applicable to LTE are in line with those developed for
3G WCDMA femto deployments, such as adaptive femto power control based on distance or macro
signal measurements at the femtocell on the downlink. Enhancements such as macro UE-aware
power control of femto nodes have also been identified by the Femto Forum9.

Having the flexibility of frequency-domain resource management and coordination, LTE offers a
new dimension for additional interference mitigation techniques. For example, enhanced frequency
selective scheduling, and semi-static Fractional Frequency Reuse and dynamic resource
coordination have been explored9. 3GPP study reports 36.921 and 36.922 evaluate the ICIC
mechanisms which could be implemented for support of Rel9 LTE femtocells.

These interference mitigation techniques are particularly useful for dynamically allocating radio
resource or spectrum within a cell or between multiple cells (e.g. between femtocells in an
enterprise deployment) as the load profile varies in the RAN.

Overall, the Femto Forum study9 found that LTE femtocells can coexist with macrocells in the
same channels, given the use of appropriate interference mitigation techniques, even in the most
challenging situations for interference. This is important, given that wide bandwidths may be
needed for LTE, and the limited spectrum which may be available to operators in some
frequency bands.

9
“Interference management in OFDMA femtocells”, Femto Forum white paper, March 2010, Available from www.femtoforum.org

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

7.2 Spectrum

LTE supports many frequency bands, currently ranging from 700 MHz to 2.6 GHz. Femtocells can
use any and all of these standardized bands and in the process can increase their usefulness to the
operator and user. Dedicated spectrum bands for femtocells are not required. Some of the spectrum
and regulatory opportunities presented by femtocells include:

●● Opening up spectrum bands: conventional macrocell deployments exhibit very different

economics at high frequencies, particularly bands above 1 GHz, so such bands are usually
seen as being appropriate for delivering high capacity but not as a main means of delivering
coverage. Femtocell performance, however, is almost independent of spectrum band. This
enables femtocells to be used economically in higher frequencies, but also to operate
efficiently in lower frequency bands. In these bands, femtocells can reduce their coverage
area to deliver high capacity without creating excessive interference. Their self-tuning nature
also allows them to tolerate interference from a wide range of sources, such as other cells and
digital TV.
●● Re-using existing bands: femtocells offer the possibility of making use of small elements
of spectrum which may not be heavily used today, such as TDD sub-bands and even guard
bands in some circumstances. They can also facilitate progressive migration of bands between
technologies, so that for example bands used for 2G traffic can gain an ‘underlay’ of LTE
femtocells before those bands are completely cleared of existing traffic.
●● Spectrum and economic efficiencies: the dense spectrum reuse and high interference
protection inherent in femtocells deliver very high capacity from a given spectrum bandwidth,
delivering very high spectrum efficiency which is a goal for operators and regulators alike.
Likewise, the ability to deliver deep indoor coverage at much lower cost than a macrocell
network enables economic efficiencies which are in the interests of the end-customer,
operator and regulator alike.
●● Innovation and competition: femtocell deployments can support new approaches to
enabling an innovative and competitive market for mobile broadband services. For example,
‘inside-out’ deployments of femtocells as the starting point for a new network can enable new
and existing operators to provide LTE services within smaller spectrum bandwidths than would
be viable for macrocells. They also enable the development of new services and enhanced
customer experience with a lower entry barrier than is conventionally possible, thereby
encouraging and enabling innovation in the customer service offered.

7.3 Backhaul

In the following, we focus on residential applications, giving a brief picture of fixed networks
evolution and backhaul speeds. Backhaul availability and bandwidth is a critical component of
femtocell deployments. The following are some considerations related to backhaul:

●● Throughout the world, progressive evolution to faster residential broadband speeds is

predicted, with major growth in the period for LTE introduction (see Figure 15).
●● The existing classical broadband market is expected to migrate to VDSL and FTTH, including:
●● Multichannel, interactive, and HD IPTV
●● Internet TV/Video
●● Home multimedia networking capabilities

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The Femto Forum: The Best That LTE Can Be

●● According to IDATE, high bandwidth fixed network deployments are forecast to

accelerate: there will be about 30 million subscribers (FTTH) in Japan by 2013 (ADSL
subscribers decreasing to 7.5 million) and, by 2015, more than 21 million in Europe (4.5 million
in France) and still 90 million ADSL subscribers.
●● According to the Fiber to the Home Council16 , as of September 2009 the number of U.S. homes
passed by FTTH networks exceeded 17 million, with more than 5 million of these homes
connected. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan recommends that at least 100 million
additional U.S. homes have affordable access to broadband with speeds of at least 100
megabits per second by the year 202017.

Furthermore, increasing amounts of data traffic are expected to remain within the home LAN (see
6.3), which is not limited by the backhaul bandwidth available. In this case, availability of the full air
interface speeds of LTE to the handset in the home will be an advantage, even if the fixed broadband
connection has lower bandwidth.

Figure 15: Broadband Connections and LTE Subscribers

16
http://www.ftthcouncil.org/en
17
http://www.broadband.gov/

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8. Conclusions

To realize its full potential, LTE benefits from the inclusion of femtocells from the outset:

●● The recently published Signals Research Group / Femto Forum study18 suggests there is a good
business case for femtocells in LTE.
●● Effective interference mitigation techniques have been identified in detailed studies, enabling
capacity and performance benefits.
●● Standards have been agreed for the integration and management of femtocells in LTE.
●● Femtocells help enable new service opportunities.

“LTE can revolutionise mobile broadband – and femtocells can play a role in helping it to deliver
its potential. By adopting femtocells operators can roll out a much better performing LTE network
than they could with macro base stations alone and at a lower cost and with less risk. All these
factors are crucial in the current uncertain economic environment.”
Simon Saunders, Chairman of the Femto Forum.

18
“The Business Case for Femtocells in the Mobile Broadband Era”, Femto Forum white paper, March 2010, Available from www.femtoforum.org

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