HSDPA vs HSUPA

HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) and HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) are 3GPP
specifications published to provide recommendations for downlink and uplink of the mobile broadband
services. Networks that support both HSDPA and HSUPA are called as HSPA or HSPA+ networks. Both
specifications introduced enhancements to the UTRAN (UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network) by
introducing new channels and modulation methods, so that, more efficient and high speed
data communication can be achieved in the air interface.

HSDPA

HSDPA was introduced in year 2002 in 3GPP release 5. The key feature of HSDPA is the concept of AM
(Amplitude Modulation), where the modulation format (QPSK or 16-QAM) and effective code rate are changed
by the network according to system load and channel conditions. HSDPA was developed to support up to 14.4
Mbps in a single cell per user. Introduction of new transport channel known as HS-DSCH (High Speed-
Downlink Shared Channel), uplink control channel and downlink control channel are the major enhancements
to UTRAN as per the HSDPA standard. HSDPA selects coding rate and modulation method based on the
channel conditions reported by user equipment and Node-B, which is also known as AMC (Adaptive
Modulation and Coding) scheme. Other than the QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) used by WCDMA
networks, HSDPA supports 16QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) for data transmission under good
channel conditions.

HSUPA

HSUPA was introduced with the 3GPP release 6 in year 2004, where Enhanced Dedicated Channel (E-DCH)
is used to improve the uplink of the radio interface. Maximum theoretical uplink data rate that can be
supported by a single cell as per the HSUPA specification is 5.76Mbps. HSUPA relies on QPSK modulation
scheme, which is already specified for WCDMA. It also uses HARQ with incremental redundancy to make
retransmissions more effective. HSUPA uses uplink scheduler to control the transmit power to the individual E-
DCH users to mitigate the power overload at Node-B. HSUPA also allows self-initiated transmission mode that
is called as non-scheduled transmission from UE to support services such as VoIP that need reduced
Transmission Time Interval (TTI) and constant bandwidth. E-DCH support both 2ms and 10ms TTI.
Introduction of E-DCH in HSUPA standard introduced new five physical layer channels.

What is the difference between HSDPA and HSUPA?

Both HSDPA and HSUPA introduced new functions to the 3G radio access network, which was also known as
UTRAN. Some vendors supported the upgrade of WCDMA network into a HSDPA or HSUPA network by
software upgrade to the Node-B and to the RNC, while some vendor implementations required hardware
changes as well. Both HSDPA and HSUPA use Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ) protocol with
incremental redundancy to handle re-transmission, and to handle error free data transfer over the air
interface.
HSDPA enhances the Downlink of the radio channel, while HSUPA enhances the uplink of the radio channel.
HSUPA does not use 16QAM modulation and ARQ protocol for uplink which, is used by HSDPA for downlink.
TTI for HSDPA is 2ms in other words re-transmissions as well as changes in modulation method and coding
rate will take place every 2ms for HSDPA, whereas with HSUPA TTI is 10ms, also with the option of setting it
as 2ms. Unlike HSDPA, HSUPA does not implement AMC. Goal of packet scheduling is completely different
between HSDPA and HSUPA. In HSDPA aim of scheduler is to allocate HS-DSCH resources such as time
slots and codes between multiple users, while with HSUPA aim of scheduler is to control the overloading of
transmit power at Node-B.
Both HSDPA and HSUPA are 3GPP releases that aimed to enhance the downlink and uplink of the radio
interface in mobile networks. Even though HSDPA and HSUPA aim at enhancing the opposite sides of the
radio link, user experience of speed is inter-dependent on the both links due to request and
response behaviour of data communication.
Difference between HSPA and HSPA+

HSPA is the combination of high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) and high-speed uplink packet
access (HSUPA) protocols. It downloads at a peak data rate of 14 megabits per second (Mbps) and
uploads at 5.8 Mbps. Specifically, HSPA optimizes the use of the WCDMA radio bandwidth by increasing
the transmission rate, sharing channel transmission, shortening the time between transmission intervals,
and improving the modulation and amplitude of the signal.
The plus in HSPA+ signifies an even faster and more efficient use of the spectrum. HSPA+ provides
peak download rates of up to 56 Mbps and peak uploads of 22 Mbps. The most significant advance
in HSPA+ is that it can operate on an all-Internet protocol (IP) architecture the evolutionary goal of
mobile telephony. An IP architecture makes more direct connections within the broadband network,
helping to lower the cost of moving a megabyte of data and reduce latency the delays in information
processing typically unnoticeable to humans. The result is an always-on connection and improved
response times.
HSPA and HSPA+ technology is based on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), used
by 80 percent of carriers worldwide. Network providers are upgrading to HSPAand HSPA+, and
continuing to improve the speed and capacity of high-speed data transmissions. Handset makers are
keeping pace by introducing a broad range of HSPA andHSPA+ compatible cell phones and smart
phones.

Difference between HSPA+ and LTE

HSPA+ and LTE are both mobile broadband technologies for high speed access. LTE is the latest technology
currenly being installed in many countries for high speed mobile broadband access. In some countries LTE
has been commercially launched. World largest carriers like AT&T (ATT), Verizon have already started
migrating towards LTE. WiMAX is also another technology defined under 4G but comparatively most of the big
carriers are moving towards LTE. In the US sprint uses WiMAX for the high speed access and providing
services equivalent to LTE. Another US carrier T-Mobile is upgrading their network from HSPA+21Mbps to
HSPA+42Mbps.
HSPA+(Evolved High Speed Packet Access)
This is the release 7 ,8 and above by 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project) which sets standards for
mobile broadband networks. This allows data rates at 84Mbps downlink and 22Mbps uplink with the use of
MIMO (Multiple Inputs and Multiple Outputs) techniques and higher order digital modulation schemes like
64QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation).
In HSPA+ (Release 7) the capacity is doubled as that of HSPA and more than doubles the capacity of voice as
WCDMA. In Release 8 HSPA introduces multicarrier concept and two 5MHz carriers are combined together to
double the data rates. With these changes HSPA+ is capable of providing high peak rates, low latency periods
and higher talk times.
In Release 7 the data rates of downlink is 28Mbps and in R8 it is extended to 42Mbps theoretically. Later
release like R9 is considering the usage of MIMO technique which is capable of doubling data rates and it is
around 84Mbps. The MIMO technique being used inR7 supports 22 MIMO in which 2 transmit antennas at
nodeB and two receivers at the mobile terminal in which two parallel data streams are sent orthogonally so
the data rate is doubled without increasing the bandwidth of the system .
Due to high data rates provided by HSPA+ it is possible to use it as a broadband internet
access. Applications like VoIP, low latency internet games, streaming, video calling, multicast and many more
are capable through HSPA+ enabled mobile devices.
HSPA+ also known as Internet HSPA due to its optional architecture also known as All-IP architecture in which
the entire base stations are connected to all IP based back bone. It is significant that HSPA+ is backward
compatible with 3GPP release 5 and 6 with easy upgrading capability from HSPA in to HSPA+.
LTE (Long Term Evolution)
LTE is one of the technologies accepted by ITU as 4G technologies which are capable of meeting standards
specified by ITU for 4G networks. 4G networks are designed so as to maximize the capacity and speeds of
radio networks.
The data rates specified for LTE is 100Mbps downlink and 50Mbps uplink with low latency of less than 10ms
which satisfies the ITU specifications for 4G networks as well.
The bandwidths used for LTE is varying from 1.4MHz to 20 MHz and supports FDD (Frequency Division
Multiplexing) and TDD (Time Division Multiplexing).
Following radio access technologies are used in LTE networks while achieving that much higher data rates,
MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output), OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) and SC-
FDMA (Single Carrier FDMA). SC FDMA is similar to OFDMA except that it uses some additional DFT
processing and currently this is recommended by the 3GPP to be used as the
uplink communication methodology due to transmission power efficiency and cost concerning of mobile
equipments.
The following frequency bands are to be utilized in the LTE networks in various places in the world 700 and
1900 MHz in North America, 900, 1800, 2600 MHz in Europe and 1800 and 2600 MHz in Asia and 1800 MHz
in Australia.

