Resource sharing in the Mobile domain

Presentation to the RSPG Plenary, Thursday November 8th 2012, Brussels

Bram van den Ende

TNO Information Society

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Contents of my talk

Brief introduction to TNO and SAPHYRE

Sharing in the mobile domain: MNO and regulator perspectives

A common “tool” to evaluate sharing arrangements

What can be gained through spectrum sharing?

SAPHYRE results and way ahead

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Introduction to TNO • TNO: acronym for The Netherlands Organisation for Applied

Scientific Research

• Established by Dutch government in Dutch Law of 1932

• TNO Mission:TNO connects people and knowledge to create innovations that boost the sustainable competitiveness of industry and well-being of society

• TNO caters to industry and government needs for specific R&D and consulting

• TNO is independent of public and private interests

• TNO activities include: Consultancy, Contract research, Testing and certification, Licences, Performing statutory assignments

TNO Business themes

• 4000+ staff, well educated

• € 564 million income in 2010

• € 195 million public funding NL

• € 364 million market income

• 350 staff in Telecoms

• Telecoms technology and business areas

• E.g. NL LTE /EPC 800/1800Mhz study

• Telecom customers: Fixed, Mobile, Cable & Government

Facts TNO offices: NL and international

Brief introduction to TNO

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SAPHYRE vision

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MNO’s face challenges

The ‘smart phones’ hype have made mobile services and

applications even more popular=>network capacity

requirements are going ‘sky high’

Strongly competitive market

High deployment costs for next generation mobile networks

Data revenues are not proportional => Eroding business

case, especially in less crowded rural areas

Revenues

Traffic/costs

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Is cooperation through sharing an option for MNO’s?

Bottom-line: Sharing is a very strategical matter for

operators due to the impact on the market and their

own position in that market.

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

Operator B

Spectrum B

UE_B

RAN B

Operator A

Spectrum A

UE_A

RAN A

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Practice is building up in Europe…

Country Companies Type of sharing Tech Established/

announced

Sweden Telia + Tele2

RAN+spectrum sharing (30%

population coverage with own

sites)

3G 2001

Sweden Telenor + 3 RAN sharing 3G 2001

UK 3 + Everything Everywhere

(former T-Mobile): MBNL RAN-sharing 3G 2007

Italy TIM + Vodafone Passive network sharing All 2008

Spain Orange + Yoigo Network sharing (Passive?) 3G 2008

Sweden Telenor + Tele2 RAN+spectrum sharing 2G&4G 2009

D/IRL/ESP/UK Vodafone + Telefonica O2 Mostly passive network

sharing 2/3G 2009

Austria T-Mobile + Orange Active RAN-sharing 3G 2011

Denmark Telia + Telenor Active RAN sharing 2/3/4G 2011

Ireland Telefonica O2 + Eircom Passive sharing, some active

elements 2/3G 2011

Poland Orange + T-mobile Active RAN sharing 2/3G 2011

Czech rep Telefonica O2 + T-Mobile Active RAN-sharing 3G 2011

UK Vodafone + Telefonica O2 RAN-sharing 2/3/4G 2012

NL KPN + Vodafone Passive RAN sharing (Pilot) 2/3G 2012

Note that some initiatives were launched that never really materialized (e.g. Telfort/KPN in 2001 and T-

Mobile/Orange in 2004 in NL, VF/Orange in UK); they are not shown.

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Is the resource sharing option acceptable to regulators?

Entry barriers for

new entrants?

Innovation in

networks

Cost efficiency

Environmental and

health

Spectrum

efficiency Operator’s

independence

Dominant positions

in the market?

Collusive

behaviour

Access barriers for

MVNOs

Retail service

differentiation?

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MNO and Regulator have different perspectives but could choose for common “tooling”

A sharing arrangement (coalition),

from the perspective of an MNO,

should bring him an improved business case compared to ‘going

alone’ (individual investments) and/or an improvement in his own

market position compared to his competitors, while at the same time

it does not hamper his service profile and independency (too much)

from the perspective of a regulator,

should not lead to reduced competitiveness in the mobile market,

nor create (new) dominant positions, nor increase entry barriers, etc

TNO has developed in SAPHYRE a coalition formation model (based

on game theory) which provide an assessment method which could be

of use both to MNOs and regulators (e.g. compare to BULRIC)

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(n,KVT)** HHi = 82%

(nKVT)*** HHi =100%

(nK,VT)* HHi = 51%

(nVT,K)* HHi = 51%

(nKT,V) HHI = 61%

(n,K,V,T) HHi = 32%

(n,K,VT)** HHi = 42%

A

B

Example: impact of likely coalitions on entry barrier

Reference: SAPHYRE D5.5: Business models, cost analysis and advises for spectrum policy and regulation for scenario III

(to be published)

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Contents of my talk

Brief introduction to TNO and SAPHYRE

Sharing in the mobile domain: MNO and regulator perspectives

A common “tool” to evaluate sharing arrangements

What can be gained through spectrum sharing?

