White Paper

RAN Sharing
NECs Approach towards Active Radio Access Network Sharing



NEC Corporation


Executive Summary
The volume of data traffic carried by wireless
networks is expected to increase rapidly in the next
few years [1][2]
1

. Meeting this demand for
increased capacity will require substantial new
investment on the part of mobile network operators
(MNOs). However revenues are not keeping pace
with the growth in traffic and many MNOs are
therefore turning to network sharing as a way to
reduce both their capital expenditure (CAPEX) and
operational expenditure (OPEX). Network sharing
is already used by several 2G and 3G operators,
and will become more widespread with the
introduction of LTE.
NEC recognizes operators need for network
sharing and has developed a comprehensive
solution to meet this demand. This white paper
presents a brief overview of NECs solution. A key
feature of NECs solution is an innovate Radio
Resource Management (RRM) approach based on
a Network Virtualization Substrate (NVS) in the
eNodeB that allows radio resources to be
virtualized and shared in an efficient way. On the
backhaul, traffic is separated by VLANs with
additional mechanisms for traffic shaping. A
flexible Operations, Administration and
Maintenance (OAM) architecture is also provided
to allow customized data collection and control for
each operator.

Operator Benefit

Network sharing may be defined as any
arrangement by which multiple operators share the
capacity of a physical network. This includes the
case of two or more MNOs pooling their network
infrastructure by leasing capacity to each other, as
well as the case in which a network owner leases
capacity to one or more mobile virtual network
operators (MVNOs).
RAN sharing refers specifically to the sharing of
radio access network assets, and can be classified
as either passive or active. In the case of passive
RAN sharing, operators share only cell sites.
Active RAN sharing extends this to the sharing of
transport infrastructure, radio spectrum and
baseband processing resources.
In the last five years a significant number of
operators have already adopted passive RAN
sharing in their 2G and 3G networks. Operators are
now deploying LTE to support ever growing
volumes of data traffic. Due to the level of
investment required, LTE RAN sharing will be
essential to the future success of many operators.
RAN sharing is particularly advantageous for
deploying large networks of small-cell base stations,
for which site acquisition and backhaul installation
are especially challenging.
The following are some of the main benefits of
RAN sharing.
CAPEX and OPEX savings: The principal
benefit of RAN sharing for operators is the
cost saving in planning, rolling out,
maintaining and upgrading their networks.
Network owners can subsidise their costs by
leasing capacity to MVNOs, whilst MVNOs
benefit from not having to deploy and
maintain their own infrastructure. According
to a market survey, mobile infrastructure
sharing has already been deployed by over
65% of European operators in various ways
and this trend is expected to grow in the future
[2]. The savings are even greater in the case of
active RAN sharing. Furthermore,
virtualization of the radio spectrum and
eNodeB hardware resources also greatly
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simplifies the management of a shared
network by allowing the capacity of the
network to be decoupled from the underlying
physical resources. One study has concluded
that operators worldwide could reduce
combined OPEX and CAPEX costs by up to
$60 billion over a five year period through
network sharing, and at least 40% of these cost
savings are expected to come from active
RAN sharing [1].
2

New revenue sources: Virtualization of radio
resources allows network owners to package
and lease radio spectrum more flexibly and in
smaller units than has previously been possible.
As a result, network owners can now offer a
much wider range of contracts to MVNOs.
This offers the possibility of creating new
revenue streams from new types of MVNOs
who would not previously have been able to
justify the investment needed to enter the
market, such as start-up companies and
entrepreneurs offering specialized services to
end users.
Service-centric networks: Sharing of network
infrastructure will encourage a shift from
competition on the basis of network coverage
to competition on the basis of features and
services, promoting innovation and growth
which will benefit the whole industry.
Environmental benefits: RAN sharing is a
greener option than traditional single-operator
networks since sharing equipment and sites
means that operators can reduce their energy
consumption and minimize environmental
impact by deploying fewer antenna masts.
Active RAN sharing enables pooling of
baseband processing resources, resulting in
further energy savings particularly during
periods of low load.