HSDPA (High Speed downlink packet access) allows for higher speeds than
standard UTMS (WCDMA) when downloading. All 3G-capable iPhones/iPads have
HSDPA.
HSUPA (High Speed uplink packet access) allows for higher speed uploads than
UTMS. So far, only the iPhone 4 has HSUPA. It doesn't help downloading and
wouldn't really affect download speed testing.
HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA) is an extension of HSUPA and HSDPA to allow even
higher speeds (current phones with HSPA+ only get up to 21Mbps, but there's
plans to get it up to 84Mbps down/22Mbps up). The most recent devices with
HSPA+ are T-Mobile's '4G' handsets and at&t's more recent laptop connect
devices.

As far as why the iPhone4 gets better speeds: it probably is due to the hardware
differences. Apple put in a new baseband chip in the iPhone 4, and it may have a
better ability to reduce cellular network noise and other issues. That can lead to
increased speeds vs. other iDevices. Another difference is the antenna location,
having the antenna on the outer ring rather than inside the base (the case with
the older iPhones) might allow for a [slightly] better pickup of the cell signal.
 High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA): A Tutorial
By Zahid Ghadialy

Introduction:
HSDPA is a major Release 5 feature. Some of the enhancements will be done in Release 6. HSDPA
is designed to support data rates upto 10.8 Mbps and at the same time it will co-exist with R99 in the
same frequency band of 5MHz. As could be observed this data rate is much higher than the
Broadband speeds people generally use in their homes (512Kbps download). HSDPA will be able to
satisfy the most demanding Multimedia applications.

The peak rate offered by HSDPA is about 10Mbps in 5MHz channel. One important thing to note is
that the more important thing here is not the peak rate but the throughput capacity which increases
significantly. This leads to more users being able to use high data rates on a single carrier.

Whats New in HSDPA:

3 Slot TTI (2ms)

CQI: Channel Quality Indication

AMC: Adaptive Modulation and Coding

Constellation Re-Arranging (16 QAM)

H-ARQ: Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

N-channel SAW: N-Channel Stop and Wait Protocol

New MAC (High Speed) instance

New Stuff for HSDPA:

The implementation of HSDPA will require changes mainly in Physical layer. Layer 2 will be
affected as well because new high speed MAC entity will be required. The impact to other layers
will be minimum. The following sections will throw some light on some of the new features
required for HSDPA.

HSDPA Physical and Transport Channels:

To support HSDPA new Physical channels have been defined:

HS-PDSCH or High Speed Physical Downlink Shared Channel: This is a downlink channel
which is both time and code multiplexed. The channelisation codes have a fixed spreading factor, SF
= 16. Multi-code transmissions are allowed that translates to UE being assigned multiple
channelisation codes in the same TTI, depending on the UE capability. The same scrambling code
sequence is applied to all the channelisation codes that form the single HS-DSCH CCTrCH. If there
are multiple UE's then they may be assigned channelisation codes in the same TTI (multiplexing of
multiple UE's in the code domain).
HS-DPCCH or High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel: This is an uplink channel that
carries the Acknowledgements of the packet received on HS-PDSCH and also the CQI (Channel
Quality Indication). THE CQI estimates have to be transmitted by the UE every 2.0 ms frame. This
information is very important as it ensures reliability and impacts power capacity.
HS-SCCH or High Speed Shared Control CHannel: The HS-SCCH is a fixed rate (60 kbps,
SF=128) downlink physical channel used to carry downlink signalling related to HS-DSCH
transmission. This provides timing and coding information thus allowing the UE to listen to the HS-
DSCH at the correct time and using the correct codes to allow successful decoding of UE data.

The main features of the physical channel are as follows:

Fixed Spreading Factor of 16 for HS-DSCH

QPSK and 16 QAM Modulation

Static TTI Length of 3 Time Slots = 2ms

Fixed CRC of 24 bits

Error Correction using 1/3 Turbo Coding

To support HSDPA the following new Transport channels have been defined:
HS-DSCH or High Speed Downlink Shared channel: The High Speed Downlink Shared Channel
is a downlink transport channel shared by several UEs. The HS-DSCH is associated with one
downlink DPCH, and one or several Shared Control Channels (HS-SCCH). The HS-DSCH is
transmitted over the entire cell or over only part of the cell using e.g. beam-forming antennas.

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC):

HSPDA standard ensures that highest possible data rate is acheived for all users regardless of
whether they are close to the base station or far off. This is done using ACM. For HS-DSCH, the
transport format, including the modulation scheme and code rate, can be selected based on the
downlink channel quality. The selection of transport format is done by the MAC-HS located in Node
B and is based on channel quality feedback reported by the UE. The spreading factor cannot change
but the coding rate can change between 1/4 and 3/4. The higher coding rate reduces the number of
errors. Also the standards support multicodes. This means that upto 15 codes can be allocated to a
UE.

Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ):

In case of ARQ, the receiving system on receipt of data checks the CRC. If the CRC is the same as
that received in the message ACK is sent back to the sender. In case if CRC does not match then
NACK is sent back and the packet discarded. In case of HARQ, this method of CRC checking is
improved based on the following two things.

Chase Combining:In this when an error is detected in CRC, NACK is sent back but the packet is not
discarded. It is stored. In case the re-transmitted packet is again erroneous then the previous and
current poacket is combined in an attempt to recover from errors. Each time the packet is resent, the
same scheme is applied. Eventually the error will be either resolved or maximum number of retries
is reached. In that case higher layer protocols will deal with the error.

Incremental Redundancy (IR):IR is similar to Chase combining but the redundant information that
was not transmitted earlier is also included to improve the chances of reception without errors or
with enough errors removed so as to allow combining with the previously stored packet and resolve
the errors.
Fast Cell Site Selection (FCSS):

When the UE moves between the cells, it is possible that it would be served by different cells.
Hence the UE will construct a list of Active Set (the term Active Set is incorrect and the term that
will be used eventually is "Eligible Set") Cells that it can use at any one time. The mobile will
indicate on HS-DPCCH as to which one is the best cell for DL transmission. The serving cell then
decides the modulation and coding scheme to be used for the mobile and in addition may code
multiplex multiple mobiles within that HSDPA frame. To Simplify this procedure, it is further
subdivided into Intra-Node B FCS and Inter-NodeB FCS.

Introduction to High speed downlink packet access (HSDPA)

By Devendra Sharma
Last Updated: 11/05/06

Introduction
High speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) is the new technology which is introduced in 3GPP
Release 5. As the name itself suggests, this will enable the user to achieve high data rates in the
downlink while on the move.

Motivation behind HSDPA

Sophisticated UE applications need higher bit rates,
Primary target of HSDPA is to enhance system throughput with minimum changes in
network architecture,
HSDPA id Release 5 an extension to WCDMA Release '("99")

Transition from Present UMTS system

Current WCDMA network can be upgraded to support HSDPA
To implement HSDPA it does not required to change network architecture dramatically
In a general scenario there can be HSDPA supported cells and regular cells. This mean that a
particular time there can be some users in a particular cell who are experiencing high data
rate because of HSDPA as compared to other users who are in a cell where HSDPA is not
supported.
If HSDPA is not accessible at UE location it will use normal Release 99 (DCH) to
communicate at regular service speeds

The Release 99 or current UMTS system provide data rates of 384Mbps to 2Mbps. HSDPA will
increase peak data rates up to 14Mbps.

How HSDPA differs from current UMTS system

Various methods for packet data transmission in WCDMA downlink already exist in Release'99. The
three different channels in Release'99/ Release 4 WCDMA specifications that can be used for
downlink packet data are:

Dedicated Channel (DCH)

Downlink-shared Channel (DSCH)
Forward Access Channel (FACH).

The basic requirements for HSDPA are to carry high data rate in the downlink. The HSDPA
technology will:

Increase the UTRAN network capacity

Reduce the round trip delay
Increase the peak data rates up to 14 Mbps

In order to achieve this few architectural changes have been made in the R99 architecture.

The transport channel carrying the user data with HSDPA operation is denoted as the High-speed
Downlink-shared Channel (HS-DSCH) known as downlink "fat pipe".

As discussed above the primary motivation behind HSDPA was to achieve high data rates by not
disturbing to the current UMTS architecture too much. Thus it's clear that by implementing the
HSDPA the current UMTS architecture is maintained and some other features or functionalities are
added on top of the existing architecture.

So the question arises is that to implement HSDPA (Release 5) which new features comes in, what
goes out from the existing UMTS (Release 99) and what is added onto it.

