Voice over LTE (VoLTE) RAN Planning Course by MCNS

Customer Tailored

We can tailor the included topics,tech level,and duration of this course right to your team’s technical requirements and needs. - MCNS offers courses to companies, institutions, departments etc and not to individuals as per open courses.

Aimed At

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) RAN Planning is suitable for technical professionals, RAN operators, Radio planning engineers and Radio Network Optimizers who currently are or will be involved in VoLTE RAN planning procedures. It is also a good academic supplementary material for students, researchers and technical consultants to enlighten them on all VoLTE related aspects of planning, helping them to fill the gap between academic theory and practice.

Prerequisites: In order for the attendant to better understand the content of this topic, a prior knowledge on LTE RAN network as well as LTE VoLTE basics is recommended.

Course Review

This LTE(4G) training course will introduce audience into VoLTE Radio Network (RAN) Planning solution in a comprehensive way. VoLTE planning needs special consideration in order to provide necessary quality for a delay sensitive service with extra requirements on performance.

From that perspective this course emphasizes the VoLTE requirements and leads the audience step-by-step into the necessary planning considerations. VoLTE QoS and BLER is analyzed with necessary information for Admission Control and scheduling performance. Moreover Downlink and Uplink VoLTE coverage and capacity are discussed in details with all necessary information from cell edge users to overall cell capacity.

Mathematical analysis is extensively used to offer BLER and CQI reporting plots vs. SINR. Transport network (IP/Ethernet) capacity and QoS mapping is presented for the overall RAN to core planning perspective. Finally a good introduction to VoLTE implementation over 5G NSA architectures is discussed in a special session. The course material is supported with proper excel calculators for practical exercises

Course Benefits for individuals (Professionals)

Understand basic principles behind VoLTE planning.
Get insight for VoLTE RAN capacity and coverage aspects
Introduce engineers on VoLTE QoS and corresponding RAN planning procedures.
Learn how to plan LTE including VoLTE services, to fulfill specific requirements and network or customer demands.
Provide a good planning capacity estimation binding together the VoLTE RAN to EPC core transport network capacity requirements.
Understand how to implement VoLTE over NSA 5G networks

Course Benefits for your Organization

Equip organization engineers with the necessary knowledge of VoLTE planning procedures and QoS principles.
Develop skills to better plan for VoLTE over LTE existing networks
Better align with the expected industry Voice over IP and LTE direction
Take into account of necessary LTE network capacity and coverage considerations to smoothly incorporate VoLTE without any QoS disturbance.
Learn how to introduce VoLTE into existing LTE and migrate from LTE VoLTE to ENDC 5G NSA VoLTE
Keep ahead of competitors in preparing your network capacity for LTE Volte services.
Prepare for future network expansions and quality performance optimization

You will learn

The key points you will learn through this course

VoLTE Basics Overview

VoLTE Radio Planning

VoLTE RAN Planning

Course Outline

A short brief of your program details & schedule

Voice over IP in LTE

3GPP standards description
Voice service requirements
Voice over LTE (VoLTE) service description
VoLTE vs. OTT pros and cons
Simultaneous support for VoLTE and 4G Data
Voice over LTE architecture using IMS platform

VoLTE Quality of Service - QoS

VoLTE QoS in LTE RAN & EPC
VoLTE QoS in IMS
How VoLTE QoS is measured in RAN network?
VoLTE Quality and Mean Opinion Score (MOS)
VoLTE BLER analysis vs. SINR mathematical analysis
VoLTE BLER vs. SINR theoretical plots
VoLTE BLER vs. SINR trial tests
VoLTE GBR service
VoLTE Admission Control strategies
VoLTE Admission Control vs. non GBR (MBB) services
VoLTE QCI and scheduling priority

VoLTE capacity

VoLTE Requirements
VoLTE Codecs in 3GPP
VoLTE capacity vs. cell capacity
VoLTE capacity vs. packet size,
VoLTE capacity vs. number of PRBs
VoLTE capacity vs. number of users
VoLTE capacity summary
Exercises using excel calculator

VoLTE Radio planning

VoLTE DL/UL RAN parameters
VoLTE DL SINR target vs. QoS
VoLTE DL coverage planning
VoLTE DL cell edge user typical planning
VoLTE DL capacity planning
VoLTE DL capacity vs. cell capacity considerations
VoLTE CQI reporting vs. SINR
VoLTE CQI vs. voice codecs
VoLTE UL SINR target vs. QoS
VoLTE UL coverage planning
VoLTE UL cell edge user typical planning
VoLTE UL capacity planning
VoLTE UL capacity vs. cell capacity considerations
VoLTE UL TTI bundling performance enhancement
VoLTE DL overhead calculation
VoLTE UL overhead calculation
VoLTE mixed service traffic – Voice and MBB services
VoLTE overall mixed service cell throughput
VoLTE RAN delay estimation
VoLTE E2E delay estimation
Exercises using excel calculator

