Nokia Networks

Nokia Networks Deployment

for Coverage White Paper

Nokia Networks white paper

Deployment for Coverage

CONTENTS
Executive summary

Introduction

Outdoor Coverage Boost

Indoor Coverage Boost

12

M2M Sensor networks with extreme coverage

17

Recommendations

18

Nokia Networks supports operators

19

Abbreviations

19

Executive summary
Providing coverage for mobile networks has been the key design criterion
since the first networks were deployed during the 1980s and 1990s.
The growing demand for affordable mobile broadband connectivity is
driving the development of Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets) with a
range of different Radio Access Technologies (GSM, HSPA, LTE and Wi-Fi).
The reason for installing HetNets for capacity remains to provide
continuous coverage and a consistent services experience throughout
the network, for both voice and mobile broadband.
The first step is to ensure basic, wide mobile broadband (MBB)
coverage, which involves using spectrum assets, e.g. using lower
frequency bands such as UMTS900 and LTE700/800.
The next steps are to use resources at the macro sites for better
coverage, with methods such as cell splitting in either the horizontal
or vertical plane depending on the scenario. Many rural sites are still
omni-directional and good coverage improvements can be achieved
with standard three sector sites.
Further macro enhancements can be performed with higher
order MIMO, such as 4 or 8 antennas at the macro site and
advanced multi-cell RRM such as Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP)
transmission/reception.
Once the macro sites have realised their coverage potential, small
cells can be deployed to provide additional fill-in coverage outdoors,
either at the cell edge or by deploying outdoor small cells overlaying
macro cells in high capacity areas.

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Coverage

Fill-Ins for

Capacity
Perfecting
the macro
network

Capacity & Coverage

Small Cell
Injection

Figure 1. The continuous path to providing better coverage and capacity in HetNets and
finally a consistent user experience through a perfect network quality
Indoor deployment is yet another method for providing good
coverage and overcoming the high penetration loss of buildings.
Indoor deployment options range from distributed antenna
systems, small femto or Wi-Fi cells or indoor pico cell deployment
where applicable.
Finally, to enable ubiquitous M2M opportunities in the cellular
networks, additional coverage is required for rural areas and deep
indoor deployment.
This whitepaper outlines key coverage enhancement strategies for
HetNets and explains how Nokia Networks can help operators address
them. It discusses ways to expand the macro layer and how to use
outdoor and indoor small cell layers to provide better coverage and at
the same time provide better capacity.