In HSDPA (Release 5) three new transport channels are introduced. They are:

HS-DSCH (High Speed Down link Shared Channel)

TO support the HS-DSCH Operation Two Control Channels are added

HS-SCCH (High Speed Shared Control Channel)

DL channel
HS- DPCCH (High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel)

UL Channel

With HSDPA two fundamental features of WCDMA are disabled which is:

Variable SF
Fast Power Control

These two features are replaced by

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)

Fast retransmission strategy (HARQ)
Scheduling Algorithm

Thus the comparison for the DSCH (UMTS) and HS_DSCH (HSDPA) can be made as:
Feature DSCH HS_DSCH
Variable spreading factor Yes No
Fast power control Yes No
Adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) No Yes
Multi-code operation Yes Yes, Extended
Fast L1 HARQ No Yes

Note: HARQ: Hybrid Automatic Repeat request

HSDPA Features Explanation

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC)

One of the major techniques introduced in WCDMA is power control. The idea is to increase the
transmission power when the quality of the received signal is poor and decrease the transmission
power when the quality of the received signal exceeds a given threshold. This results in reliable
communication between the transmitter and the receiver. Also, since the power control technique
reduces the unnecessary intercell and intracell interference caused by excessive transmit power, the
overall system capacity is increased.

An alternative technique to the power control in dealing with the time varying effects of the wireless
channel is to ride the fading profile of the channel. Instead of trying to keep the signal quality at
the receiver constant, once can change the modulation and the coding scheme of the transmitted
signal in such a way that more information bearing bits are transmitted when the channel condition
is good, and the less information bearing bits are transmitted when the channel condition
deteriorates. This technique is known as adaptive modulation and coding (AMC), or link adaptation.
Compared to conventional power control technique, AMC can lead to much higher system capacity
for packet radio systems.

The AMC is aimed at changing the modulation and coding format in accordance with variations in
the channel conditions. The channel conditions can be estimated based on either on the feedback
from the receiver or from the transmission power of the other downlink channels under power
control.

Thus according to the above principle, in system with AMC, users in the favourable positions, such
as close to the cell site or at the peak of a fading profile, are typically assigned a higher-order
modulation with higher code rates, such as 64QAM/16QAM and rate turbo codes. Whereas users
in the unfavourable position, such as ones close to the cell boundary or at the lower peak of a fading
profile, are assigned a lower-order modulation with lower coding rates, such as QPSK with rate
turbo codes.

If there are large number of users in cell and the channel condition of the different users vary with
time, which is normally the case, the base station can choose to serve users in favourable condition
and use high modulation scheme and the coding rates most of the time, and the system capacity
would be greatly improved. Another advantage of AMC is that since the transmitted power is fixed
(no fast power control is used), the interference to the other users is significantly reduced.

Thus the main benefits of the AMC can be summarised as follows:

Higher data rates can be achieved for users in favourable conditions, which in turn increase
the average throughput of the cell.
 Interference is reduced due to link adaptation based on the variation in the modulation and
coding scheme instead of variation in the transmit power.

Hybrid ARQ (HARQ)

In order to make sure that the data reaches the terminal error free, two basic error-control strategies
used in any data communication are forward error correction and Automatic repeat request:

Forward error correction (FEC): In this information bearing bits are protected by some
coding scheme employing redundancy bits, and most errors caused by the channel
impairment can be recovered at the receiver by the decoder. The main advantage of FEC is
that no feedback channel is required and so the delay is only contained in the decoding
process. The disadvantage of the FEC is that the decoded data is always delivered to the user
regardless of whether it is correct or incorrect.
Automatic repeat request (ARQ): In this scheme a high-rate detection codes are normally
used and a transmission is requested if the received data is found to be erroneous. The
functionalities of the ARQ include the following:
1. Error detection: The receiver detects error in the so called PDU.
2. Positive acknowledgement: The receiver returns a positive ACK to the successfully
received error free PDUs.
3. Retransmission after timeout: The transmitter retransmits the PDU that has not
been acknowledged after a predetermined amount of time.
4. Negative acknowledgement and retransmission: The receiver return a negative
acknowledgement (NACK) to the erroneous PDUS and transmitter retransmit them.

There are three types of basic ARQ schemes:

stop-and-wait (SAW): In this system the transmitter sends off a packet and then waits for an
acknowledgment. A positive ACK will encourage sender to send he next PDU in the queue
whereas the negative ACK will prompt the sender to retransmit the PDU. Stop-and-wait is
the simplest scheme but inherently inefficient because of the idle time spent waiting for the
acknowledgment of each transmitted packet before the transmitter starting the next
transmission.
Selective Repeat (SR): is the most theoretically efficient ARQ scheme among the three
basic ones and it has been employed by many systems, including the Release 99 UTRAN
radio link control (RLC) layer. SR is theoretically insensitive to delay and has the favourable
property of repeating only those blocks that have been received in error. To accomplish this
task, however, the SR ARQ transmitter must employ a sequence number to identify each
block that it sends. SR may fully utilize the available channel capacity by ensuring that the
maximum block sequence number (MBSN) exceeds the number of blocks transmitted in one
round-trip feedback delay. The greater the feedback delay, the larger the maximum sequence
number must be. Unfortunately, there is a major problem in the implementation of selective
repeat ARQ in HSDPA - high memory requirement in the mobile terminal. This is due to the
fact that the mobile terminal must store soft samples for each transmission of a block.

A hybrid ARQ (HARQ) system consists of an FEC subsystem contained in an ARQ system. The
function of the FEC system is to reduce the frequency of retransmission by correcting the error
patterns that occur most frequently, thus ensuring a high system throughput. When a less frequent
error pattern occurs and is detected, the receiver requests a retransmission instead of passing the
erroneous data to the user. This increases the system reliability. There are three type of HARQ

HARQ Type I: In this the same protocol data unit (PDU) is retransmitted until the receiver
accepts it as error-free or until the maximum number of allowed retransmission attempts is
reached. HARQ Type I scheme is best suited for communications systems in which a fairly
constant level of noise and interference is anticipated in the channel. In this case, an
 adequate amount of redundancy can be built into the system to correct the vast majority of
errors so the number of retransmissions can be kept to a minimum. For non stationary
channels, such as the ones encountered in mobile communications, the HARQ Type I can be
very inefficient.
HARQ Type II: This is particularly suited for time varying channels. In this scheme, the
concept of incremental redundancy is employed and the received PDUs are concatenated to
form corrupted code words from increasingly longer and lower rate codes. In the first
transmission, the PDU may be coded with a high-rate code (low redundancy) for error
detection and correction. If the receiver detects the presence of errors in the PDU, it saves
the erroneous PDU in a buffer and at the same time requests a retransmission. Unlike HARQ
Type I, what is retransmitted in HARQ Type II is not the original PDU but a block of new
data. The new data are formed based on the original PDU and the error correcting code used.
When the new PDU is received, it is used to correct the errors in the erroneous PDU stored
previously in the buffer. If the second attempt fails again, the receiver will request a further
retransmission and this process continues until satisfactory results are achieved.
HARQ Type III: also belongs to the class of incremental redundancy ARQ schemes. With
HARQ Type III, however, each retransmission is self-decodable. Chase combining (also
called HARQ Type III with one redundancy version) involves the retransmission by the
transmitter of the same coded data packet. The decoder at the receiver combines these
multiple copies of the transmitted packet weighted by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the
received signal for each attempt.

The performance of different type of HARQs depends on the condition of the radio channel.
Considering all factors, including spectral efficiency, implementation complexity, and robustness, it
appears that Chase Combining offers a very attractive compromise. In UTRAN, it is the scheduler
that determines the redundancy version parameters for the HARQ functional entities in node Bs.

Combining the two complementary techniques, AMC and HARQ, leads to an integrated robust and
high-performance solution, in which AMC provides the coarse data rate selection, whereas the
HARQ provides for fine data rate adjustment based on channel conditions.