SAPHYRE results and way ahead

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Demand for wireless spectrum (OFCOM, 2009)

!! 8,200TB

!! 2015

OFCOM concluded in 2009 that spectrum reuse (e.g. through

cooperation) is one of the key measures to deal with exponential growth

of spectrum demand

In the mobile domain, we see elementary forms of RAN sharing being

practised, but: what about spectrum sharing?

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Two forms of spectrum sharing

Inter operator orthogonal spectrum sharing:

Exclusive use of the radio channel at any given moment, through

(shared) resource scheduling between Operator A and B (TDMA).

No interference issues (with proper design&implementation).

Sharing gain is dependent on traffic profiles.

Inter operator non-orthogonal sharing:

Shared used of the radio channel at any given moment, through

smart and coordinated interference management between Operator

A and B. Delicate but with large potential sharing gain.

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Orthogonal sharing: achievable gains

Influential factors: trunking gains, (a)symmetry in traffic A and B, scheduling paradigm

Eduard A. Jorswieck, Leonardo Badia, Torsten Fahldieck, Martin Haardt, Eleftherios Karipidis, Jian Luo, Rafał Pisz, Christian

Scheunert: “Resource sharing improves the network efficiency for network operators”, 27th Meeting of the Wireless World

Research Forum (WWRF), Düsseldorf, Germany, 19 October 2011.

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Orthogonal sharing: various possibilities

Collaborative sharing in existing band Collaborative sharing of additional band

(efficient use of additional capacity)

Through spectrum brokering

Reference: SAPHYRE D5.3: Business models, cost analysis and advises for spectrum policy and regulation for scenario I

Spot market option

not depicted here

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Gain through orthogonal sharing in mobile networks seems modest,

and decreases sharply as more spectrum becomes available

2005 2010 2015 2020 2025

Single RAT terminals

Multi RAT terminals

2005 2010 2015 2020 2025

UMTS-2100 carries all

mobile traffic

• UMTS-2100

• UMTS900 is introduced

in 2012

• UMTS 900/2100

• LTE introduced in 2014,

carrying 25% of mobile

traffic

• LTE 800/1800/2600

• LTE-Advanced carries

25% of traffic

• LTE-A @ 800/900/1800/

2100/2600

• Other technologies/bands

carry 20% of traffic

Site

co

un

t re

du

ction

of R

AN

+sp

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um

sh

arin

g c

om

pa

red

with

RA

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harin

g

Work to be published

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Non-orthogonal spectrum sharing

Inter-operator

Physical

Data link

Network

Transport

Session

Presentation

Application

Operator A

Physical

Data link

Network

Transport

Band selection

Physical

Data link

Network

Transport

Session

Presentation

Application

Operator B

Physical

Data link

Network

Transport

Band selection

Spectrum C

oo

pera

tio

n

X2

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Research on non-orthogonal sharing in SAPHYRE

Concept:

• Operator 1: TX1->RX1; Operator 2: TX2->RX2

• Multi-antenna TXs, single-antenna RXs

• Transmissions in same frequency/time/area

• Separate signals in the spatial dimension:

Transmit beamforming appropriately scales the Tx signal in each antenna to steer the power

towards specific directions

Eleftherios Karipidis, David Gesbert, Martin Haardt, Ka-Ming Ho, Eduard A. Jorswieck, Erik G. Larsson, Jianhui Li, Johannes

Lindblom, Christian Scheunert, Martin Schubert, Nikola Vučić: “Transmit beamforming for inter-operator spectrum sharing”,

Future Network and Mobile Summit (FNMS), Warsaw, Poland, 15–17 June 2011.

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Promising measurement results

showing SAPHYRE gain and support

theoretical work

Very realistic reference implementation

First demonstration successful on

Mobile World Congress 2012

Industrial support for practical and

standardized solutions

RSPG to consider regulatory (and

harmonized) accommodation of

(advanced forms of) spectrum sharing,

i.e. through novel licensing models

SAPHYRE results; way ahead

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Thank you for your kind attention Any questions?

Bram van den Ende

Project Manager

TNO Information Society

Bram.vandenende@tno.nl

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