3GPP Standardization Status

From early on, NEC has been actively
contributing to the standardization of RAN sharing
for UMTS and LTE in 3GPP. The key RAN
sharing functions introduced by 3GPP are
summarized below.
3GPP TSG SA WG2 provided a framework in
reference [3] by defining two main architectures for
physical Network sharing Gateway Core Network
(GWCN) and Multi-Operator Core Network
(MOCN), as shown in Figure 1.
eUTRAN
OperatorA+OperatorB
eNB
eNB
eNB
eNB
eUTRAN
OperatorA OperatorB
MME GW MME GW MME GW
S1 S1

Figure 1: Network Sharing Architectures
supported by 3GPP
3GPP TSG RAN WG2 and WG3 have
developed protocol specifications allowing for
differentiation of up to six operators via multiple
PLMN identifier support [4][5][6]. There is
provisioning on the S1 interface for the exchange
of supported PLMN identifiers between eNodeB
and MME to enable selection of the correct CN. On
the X2 interface, a similar exchange of supported
PLMN identifiers between eNodeBs allows for
handover target selection. On the Uu interface,
broadcasting of the supported PLMN identifiers
enables UEs to perform network selection.
Currently, the 3GPP RAN Sharing
Enhancements Study Item of the TSG SA WG1 is
defining new scenarios in which multiple operators
share network resources [7]. The objective of this
work is to formulate requirements for sharing
common RAN resources, with an aim to provide
the following:
A means to verify that the shared network
elements allocate RAN resources according to
the sharing agreements and sharing policies.
A means to enable efficient sharing of
common RAN resources (e.g. pooling of
unallocated radio resources).
A means to flexibly, dynamically and
automatically allocate RAN resources on-
demand at smaller timescales than the ones
currently supported.
NEC is playing a major role in this effort as the
official Study Item rapporteur and is authoring
some of the key contributions.


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Each operator may select a customized mixture
of reserved and shared resources according to their
individual requirements.
NEC Solution

NECs solution supports both of the 3GPP
architectures shown in Figure 1. Figure 2 illustrates
the key features of NECs active RAN sharing
architecture for the case of MOCN with two MNOs.
Virtualization of radio resources presents many
challenges which can be summarized in the
following three key objectives.
eNodeB
NVSMAC
Scheduler
Uplink Traffic
Shaping
Multiple
VLANsper
operator
S1 Flex
Downlink
Traffic
Shaping
MNO A (Network Owner) MNO B
MME
SGW
PGW
DHCPServer SON/ OAM
Backhaul
MME
SGW
PGW
SeGW SeGW
`
Isolation: Each operator must always receive
at least the minimum agreed share of the
physical radio resources, and must be
protected from any adverse effects caused by
fluctuations in other operators traffic. NECs
NVS achieves this goal by converting the
physical radio resources into virtual resources
called slices [8]. Each slice is entitled to use a
certain share of the physical resources.
Customization: It should be made possible for
each operator to set different RRM parameters
based on individual RRM policies. NECs
NVS meets this requirement by allocating one
or more slices to each operator, and enabling
admission control and MAC scheduling to be
managed separately within each slice.

Figure 2: NECs end-to-end RAN Sharing
Solution
NECs eNodeB product line includes a Network
Virtualization Substrate (NVS) feature which
manages sharing of the radio spectrum and eNodeB
processing resources. On the backhaul, multiple
VLANs are operated and traffic shaping is
performed in the eNodeB (for uplink) and the
gateway (for downlink). The OAM server allows
each operators virtual network to be separately
configured and managed.
Spectral Efficiency: Efficient use of the
physical radio resources should be made in
order to maximize the overall network
capacity. NECs NVS achieves high spectral
efficiency by means of dynamic scheduling,
which is described further below.
These features are described in more detail in
the following sections.
MAC Scheduler
In LTE, the MAC scheduler is designed to make
efficient use of the available radio spectrum whilst
maintaining a careful balance between fairness and
total system throughput. Virtualization inevitably
places additional constraints on the MAC scheduler
algorithm, and the key challenge for the MAC
scheduler design is therefore to provide effective
resource virtualization without compromising
overall system performance.
1) Radio Resource Management
At the RRM level, NECs solution enables active
RAN sharing by virtualization of the physical radio
resources. NEC recognizes that as active RAN
sharing becomes more widespread, MVNOs will
expect more flexibility in the way that virtual
resources are provided and managed by network
owners. The NEC solution therefore allows the
network owner to offer two types of virtual radio
resources to operators:
For example, a simple way to share radio
resources is to assign each operator a fixed set of
Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) such that each
operators traffic is scheduled only within its
dedicated PRBs. An example of this Static
Reservation scheme with two operators is shown
in
Reserved resources are guaranteed to be
always available to the operator that owns
them.
Figure 3(a). However, this solution provides
poor overall spectral efficiency because it restricts
the frequency diversity available to the MAC
scheduler, and unnecessarily limits the peak data
Shared resources are not reserved by any
operator but may be allocated to any operator
based on a policy configured by the network
owner (for example first-come first-served).
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rate available to users of one operator when there is
low traffic in the cell from other operators.
NECs NVS avoids these limitations by
employing a slice scheduler which works in
conjunction with the MAC scheduler. The slice
scheduler monitors the amount of resources that the
MAC scheduler assigns to each slice and
dynamically adjusts the bearer priorities in the
MAC scheduler to maintain the required resource
allocation for each operator. In this way, all
operators have access to the whole system
bandwidth. This is illustrated in
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Figure 3(b).
Operator A
traffic
Operator B
traffic
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
A
Time
(a) Static Reservation (b) NECNVSSolution
NVSSlice Scheduler
MACScheduler
F
r
e
q
u
e
n
c
y
Time
B
Operator B
MAC
Scheduler
Operator A
traffic
Operator B
traffic
Operator A
MAC
Scheduler