Scheduler

The scheduler for HSDPA is referred to as being fast due to the fact that, compared with Release 99
specifications; the scheduler is moved from RNC to node Bs to reduce delays so faster scheduling
decisions can be made. In addition to other functionalities, such as the choice of redundancy version
and modulation and coding scheme, a fundamental task of the scheduler for HSDPA is to schedule
the transmission for users. The data to be transmitted to users are placed in different queues in a
buffer and the scheduler needs to determine the sequential order in which the data streams are sent.
The scheduling algorithms are:

round-robin method: This algorithm selects the user packets in a round robin fashion. In
this method, the number of time slots allocated to each user can be chosen to be inversely
proportional to the users data rates, so the same number of bits is transmitted for every user
in a cycle. Obviously, this method is the fairest in the sense that the average delay and
throughput would be the same for all users. However, there are two disadvantages associated
with the round-robin method. The first is that it disregards the conditions of the radio
channel for each user, so users in poor radio conditions may experience low data rates,
whereas users in good channel conditions may not even receive any data until the channel
conditions turn poor again. This is obviously against the spirit of the HSDPA and it would
lead to the lowest system throughput. The second disadvantage of the round-robin scheduler
is that there is no differentiation in the quality of services for different classes of users.
Maximum C/I (carrier-to-interface) ratio method: In this method, the scheduler attempts
to take advantage of the variations in the radio channel conditions for different users to the
maximum, and always chooses to serve the user experiencing the best channel condition,
 that is, the one with maximum carrier-to-interference ratio. Apparently, the max C/I
scheduler leads to the maximum system throughput but is the most unfair, as users in poor
radio conditions may never get served or suffer from unacceptable delays.
Proportional fairness or R[n]/Rav Method: This method takes into account both the short-
term variation of the radio channel conditions and the long-term throughput of each user. In
this method, the user with the largest R[n]/Rav is served first, where R[n] is the data rate in
the current time slot n and Rav is the average data rate for the user in the past average
window. The size of the average window determines the maximum duration that a user can
be starved from data, and as such it reflects the compromise between the maximum tolerable
delay and the cell throughput. According to this scheduling scheme, if a user is enjoying a
very high average throughput, its R[n]/Rav will probably not be the highest. Then it may
give way to other users with poor average throughput and therefore high R[n]/Rav in the
next time slots, so the average throughput of the latter can be improved. On the other hand, if
the average throughput of a user is low, the R[n]/Rav could be high and it might be granted
the right of transmission even if its current channel condition is not the best.

The figure below illustrates the performance of different scheduling algorithm

Fast scheduling and AMC, in conjunction with HARQ, is a way of maximizing the instantaneous
use of the fading radio channel in order to realize maximum throughput. The HSDPA technology
enables higher-rate data transmission through a higher-modulation and coding rate and limited
retransmissions, while keeping the power allocated to HS-DSCH channel in a cell constant.
Notwithstanding, the slow power control is still needed to adjust the power sharing among terminals
and between different channel types.

HSDPA Impact on Radio Access Network And UE Architecture

All Release99 transport channels presented earlier in this document are terminated at the RNC.
Hence, the retransmission procedure for the packet data is located in the serving RNC, which also
handles the connection for the particular user to the core network. With the introduction of HS-
DSCH, additional intelligence in the form of an HSDPA Medium Access Control (MAC) layer is
installed in the Node B. This way, retransmissions can be controlled directly by the Node B, leading
to faster retransmission and thus shorter delay with packet data operation when retransmissions are
needed. With HSDPA, the Iub interface between Node B and RNC requires a flow control
mechanism to ensure that Node B buffers are used properly and that there is no data loss due to
Node B buffer overflow.

Although there is a new MAC functionality added in the Node B, the RNC still retains the
Release99/Release 4 functionalities of the Radio Link Control (RLC), such as taking care of the
retransmission in case the HS-DSCH transmission from the Node N would fail after, for instance,
exceeding the maximum number of physical layer retransmissions.

The key functionality of the new Node B MAC functionality (MAC-hs) is to handle the Automatic
Repeat Request (ARQ) functionality and scheduling as well as priority handling. Ciphering is done
in any case in the RLC layer to ensure that the ciphering mask stays identical for each
retransmission to enable physical layer combining of retransmissions.

Similar to Node B a new MAC entity, MAC-hs is added in the UE architecture. The functionality of
the MAC-hs is same as on the Node B side.

Node B protocol stack in R99

Node B Protocol stack in R-5

UE protocol stack in R-5
Transport and Control Channel in HSDPA
High Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH)

The HS-DSCH is allocated to users mainly on the basis of the transmission time interval (TTI), in
which users are allocated within different TTIs.

HS-DSCH has the following features:

TTI = 2ms (3 time slots): This is to achieve short round trip delay for the operation between
the terminal and the Node B for retransmissions. TTI in R99 is 10ms
Adding higher order modulation scheme, 16 QAM, as well as lower encoding redundancy
has increased the instantaneous peak data rate. In the code domain perspective, the SF is
fixed; it is always 16, and multi-code transmission as well as code multiplexing of different
users can take place.

The maximum number of codes that can be allocated is 15, but depending on the terminal (UE)
capability, individual terminals may receive a maximum of 5, 10 or 15 codes.

The physical channel carrying HS-DSCH transport traffic is termed as HSPDSCH, and each HS-
PDSCH is identified by its specific channelization code. Therefore, there can be up to 15 HS-
PDSCHs in a cell. This means that for HS-PDSCH, both QPSK and 16QAM modulation schemes
can be used and these modulation schemes lead to different slot formats. With 16QAM, a single HS-
PDSCH channel can achieve a data rate of 960 kbps. Using 15 HS-PDSCH channels (codes),
HSDPA can produce the headline data rate of 14.4 Mbps.

The HSDPA specification does permit simultaneous transmissions. For instance, two to four users
can be supported within the same TTI by using different subset of the channelization codes allocated
to HS-DSCH.

High Speed Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH)

Besides user data, the node B must also transmit associated control signalling to user terminals, so
terminals scheduled for the upcoming HS-DSCH TTI can be notified. Similarly, additional lower-
layer control information such as the transport format, including the modulation and coding schemes
to be used, and hybrid ARQ related information must be transmitted. This control information
applies only to the user equipment that is receiving data on the HS-DSCH and is transmitted on a
shared control channel, HS-SCCH.

The UTRAN needs to allocate a number of HS-SCCHs that correspond to the maximum number of
users that will be code-multiplexed. If there is no data on the HS-DSCH, then there is no need to
transmit the HS-SCCH either. From the network point of view, there may be a high number of HS-
SCCHs allocated, but each terminal will only need to consider a maximum of four HS-SCCHs at a
given time. The HS-SCCHs that are to be considered are signalled to the terminal by the network. In
reality, the need for more than four HS-SCCHs is very unlikely. However, more than one HS-SCCH
may be needed to better match the available codes to the terminals with limited HSDPA capability.

Each HS-SCCH block has a three-slot duration that is divided into two functional parts.

The first slot (first part) carries the time-critical information that is needed to start the
demodulation process in due time to avoid chip level buffering.
The next two slots (second part) contain less time-critical parameters including Cyclic
Redundancy Check (CRC) to check the validity of the HS-SCCH information and HARQ
process information.

For protection, both HS-SCCH parts employ terminal-specific masking to allow the terminal to
decide whether the detected control channel is actually intended for the particular terminal.

The HS-SCCH is a fixed rate (60kbps) DL channel and uses SF=128 that can accommodate 40 bits
per slot (after channel encoding) because there are no pilot or Transmit Power Control TPC bits on
HS-SCCH.

The HS-SCCH used half-rate convolution coding with both parts encoded separately from each
other because the time-critical information is required to be available immediately after the first slot
and thus cannot be interleaved together with Part 2.

The HS-SCCH Part 1 parameters indicate the following:

Codes to despread. This also relates to the terminal capability in which each terminal
category indicates whether the current terminal can despread a maximum of 5, 10 or 15
codes.
Modulation to indicate if QPSK or 16 QAM is used.

The HS-SCCH Part 2 parameters indicate the following:

Redundancy version information to allow proper decoding and combining with the possible
earlier transmissions.
ARQ process number to show which ARQ process the data belongs to.
 First transmission or retransmission indicator to indicate whether the transmission is to be
combined with the existing data in the buffer (if not successfully decoded earlier) or whether
the buffer should be flushed and filled with new data.

Parameters such as actual channel coding rate are not signalled but can be derived from the transport
block size and other transport format parameters.

