Multi-vendor LTE Small Cells SON

Before we proceed further, in case the reader is not aware of Self-Organizing Networks (SON), please refer to my old tutorial here.

BT has recently published a white paper on multi-vendor LTE SON based on tests using LTE small cells provided by Node-H and Qucell. From the news posted on Node-H website:

The white paper focuses on the important issue of interference management between small cells. The paper is the result of a joint effort by British Telecom's Research and Innovation group and the technical teams of Qucell and Node-H. It addresses some of the major challenges of LTE HetNets and expands on the work of the 2016 ETSI Plugfest, which was run under the auspices of the Small Cell Forum. The authors’ conclusion is that interoperability between different vendors' SON implementations is achievable and so operators can look forward to robust, seamless and tailored solutions from multiple vendors.

The white paper shows that it is possible to operate mobile networks in which the individual LTE cells execute different ICIC algorithms. These findings challenge preconceptions about SON that are common in the mobile industry and make the case towards larger multi-vendor deployments of LTE small cells and call for bolder efforts in multi-vendor SON testing.

The ICIC algorithms used during these tests have been developed independently and without exchange of technical details between two separate HeNB vendors. Despite this, it has been shown that both algorithms can gracefully co-exist in the same LTE network. ICIC standardization efforts within 3GPP, along with the Small Cell Forum's Plugfest activities, have been key to this success.

The whitepaper embedded as follows and is available to download from here:

Related posts:

• Interoperability and Plugfests for Multi-vendor HetNet's
• X2: The necessity for Interoperability and Interference management in HetNets

Small Cells: Interoperability and Plugfests for Multi-vendor HetNet's

Our recent Small Cells SIG in Cambridge Wireless was another full house with the topic under discussion being Small Cells Deployment: Whats the hold-up. One of the areas being tackled by Small Cell Forum is to have plugfests to identify the issues that are causing hold ups and fix them. There were two interesting presentations with interesting take on this topic. The first was by Neeraj Gupta and Kreso Bilan of NEC who are both very active in this interoperability and plugfests. Their presentation which doesnt need any explanation is embedded below:

Multi Vendor HetNet: Interoperability, Plugfests from Zahid Ghadialy

The other presentation was by Nick Johnson of IP.Access who listed the problems and the source of the problems that gave rise to the interoperability issues and also gave a quick summary of what the plugfests achieved (see picture above). His slides are embedded below:

Small Cell Interoperability in the RAN from Zahid Ghadialy

The conclusion of the event was that there are no issues or reasons for these hold-ups. The operators have been over cautious and preferred to play a waiting game but are now getting confidence and starting to deploy small cells. Some minor issues in interoperability revolves around X2 interface and SON but they should get ironed out in the couple plugfests planned for next year (see NEC slides).