Introduction
The majority of todays mobile sites for mobile broadband were
designed and constructed for 2G voice services in the 1990s. Macro
sites are still being added, particularly in urban areas to provide better
coverage and capacity. The sites have been upgraded with WCDMA,
HSPA, LTE and some site densifications have been deployed to ensure
better coverage and capacity. However, increased bandwidth for
higher user data rates tends to shrink coverage areas as the power
spectral density decreases. This is especially true for the uplink where
the user devices transmit power is limited.
Regulators in many countries impose coverage obligations for
spectrum licenses i.e. part of the requirements for getting spectrum
is to provide a certain population coverage with predefined quality
levels. An example of spectrum coverage requirements were those for
the digital dividend band (LTE800) in Germany, auctioned in 2010. The
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condition for the spectrum license was to bring high speed Internet
to rural areas starting with small towns of less than 5000 inhabitants.
Deployments in bigger cities were not allowed before 90% of the small
towns were covered.
More than 80% of global wireless data traffic is generated indoors
and thus seamless indoor coverage is one of the key challenges today
and in the years to come. Modern buildings designed for low energy
use typically have a high path loss penetration through windows that
are metal plated and walls with high insulation. Furthermore, deep
indoor, high rise buildings, basements etc. present further coverage
challenges for indoor users. Also, users in suburban and rural areas
may be far from any cell site or in shadow areas without coverage.
Covering these difficult areas offers opportunities for increased
mobile broadband usage and thereby new business opportunities.
With the increased attention of mobile network operators (MNO)
on excellent coverage, it has been shown that the poor coverage
experience that consumers may have is not related only to the network,
but to the mobile phones as well. The small integrated antenna
in smartphones does not always yield the best radiated antenna
performance. Therefore, a good antenna performance for consumer
devices is as important to good coverage as the network design.
To provide good coverage, we need to optimize the received signal
power (PRX). In the example below we show a simplified link budget:
PRX = PTX + GTX - LPL + GRX - LRX
The transmitted power (PTX) can be adjusted at the base station
transmitter with typical values of 20W, 40W, 60W up to 80W.
However, an increase in transmit power is not possible from the user
equipment, meaning it is important to maintain a balanced link budget
in the uplink and downlink. The gain in the base station antenna (GTX)
has a positive effect for both uplink and downlink and can be increased
using several techniques. Splitting the cells into smaller cells, either
in the azimuth or vertical plane, increases the antenna gain in the
main direction and helps to improve coverage substantially. The
path loss (LPL) through the media between the base station and the
user equipment can be limited by using a lower frequency band with
lower path loss. Similarly, the network can be densified to minimize
the distance between the user and the base station. For deep indoor
coverage, indoor deployment can be arranged to minimize the wall
penetration. The design of the user device antenna is important for
coverage, as the antenna gain of the device (GRX) directly affects the
strength of the received signal. Finally, the performance or loss of the
user equipment (LRX) is important for performance and coverage.
The whitepaper outlines the coverage requirements of different
services, starting with voice, the coverage target that has emerged
over the last 20 years. Then, high speed data changed the deployment
challenges for coverage. Finally, new requirements are emerging for
ubiquitous low speed data for M2M like sensors. The deployment for
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coverage needs to address capacity in parallel, since most network

densification is driven by capacity requirements and interference
limitations. Solutions to provide additional spectrum are also addressed
by optimizing the TV broadcast in the sub Giga Hertz spectrum.
The whitepaper addresses coverage challenges indoor and outdoor
in different environments including rural, urban and dense urban
environments. Based on this outline, the following sections will discuss
how to improve coverage in mobile broadband networks for voice,
high-speed data and ubiquitous M2M coverage outdoors and indoors.

Outdoor Coverage Boost

This section outlines different options to enhance outdoor coverage
using different deployment strategies.

Low band usage

One of the most efficient methods for operators to provide coverage
is to deploy their spectrum asset correctly. The coverage layer should
be deployed at the lowest frequency available, while the capacity
should be provided using higher frequencies. Measurements have
shown that the lower path loss at low frequencies approximately
follows a constant offset between frequencies for both line of sight
(LOS) and non-line of sight (NLOS) following a factor ~20log10(f1/f2).
Figure 2 shows the results from an Nokia Networks measurements
campaign done with multiple carrier frequencies in parallel, allowing
comparison of the relative path loss between different frequencies.
LOS and NLOS Path Loss at dierent frequencies
130

799 MHz

120

1912.5 MHz

110

3570 MHz

PL [dB]

100

NLOS

5260 MHz

90
80

LOS

70
60
50
40

101

Log10(d[m])

102

Figure 2. Outdoor LOS/NLOS Path Loss Relationship

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2600 MHz

LTE 20 MHz

2100 MHz

HSPA 15 MHz

1800 MHz

GSM + LTE 10-20 MHz

900 MHz

GSM + HSPA 5 MHz

800 MHz

LTE 10 MHz

Figure 3. Typical single RAN configuration in Europe

Spectrum availability
The number of Radio Access Technologies (RATs) and frequency
variants in mobile networks is increasing. Operators will typically have
three RATs (GSM, HSPA and LTE) and up to five frequency variants
running in parallel, as illustrated in Figure 3.
Refarming part of the 2G spectrum, such as 850/900MHz to HSPA,
enables better mobile broadband coverage, particularly indoors and in
rural areas. Also, using LTE carrier aggregation can further increase cell
edge throughput in the downlink by providing additional spectrum.
New LTE bands such as 700, 800, Advanced Wireless Services (AWS)
and 2600 MHz are available, including refarming the 1800 MHz band
from GSM to LTE. Many networks were designed for voice coverage
in the 90s and with the increase in data rates, the coverage area may
shrink owing to power limitations in user devices. Downlink coverage
is further limited due to broadband throughput and higher SINR
requirement. Deploying LTE at 2600 MHz by reusing existing macro
sites may compromise coverage in certain environments. Therefore,
the sub GHz spectrum needs to be deployed at the macro sites, as
the main coverage layer with additional cells running at the higher
frequency bands act as a capacity layer.
The key challenge is to provide sufficient capacity in the sub GHz
spectrum, which provides the best macro layer coverage. Additional
restrictions when providing coverage and capacity with increased
spectrum in the lower spectrum area are those governing radiated
electro-magnetic fields. The ICNIRP (International Commission on NonIonizing Radiation Protection) defined a maximum public exposure limit
of 2 to 10 W/m (@ 400 to 2000 MHz), which has been adopted by
most national regulators, although some countries have stricter limits.
Limitations are very site specific, including distance to non-protected
areas and total emissions including potential competitors at sites, so
careful site planning is needed when upgrading transmit power and
multi-carriers for the low spectrum.
A more long term solution to provide additional spectrum below 1 GHz
would be to refarm part of the TV broadcast spectrum. Figure 4 shows
a spectrum example of the currently EU allocated spectrum in the
800 MHz band and the proposed additional 700 MHz spectrum.
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30 MHz
DL

862

832

30 MHz
UL
821

788
791

733

703

758

30 MHz
DL

30 MHz
UL

DL Spectrum available to meet digital inclusion targets

470

broadcast

Figure 4. New Spectrum < 1GHz by convergence of broadcast and broadband spectrum assets
However, there is still a vast amount of spectrum available from 470 to
694 MHz, which is serving TV broadcasts today. Nokia Networks has done
a study with a major operator on providing TV broadcasts with a similar
service level to today using evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast
Service (eMBMS) technology. This would allow a significant reduction of
the required spectrum for TV broadcasts due to improved frequency
reuse, thus opening more spectrum for mobile broadband use.
The key conclusions from the study are:

Frequency reuse of one is feasible

Single Frequency Network (SFN) size is not limited by self-interference
Good coverage can be achieved in rural areas using rooftop antennas
Only one site per ~100 km2 is required to deploy eMBMS
Cyclic prefix length should be at least 33.33 us (requires
standardization)
Antenna tilt is not a critical parameter for SFN
Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) requirement has a
rather small impact on coverage
Small out-of-coverage areas can be expected at the borders of
co-channel SFN areas, but these can be minimized by careful site
planning and optimized device antennas
Figure 5 shows coverage in a rural area with eMBMS, where rooftop
antenna reception with an average of one transmit site per 100 km2

Indoor handheld
Population: 55.8 %
Area: 32.7 %
Outdoor handheld
Population: 82.5 %
Area: 74.9 %
Customer premises equipment

indoor antenna

Population: 83.8 %
Area: add 77.6 %
Customer premises equipment
rooftop antenna
Population: 99.0 %
Area: 97.6 %
Out of Coverage
Population: 1.0 %
Area: 2.4 %

Figure 5. Coverage by device type

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3 Sector Layout
3x1

6 Sector Layout
6x1

6 Sector Layout
3x2

Figure 6. Different sectorization options

of rural area is needed to cover 95% of the area and 97% of the
population. One LTE 20 MHz carrier can accommodate approximately
five HDTV channels by reusing existing LTE deployment. Assuming the
delivery of 25 simultaneous HDTV transmissions, 100 MHz spectrum
would be needed for the TV service (470-570 MHz), freeing an additional
130 MHz spectrum from 570-700 MHz for mobile broadband services.