The terminal has single slot duration to determine which codes to despread from the HS-DSCH. The
use of terminal-specific masking allows the terminal to check whether data was intended for it. The
total number of HS-SCCHs that a single terminal monitors (the Part 1 of each channel) is at a
maximum of 4, but in case there is data for the terminal in consecutive TTIs, then the HS-SCCH
shall be the same for that terminal between TTIs to increase signalling reliability. This kind of
approach is also necessary not only to avoid the terminal having to buffer data not necessarily
intended for it but also as there could be more codes in use than supported by the terminal
capability. The downlink DCH timing is not tied to the HS-SCCH (or consequently HS-DSCH)
timing.

Uplink High Speed Dedicated Physical Control Channel (HS-DPCCH)

The uplink direction has to carry both ACK/NACK information for the physical layer
retransmissions as well as the quality feedback information to be used in the Node B scheduler to
determine to which terminal to transmit and at which data rate. It was required to ensure operation
in soft handover in the case that not all Node Bs have been upgraded to support HSDPA. Thus, it
was concluded to leave existing uplink channel structure unchanged and add the needed new
information elements on a parallel code channel that is named the Uplink High Speed Dedicated
Physical Control Channel (HS-DPCCH). There is one HS-DPCCH for each active terminal using
HSDPA services.

The HS-DPCCH is divided into two parts as shown in Figure below and carries the following
information:

ACK/NACK transmission, to reflect the results of the CRC check after the packet decoding
and combining. Downlink Channel Quality Indicator (CQI) to indicate which estimated
transport block size, modulation type and number of parallel codes could be received
correctly (with reasonable BLER) in the downlink direction.

CQI

Information is Based on (Cpich) Common Pilot Channel

Is used to estimate the following:
o Transport Block Size
o Modulation Type
o No. of Channelisation Codes (that can be supported at a given reliability level)
 The feedback of CQI can be set as Network parameter in a Predefined steps of 2ms
When longer feedback cycles are used, the (PDCH) Power Control Command can be used to
update the channel quality estimation
CQI (0-30) => UEs estimates highest value with probability of TB error < 10% for the next
transmission slot, and with various power assumptions

DL-DPCH & UL-DPCH

The DL-DPCH carries HSDPA Indicator (HI)

HI indicates which HS-SCCH subset the terminal should monitor in order to obtain the
signalling information,
The UL_DPCH carries power control signals for the DL-DPCH,
The UL-DPCH power control signal information and feedback information from HS-
DPCCH can be used by the network to estimate the channel quality.

HSDPA Architecture
The figure below illustrates the HSDPA architecture for both UE and the network

>

MAC- hs

Functions, such as adaptive modulation and coding and fast scheduling, are placed in node B. In
contrast, in the Release 99 UTRAN architecture, the scheduling and transport-format selections are
performed in the radio network controller (RNC). For HSDPA, it is advantageous to move parts of
the functionality from RNC to node B, thus forming a new Node B entity, MAC-hs. The MAC-hs is
responsible for handling scheduling, HARQ, and transmit format (TF) selection. Apparently, some
upgrading is needed in the node B to enable the MAC-hs functionalities. The consensus among the
3G network vendors is to implement MAC-hs in the channel coding card.

There is one MAC-hs entity in the UTRAN for each cell supporting HS-DSCH. The MAC-hs is
responsible for handling the data transmitted on the HS-DSCH. Furthermore, it is responsible for
managing the physical resources allocated to HSDPA. MAC-hs receive configuration parameters
from the higher layers.

The functional entities included in MAC-hs are shown in the figure below

Flow control: This is the companion flow control function to the flow control function for
existing dedicated, common, and shared channels in RNC. This function is employed to limit
layer 2 signalling latency and reduce discarded and retransmitted data as a result of HS-
DSCH congestion.
Scheduling/Priority handling: This function manages HS-DSCH resources between HARQ
entities and data flows according to their priority. There is one priority queue for each MAC-
d protocol data unit (PDU) in the MAC-hs. Based on status reports from associated uplink
signalling in HS-DCCH, either new transmission or retransmission is determined. A new
transmission can be initiated instead of a pending retransmission at any time to support the
priority handling.
HARQ: One HARQ entity handles the hybrid ARQ functionality for one user. One HARQ
entity is capable of supporting up to eight HARQ processes of stop-and-wait HARQ
protocols. There is one HARQ process per HS-DSCH per TTI.
TFRC selection: This is to select an appropriate transport format and resource combination
(TFRC) for the data to be transmitted on HSDSCH.

To summarize, the MAC-hs needs to perform the following tasks when dealing with HSDPA traffic:

Decode the higher-layer information regarding UE capability and required QoS for initial
connection.
 Decode the ACK/NAK and CQI transmitted in the uplink and check the power level of the
downlink dedicated physical channel.
Make a scheduling decision on which terminal is due to receive data among the terminals
having data in the transmission buffer.

Set the transport format combination indicator (TFCI) and HARQ parameters in the downlink
shared control channel HS-SCCH

In the following section the function of two major functional entities in MAC-hs, the scheduler and
the HARQ unit are explained further.

Scheduler

The scheduler is one of the most important functional entities in determining the QoS and data rate
of HSDPA services, as it controls when and how to transmit data streams dedicated at each terminal.
For each terminal, the information available to the scheduler includes the estimate of channel quality
(CQI) received on the HS-DPCCH, the knowledge of priority queues, and the HARQ processes and
terminal capability. Based on the information, the scheduler performs the following functions:

Schedules all HSDPA users within a cell.

Services priority queues.
Schedules MAC-hs PDUs based on information from the HS-DSCH frame protocol. One
terminal may be associated with one or more MAC-d flows. Each MAC-d flow contains HS-
DSCH MAC-d PDUs for one or more priority queues.
Determines the HARQ entity and the queue to be serviced.
Indicates the queue ID and the transmit sequence number (TSN) to the HARQ entity for
each MAC-hs PDU to be transmitted.
Schedules new transmissions and retransmissions.
Based on the status reports from HARQ processes, the scheduler determines if either a new
transmission or a retransmission should be made. A new transmission can, however, be
initiated on a HARQ process at any time.
Determines a suitable redundancy version and modulation scheme for each transmitted and
retransmitted MAC-hs PDU and indicates the redundancy version to lower layers.

HARQ

The HARQ unit is responsible for handling the HARQ functionalities of all mobile terminals. There
is one HARQ functional entity per mobile terminal in UTRAN. Each functional entity can manage
up to eight parallel stop-and-wait HARQ processes. As the input, the HARQ entity receives the
acknowledgment (ACK/NAK) from the mobile terminal. The HARQ entity sets the queue ID in
transmitted MAC-hs PDUs based on the identity of the queue being serviced. The HARQ entity sets
the transmission sequence number (TSN) in transmitted MAC-hs PDUs. The TSN is set to value 0
for the first MAC-hs PDU transmitted for one HS-DSCH and queue ID and it is increased by one
for each subsequent transmitted MAC-hs PDU. The HARQ entity determines a suitable HARQ
process to service the MAC-hs PDU and sets the HARQ process identifier accordingly.

The HARQ process sets the new data indicator in the transmitted MAC-hs PDUs. It sets the new
data indicator to value 0 for the first MAC-hs PDU transmitted by a HARQ process and then
increases the new data indicator with one for each transmitted MAC-hs PDU containing new data.
The HARQ processes received status messages. UTRAN delivers received status messages to the
scheduler.

Mobility Procedures
Once a terminal is in the so-called CELL_DCH state when dedicated channels have been set up, it
can be allocated with one or more HS-PDSCH(s), thus allowing it to receive data on the HS-DSCH.
For dedicated channels, it is advantageous to employ the so-called soft handover technique, which is
to transmit the same data from a number of Node Bs simultaneously to the terminal, as this provides
diversity gain. Owing to the nature of packet transmission, however, synchronized transmission of
the same packets from different cells is very difficult to achieve, so only hard handover is employed
for HS-PDSCH.

This is referred to HS-DSCH cell change, and the terminal can have only one serving HS-DSCH
cell at a time. A serving HS-DSCH cell change message facilitates the transfer of the role of serving
HS-DSCH radio link from one belonging to the source HS-DSCH cell to another belonging to the
target HS-DSCH cell. In theory, the serving HS-DSCH cell change can be decided either by the
mobile terminal or by the network. In UTRAN Release 5, however, only network-controlled serving
HS-DSCH cell changes are supported and the decision can be based on UE measurement reports
and other information available to the RNC. A network-controlled HS-DSCH cell change is
performed based on the existing handover procedures in CELL_DCH state.