VoLTE RAN Mobility Consideration

VoLTE mobility in LTE
VoLTE mobility parameters
VoLTE SRVCC Handover to UTRAN
VoLTE SRVCC Handover to GERAN
VoLTE SRVCC Handover signaling flows
VoLTE coverage vs. SRVCC handover decision
SRVCC parameters and configuration

VoLTE Transport network planning

VoLTE cell throughput
VoLTE Transport Network QoS
VoLTE QoS over IP DIffServ mapping
VoLTE QoS over Ethernet Pbit mapping
VoLTE S1-U IP transport capacity

VoLTE implementation in 5G NSA

5G NSA architecture
5G NSA ENDC service overview
5G NSA with LTE MCG DRB
VoLTE implementation in ENDC
VoLTE parameters in NSA
ENDC mobility with VoLTE
Signaling trace log files analysis

Training Format

Instructor-Led Training

On-Site Classroom: 3 days

Web delivered (Virtual): 3 days

Excellent and descriptive course material (pdf file) will be provided

FAQ's

How does VoLTE service affect LTE sector capacity?

If one VoLTE user is granted in the sector with 10MHz channel bandwidth, it will consume for Volte calls with AMR-WB 23.85 kbps codec rate ONLY 42 kbps from the cell. As an example a sector with 10 MHz channel bandwidth comprises 50 Resource Blocks, hence the maximum cell capacity with 64QAM modulation scheme and no MIMO will be 12 x 14 x 6 x 50 x 1000 = 50.4 Mbps. Hence the capacity reduction will be ONLY 42/50400 x 100% = 0.08333%. Moreover under normal scenarios, VoLTE call service consumes 1 and in extreme conditions 2 RBs per packet, that is 1/50 x 100% = 2% of the total sector resources.

How many VoLTE users can be connected in LTE vs. sector licensed throughput capacity?

Let’s start out analysis considering the VoLTE throughput capacity against maximum sector throughput. Based on vendor BBU software licenses the operator could allow more than one users in the sector. Typical licenses for number of connected users is 50, 100, 200, 400, 500, 1000 or 2000 users. As an example If the user count is increased to 1000 simultaneous calls, then the capacity impact for Volte calls with AMR-WB 23.85 kbps codec rate will be around 42 kbps x 1000 = 42 Mbps, which will consume almost all sector capacity, that is 42/50.4 x 100% = 83.33%.

How many users can be connected in LTE vs. sector channel bandwidth capacity ?

Consider then the case of total 1000 vendor licensed VoLTE users in a sector of 10 MHz channel which, for the shake of simplicity, they are evenly distributed in time. Remember that a voice codec generates traffic every 20 ms period, so the number of users per TTI with even distribution will be 1000/20 = 50, so 50 users in TTI #0 will need to be rescheduled again in TTI #20, TTI #40, TTI #60 and so on. Next 50 users will be scheduled in TTI #1, TTI #21, TTI #41 and onwards. For the scenario of 1 Resource Blocks (RBs) per VoLTE call, then if there are 50 users per TTI the PDSCH overhead will be 50 RBs per TTI which fits into the total 50 PRBs available in the sector of 10MHz channel bandwidth. The drawback will be that there will be no resources available for other traffic i.e. MBB data services.

What is the PDCCH capacity perspective for VoLTE services?

The PDCCH uses CCEs to provide the scheduling information and according to 3GPP in LTE PDCCH can be aggregated to 1, 2, 4 or max 8 CCEs, depending on the radio conditions of the user with 1 CCE for very good SINR and 8 CCEs for cell edge users with low SINR. For each VoLTE user, a PDCCH grant will be given which will explicitly indicate the VoLTE user about the location in OFDM grid of a PDSCH schedule packet. To investigate the PDCCH capacity from VoLTE capacity perspective a reference to an example should be given. Consider then the case of total 200 vendor licensed VoLTE users in a sector of 10 MHz channel bandwidth which, for the shake of simplicity, they are evenly distributed in time. Remember that a voice codec generates traffic every 20 ms period, so 10 users in TTI #0 will need to be rescheduled again in TTI #20, TTI #40, TTI #60 and so on. So, next 10 users will be scheduled in TTI #1, TTI #21, TTI #41 and onwards. This means that if there are 200 users and the VoLTE TTI is 20 ms the number of users per TTI with even distribution will be 200/20 = 10, meaning that each TTI of 1 ms duration will have 10 VoLTE users. Consider further that VoLTE users are distributed in medium SINR conditions consuming four (04) CCEs (meaning 4 x 3 RBs each CCE = 12 Resource blocks) each VoLTE user. For the 10 MHz channel bandwidth, according to standards, PDCCH uses all available 3 OFDM symbols. Then the total number of PDCCH resources with 4 CCE aggregation level are approximately 3 OFDM symbols x (50/12) = 12 and will be almost all consumed by those 10 VoLTE users leaving nothing left for other data traffic i.e. MBB data services.

Voice over LTE (VoLTE) RAN Planning