Antenna Enhancements
A simple way to increase the antenna gain at the base station is
to split the current cells into smaller and narrowband cells using
sectorization. Higher order sectorization can be deployed in both the
horizontal plane by increasing the number of antennas/sectors and/or
in the vertical plane by introducing an Active Antenna System (AAS).
An example of sectorization is shown in Figure 6.
Many operators are facing challenges such as lack of new site
locations, challenging operating frequencies with limited coverage and
performance and ever-growing demands for a high-quality end-user
experience. With multi-sectorization, operators can improve their
network and meet the challenge of traffic growth by providing more
coverage and more capacity simultaneously, as well as improving
end-user service quality without having to invest heavily in new base
station sites. Deploying multi-sectorization will also reduce the need
for new macro sites.
Nokia Networks provides site solutions for multi-sectorization,
increasing mobile broadband capacity and coverage as follows:
Up to 80% more capacity for 6x1 deployments (compared to 3x1).
Up to 65% more downlink capacity for 3x2 deployments (compared
to 3x1).
Up to 100% more uplink capacity for 3x2 deployments (compared
to 3x1).
Up to 40% increased coverage for 6x1 and 3x2 (compared to 3x1).

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Downlink cell edge gain +57%

16

2x2 DL

14

4x2 DL

13.71

12

4x2 DL with PC

11.49

10
8

Uplink cell edge gain +119%

8.77

2 Rx UL

5.29

4 Rx UL

4
3
2

2.18

4
1

2
0

0
Avg. Throughput(Mbps)

Avg. Throughput(Mbps)

Figure 7. Cell Edge Throughput Gain with 4TX4RX Base Station

Advanced features such as vertical beam forming, Multiple Input
Multiple Output (MIMO) and independent TX and RX electrical tilting
for each frequency or radio access technology further improve
coverage and capacity.
Figure 7 show the gain from Nokia Networks measurements in a
commercial LTE network in North America with 4x2 MIMO at the
macro sites improving cell edge throughput significantly and thereby
also improving coverage significantly. Uplink gains in the 4x2 MIMO
case more than double cell edge throughput, however downlink also
gains by more than 50%. This helps significantly in areas where uplink
becomes the limiting factor.
Deploying centralized processing between a cluster of macro cells
opens opportunities for advanced multi-cell RRM such as Coordinated
Multi-Point (CoMP) transmission/reception and inter-site carrier
aggregation. Depending on its location, CoMP enables the device to
receive signals from multiple cell sites, while the user device signal
may be received at multiple cell sites regardless of the system load.
If the transmissions from the multiple cell sites are coordinated for
downlink, the performance can be increased significantly. CoMP can
be simple, applying techniques that focus on interference avoidance,
or more complex, as in the case where the same data is transmitted
from multiple cell sites. For the uplink, the system can take advantage
of reception at multiple cell sites to improve the link performance
significantly, for example, through techniques such as interference
cancellation.
Joint Transmission/Joint Processing between macro sites provides
up to 50% cell edge gain for uplink and up to 15% for downlink. The
uplink CoMP gains require only LTE Rel. 8 UEs, while downlink CoMP
requires Rel. 11 UEs and thus cannot be fully utilized before significant
penetration of Rel. 11 UE is achieved in the network.
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Figure 8. Example of 5W micro cell coverage area in a dense urban

deployment with 80m ISD.

