ben parker- verizon wireless- backhaul strategy

Backhaul Strategy Developing a Backhaul Strategy for 4G and Beyond

Ben Parker

Confidential and proprietary material for authorized Verizon Wireless personnel only. Use, disclosure or distribution of this material is not permitted to any unauthorized persons or third parties except by written agreement.

1

What has happened

• The web is the medium

– The web has become core to modern society

• Internet as a Platform

– There is an irreversible shift of the data moving to the cloud

• IP

– No longer are there disparate networks for each application


– No longer are there disparate networks for each application

• Fiber

– EBH, 4G

– FTTH

– The death of the PSTN is looming

– Bandwidth consumption is growing as fast as it can be delivered

Mobile Data Traffic

• The volume of traffic is growing. – 3G is driving double-digit growth Quarterly

– 6X Growth from 2010 to 2016

• QoS– As we move toward 4G and LTE, IP voice, IP video and data grow each of which

may be real time (with low delay and latency demands) and each with different quality of service requirements.


• The Traffic is Changing. – DROID!

– iPhone

– Massive metamorphoses from Feature Phones and Laptops to Smartphones

• The traffic is becoming more critical– Mobile only Homes drive dramatic changes in backhaul traffic

• ARPU is Flat

– Traffic is growing with dramatic speed

– Data plans are generally quite low

Drivers for Change

• Video

– IP Video

– CDNs

• Mobile

– Wireless Web

– Mobile Only Homes


• Connected Devices

– Content Portability

– Web enabled TV

– Most electronic devices will be connected to the Internet

• Software

– Google, Apple, MS,HP and others are gaining influence in the telecom market

– HTML5 is emerging as the way to deliver ubiquitous multi-screen applications

New Consumers

• All digital kids will be adults

– Different perspective on customer service

– On-Demand everything

– Open

• They will demand ubiquitous capabilities across all end-points

• They will vote with money


• They will vote with money

– Different perspectives on privacy

• No concerns about personal information in the cloud

• Eastern Culture will have a much greater influence

– The rapid development of the BRIC will influence content and delivery

Challenges for Verizon

• >40,000 Cell Sites

• 80 Mbps Peak Sector Throughput

• ~250 Cell Sites per MTSO/MSC

Traffic

Gap between traffic Gap between traffic

and revenue

increases

Gap between traffic Gap between traffic and revenue

increases

Traffic

Gap between traffic Gap between traffic

and revenue

increases

Gap between traffic Gap between traffic and revenue

increases


Revenues

Data Dominant

Revenues

Data DominantVoice Dominant

Smartphones

• Massive migration from feature phones to Smartphones– Feature phones often never have a Data Connection

– Smartphones are “always on”

– 300% to 500% Growth of Smartphone Subscribers

• Many are existing customers transitioning to Smartphones


– All LTE devices will be Smartphones or Embedded or USB data devices

Drivers

• 4G and Beyond– The need for additional link capacity continues to drive mobile backhaul

deployments.

• Cost – Cost per bit transported remains a critical component of the mobile backhaul

CapEx and OpEx models.

– Ethernet and optical transport suppliers have to varying degrees provided significant enhancements to their OAM capabilities, remote management tools,


significant enhancements to their OAM capabilities, remote management tools, and the ability to prioritize traffic on a per-service/per-subscriber level.

– Standardized features such as OAM are being built to adhere to IEEE and ITU standards.

• Most vendors are also achieving various MEF certifications for Ethernet service delivery, further promoting the focus on interoperability.

• Growth & Revenue

– As traffic growth continues to ramp, we are faced with the challenge of increasing their share of the revenue stream beyond that of just providing connectivity.

– Service Providers are turning to new business models not only to facilitate the launch of new innovative services, but also to participate actively and share in these lucrative new revenue opportunities.

Backhaul Objectives

• Transition from TDM to packet-based backhaul. – TDM is a largely inefficient use of expensive bandwidth. – Voice traffic on a TDM network utilizes, at best, 40 percent of the bandwidth. – Data utilization is no better.

• Data traffic will burst up to the full capacity of the line and disappear the next millisecond, but your TDM channel is nailed up for the duration of the session.

– Packet networks are much more efficient at filling the channel, which brings us to the next strategy.

• Unify the voice and data networks’ mobile networks, particularly for


• Unify the voice and data networks’ mobile networks, particularly for backhaul.

– Service providers do not want to jeopardize their voice revenue. – Ideally they would cap their TDM voice network and put all new customers as

well as all data traffic on the IP network. – The economics of provisioning, managing and maintaining separate networks do

not add up in the 2010 to 2011 network. – Develop an architecture to implement a backhaul that makes efficient use of the

bandwidth and doesn’t just maintain, but improves, the level of service to their voice customers.

Simplify with Ethernet

• Ethernet is cheap and ubiquitous– With the emerging Carrier Ethernet transport standards of PBB-TE and MPLS-

TP, – Service providers will finally be able to achieve per-flow end-to-end monitoring

and management, sub-50ms recoverability and scalability—the attributes identified by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) for carrier-grade Ethernet.