Since the HSDPA radio channel is associated with dedicated physical channels in both the downlink
and uplink, there are two possible scenarios in changing a serving HS-DSCH cell: (1) only changing
the serving HS-DSCH cell and keeping the dedicated physical channel configuration and the active
set for handover intact; or (2) changing the serving HS-DSCH cell in connection with an
establishment, release, and/or reconfiguration of dedicated physical channels and the active set.

Although an unsynchronized serving HS-DSCH cell change is permissible, a synchronized one is

obviously preferable for ease of traffic management. In that case, the start and stop of the HS-DSCH
transmission and reception are performed at a given time. This is convenient especially when an
intranode B serving HS-DSCH cell change is performed, in which case both the source and target
HS-DSCH cells are controlled by the same node B and the change happens between either
frequencies or sectors.

If an internode B serving HS-DSCH cell change is needed, the serving HS-DSCH Node B
relocation procedure needs to be performed in the UTRAN. During the serving HS-DSCH node B
relocation process, the HARQ entities located in the source HS-DSCH node B belonging to the
specific mobile terminal are deleted and new HARQ entities in the target HS-DSCH node B are
established. In this scenario, different controlling RNCs may control the source and target HS-
DSCH node Bs, respectively.

Intranode B Serving HS-DSCH Cell Change

Figure below illustrates an intranode B serving HS-DSCH cell change while keeping the dedicated
physical channel configuration and the active set, using the physical channel reconfiguration
procedures. The transition from source to target HS-DSCH cells is performed in a synchronized
fashion, that is, at a given activation time. For clarity, only the layers directly involved in the process
are shown and the sequence of the events starts from the top and finishes at the bottom.
In this scenario, the terminal transmits a measurement report message containing intrafrequency
measurement triggered by the event change of best cell. When the decision to perform handover is
made at the serving RNC (SRNC), the node B is prepared for the serving HS-DSCH cell change at
an activation time indicated by CPHY-RL-Commit-REQ primitive. The serving RNC then sends a
physical channel reconfiguration message, which indicates the target HS-DSCH cell and the
activation time to the UE. Since the same node B controls both the source and target HS-DSCH
cells, it is not necessary to reset the MAC-hs entities. Once the terminal has completed the serving
HS-DSCH cell change, it transmits a physical channel reconfiguration complete message to the
network.

It should be pointed out that, in this particular case, it is assumed that HS-DSCH transport channel
and radio bearer parameters do not change. If transport channel or radio bearer parameters are
changed, the serving HS-DSCH cell change would need to be executed by a transport channel
reconfiguration procedure or a radio bearer reconfiguration procedure, respectively.

Internode B Serving HS-DSCH Cell Change

For terminals on the move, what happens more often than the intra-node B serving HS-DSCH cell
change is the so-called internode B serving HS-DSCH cell change. For synchronized case, the
reconfiguration is performed in two steps within UTRAN.

To begin with, the terminal transmits a measurement report message containing measurement
triggered by the event change of best cell. The serving RNC determines the need for hard handover
based on received measurement report and/or load control algorithms. As the first step, the serving
RNC establishes a new radio link in the target node B. After this, the target Node B starts
transmission and reception on dedicated channels. In the second step, this newly created radio link is
prepared for a synchronized reconfiguration to be executed at a given activation time indicated in
the CPHY-RL-Commit-REQ primitive, at which the transmission of HS-DSCH will be started in the
target HSDSCH node B and stopped in the source HS-DSCH node B.

The serving RNC then sends a transport channel reconfiguration message on the old configuration.
This message indicates the configuration after handover, both for DCH and HS-DSCH. The
transport channel reconfiguration message includes a flag indicating that the MAC-hs entity in the
terminal should be reset. The message also includes an update of transport channel-related
parameters for the HS-DSCH in the target HS-DSCH cell.

After physical synchronization is established, the terminal sends a transport channel reconfiguration
complete message. The serving RNC then terminates reception and transmission on the old radio
link for dedicated channels and releases all resources allocated to the UE. The process of internode
B handover for HS-DSCH is shown in Figure below.

It should be noted that in the case of internode B handover, the radio link control (RLC) for
transmission/reception on HS-DSCH may be stopped at both the UTRAN and the terminal sides
prior to reconfiguration and continued when the reconfiguration is completed, which could result in
data loss during the handover period. Furthermore, the transport channel reconfiguration message
indicates to the terminal that the MAC-hs entity should be reset and a status report for each RLC
entity associated with the HS-DSCH should be generated. However, a reset of the MAC-hs entity in
the terminal does not require flushing the reordering buffers but delivering the content to higher
layers.
 High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA): A Tutorial
By Zahid Ghadialy
Last Updated: 26/03/2006

Introduction:
High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) is a release 6 feature in 3GPP specifications and is part
of HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) family. HSUPA is more often called as the Enhanced Uplink
Dedicated Channel (E-DCH) by the technically aware people. The main aim of HSUPA is to
increase the uplink data transfer speed in the UMTS environment and it offers data speeds of up to
5.8 Mbps in the uplink. HSUPA achieves its high performance through more efficient uplink
scheduling in the base station and faster retransmission control.

Requirements:
HSUPA was designed based on the following requirements

The Enhanced Uplink feature shall aim at providing significant enhancements in terms of
user experience (throughput and delay) and/or capacity. The coverage is an important aspect
of the user experience and that it is desirable to allow an operator to provide for consistency
of performance across the whole cell area.
The focus shall be on urban, sub-urban and rural deployment scenarios.
Full mobility shall be supported, i.e., mobility should be supported for high-speed cases also,
but optimisation should be for low-speed to medium-speed scenarios.
The study shall investigate the possibilities to enhance the uplink performance on the
dedicated transport channels in general, with priority to streaming, interactive and
background services. Relevant QoS mechanisms shall allow the support of streaming,
interactive and background PS services.
It is highly desirable to keep the Enhanced Uplink as simple as possible. New techniques or
group of techniques shall therefore provide significant incremental gain for an acceptable
complexity. The value added per feature/technique should be considered in the evaluation. It
is also desirable to avoid unnecessary options in the specification of the feature.
The UE and network complexity shall be minimised for a given level of system
performance.
The impact on current releases in terms of both protocol and hardware perspectives shall be
taken into account.
It shall be possible to introduce the Enhanced Uplink feature in a network which has
terminals from Release'99, Release 4 and Release 5. The Enhanced Uplink feature shall
enable to achieve significant improvements in overall system performance when operated
together with HSDPA. Emphasis shall be given on the potential impact the new feature may
have on the downlink capacity. Likewise it shall be possible to deploy the Enhanced Uplink
feature without any dependency on the deployment of the HSDPA feature. However, a
terminal supporting the Enhanced Uplink feature must support HSDPA.

Abbreviations:
It would be important to remember following abbreviations before proceeding:

AG: Absolute Grant

E-AGCH: E-DCH Absolute Grant Channel
E-DCH: Enhanced Dedicated Channel
E-DPCCH: E-DCH Dedicated Physical Control Channel
E-DPDCH: E-DCH Dedicated Physical Data Channel
E-HICH: E-DCH Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel
E-RGCH: E-DCH Relative Grant Channel
E-RNTI: E-DCH Radio Network Temporary Identifier
E-TFC: E-DCH Transport Format Combination
HARQ: Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request
HSDPA: High Speed Downlink Packet Access
RG: Relative Grant
RLS: Radio Link Set
RSN: Retransmission Sequence Number
SG: Serving Grant
TSN: Transmission Sequence Number

HSUPA General Features

Maximum transmission rate of 5.76Mbps
BPSK modulation
No adaptive modulation
Multicode transmission
Spreading Factor either 2 or 4
10ms and 2ms TTI but initially only 10ms TTI to be used.
Hybrid ARQ (HARQ)
Fast Packet Scheduling in the uplink
Soft Handover supported

Protocol Architecture of E-DCH

The following modifications to the existing nodes are needed to support enhanced uplink DCH:

UE: A new MAC entity (MAC-es/MAC-e) is added in the UE below MAC-d. MAC- es/MAC-e in
the UE handles HARQ retransmissions, scheduling and MAC-e multiplexing, E-DCH TFC
selection.