Small cells
Small cells are an efficient way to provide outdoor coverage,
particularly in high capacity areas where the macro cell lacks the
ability to provide the necessary cell edge coverage and capacity.
The dominance or coverage area of the small cell depends on the
transmission (TX) power, the spectrum used and the micro cell
selection parameters. The larger the coverage area of a micro cell, the
more user equipment it attracts. With high traffic volumes, the micro
cells may become congested. In this case, it is better to provide an
additional micro-carrier than to reduce the micro TX power. Reducing
TX power in outdoor micro cells, combined with increasing data rates,
increases the possibility of coverage holes.
Figure 8 shows a deployment of five micro cells along a shopping
street in a dense urban area with 80m Inter-site Distance (ISD). Each
cell transmits with 5W and provides continuous blanket coverage
both indoors and outdoors. Lower power small cells can also provide
continuous coverage but small cells of 1W would need to be deployed
at a higher density with an ISD of only 40m. Thus, deployment of
micro cells with 5W output power requires significantly fewer access
points, around four times less, compared with 1W micro cells.
Furthermore, bias in cell selection can be used if an increase or
decrease in microcell range is desired.
Software and feature parity between macro and micro/pico cells is one
of the critical steps needed in small cell deployment. It will help create
tighter integration between the two network layers, giving improved
HetNet performance and thus also better coverage and a consistent
user experience.

Balanced link budget

When optimizing the network coverage and capacity, it is important
to have a balanced link budget between uplink and downlink. The ratio
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of UL/DL traffic load varies significantly between different devices,

laptops and dongles, typically in a1:4 ratio, while smartphones can
have up to 1:10 due to streaming being one of their key use cases.
The ideal network upgrade depends on which link is currently limiting
the performance. UL performance limitations often result from a tight
link budget. In this case, additional macro carriers will not improve the
performance, micro cell deployment at the cell edges having the largest
impact. DL performance on the other hand can be compensated for
by additional macro carriers. With the same frequency, the uplink
coverage TD-LTE will be lower compared to FDD LTE, since the user
device is limited in transmit power. The TD-LTE will be able to transmit
a fraction of the time and thus, with a balanced UL:DL ratio, the
TD-LTE will have 3dB lower coverage. However, TD-LTE has many other
advantages compared to FDD LTE, meaning that resources can be
assigned asymmetrically in uplink and downlink and better match the
user behavior. Furthermore, the limitations in TD-LTE uplink can be
compensated for by the techniques addressed in this whitepaper.
Figure 9 shows an example of mobile broadband coverage in a rural
area. The blue bar shows a 10 MHz LTE deployment at existing GSM
sites, while the mid grey bar shows the same with all sites upgraded
to three sectors. Neither deployment provides a 95% broadband
coverage of 4 Mbit/s in downlink and 1 Mbit/s uplink.
Adding additional spectrum solves the problem in downlink but does
not change the performance in uplink, since the uplink is clearly
coverage limited. The only remaining solution is site densification.
Deploying an additional six sectors per 100 km2 at 800 MHz is needed
to provide sufficient mobile broadband coverage in the uplink.
An optimized grid in a shared Radio Access Network (RAN) is another
efficient way to improve both coverage and capacity. Figure 10 shows
an example of two networks that were combined into one shared RAN.
Both networks had an ISD of approximately 250m independently, while
the combined network has an ISD of only 120m. Typical, the key reason
for RAN sharing is to reduce cost by cutting the number of sites. In
NoUpg, 10MHz

3x1, 10MHz

3x1, 20MHz

Service coverage

100%
95%
90%
85%
80%
75%
70%
DL@4Mbps

UL@1Mbps

Figure 9. Rural area mobile broadband coverage for DL and UL

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Figure 10. Combined network layout and cell coverage

areas for two combined networks
this analysis, the same downlink performance was maintained for the
combined network as for the individual networks. In the combined
network, it was possible to decommission up to 40% of sites having an
ISD of ~200m while providing better downlink performance than either
of the source networks could provide even after upgrades. The uplink
performance clearly benefitted from the lower ISD, which reduced
outage from approximately 20% to nearly zero in the combined
network. An alternative deployment was to keep the existing sites and
enhance coverage and capacity for both uplink and downlink.

