NOUA GENERAȚIE DE FEMTOCELULE ȘI SISTEMUL 5G

NEXT GENERATION OF FEMTOCELLS AND 5G SYSTEM

Dr. ing. Radu Dragomir, Ing. Cristina – Gabriela Gheorghe*

Cuvinte cheie. Sistem, comunicații, femtocelule, tehnologie, rețea, aplicații, servicii.

Rezumat. Scopul acestui articol este de a prezenta rolul femtocelulelor în cadrul sistemelor
de comunicații mobile de ultimă generație. În acest articol se realizează o comparație între
tehnologiile 4G și 5G. De asemenea, se precizează caracteristicile tehnologiei 5G și
aplicațiile care vor fi oferite. Noua generație de femtocelule are un rol foarte important în
prevederea de servicii multimedia avansate în diverse scenarii ce acoperă mediul de interior
aflat la domiciliu și mediul mobil de exterior precum și în asigurarea suportului multimedia
pentru serviciile de urgență și siguranță. Noua generație de femtocelule contribuie la
creșterea capacității totale a sistemului prin mărirea acoperirii rețelei.

Keywords. System, communications, femtocells, technology, network, applications, services.

Abstract: This paper is presenting the femtocells employment within the next generation
mobile communications systems. A 4G versus 5G technologies and applications short review
is accomplished in order to demonstrate the femtocells convenience within broadband
networks. The emerging femtocells are intended to support innovative multimedia services
and emergency and safety services for different coverage and mobility scenarios, for both
indoor and outdoor environment. The next generation femtocells are aiming to increase both
the total system capacity and the network coverage.

1. Introduction

The 4G wireless mobile all-IP technologies, including LTE-Advanced, WMAN-

Advanced (or WiMax 2), and HSPA+, are able to deliver 100 Mbps peak speed services for
high mobility communications and 1000 Mbps peak speed services for low mobility
communications [1]. The 4G services, to name IP telephony, gaming, mobile HDTV, video
conferencing, 3D TV and mobile web access, are enabled by wider bandwidths and higher bit
rates than that of the 3G predecessor.

The ramp-up to 5G network system is aiming to provide much higher speed (up to 1
Gbps) and capacity, lower latency, and lower cost per bit for IP-based services than today’s
wireless cellular systems do. The 5G system should grant any user, anytime and anywhere, an
infinite access to data.

From a user point of view, the 5G system will improve existing properties and develop
new qualities of the wireless systems [2]:

 Increased maximum throughput;

 Lower battery consumption;
 Better coverage and high data rates available at cell edge;

*
Institutul Naţional de Studii şi Cercetări pentru Comunicaţii – I.N.S.C.C.

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  Multiple concurrent data transfer paths;
 Around 1 Gbps data rate in mobility;
 Improved cognitive radio (CR)/software defined radio (SDR) security;
 Worldwide wireless web (WWWW), wireless based web applications that include
multimedia capability at faster speeds than 4G;
 More applications combined with artificial intelligence (AI);
 Low infrastructure deployment costs involving cheaper traffic fees.

Table 1 shows out a comparison between 4G technology and the future 5G technology
[3], [4].

Table 1. Comparison between 4G and 5G technologies

Technology/Features 4G 5G
Data bandwith 2Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s 1Gbit/s and higher
Standards Single unified standard Single unified standard
Technology Unified IP and seamless Unified IP and seamless
combination of broadband, combination of broadband,
LAN/WAN/PAN and WLAN LAN/WAN/PAN and WLAN
and WWWW
Services Provides dynamic information Provides dynamic
access, wearable devices information access, wearable
devices with AI capabilities
Applications Provides high definition Includes large phone
streaming and some additional memory, dialling speed and
features such as multimedia much more. We can connect
newspaper and ultrabroadband 5G cell phones with laptop to
Internet access have broadband Internet
access.
Bandwidth per frequency Up to 100 MHz Up to 28 GHz
channel
Detection or avoid of the Are used concatenated codes The high quality of service
error for error detection based on policy to avoid error
Multiple access CDMA CDMA and BDMA
Core network Internet Internet
Handoff Horizontal and vertical Horizontal and vertical

The mobile communication system must provide good quality services to a large
number of users and at lower cost. A big problem for wireless technologies is to increase
system capacity and quality with the use of a limited frequency spectrum. For solving this
problem are used multiple access techniques like FDMA, TDMA, CDMA and OFDM. On the
other hand the capacity of a mobile communication system depends on time and frequency.
But for 5G system the Korean research and development propose BDMA (Beam Division
Multiple Access) as radio interface. In this technique the base station allocates separate beam
to each mobile station for that it divides the antenna beam according to the location of mobile
stations. This technique significantly increases system capacity.