Node B: A new MAC entity (MAC-e) is added in the Node B to handle HARQ retransmissions,
scheduling and MAC-e demultiplexing.

S-RNC: A new MAC entity (MAC-es) is added in the SRNC to provide in-sequence delivery
(reordering) and to handle combining of data from different Node Bs in case of soft handover.

HSUPA Physical Layer categories

The following E-DCH UE categories are defined in the specifications:

HSUPA Minimum Support Maximum Maximum Maximum

category Maximum spreading for 10 and 2 ms number of number of Bit rate
number of factor HSUPA TTI bits bits
HSUPA transmitted transmitted
codes within within
transmitted a 10 ms a 2 ms
HSUPA HSUPA
TTI TTI
Category 1 1 SF4 10 ms TTI only 7296 - 0.73 Mbps
Category 2 2 SF4 10 ms and 2 ms TTI 14592 2919 1.46 Mbps
Category 3 2 SF4 10 ms TTI only 14592 - 1.46 Mbps
Category 4 2 SF2 10 ms and 2 ms TTI 20000 5837 2.92 Mbps
Category 5 2 SF2 10 ms TTI only 20000 - 2.00 Mbps
Category 6 4 SF2 10 ms and 2 ms TTI 20000 11520 5.76 Mbps

New Channels
Dedicated transport channel

E-DCH - Enhanced Dedicated Channel: The Enhanced Dedicated Channel (E-DCH) is an uplink
transport channel.

Uplink Dedicated Physical channels

E-DPCCH and E-DPDCH:

The E-DPDCH is used to carry the E-DCH transport channel. There may be zero, one, or several E-
DPDCH on each radio link. The E-DPCCH is a physical channel used to transmit control
information associated with the E-DCH. There is at most one E-DPCCH on each radio link.

E-DPDCH and E-DPCCH are always transmitted simultaneously, except for the case that E-
DPDCH but not E-DPCCH is DTXed due to power scaling. E-DPCCH shall not be transmitted in a
slot unless DPCCH is also transmitted in the same slot.

Figure above shows the E-DPDCH and E-DPCCH (sub)frame structure. Each radio frame is divided
in 5 subframes, each of length 2 ms; the first subframe starts at the start of each radio frame and the
5th subframe ends at the end of each radio frame. The E-DPDCH slot formats, corresponding rates
and number of bits are specified in Table A. The E-DPCCH slot format is listed in Table B.

Table A: E-DPDCH slot formats

Slot Format #i Channel Bit Rate (kbps) SF Bits/ Frame Bits/ Subframe Bits/Slot (Ndata)
0 15 256 150 30 10
1 30 128 300 60 20
2 60 64 600 120 40
3 120 32 1200 240 80
4 240 16 2400 480 160
5 480 8 4800 960 320
6 960 4 9600 1920 640
7 1920 2 19200 3840 1280

Table B: E-DPCCH slot formats

Slot Format #i Channel Bit Rate (kbps) SF Bits/ Frame Bits/ Subframe Bits/Slot (Ndata)
0 15 256 150 30 10

Downlink Dedicated Physical channels

E-DCH Relative Grant Channel (E-RGCH):

The E-DCH Relative Grant Channel (E-RGCH) is a fixed rate (SF=128) dedicated downlink
physical channel carrying the uplink E-DCH relative grants. Figure above illustrates the structure of
the E-RGCH. A relative grant is transmitted using 3, 12 or 15 consecutive slots and in each slot a
sequence of 40 ternary values is transmitted. The 3 and 12 slot duration shall be used on an E-
RGCH transmitted to UEs for which the cell transmitting the E-RGCH is in the E-DCH serving
radio link set and for which the E-DCH TTI is respectively 2 and 10 ms. The 15 slot duration shall
be used on an E-RGCH transmitted to UEs for which the cell transmitting the E-RGCH is not in the
E-DCH serving radio link set.

E-DCH Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (E-HICH):

The E-DCH Hybrid ARQ Indicator Channel (E-HICH) is a fixed rate (SF=128) dedicated downlink
physical channel carrying the uplink E-DCH hybrid ARQ acknowledgement indicator. Figure above
(same as E-RGCH) illustrates the structure of the E-HICH. A hybrid ARQ acknowledgement
indicator is transmitted using 3 or 12 consecutive slots and in each slot a sequence of 40 binary
values is transmitted. The 3 and 12 slot duration shall be used for UEs which E-DCH TTI is set to
respectively 2 ms and 10 ms.

Fractional Dedicated Physical Channel (F-DPCH):

The F-DPCH carries control information generated at layer 1 (TPC commands). It is a special case
of downlink DPCCH. Figure above shows the frame structure of the F-DPCH. Each frame of length
10ms is split into 15 slots, each of length Tslot = 2560 chips, corresponding to one power-control
period. There are 2 bits/slot.

Common downlink physical channels

E-DCH Absolute Grant Channel (E-AGCH):

The E-DCH Absolute Grant Channel (E-AGCH) is a fixed rate (30 kbps, SF=256) downlink
physical channel carrying the uplink E-DCH absolute grant. Figure above illustrates the frame and
sub-frame structure of the E-AGCH. An E-DCH absolute grant shall be transmitted over one E-
AGCH sub-frame or one E-AGCH frame. The transmission over one E-AGCH sub-frame and over
one E-AGCH frame shall be used for UEs for which E-DCH TTI is set to respectively 2 ms and 10
ms.

HARQ protocol
General Principle

The HARQ protocol has the following characteristics:

Stop and wait HARQ is used;

The HARQ is based on synchronous downlink ACK/NACKs;
The HARQ is based on synchronous retransmissions in the uplink:
o The number of processes depends on the TTI: 8 processes for the 2ms TTI and 4
processes for the 10ms TTI. For both scheduled and non-scheduled transmission for a
given UE, it is possible to restrict the transmission to specific processes for the 2ms
E-DCH TTI;
o There will be an upper limit to the number of retransmissions. The UE decides on a
maximum number of transmissions for a MAC-e PDU based on the maximum
number of transmissions attribute (see subclause 11.1.1), according to the following
principles:
The UE selects the highest 'maximum number of transmissions' among all the
considered HARQ profiles associated to the MAC-d flows in the MAC-e
PDU.
o Pre-emption will not be supported by E-DCH (ongoing re-transmissions will not be
pre-empted by higher priority data for a particular process);
o In case of TTI reconfiguration, the MAC-e HARQ processes are flushed and no
special mechanism is defined to lower SDU losses.
Intra Node B macro-diversity and Inter Node B macro-diversity should be supported for the
E-DCH with HARQ;
Incremental redundancy shall be supported by the specifications with Chase combining as a
subcase:
o The first transmission shall be self decodable;
o The UTRAN configures the UE to either use the same incremental redundancy
version (RV) for all transmissions, or to set the RV according to set of rules based on
E-TFC, Retransmission Sequence Number (RSN) and the transmission timing;
o There shall be no need, from the H-ARQ operation point of view, to reconfigure the
Node B from upper layers when moving in or out of soft handover situations.
Error handling

The most frequent error cases to be handled are the following:

NACK is detected as an ACK: the UE starts afresh with new data in the HARQ process. The
previously transmitted data block is discarded in the UE and lost. Retransmission is left up to
higher layers;
ACK is detected as a NACK: if the UE retransmits the data block, the NW will re-send an
ACK to the UE. If in this case the transmitter at the UE sends the RSN set to zero, the
receiver at the NW will continue to process the data block as in the normal case;
Error cases have been identified regarding the HARQ operation during soft handover:
o In case the HARQ control information transmitted on the E-DPCCH could not be
detected RSN_max times in a row for one HARQ process, a soft buffer corruption
might occur. Each HARQ process uses RSN and the transmission time (CFN, sub-
frame) elapsed since storing data in the associated soft buffer in order to flush the
soft buffer and to avoid a wrong combining of data blocks.
o Duplication of data blocks may occur at the RNC during soft handover. The
reordering protocol needs to handle the detected duplications of data blocks.

