5G RAN Capacity Management Guide (V100R016C10 - 01) (PDF) - EN
5G RAN Capacity Management Guide (V100R016C10 - 01) (PDF) - EN
5G RAN Capacity Management Guide (V100R016C10 - 01) (PDF) - EN
V100R016C10
Issue 01
Date 2020-04-07
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Contents
Overview
Capacity is an important issue throughout the network life cycle, which covers
capacity planning, network dimensioning, and product configuration during new
network construction, and capacity monitoring, optimization, and expansion
during existing network operation. This document describes 5G network capacity
management in each stage. It specifies the service range and key work at each
stage and presents the interfacing relationships among different stages. In
addition, this document introduces the basic principles of network construction
benchmarks (including basic capacity, xMbps, and service experience) and based
on these benchmarks, provides theoretical analysis of capacity expansion
benchmarks.
Product Version
The following table lists the product versions related to this document.
BTS3900A/BTS5900A ● SRAN16.1
BTS3900L/BTS5900L
BTS3900AL
DBS3900/DBS5900
DBS3900 LampSite/
DBS5900 LampSite
Intended Audience
This document is intended for:
● Field engineers
01 (2020-04-07)
This is the first commercial release.
Compared with Draft A (2020-01-20), this issue does not include any new topics
or changes, or exclude any topics.
Draft A (2020-01-20)
This is a draft.
Compared with Issue 01 (2019-06-06) of V100R015C10, this issue does not include
any new topics or changes, or exclude any topics.
The following figure shows the key services and supporting documents at each
network stage.
1.3.1.1 Overview
To meet users' traffic demands and satisfy user experience on the network, the
network capacity needs to be planned based on operators' original requirements
(especially traffic requirements and user experience) and Huawei's recommended
solutions.
The following figure shows inputs and outputs at the capacity planning stage.
The following figure shows the procedure for basic capacity planning.
● Perform the following steps to plan basic capacity at the network construction
stage:
a. Understand operators' network construction requirements, including
traffic demands and user experience assurance solutions.
b. Plan network construction objectives.
xMbps Meaning
The xMbps bearer rate determines upper-layer user experience. Therefore, xMbps
should be customized during eMBB network construction based on user
experience of the target service. The customized xMbps is the minimum bearer
capability for the target service on the eMBB network and the minimum rate
guaranteed for users.
xMbps for different types of services
The bearer rate varies according to the service type. eMBB services can be
classified into web, video, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), social networking,
instant message, cloud services, email, file transfer, gaming, and machine-to-
machine (M2M) services. xMbps for different types of services to ensure good user
experience is shown in the following figure.
For example, the bearer rate must exceed 0.8 Mbit/s to ensure smooth video
experience for LD (360p) video services. However, at least 1 Mbit/s is required for
a short startup time at the beginning of playing a video. Therefore, 1 Mbit/s is
used as the bearer rate of LD video services. Similarly, the bearer rates of SD video
services (480p), HD video services (720p), and ultra HD video services (1080p) are
3 Mbit/s, 5 Mbit/s, and 10 Mbit/s, respectively, as listed in the following table.
Interruptio 0.8
n-free
Share >
95%
Interruptio 2.3
n-free
Share >
95%
Interruptio 3.8
n-free
Share >
95%
Interruptio 7.7
n-free
Share >
95%
The bit rates of different videos vary greatly according to video resolution. The bit rates of
videos of the same video resolution also vary greatly with the proportion of dynamic pictures,
video encoding level (profile and level), and other factors. Data in the preceding table is a
reference to the statistics of a mainstream video website.
5 Excellent Imperceptible
2 Poor Annoying
1.3.2 Dimensioning
At the dimensioning stage, the iterative service demands of capacity planning are
used to predict the demands of critical resources (such as air interface resources)
for network construction. These resources required at the dimensioning stage are
abstract and irrelevant to the network topology and hardware type.
the air interface capacity requirement. Capacity expansion involves the air
interface and devices.
On existing networks, traffic demands are affected by network capacity. That is,
the traffic demands may be not fully reflected due to network capacity restriction.
Therefore, it is required to decide whether the traffic demands are restrained
before performing network capacity expansion.