Indoor Coverage Boost

Approximately 80% of mobile broadband traffic is generated indoors.
This makes indoor coverage one of the most important design
parameters for network deployment. Indoor coverage can be achieved
by either indoor deployment or extending outdoor deployment
to provide indoor coverage. Serving indoor traffic with inadequate
coverage from the outside limits the capacity of the network.

Indoor Deployment
A Distributed Antenna System (DAS) is an efficient way to provide
seamless indoor coverage. DAS involves the distribution of cellular RF
signals to a network of antennas within a building. The DAS distributes
RF signals from a centralized radio source throughout the building
using a network of RF cabling, splitters, couplers and antennas, fiber
optic cabling, RF repeaters etc.
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Users with throughput > 10 Mbit/s

Indoor small-cell

Pico

Macro

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Without Indoor
small-cells

With Indoor
small-cells

Figure 11. Example of outdoor and indoor small cell (4G/LTE and
Wi-Fi 802.11n/ac) coverage probability performance under a typical
dense urban deployment scenario as expected in 2020.
The aim is to create an indoor layer that is integrated seamlessly with
the macro layer and which handles voice & data traffic internal to the
building, thereby offering better quality and user experience.
Another way to provide indoor coverage is by deploying indoor small
cells. In dense urban deployments, indoor 4G/LTE small cell and WLAN/
802.11n/ac solutions (or combined multi-RAT small cells) can provide
excellent coverage and capacity, as exemplified in Figure 11. The ratio
of users getting more than 10 Mbit/s is increased from 80% to 90%
by deploying an indoor cell for every ~500m2.
In enterprise deployment, where the locations and transmit power
levels of the indoor small cells (Wi-Fi or pico) can be optimized, the
number of indoor small cells required can be reduced significantly,
providing a reduction in costs of up to 45% compared to the costs of
un-planned residential -like deployment solutions.
In public deployment environments, such as large multi-floor shopping
malls, a deployment density of one indoor pico cell per 1000 m2 of
floor area is sufficient to provide the minimum user data rate of 10
Mbit/s in a 2020 traffic growth scenario.
Figure 12 shows examples of capacity of different indoor solutions in a
60 floor high rise building, with each scenario providing 95% coverage.
The first case uses DAS for indoor coverage and the second uses the
DAS infrastructure with a small cell on every floor, doubling 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.
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Scenario

# of eNB/small
cells per floor

# of
Antennas

Capacity
per Floor

20W eNB connected to DAS

1 per 2 floors

21

56 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS

21

112 Mbps

5W small cell with built-in antenna

543 Mbps

0.25W small cell with built-in antenna

18

18

1,335 Mbps

5W small cell connected to DAS in COMMONAREAS-ONLY and 0.25W in other areas.

1 five-W and
5 quarter-W

19 (14 DAS
+ 5 Built In)

489 Mbps

Figure 12. Capacity of different indoor solutions in a 60 floor high rise building.

Outdoor deployment for indoor coverage

Indoor coverage can be provided in similar ways to all the mechanisms
explained in the Outdoor Coverage Boost section, provided that the
additional wall penetration is covered by the link budget. However,
dedicated outdoor deployment for indoor coverage is also a viable
solution. Figure 8 shows an example of outdoor micro cell deployment
along a street. Such a solution will also provide good indoor coverage
for the buildings along the street for the lower floors. Uplink coverage
is particularly improved by deploying outdoor small cells, as the
building penetration loss is typically a limiting factor for the uplink.
Deploying outdoor small cells for a dense urban high rise environment
does not solve the challenge of indoor coverage above the first 5-10
floors. Additional micro cells can be deployed at the rooftop of the
tallest building but again they only provide coverage for the upper
5-10 floors. Therefore, for dense urban high rise environments,
either an in building solution or a macro based solution is needed,
with directional antennas pointing upwards to provide coverage and
capacity for dense high rise streets.
Figure 13 shows an example of a high rise building covered by a street
level micro cell for the low floors with the upper floors covered by a
nearby macro site with directional antenna tilted upwards. The macro
antenna beam can be narrow, with additional antenna gain to cover
specific buildings.
Figure 14 shows the offload potential of the example above, showing
that the users on the lower floors are primarily using the street level
micro cell. The directional macro cell offloads the middle part and
the upper part respectively, providing both coverage and capacity for
dense urban high rises without the need for indoor deployment.