Signaling examples
E-DCH Establishment with TTI Reconfiguration

This scenario shows an example of E-DCH configuration. Also TTI reconfiguration is shown in the
same scenario. It is assumed that in this example DCH was established before.
1. The SRNC decides there is a need for a establishing E-DCH for a UE and prepares the
RNSAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Prepare which is transmitted to the CRNC.
Parameters: DCHs to Delete IE, E-DPCH Information (TFCS, TTI), Serving E-DCH RL ID,
E-DCH FDD Information.
2. The CRNC requests the E-DCH Node B to perform a synchronised radio link
reconfiguration using the NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Prepare, for the E-
DCH radio link.
Parameters: DCHs to Delete IE, Servine E-DCH RL ID, E-DCH FDD Information.
3. The E-DCH Node B returns a NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Ready.
Parameters: DCH Information Response , E-DCH FDD Information Response.
4. The CRNC returns the RNSAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Ready to the SRNC.
Parameters: DCH Information Response, E-DCH FDD Information Response.
5. The CRNC initiates set-up of a new Iub Data Transport Bearers using ALCAP protocol. This
request contains the AAL2 Binding Identity to bind the Iub Data Transport Bearer to the E-
DCH.
6. The SRNC initiates set-up of a new Iur Data Transport bearer using ALCAP protocol. This
request contains the AAL2 Binding Identity to bind the Iur Data Transport Bearer to the E-
DCH.
7. The SRNC proceeds by transmitting the RNSAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration
Commit to the CRNC.
Parameters: SRNC selected activation time in the form of a CFN.
 8. The CRNC transmits the NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Commit to the E-DCH
Node B including the activation time.
Parameters: CRNC selected activation time in the form of a CFN.
9. The SRNC also transmits a RRC message Radio Bearer Reconfiguration to the UE.
Parameters: activation time, E-DCH Info and E-RNTI.
10. The UE returns a RRC message Radio Bearer Reconfiguration Complete to the SRNC.
11. The CRNC initiates release of the old Iub Data Transport bearer (DCH) using ALCAP
protocol.
12. The SRNC initiates release of the old Iur Data Transport bearer (DCH) using ALCAP
protocol.
13. The SRNC decides there is a need for a TTI reconfiguration and prepares the RNSAP
message Radio Link Reconfiguration Prepare which is transmitted to the CRNC.
Parameters: E-DPCH Information (TTI).
14. The CRNC requests the E-DCH Node B to perform a synchronised radio link
reconfiguration using the NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Prepare, for the E-
DCH radio link
15. The E-DCH Node B returns a NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Ready.
Parameters: E-DCH FDD Information Response.
16. The CRNC returns the RNSAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Ready to the SRNC.
Parameters: E-DCH FDD Information Response.
17. The SRNC proceeds by transmitting the RNSAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration
Commit to the CRNC.
Parameters: SRNC selected activation time in the form of a CFN.
18. The CRNC transmits the NBAP message Radio Link Reconfiguration Commit to the E-DCH
Node B including the activation time.
Parameters: CRNC selected activation time in the form of a CFN.
19. The SRNC also transmits a RRC message Radio Bearer Reconfiguration to the UE.
Parameters: activation time, E-DCH Info and E-RNTI.
20. The UE returns a RRC message Radio Bearer Reconfiguration Complete to the SRNC.

High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) FAQ

By Zahid Ghadialy (zahidtg@yahoo.com)

What does HSDPA stand for?

HSDPA stands for High Speed Downlink Packet Access

So what exactly is HSDPA?

HSDPA is an enhancement to the 3G technology through which you can increase the DL data rates
from 384Kbps (theoretically 2Mbps) to 10Mbps (theoretically 14Mbps). Here Kbps stands for Kilo
bits per second and Mbps stands for Mega bits per second. HSDPA delivers higher capacity through
improved spectral effeciancy, which provides higher data rates, shorter response times and better Qos
(Quality of Service).

Interesting! Is HSDPA part of 3G or will it be part of 4G?

HSDPA is part of 3G but people have started referring it as 3.5G. Some other group has started
referring to HSDPA as 'Super-3G' but they have proposed more enhancements (details below).

Why not similarly have HSUPA where U stands for uplink?

3GPP is working towards HSUPA as well but there are no clear details yet. Theoretically HSUPA is
suppose to boost the uplink speed to 3.5Mbps. And it dosent stop here. There are further plans to
introduce HSOPA where O stands for OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing). This will
increase the download capacity to 40Mbps.

Are any major Network Providers or Service Providers working on HSDPA?

In the 3GSM exhibition in Cannes this year all major operators were demonstrating HSDPA in their
networks. Orange and Nortel Networks have demonstrated it on live spectrum and Orange plans to
launch 3G with HSDPA in Q2, 2006. NTT DoCoMo also plans to launch it by Q2, 2006. O2 is
planning HSDPA network in Isle of Man around September 2005. O2 claims its HSDPA enabled
network will ultimately support data speeds of up to 14.4Mbps. Ericsson has been conducting HSDPA
trials in Stockholm, Sweden, for more than a year, but this system is only capable of delivery data rates
of around 5Mbps.

Were any of these demos impressive?

According to The Register these demos were quite impressive. They reported that in Orange/Nortel
demo seeing good quality video on 5/6 inch screen that was being streamed. Similarly Siemens did
demo for real on its boat out in the harbour and Ericsson demoed up to 11Mbps on a yacht.

Is it possible to buy 3G handsets with HSDPA support?

Not yet but they should be available by Q2, 2006.

Can existing 3G Networks be upgraded to support HSDPA with new Software release?

In theory they can be but it might not always be the case. According to The Register HSDPA is a
power-hungry technology, and many of the base stations out there arent up to the job. The key piece
of technology is the power amplifier, which has to be a full power, 45-watt model, to handle the extra
data output.

What could be the possible uses of HSDPA?

The same use as that of Broadband connections at home. It would be possible to watch extremely good
quality real time Videos, download complete song tracks in less than a minute. Do real time video
conferencing with more than one user using very high quality video. Eventually the wireless operators
plan that instead of having wired broadband at home, people will move to wireless broadband. The list
is non exhaustive.

How did 3GPP manage to increase the speed to DL speed to 10Mbps?

To increase the data rates a new channel called HS-DSCH (High speed downlink shared channel) was
defined. This was somewhat similar to the DSCH defined in the release 99 specs. This channel maps to
HS-PDSCH (high speed physical downlink shared channel). To support this data channel a control
channel HS-SCCH (High speed shared control channels). The HS-DSCH is transmitted over the entire
cell or over only part of the cell using e.g. beam-forming antennas.

The increased data rates are supported through the introduction of Fast and Complex channel-control
mechanisms based on a short fixed packet TTI (transmission time interval), AMC (adaptive
modulation and coding) and L1 HARQ (layer1 hybrid automatic repeat request).

Is HSDPA applicable for CS and PS RABs both?

In release 5 HSDPA is only applicable for PS streaming/interactive/background RABs. In release 6,

HSDPA will be used for Signalling Radio Bearers as well.

Is HSDPA applicable in CELL_FACH or CELL_DCH or both the UE states?

HSDPA is only applicable to CELL_DCH state.

Can you give comparison of HSDPA in FDD & TDD Mode?

With respect to TDD FDD

Uplink Uses HS-SICH (Shared Information Uses an associated uplink dedicated
Channel ) to send Ack/Nack & CQ I control channel (DPCCH-HS) to send
to Node-B Ack/Nack, CQI to Node-B.
DownLink It consists of associated Dedicated It consists of one or several HS-PDSCHs
Physical Channels and shared along with associated DPCH combined
Control Channels(HS-SCCHs) with several shared Physicl control
Channels(HS-SCCHs)
Spreading Factor HS-DSCH uses fixed SF =16. HS-DSCH uses fixed SF=16 e or SF=1
Terminal Complexity Uses Joint Detection Uses RAKE reciever
Transmit Time Interval It uses 10 ms It uses 2ms
Timing Releationships It needs minimum 5 slots between It needs 2 slots between HS- SCCH and
HS- SCCH and start of start of Corresponding HS-DSCH TTI
Corresponding HS-DSCH TTI
Closed Loop Power Calculates Closed loop Power Not Applicable
Control on HS-SCCH by estimating
BLER using HCSN (HS-SCCH
Cyclic Sequence Number)
Measurement It is associated with each HS-SCCH It is configured by higher layer
Report of CQI transmission signalling
Information On TFRI carries Resource Allocation TFRI carries Channelisastion Codes(7-
Downlink Bit), Modulation Scheme(1- Bit) and
(21- Bit), Modualtion (1- Bit) and Transport block size(6-Bit)
Transport block size(9- Bit)