Among the main features of 5G system we can mention [1]:

 Provides high resolution and bidirectional huge bandwidth;

 Ensures high connectivity speed with less traffic;
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  Supports high uploading and downloading speed up to 1Gbit/s;
 Supports virtual private networks (VPN).

From the main applications of 5G system we can specify mobile telephony and mobile
broadband and media delivery. However there are some applications related to end to end
communication between devices, known as machine-type communication (MTC). 5G system
can provide wireless connectivity for a wide range of applications like smart homes, traffic
protection and control, critical infrastructure and industry applications and for very high speed
data delivery. We can say that 5G system represent a general solution for the necessities of
mobile communication around the year 2020.

On the other hand the 5G system will have exceptional applications with common
features as [5]:

 One can know weather, temperature and location etc. of each other when the
conversation is made;
 One can complete the work without going to the office;
 One can locate his/her child when she/he is missed;
 Students can attend the classes of any institute of the world without going there;
 Doctors can treat patients of other countries;
 The possibility to monitor any place of the world from anywhere.

5G will be a new technology that will offer all the possible applications, by using only
one universal device and interconnecting most of the existing communications infrastructure.
The 5G networks will be based on the development of user terminals. These terminals will be
able to access different wireless technologies at the same time.

The technology used for 5G network will have features like [5]:

 The files (even movies) can be downloaded within seconds;

 The pages will be uploaded almost instantly;
 We can play easily online games;
 The 5G devices will be less expensive than 3G and 4G devices;
 Easily support previous generations;
 No limitation as user demands;
 Possibility to support new services;
 The best Quality of Services (QoS);
 Subscribers will be able to store data in central storage;
 Remote PCs can be controlled by handsets;
 The security will be distributed on several layers;
 The high QoS for 5G technology will be based on policy to avoid error.

Concept of Femtocells

Femtocell is known as „home base station”. Furthermore femtocells are cellular

network access points that connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network
through residential DSL, cable broadband connections, optical fibres or wireless last-mile
technologies. The femtocell unit includes the functionality of a typical base station, like
Node-B in UMTS. As we can see in figure 2, a femtocell unit looks like a Wi-Fi access point
but it contains Radio Network Controller (RNC) and all the core network elements [6].

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 Figure 2. A typicall femtocell and macrocell scenario [6]

A femtocell unit does not require a cellular core network but requires only a data
connection to Internet (through DSL, cable etc.) and through this is connected to the mobile
operator’s core network. Ussually femtocells cover a smaller area (only one house) and have
fewer users than picolless. Furthermore they have to be cheap and are limited in output power
and capacity (between 10 and 20dBm and for 3 – 5 users). The figure 3 illustrates the way in
which the cell sizes evolved over time. We can see that the cell sizes was reduced to meet the
networks requirements for which de capacity demand is increasingly higher.

Figure 3. The evolution of cell sizes [6]

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 Among the femtocells advantages we can mention:

 Good coverage for subscribers;

 Better voice quality and higher data rates for subscriber;
 Increase of the indoor coverage for operators;
 The femtocells represent a cheap solution for operators (because femtocells are
paid by the customers)

Table 2 presents a comparison between picocells and femtocells. It can be seen that
femtocells are small picocells for which the properties have been simplified and thus the cost
is reduced and the installation is simplified [6].

Table 2. Comparison between picocells and femtocells [6]

Parameter Picocells Femtocells

Installation By the operator By the user
Capacity 10-50 users 3-5 users
Covering range <100m <30m
Price Cheap Very cheap

It can be said that femtocells are very important for the following reasons:

 It can ensure indoor coverage for places where macrocells can not achieved this
coverage;
 The addition of a femtocells layer significantly improves the total network
capacity by reusing radio spectrum indoors (assume that a good isolation can be
achieved);
 Femtocells provide an ideal solution for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC);
 Femtocells play a significant role in mobile broadband and ubiquitous
communications.

The architecture of 5G network is heterogeneous with macrocells, microcells,

femtocells and relays. Because there are high-mobility users like users in vehicles and high-
speed trains it can considered the mobile femtocell concept which combines the concepts of
mobile relay and femtocell. These mobile femtocells are located inside vehicles to
communicate with users within the vehicle and large antenna equipments are located outside
the vehicle for comunications with outdoor base stations (BS). An mobile femtocell and its
associated users can be considered as a single unit to the BS. Figure 4 illustrates a 5G
heterogeneous cellular architecture. An mobile femtocell represents a small cell that can move
around and dynamically change its connection to a core network of the operator. The mobile
femtocells using are very important because [7]:

 It can improve the spectral efficiency of the network;

 It can contribute to signalling overhead reduction of the network (the mobile
femtocell can achieve a handover for all its associated users, which can reduce the
handover activities for users within the mobile femtocell);
 It can be reduced the energy consumption of users inside a mobile femtocell (due
to relatively shorter communication range and low signalling overhead).