Figure 1-12 Relationships between the system capacity and the number of users
a: point at which the actual system capacity b: target minimum system capacity demand
begins to decrease designed by the operator
The following figure shows the relationships between the number of users and
required throughput, perceived throughput, as well as xMbps in typical eMBB
traffic scenarios.
● In statistical sense, the required throughput is basically steady in specified
traffic scenarios (relevant to user types, service types, and charging policies).
The capacity demand is not affected by the number of users.
● The perceived throughput is first steady and then begins to decrease after the
number of users reaches the maximum limit allowed by the system capacity.
Figure 1-13 Relationships between the throughput and the number of users
c: change point at which the target xMbps may or may not be reached in an area where the
network is constructed based on xMbps
Capacity expansion focuses on system capacity and user throughput. The capacity
expansion standard for the air interface is listed in the following table.
Dimension Standard
Operators usually deploy only one carrier during initial network construction. As
the number of users increases, the capacity of a single carrier will gradually
become limited. In densely populated urban areas, traffic on networks is heavy
and it is likely that the capacity of hotspot cells becomes limited.
Adding carriers is the most desirable method for capacity expansion because this
method does not affect live networks and almost requires no additional
equipment.
This capacity expansion method is applicable when the number of users reaches
the allowed maximum or the throughput is limited due to capacity insufficiency.
Add carriers when the following conditions are met:
● A second carrier is available.
● The signaling load is light.
● After carriers are added, new cells and their neighboring cells (existing cells) are working in
different frequencies. Therefore, inter-frequency handover parameters must be properly
configured to ensure successful inter-frequency handovers. In this way, adding carriers will
not cause handover performance to deteriorate.
● For example, you can enable inter-frequency load balancing to ensure even load distribution
on multiple carriers.
● The inter-frequency handover policies and related parameter settings are complicated. For
details, see Mobility Management Feature Parameter Description.
Adding gNodeBs
You can add intra-frequency and inter-frequency gNodeBs for small-scale capacity
expansion. Adding intra-frequency gNodeBs is more common due to carrier and
networking restrictions.
This capacity expansion method is applicable when coverage holes exist, the
number of users reaches the maximum limit, or the throughput is limited due to
capacity insufficiency. Add intra-frequency gNodeBs when the following conditions
are met:
● A second carrier is unavailable but a new site can be acquired.
● The interference from newly added intra-frequency gNodeBs is controllable
and has little impact on live networks.
● Emergency communications are required at places where the traffic volume
surges, for example, railway stations during holidays and stadiums with major
events.
There is a rare scenario where intra-frequency gNodeBs are added at the existing
site to serve some cells of the existing gNodeB. This solution can only be used
when the high load on the existing gNodeB cannot be relieved after a main
control board of higher specifications is installed in the existing gNodeB. For
example, if an existing gNodeB serves cell 0, cell 1 and cell 2 and the number of
users in cell 0 is the largest among the three cells, a new gNodeB can be added.
You can connect the main control board in the existing gNodeB to the RF module
of cell 0 and connect the main control board of the new gNodeB to the RF
modules of cell 1 and cell 2. This method does not require cell addition or RF
parameter optimization.
Sector splitting involves installing antennas and adding cells. For details, see
related installation guides and 5G RAN Reconfiguration Guide.
Device capacity expansion must match the demands for air interface capacity.
The actual granularity for measuring resource usage cannot be as small as the
theoretical granularity. Only the average resource usage and maximum resource
usage on the live network are available for determining whether to expand the
system capacity. Considering the fluctuation in actual service demands, the
measurement granularity is selected based on the statistical data obtained during
peak hours. The peak-to-average ratio should also be considered to decrease the
probability that device resources are insufficient.
For the capacity expansion thresholds for device resources, see 5G RAN Capacity
Monitoring Guide. The thresholds are the recommended values provided by
Huawei based on empirical network data and may be adjusted according to
related experience and information.
Board specifications include items such as user number and signaling processing
capability. If an item reaches the specified threshold, replace existing boards or
add new boards to expand capacity.
If radio resources are sufficient after a baseband processing board is added, the
cell with heaviest load on the original baseband processing board is established on
the new baseband processing board, and the rest cells remain on the original
baseband processing board.
If a gNodeB has been configured with multiple baseband processing boards and
one of the baseband processing boards is overloaded, cells on this baseband
processing board are reestablished on lightly loaded baseband processing boards.