• The economics of using Ethernet in the backhaul are compelling as the backhaul requirements of the MNOs grow to 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and beyond


beyond

Backhaul Architecture

MSPP

ECP

FPS

1x RNC

MSC

NxT1 or Ethernet

CDMA

1x DO

CSR

Cell Site LEC,Cable Company

Microwave

MSC Site


OAM VLANCPE VLANDO VLAN1x VLANS1-U VLANS1-AP VLANCPE VLAN

10/100/1000RNC

DO RNC

MME

SGW

Highest QoSHigh QoSLower QoS

EVCVoice & Delay-Sensitive TrafficControl and SignalingBest Effort Data

LTE

eNB

IP Camera

10/100 Ethernet Backhaul

Backhaul Engineering Guidelines

Demographic Guidance

Minimum Performance

Goal

Large Cities PIR (Mbps) 300-500

CIR (Mbps) 100

PDR 99.99%

Medium Cities PIR (Mbps) 300-500

CIR (Mbps) 100

PDR 99.99%


PIR = Peak Information Rate – Future Target Peak RateCIR = Committed Information RatePDR = End-to-End Packet Delivery Rate

PDR 99.99%

Small Cities PIR (Mbps) 100-300

CIR (Mbps) 30

PDR 99.99

Rural Cities PIR (Mbps) 100-300

Highways and Freeways not Addressed Above CIR (Mbps) 30

PDR 99.99%

The Backhaul Evolution

• Transition to a combination of fiber- and microwave-based backhaul.

• Fiber First!– Key to future success is designing their backhaul network today to meet

the gathering storm of data traffic. – Implement fiber where the return on investment is obvious

• Fiber is the only media with, for all practical purposes, no limitation in speed or distance.


or distance.

– It is the only technology that will virtually guarantee that your backhaul network is future-proof.

– If you don’t need 50 to 300 Mbps of capacity and don’t own your own facilities, microwave may be less expensive.

– Implement microwave where speed of deployment and Capital Costs are critical, and where the growth trajectory of the traffic can be satisfied by microwave for at least 36 months.

The End of Alloys

• Transition away from copper, both T1s and twisted pair. – The copper plant is aging. – It is already responsible for the majority of network outages. – It will not keep pace with traffic demands. – It will not meet the performance goals of 4G/LTE. – Copper will become less and less economically viable as we move toward 2012.

• Although, we cant throw the baby out with the bath water – There is always a speed/distance trade-off with DSL. If you are within 500 meters


– There is always a speed/distance trade-off with DSL. If you are within 500 meters of fiber plant, you have it made.

– It is possible to bond DSL connections to speeds up to 500 Mbps.– However, if you are not so fortunate to have a Fiber Hub nearby your choices are

more limited. – The second issue is a regulatory one, DSL connections are being sold as end-

user connections when, used for backhaul, their function is really wholesale connectivity, and therefore subject to different unbundling regulations.

• The facilities-based providers are arguing this issue with their regulatory boards. If they succeed in their arguments, xDSL as a leased backhaul strategy will no longer be a bargain

Microwave

• Wireless microwave backhaul has a number of characteristics to recommend it, provided the spectrum is available:

– It is rapid to install – Reasonable CapEx– It is flexible—able to be installed virtually anywhere.

• Because of these attributes, it is the backhaul technology of choice for the high percentage of carriers that do not own their facilities.

• Microwave accounts for almost 70 percent of all backhaul installations today. – The bulk of the cost of microwave backhaul (between 30 percent and 40 percent) can be


– The bulk of the cost of microwave backhaul (between 30 percent and 40 percent) can be attributed to the antenna lease.

– Spectrum leases can also account for up to 30 percent of total costs. • Microwave, with a channel size up to 50 MHz, has a practical limitation, in terms of data rate, of 200

Mbps.

– With some performance tuning (e.g. combining multiple radios and channel sharing with high order interference cancellation) microwave can approach GigE speeds.

– In addition, the two millimeter “e-bands”—71 to 76 GHz and 81 to 86 GHz—offer a higher-speed wireless backhaul option.

• E-band channel sizes are 100 times greater than the largest of the microwave bands, data rates of 1 Gbps and beyond for point-to-point connections can be achieved.

• However, the e-band is very sensitive to rain fade, again limiting the practical deployment to one to two miles, particularly for 4G/LTE implementations that need to achieve five nines of availability.

Cost Based Decision

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

70,000

80,000

$

MW 1+0

MW 1+1

FTTCS - Option A

FTTCS - Option B

FTTCS - Option C


-

10,000

20 40 120 140 150

Mbps

•• Very tactical decision making process to select Microwave over FiberVery tactical decision making process to select Microwave over Fiber•• Cost of FTTCSCost of FTTCS•• Path AvailabilityPath Availability•• Tower LoadingTower Loading

•• Microwave capital costs are declining rapidlyMicrowave capital costs are declining rapidly•• Capital costs for Construction of Fiber compared to Microwave should drive basic GoCapital costs for Construction of Fiber compared to Microwave should drive basic Go--No/GoNo/Go•• MRC for Tower Lease should not be excessively more expensive that FiberMRC for Tower Lease should not be excessively more expensive that Fiber

Packet Microwave

• Ethernet in the wireless backhaul network is growing rapidly, with more than 65 percent of new microwave implementations supporting Ethernet.

• In addition to using Ethernet over microwave to support data traffic, Ethernet can be used to aggregate TDM and Ethernet transmissions onto a packet microwave backhaul.

• Ethernet, in the form or pseudowires or eventually MPLS-TP and PBB-TE, can be the aggregation technology connecting the legacy TDM RAN technologies with ngRAN with greater efficiency than the separate TDM and


technologies with ngRAN with greater efficiency than the separate TDM and packet streams

Adaptive Modulation

– New Ethernet radios support Adaptive Modulation• Takes advantage of available radio bandwidth during fade events

• Increasing overall throughput but guaranteeing committed services

– Key Aspects in Evaluating Microwave Technologies• Error free modulation switches (with fading up to 100 dB/sec) with any type of

services (voice, PseudoWire, Ethernet)

• Restoration time from 4QAM to 256QAM less than 2 ms


256 QAM64/32/16 QAM

256 QAM

Voice -Guaranteed Priority 1

Ethernet Priority 4

Not committed traffic Priority 3

Rreal time traffic Priority 2


Thank you

ben parker- verizon wireless- backhaul strategy

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