Figure 3: (a) Static Reservation versus (b) NEC
NVS solution
NECs NVS scheduler has been thoroughly
evaluated by field trials and simulations [8][9][10].
Figure 4 shows the result of one simulation
experiment in which operators A and B each own
an equal share of a network of 21 cells with a
system bandwidth of 10MHz. The mean traffic load
of operator A is assumed to be fixed at 4 Mbps/cell,
and the traffic load of operator B is varied from 0
to 10 Mbps/cell. We compare the user throughput
of NECs NVS scheduler with both the Static
Reservation case (as shown in Figure 3(a)) and a
Full Sharing scheduler which does not distinguish
at all between the traffic belonging to each operator.
The user throughput is the rate experienced by
users when they are receiving data (which can be
higher than the mean offered traffic).
The Static Reservation case provides complete
physical isolation between operators so the mean
user throughput of operator As traffic does not
change with the traffic load of operator B. However,
it also unnecessarily limits the user throughput of
operator A when the load of operator B is low.
With NECs NVS method, operator A achieves
nearly the same user throughput as with the Full
Sharing scheduler when the traffic load of operator
B is low. When the traffic load of operator B is
high NECs NVS method provides the same
isolation as Static Reservation, avoiding any
degradation in operator As user throughput.

Figure 4: Simulation Results: Operator A Mean
User Throughput
Figure 5 shows the fraction of cell resources
consumed by each operator when the traffic load of
operator B is 8 Mbps/cell. Since the traffic load of
operator B is twice as high as that of operator A,
the Full Sharing scheduler allocates two thirds of
the resources to operator B. However this is unfair
on operator A, who owns a half-share of the
network. Static Reservation allows operator B to
use only 50%, but this leaves some resources
unused because operator A does not have enough
traffic to fill the remaining 50%. NECs NVS
method allows operator B to use the resources that
operator A currently does not need, improving the
service to operator Bs users and maximizing the
overall spectrum usage.
33.5
44.5 45.4
66.4
50.0
54.6
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
90.0
100.0
Full Sharing Static
Reservation
NECNVS
R
e
s
o
u
r
c
e

U
s
a
g
e

[
%
]
Operator A Operator B
O
p
e
r
a
t
o
r
B
'
s

S
h
a
r
e
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n
u
s
e
d

R
e
s
o
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r
c
e
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U
n
f
a
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r

A
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p
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r
a
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r
A
'
s

S
h
a
r
e

Figure 5: Simulation Results: Resource Usage at
High Load
NEC Corporation 2013


Future Enhancements 2) Backhaul

NECs backhaul solution for RAN sharing
provides support for both wired and wireless all-IP
backhaul architecture for up to six network
operators. The core transport features include:
In addition to maintaining a commitment to
further standardization of network sharing features,
NEC is investigating ways to provide enhanced
RAN sharing functionality in future products.
Traffic shaping: The rate of uplink traffic
being sent from an eNodeB and downlink
traffic being sent from a gateway can be
limited for each operator or for each
forwarding class in each operator to provide
guaranteed performance per operator.
NetShare: Future centralized RAN
architectures will allow eNodeB processing
resources to be pooled across multiple cells.
This suggests the possibility of enforcing
each operators share of the radio resources
on aggregate over a group of cells, rather
than in each cell independently. This would
allow the sharing mechanism to distribute
each operators share between cells
according to the operators traffic load in
each cell. NEC has developed a framework
called NetShare for performing this function.
S1 Flex: The eNodeB can be connected to
multiple MMEs or SGWs. This flexibility
allows MMEs and SGWs to be owned by
separate individual operators to enable
network sharing, or owned by a single operator
for connection redundancy and traffic load
balancing purposes.
Multi-Operator Load Balancing: Another
technique which is related to the above is
multi-operator load balancing. This involves
redistributing traffic between cells on a per
operator basis in order to minimize the
blocking probability experienced by each
operator. NEC is conducting research in this
area and is evaluating its potential for
increasing system capacity.
Traffic Isolation: The transport network can
be partitioned into multiple virtual domains for
separating traffic while efficiently sharing the
mobile backhaul bandwidth. Multiple IP
addresses are assigned per eNodeB to identify
and manage each operators traffic in the
backhaul network. QoS control can be enabled
per VLAN [11]. An operators traffic can be
mapped to one or multiple VLANs .