Indoor-to-outdoor
A completely different approach to providing coverage would be
to deploy indoor small cells for both indoor and outdoor coverage.

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Directional macro

Street micro
Figure 13. Up-tilted directional macro cells

Direct Macro

Micro

Macro

Users ooaded per layer

% Users per layer

4
3
2
1
0
0

10

15

20

25
30
Floors

35

40

45

50

Figure 14. Indoor offload per floor for a 50 floor building. The dark grey
bars show users which remain on the normal macro.
Figure 15 shows an example of suburban deployment of small cells in a
residential environment.
Outdoor coverage is highly dependent on the penetration of small
cells and the distance from the buildings. If we envision sidewalks and
street level coverage as a ring of 10m and 20m around the building, a
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Outdoor area covered by small cells [%]

20m Ring
70

10m Ring

60
50
40

All

30

10m ring

20

20m ring

Building

10
0
0

10

15

20

Small cell penetration [%]

Figure 15. Outdoor coverage by indoor small cells deployment

50% outdoor coverage for the 20m ring can be provided by 10% of all
households installing a small cell. Assuming that there are four operators
with an equal subscriber base in the area, then a 10% total penetration
would require 40% penetration from a single operator to provide the
50% coverage if no RAN sharing is assumed. Therefore, the necessary
outdoor coverage from indoor small cells may be difficult to reach. The
increased penetration loss due to better insulation and metal coating will
further limit the outdoor coverage from small cells. This topic is further
described in the next section.

Deep indoor coverage

Indoor coverage takes on another challenge when talking about deep
indoor coverage. Deep indoor coverage entails providing coverage inside
a mall, tunnels and the basement of a residential building or in the centre
of large indoor complexes. Furthermore, many new buildings around
the globe will have higher penetration loss through the use of metal
coated windows to minimize reflections of the sun and walls, with more
insulation to reduce heating and cooling. Therefore, the traditional building
penetration loss of 10 dB will no longer be sufficient for providing deep
indoor coverage. Nokia Networks has carried out a measurement campaign
in different environments, evaluating outdoor-to-indoor penetration loss.
The measurements were carried out in three different indoor locations:
INDOOR: 1st row of offices.
DEEP INDOOR: central corridor.
DEEP INDOOR 2: 2nd row of offices.
Furthermore, increasing the carrier frequency to 3.5 or 5 GHz for
capacity increases the building penetration loss. Figure 16 shows the
results of measurements of building penetration loss, with a focus
on modern buildings with a metal coating on the windows and thick
insulation in the walls. The measurements show that building penetration
of 16-29 dB can be expected with an increase of 10-15 dB for deep
indoor coverage. Therefore, to provide a good user experience, an
outdoor to indoor penetration of 25-35 dB should be included in the link
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Modern Building
Penetration Loss [dB]

50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

INDOOR

799MHz

1912.5MHz

3570MHz

5260MHz

16.51

17.54

22.54

28.95

DEEP INDOOR

20.09

23.81

29.06

34.83

DEEP INDOOR 2

27.30

32.33

37.08

43.34

Figure 16. Building penetration loss for modern buildings

budget. The additional link budget can be provided by the techniques
discussed throughout this section.

