Ericsson Zero Touch WCDMA is our new concept that brings the WCDMA investment well into the 2020s. It is all about delivering performance, efficiency and innovation to meet the 3G operator’s needs.
As I mention previously, today we are presenting 3 launches within WCDMA that will take us towards fulfilling the vision of MBB for Everyone.
Flow of Users – will radically enhance network performance. It has already been proven in the field.
Zero Touch WCDMA – will substantially lower operations cost through the simplification of network operations that it brings. It is built on the concept of Flow of Users – but we industrialize this with defining a Gold Standard.
MBB Expander – Ericsson unique innovations that will drastically lower and simplify how we can expand WCDMA/HSPA MBB coverage on all the hundred of thousands of 2G only sites that exists.
Today in this presentation, we focus on WCDMA. The reason is that WCDMA carries a main part of the MBB traffic as well as voice in the majority of all networks. Many operators have started to deploy LTE and a few have reached very good LTE coverage while others are just starting with highly populated areas. However, common to many operators is the need to leverage their existing WCDMA investments and turn them into an efficient revenue maker with the least effort so they can focus on LTE.
Yet, some operators are just launching WCDMA and they need a network that can carry MBB traffic and high quality voice also with the least effort. Really out-of-the-box world class performance.
This is the backdrop to why we today launch MBB for Everyone Everywhere. We expect MBB for Everyone Everywhere to enable operators to continue to build WCDMA coverage resulting in an area coverage that is 50% larger than the corresponding LTE area coverage in 2021. Also, we expect 80% of the world’s pop to have a WCDMA capable smartphone in 2021. So, in 2021, we expect the absolute majority of the world’s population, 90%, to be covered with WCDMA MBB.
Here are the three main challenges:
How to improve performance? Today a typical average Downlink performance is little over 2 Mbps. The best in class networks are approximately 70% better. We are working with best in class WCDMA operators and we know what it takes to get all networks to great performance.
How to increase efficiency? A typical SW release roll-out today takes 9 months on average. The best in class that we work with are doing it in less than 3 weeks. The network upgrade cost typically scales with the rollout time. Yearly network upgrades are vital to keep the network performance competitive and to allow more stable and efficient operation. Ericsson is committed to deliver best in class WCDMA products.
How to extend MBB coverage in a cost efficient and profitable way? - from today’s 65% pop coverage on average in the world, to over 90% in six years time? At the same time, this increase in coverage needs to be done in a cost efficient way in order to be profitable in these regions.
The Ericsson WCDMA Flow of Users solution takes an innovative approach to provide increased network performance and enhanced user experience.
Flow of Users sets up the network such that the consumers spends as little time as possible in the active state. This is good for several reasons, one is that a short active time is what all users want, upload and download quickly, and another is that it actually makes room for more users in the active state. Users can get into the active state without waiting and then get high downlink and uplink data rates once they are there. So, by making room for the users in the active state, we significantly improve the consumer experience and we actually also increase the network capacity since the network can handle more smartphone users and higher loads.
We set up the network for Flow of Users operation by using a carefully selected set of Ericsson unique features and network parameter settings. Actually, we have worked together with the leading operators on how to obtain best consumer experience and network capacity both in low load and in high load. The features typically increase downlink and uplink at the cell edge where the cellular network has its weakest point. We have taken the best from the best and distilled it into a package that everyone can benefit from. We have shown that Flow of Users gives really good performance and capacity in numerous commercial deployments.
We are proud to also show a recent example, Ericsson WCDMA Flow of Users in VIVO network in Sao Paulo, Brazil. With a population of 12 million people, São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. In the heart of the business district, smartphone penetration has reached 90 percent. With such a large number of users and the high density of applications used, Brazilian operator Vivo needed a solution that would improve network quality and enable it to provide a better experience to its many customers.
As VIVO RAN supplier, Ericsson extended its offering by providing Flow of Users to Vivo. In fact, this was part of VIVO ongoing strategy to improve network performance and consumer experience. As a result of the project, VIVO now has 3 times higher uplink throughput and a 30 percent reduction of dropped calls. The operator has also seen downlink doubled throughput in stationary tests and the circuit switched accessibility is now protected against packet switch services. This is another fundamental Flow of Users ability, protect the CS voice.
Flow of users is unique since it increases both each consumer’s experience and the number of consumers that can enjoy the benefits. Another important aspect of Flow of Users is that it secures this performance irrespective of network load. The recommended parameter settings and Ericsson unique features secure the performance even under extreme load. We have proven in live networks that the same settings and innovations have outstanding performance in low load.
Since Flow of Users produce excellent consumer performance both in low and high load, we can use static parameter settings uniformly deployed in all sites. This is a big advantage since it means that the operator doesn’t have to change the parameter settings more than once or twice per year. This drastically reduces the operator’s spending for tuning and adjustments to changing traffic. Also, the need for over-the-top SON tools is completely removed with ANR in the RAN that is part of Flow of Users.
An operator may standardize the static and uniform network parameter settings and Ericsson unique features in an operator specific Gold Standard. This means that each operator has its own Gold Standard which, in fact, is a competitive advantage for the operator. The Gold Standard makes it much easier to maintain and manage the network and its performance. To complement our unique RAN parameter settings, we have the important self-organizing features like ANR that we already mentioned and we also provide automatic mobility load balancing implemented in the RAN.
We call it Zero Touch since with an implemented Gold Standard, the operator only need to adjust the network settings once per year, typically when the network is upgraded. That is also the point in time when the Gold Standard is updated with new settings and then implement network-wide. Now, the network is set to go again and is virtually Zero Touch until next year’s upgrade.
Instead, we propose that they split up the year into one short period where the operator upgrades the network and a much longer period where they only maintain, re-dimension if necessary and, of course, expand MBB coverage. This longer period is what we call the Zero Touch period and this is where the OPEX savings come from. We do not expect that extensive tuning needs to take place here and now the network is in pure production mode. We think this is what all operators in the end want to achieve.
MBB expander enables reuse not only of antennas, there are three more parts of the existing GSM installation that can be re-used.
Reuse antennas: We already talked about.
Reuse Site Power: The previous GSM traffic is captured by either W900 or GSM 1800 and the operator can remove GSM 900 MHz TRX HW from the GSM RBS and use this energy saving to feed WCDMA Psi Coverage equipment.
Share Transport: A very common transmission solution is MINI LINK where it is most likely configured with E1 links for GSM RBS to enable TDM backhaul transmission. However, with WCDMA on the site we need to support IP to WCDMA and the MINI LINK can be SW configured to communicate both TDM to GSM and IP towards WCDMA. The result is that the that available transmission equipment can be reused provided that the SW is upgraded, and in some older configuration smaller upgrade of individual boards.
Reuse Microwave: When sites are transformed into MBB with WCDMA, we need to improve capacity in the existing microwave network. This is typically done by SW features and expanded capacity licenses so that the current radio equipment is reused and capacity is added with SW.
Ericsson Zero Touch WCDMA – doubling performance while lowering the cost
We have the methods for doubling consumer performance by Flow of Users, increase the operations efficiency by 35% by Zero Touch WCDMA and last reduce the TCO by 60% when rolling out MBB in already existing GSM sites with MBB Expander.
We believe these are among the most important additions to our portfolio for expanding WCDMA MBB and enabling a profitable growth that we have ever done within WCDMA.