IPsec: If the eNodeB is connected to the CN
via untrusted IP backhaul, IPsec can be used to
provide end-to-end security for operators
traffic. The eNodeB can establish multiple
IPsec tunnels for each operator, and the SeGW
may be shared between operators.
Conclusion

Network sharing offers compelling cost benefits
to network operators and is therefore expected to
become one of the major features of future LTE
deployments. The virtualization of radio spectrum
and eNodeB resources required for active RAN
sharing also makes possible the easy creation and
management of virtual networks, opening up a
range of new business models through which
network owners can increase the revenue from their
networks.

3) OAM
NECs solution supports Configuration
Management, Performance Management and Fault
Management on a centralized basis. The network
owner sets selected parameters, collects
performance data, sets alarm trigger conditions and
handles alarms related to the eNodeB. The network
owner also manages the resource assignment for
each MVNO according to the contracts with the
MVNOs. Performance data is managed on a per-
operator basis for up to six operators.
NECs eNodeB product line allows operators to
fully exploit the benefits of network sharing by
providing an innovative RRM solution for sharing
radio resources, efficient and flexible backhaul
sharing, and an OAM architecture that allows
network management and monitoring on a per-
operator basis.



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References

[1] Active RAN Sharing Could Save $60 Billion for
Operators,
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/36831.php
[2] Mobile Network Sharing Report 2010-2015,
Development, Analysis & Forecasts, Market Study,
Visiongain, 2010
[3] 3GPP TS 23.251, Network Sharing; Architecture and
functional description
[4] 3GPP TS 36.413, S1 Application Protocol (S1AP)
[5] 3GPP TS 36.423, X2 Application Protocol (X2AP)
[6] 3GPP TS 36.331, Radio Resource Control (RRC)
[7] 3GPP TR 22.852, Study on RAN Sharing
Enhancements, Release 12
[8] R. Kokku, R. Mahindra, H. Zhang, and S. Rangarajan
(NEC Laboratories America), NVS: A virtualization
substrate for WiMAX networks, ACM Mobicom,
2010
[9] R. Kokku, R. Mahindra, H. Zhang, S. Rangarajan
(NEC Laboratories America), "CellSlice: Cellular
Wireless Resource Slicing for Active RAN Sharing",
5th International Conference on Communication
Systems and Networks (COMSNETS), January 2013
[10] Tao Guo, Rob Arnott (NEC Telecom Modus Ltd.),
Active LTE RAN Sharing with Partial Resource
Reservation, submitted to IEEE Vehicular
Technology Conference, September 2013
[11] IEEE 802.1Q Virtual LANs
































Abbreviations

3GPP 3
rd
Generation Partnership Project
CAPEX Capital Expenditure
CN Core Network
DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
eUTRAN Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio
Access Network
GW Gateway
GWCN Gateway Core Network
LTE Long Term Evolution
MAC Medium Access Control
MME Mobility Management Entity
MNO Mobile Network Operator
MOCN Multi-operator Core Network
MVNO Mobile Virtual Network Operator
NVS Network Virtualization Substrate
OAM Operations, Administration and
Maintenance
OPEX Operational Expenditure
PGW Packet Data Network Gateway
PLMN Public Land Mobile Network
PRB Physical Resource Block
QoS Quality of Service
RAN Radio Access Network
RRM Radio Resource Management
SA System Aspects
SeGW Security Gateway
SGW Serving Gateway
SON Self-Organizing Network
TR Technical Report
TS Technical Specification
TSG Technical Specification Group
UE User Equipment
UMTS Universal Mobile
Telecommunications System
VLAN Virtual Local Area Network
WG Working Group

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tel: +81-(0)3- 3454-1111
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Information in this document is subject to change without notice.