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 For 5G architecture design we can separate outdoor and indoor scenarious such that
the penetration loss through building walls are somehow avoided. This may be associated
with the use of distributed antenna system (DAS) and of massive multiple input, multiple
output (MIMO) technology.

A large portion of the radio spectrum is underutilized in the most of the time and this
is the reason for using cognitiv radio technique. This techique is one way to improve the
utilization of the congested radio frequency (RF) spectrum. In CR networks, a secondary
system can share spectrum bands with the licensed primary system, on an interference free
basis or on an interference tolerant basis [7].

Figure 4. A 5G heterogeneous cellular architecture [7]

One of the main purposes of 5G networks is to enable an important capacity increase

with efficient utilization of all possible resources. Based on Shannon theory, the total system
capacity (expressed through Csum) can be calculated with the following formula [7]:

Csum ≈∑ ∑ log 1

where:
represents the bandwidth of the ith channel,

represents the signal power of the ith channel,

is the noise power.

We can increase Csum through increasing:

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  The network coverage (through heterogeneous networks with macrocells,
microcells, picocells, relays, mobile femtocells etc.);
 The number of subchannels (through masive MIMO, spatial modulation,
cooperative MIMO, DAS etc);
 The bandwidth (through CR networks, millimeters-wave communications
(30-300 GHz), visible light communications (VLC) (400-490 THz) etc);
 The signal power (through energy-efficient or green communications).

Besides this, the next generation of femtocells has a very important role in provision
of advanced multimedia services in different scenarious covering the indoor home
environment and outdoor mobile environment, as well as in providing multimedia support for
emergency and safety services [8].

Conclusions

5G represents the next step in evolution of mobile communication system after 4G

and is designed to ensure high speed, high capacity, low cost per bit and IP based services.
Among the main features of 5G system we can mention: provides high resolution and
bidirectional huge bandwidth, ensures high connectivity speed with less traffic, and supports
high uploading and downloading speed up to 1Gbit/s.
Femtocell is known as „home base station”. Furthermore femtocells are cellular
network access points that connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operator’s network
through residential DSL, cable broadband connections, optical fibres or wireless last-mile
technologies.
The architecture of 5G network is heterogeneous with macrocells, microcells,
femtocells and relays. The mobile femtocell concept combines the concepts of mobile relay
and femtocell. These mobile femtocells are located inside vehicles to communicate with users
within the vehicle and large antenna equipments are located outside the vehicle for
comunications with outdoor BSs. An mobile femtocell and its associated users can be
considered as a single unit to the BS. An mobile femtocell represents a small cell that can
move around and dynamically change its connection to a core network of the operator. The
mobile femtocells using are very important because:

 It can improve the spectral efficiency of the network;

 It can contribute to signalling overhead reduction of the network (the mobile
femtocell can achieve a handover for all its associated users, which can reduce the
handover activities for users within the mobile femtocell);
 It can be reduced the energy consumption of users inside a mobile femtocell (due
to relatively shorter communication range and low signalling overhead).

In general, it can be said that femtocells are very important for the following reasons:

 It can ensure indoor coverage for places where macrocells can not achieved this
coverage;
 The addition of a femtocells layer significantly improves the total network
capacity by reusing radio spectrum indoors;
 Femtocells provide an ideal solution for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC);
 Femtocells play a significant role in mobile broadband and ubiquitous
communications.

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 Acronyms used in paper

Acronym Signification

3G 3rd Generation
4G 4th Generation
5G 5th Generation
6G 6th Generation
7G 7th Generation
AI Artificial Intelligence
BDMA Beam Division Multiple Access
BS Base Station
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access
CR Cognitive Radio
DAS Distributed Antenna System
DSL Digital Subscriber Line
FDMA Frequency Division Multiple Access
FMC Fixed Mobile Convergence
HSPA High Speed Packet Access
IP Internet Protocol
LAN Local Area Network
LOS Ligne Of Sight
LTE Long Term Evolution
MIMO Multiple Input, Multiple Output
MTC Machine-Type Communication
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
PAN Personal Area Network
PC Personal Computer
QoS Quality of Service
RF Radio Frequency
RNC Radio Network Controller
SDR Software Defined Radio
TDMA Time Division Multiple Access
UMTS Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
VLC Visible Light Communications
VPN Virtual Private Network
WAN Wide Area Network
Wi-Fi Wireless Fidelity
WiMax Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
WMAN Wireless Metropolitan Area Network
WWWW WorldWide Wireless Web

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