M2M Sensor networks with extreme

coverage
The next frontier will be providing coverage for M2M everywhere. The
M2M market is growing rapidly for many new applications such as smart
metering, freight and logistics and smart cities to provide automatic
control and surveillance. Likewise, government and regulatory initiatives
such as the EU initiatives to have a smart meter penetration level of 80%
by 2020 and the mandatory inclusion of automotive safety systems such
as eCall in all new car models, also drive overall wireless M2M connections
and revenue. To accommodate all these new services, continuous
coverage that includes indoor locations is very important. Figure 17 shows
the result of a coverage study in a European rural area. The solid lines
show the SINR distribution for indoor and outdoor locations, suggesting a
good solid coverage. However, looking at the dotted lines which represent
indoor locations only, there is a need to further enhance coverage to
provide connections to a wide area deployment of M2M devices.
An additional coverage of 20dB would be needed to provide ~99%
coverage in all locations. This additional coverage is not for high data rate
applications and can be provided by either additional transmit power
(especially in uplink), additional coding, or a combination of both. The
additional coverage of LTE is currently being analyzed in 3GPP.

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1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5

0 dB, whole area

10 dB, whole area

0.4

20 dB, whole area

0.3

25 dB, whole area

0.2

0 dB, indoor area

0.1

20 dB, indoor area

10 dB, indoor area

25 dB, indoor area

0
-30

-20

-10

0
SINR [dB]

10

20

30

Figure 17. SINR CDF for indoor coverage in rural area

Recommendations
This whitepaper outlines the main challenges and solutions to providing
better coverage in todays mobile broadband networks while at the
same time providing additional capacity. The key coverage enhancement
techniques are summarized in Figure 18.

Refarming

Coverage by lower path

loss (e.g. LTE700/800)

Indoor
small cells

Provides coverage and

capacity w/ feature parity

Cell splitting

Provides coverage by
higher antenna gain

Outdoor to
indoor

Provides coverage but

limited by penetration loss

Small cells

Provides coverage in cell

edge and hot spot areas

Directional
antennas

Provides coverage by
dedicated antennas

Network sharing

Provides coverage by
combined network

Indoor DAS

Provides indoor coverage

by distributed antennas

Outdoor
M2M

20 dB coverage required
Standardization ongoing

Indoor
Massive M2M

Figure 18. Key recommendations for coverage enhancements

Page 18

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3-sector

6-sector

CoMP

Outdoor coverage
solutions

Active
antenna

Wi-Fi

Femto

Dedicated indoor
coverage solution

Coverage
HSPA/LTE
Micro

Re-farming

4x

MIMO

HSPA/LTE
Pico

DAS

Directed
macro
cells

4x

Feature parity

Figure 19. Unified Heterogeneous Networks

Nokia Networks supports operators

Nokia Networks supports operators as they wrestle with the increasing
complexities of their evolving networks. We provide smart and unified
heterogeneous networks. All network RATs and layers can be viewed
as a logically unified network with automated management via the
award winning Nokia Networks SON Solution, known as iSON. This
provides seamless interworking and an excellent coverage and thus
uncompromising quality of experience for end users.
In other words, Nokia Networks provides solutions for both coverage and
capacity. This is a unified approach with services that deliver the most
optimized HetNet solutions with feature parity for all use cases, enabling
operators to serve the growing demand for mobile data while keeping
costs firmly under control.

Abbreviations
AAS
Active antenna system
AWS
Advanced wireless services
CoMP Coordinated multi-point
DAS
Distributed antenna system
eMBMS evolved multimedia broadcast
multicast service
HetNet Heterogeneous network
ICNIRP International Commission on
Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection
ISD
Inter-site distance

Page 19

LOS
M2M
MBB
MNO
MIMO
NLOS
RAT
RRM
SFN
SINR

Line of sight
Machine-to-machine
Mobile broadband
Mobile network operators
Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output
Non-line of sight
Radio access technology
Radio resource management
Single Frequency Network
Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio

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Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of their
respective owners.
Nokia
Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
P.O. Box 1
FI-02022
Finland
Visiting address:
Karaportti 3,
ESPOO,
Finland
Switchboard +358 71 400 4000
Product code C401-00978-WP-201404-1-EN
Nokia Solutions and Networks 2014

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