High Speed Downlink

Packet Access
 Introduction
Described in 3GPP Release 5 specifications

Enhances peak download data rate from 384 kbps up to a theoretical maximum
downloading peak rate of 14.4 Mbps (10,7 Mbps with coding rate)
Aimed for interactive and background services but streaming is also considered

HSDPA brings benefits for both operators and end-users

Higher data rates for end-users

Larger and cost efficient capacity in the radio network
Opportunity to deliver services - existing ones and new ones - at a lower cost of bit

Requires investments to R99/R4 UMTS (WCDMA) network

Affects radio network HW and SW, core network SW, and transmission network HW
Can be deployed using small upgrades, not required for all BSs, RNCs
Does not require a completely new network structure
Protecting the current investments made to the network
5 Key HSDPA Mechanisms
 Short Transmission Time Interval (TTI) 2 MS

Shorter TTI is to reduce the air-interface delay by reducing the RTT (Round
Trip Times)
Less probability of an error due to the change of the channel conditions
More efficient when packet retransmission is necessary
Decreased buffer size
2 MS TTI improves the interaction with TCP/IP
Short TTI is also necessary to benefit from other functionalities such as fast
link adaptation, fast scheduling and fast hybrid ARQ. These are described
further in the document.
 High Speed Downlink Shared Channel HS-DSCH
Certain amount of radio resources of a cell (code space and power) is seen
as a common resource that is dynamically shared between users, primarily
in the time domain
HSDPA can use the remaining output power not used by R99 DCHs
 Maximum 15 channelization codes with Spreading Factor (SF)= 16 can be
used for this new DL channel
Sharing codes in the code domain, in other words, code multiplexing, is also
possible by employing different subsets of the complete channelization code
set for different users, as shown below.
 Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)
In R99, power control allocates a proportionally larger part of the total
available cell power to communication links with bad channel conditions
At the same time, radio resources are more efficiently utilized when they are
allocated to communication links with good channel conditions
Thus, for services that do not require a specific data rate, such as many
best-effort services, adjusting the data rate, while keeping the transmission
power constant, can also control the energy per information bit
There is no more power control in HSDPA
The High Speed Downlink Shared Channel is transmitted at a constant
power while the modulation, the coding and the number of codes are
changed to adapt to the variations of radio conditions. Difference between
R99 and HSDPA link adaptation is shown below:
 By taking the best of the radio spectrum in a real-time process, the
adaptive modulation and coding enables bursty traffic, hence higher
average throughput
This is the use of the 16 QAM modulation and the use of five SF16 codes
that enable the 3.6 Mbps of throughput, which is the capability of a Category
6 Mobile
 Data Rate can be adjusted by:

- By adjusting the channel-coding rate. The use of channel coding with higher
coding rate allows for higher data rates at the expense of less robustness to
channel impairments

- By adjusting the modulation scheme. The use of higher-order modulation,

such as 16QAM, allows for more bits per modulation symbol and thus for
higher data rates, again, at the expense of less robustness to channel
impairments. This is discussed in the next slide
 Higher Order Modulation
WCDMA release 99 uses QPSK data modulation for downlink transmission.
To support higher data rates, higher-order data modulation, 16QAM, can be
used
Compared to QPSK modulation, higher-order modulation is more bandwidth
efficient, i.e. it can carry more bits per Hertz
HS-DSCH supports both QPSK and 16QAM
16QAM is optional in Node B
16QAM allows for twice the peak data rate compared to QPSK
16QAM may be used as a complement to QPSK
 Fast Hybrid ARQ with Soft Combining
In a conventional ARQ scheme, received data blocks that cannot be
correctly decoded are discarded and retransmitted data blocks are
separately decoded
In case of hybrid ARQ with soft combining, received data blocks that cannot
be correctly decoded are not discarded. Instead the corresponding received
signal is buffered and soft combined with later received retransmissions of
the same set of information bits. Decoding is then applied to the combined
signal
The use of hybrid ARQ with soft combining increases the probability for
correct decoding of retransmissions, compared to conventional ARQ
The slide below illustrates that HSDPA enables not only
a higher download speed, but also more robust
behavior of the TCP regarding bad radio conditions
 New HS-DSCH requires a new radio interface layer 2 functionality
New functionality is placed in the functional entity of the MAC layer, called
MAC-hs.
MAC-hs is located in the RBS to reduce the retransmission delay for hybrid
ARQ and allow as up-to-date channel-quality estimates as possible for the
link adaptation and channel-dependent scheduling (every TTI, 2MS)
 Dynamic Power Allocation
After serving common and dedicated channels, it is possible to assign the
remaining cell power to the HSDSCH, resulting in more efficient use of cell
power
The HS-DSCH does not employ fast power control to compensate for
channel variations. Instead, to maximize user throughput in the downlink, it
adjusts the data rate to match the instantaneous radio conditions and the
available transmission power in the RBS
Figure below illustrates power allocation with and without HSDPA. Since
the TTI for the HS-DSCH is relatively short (2 ms), and scheduling and link
adaptation decisions are taken for each TTI, the link-adaptation function can
track rapid variations in the channel
 HSDPA Handover
Techniques such as AMC, H-ARQ, Fast Scheduling require a constant one-
to-one connection between the HSDPA mobile terminal and the Node B
Hard Handover, in which the destination Node B is selected each time the
cell changes, is essential in addition to Soft Handover adopted by the
conventional WCDMA system
The HSDPA handover procedure is as follows:

- The quality level of the Common Pilot Channel (CPICH) sent at fixed power
from a cell in the vicinity is measured by the user equipment (UE)
- If a CPICH has a quality level exceeding a fixed threshold (reported by the
network as a parameter) in relation to the source cell CPICH, the relavant
cell is reported to the RNC
- The RNC sets up the handover destination cell based on the report sent by
the UE and issues a handover notification to the UE
- The UE disconnects from the source cell and connects to the handover
destination cell
This is shown in the following figures for both Intra-Node B as well as Inter-
Node B handovers
The UE capabilities are standardized in 3GPP in terms of category,
which depends on the number of channelization codes, the
minimum inter-TTI interval and the support of the 16 QAM
Modulation, described in the following table: