Nokia Networks

FutureWorks

Ten key rules of 5G deployment

Enabling 1 Tbit/s/km2 in 2030

Nokia Networks white paper

Ten key rules of 5G deployment

Contents
Executive Summary

5G system requirement: 1 Tbit/s/km2

5G deployment options

5G deployment recommendations

Summary and conclusions

Page 2

15

networks.nokia.com

Executive Summary
By 2030 there is likely to be as much as 10,000 times more wireless data
traffic criss-crossing networks than there was in 2010, according to Nokia
estimates. The growth will be driven by the use of ultra-high resolution video
streaming, the ubiquity of cloud-based applications, entertainment and
greater use of high resolution screens at form factors we may not even guess
at today. As well as more of the same, we will see new use cases, applications
and devices stemming from the powerful trend of the Internet of Things,
which will lead to what we call the programmable world. In addition, 5G will
provide at least a ten-fold improvement in the user experience compared
to 4G in terms of peak data rates and minimal latency. Nokia envisions 5G as
being a system that provides a scalable and flexible service experience with
virtually zero latency, involving gigabits of data when and where it matters.
This white paper outlines the deployment options for 5G to provide the
required capacity and end user data rates that will be needed. The ten key
recommendations for 5G deployments are:
LTE Advanced can provide the required capacity of tens of Gb/s/km2 for
2020 and beyond.
Approximately 1 GHz of aggregated spectrum to provide the required
capacity and cell edge data rates by 2030.
A 5G small cells deployment in 6-30 GHz band (cmWave) with a 500 MHz
carrier bandwidth can provide hundreds of Gb/s/km2 for 2025 and beyond.
A 5G small cells deployment in up to 100 GHz band (mmWave) with 2 GHz
carrier bandwidth can provide a Tb/s/km2 for 2030 and beyond.
mmWave can further provide backhaul to the small cells in a mesh
configuration with a maximum of two hops.
Very large antenna arrays can be used to effectively compensate for the
higher path loss at higher frequency bands.
For both the cmWave and mmWave deployments an inter-site distance
of 75-100 m can provide full coverage and satisfy the required capacity,
depending on the environment.
A 5G wide area solution is needed to provide the required coverage and cell
edge data rates for 2030.
Dedicated indoor small cell deployments are needed to satisfy indoor
capacity requirements beyond 2020.
Multi connectivity between LTE Advanced, cmWave, and mmWave
significantly boosts cell edge performance and can lower the required
density for small cell deployment.
This white paper provides an overview of the 5G requirements and deployment
options in the spectrum from 2 GHz up to 100 GHz. The paper concludes with
key recommendations for deploying a 5G system from 2020 towards 2030.

Page 3

networks.nokia.com

5G system requirement: 1 Tbit/s/km2

Mobile broadband is the key use case today and is expected to remain one
of the key use cases that will set the requirements for 5G. Mobile broadband
goes far beyond basic mobile Internet access and covers rich interactive work,
media and entertainment applications in the cloud or reality augmentations
(both centralized and distributed).
Currently, mobile data traffic is roughly doubling every year and is expected
to continue to grow towards 2030. The strong growth is expected to continue
towards 2030.
The need for more capacity is just one driver for mobile networks to evolve
towards 5G. The full set of key requirements foreseen by Nokia for 5G is
shown in Figure 1.

>10 Gbps

Massive Broadband

peak data rates

10 000

10-100

M2M

Smart city
cameras

ultra low cost

Massive machine
type communication

(Low power) Wide area

x more traic

Capacity for
everyone

x more devices

10 years
on battery

100 Mbps

whenever needed

Sensor NW

Ultra
reliability

3D video /
4K screens Work in
the cloud

Flexibility VR gaming
for the
Industry 4.0
unknown

<1 ms

Remote control
of robot
Mission critical
broadcast Autonomous driving

Critical machine
type communication

# of Devices | Cost | Power

Crowd

A trillion of devices with dierent needs

Ultra-dense
GB transferred in an instant

radio latency

Outdoor
Mission-critical wireless control and automation

Figure 1. 5G will enable very diverse use cases with extreme range of requirements
The huge amount of traffic will need to be carried through all mobile broadband
technologies at some point between 2020 and 2030. The need for more
capacity will demand more spectrum at higher carrier frequencies. Thus, the 5G
system needs to be designed for deployment in new frequency bands as well as
coexisting and integrating with other radio access technologies.
The growth in mobile data traffic will be accompanied by an increase in the
number of communication devices. We expect to see ten to one hundred
more devices per mobile communications user, ranging from phone, tablet,
laptop and smart watches to smart shirts. In addition the number of

Page 4

networks.nokia.com

connected machines and sensors in industry and the public infrastructure is

increasing. This trend will continue and 5G will need to accommodate growth
in the number of devices.
A battery life of 10 years will be needed for machine-type communications
(MTC). As the technology evolves, battery life will be improved but this is
not the full story. More efficient handling of machine type traffic in the 5G
system will also be needed, even though a 10-year battery life can already be
achieved for MTC with LTE Rel-13/14.
The ability to handle very low cost devices must be present across the whole
range of 5G frequency bands.
Radio latency less than one millisecond is important to a whole new range
of use cases, such as remote control of machines and objects in the cloud
or the tactile Internet. Low latency also ensures the system responds
quickly, for example fast wake up and dormancy, fast scheduling and fast
link reconfiguration. Lower latencies for the end user will come from higher
transmission data rates, but also through appropriate design of the 5G
system.
The peak data rate of a 5G system needs to be higher than 10 Gbit/s but
more importantly, the cell-edge data rate (guaranteed for 95% of the users)
should be at least 100 Mbit/s, enabling the mobile Internet to act as a reliable
substitute for cable networks wherever needed.
Combining data growth and user data rates with a denser subscriber base, we
can calculate the total area capacity that 5G will need to support by 2030. This
assumes:
Traffic per subscriber per day: 30 GByte personalized data
Subscriber density: 100,000 users/km2
Busy hour traffic: 10% of the daily traffic.
These requirements will necessitate a 5G system that can support ~1 Tbit/s/
km2 in 2030.
This paper describes the deployment options and recommends how to deploy a
5G network to cope with this degree of traffic density. It considers requirements
for cell density, backhaul and spectrum, as well as recommendations for HetNet
configurations.

Page 5

networks.nokia.com

5G deployment options
LTE-Advanced is todays favored option for providing mobile broadband for
both macro and small cells. Nokia has extensively researched LTE deployment
to show that an LTE-based HetNet can cope with a capacity up to a thousand
times greater than that common in 2010. To meet capacity needs beyond this
figure, small cells using 5G frequency bands need to be deployed with an LTE
macro/HetNet overlay.
The key challenge for LTE Advanced to provide an excellent end-user
experience is to satisfy the demand for cell-edge data rates that will grow to
100 Mbit/s in 2030. This requires a higher bandwidth compared with existing
spectrum allocation below 6 GHz. Our analysis shows that up to 2 GHz of
spectrum could be used for cellular below 6 GHz. This will be divided among
several operators, so for example, four operators would receive only 500 MHz
each. To satisfy the 5G requirements for capacity and data rates, new and
more advanced 5G systems are needed.
Nokia foresees 5G using the full spectrum range, from below 1 GHz to 100
GHz, providing wide area coverage and high capacity in dense areas. While
more spectrum below 6 GHz is needed and new promising techniques such
as LSA/ASA will increase the use of existing frequencies, there will be an
increasing need to unlock new spectrum bands from 6 to 100 GHz for mobile
use. This range can be broadly split into two parts, centimeter wave (cmWave)
and millimeter wave (mmWave), based on different radio propagation
characteristics and possible carrier bandwidth.
For cmWave frequency bands where moderate system bandwidths such as
500 MHz are used to meet 5G requirements, massive MIMO will increase
spectral efficiency -peak, average user and cell edge. This uses a large number
of parallel transmit streams (high-rank single user MIMO (SU-MIMO) e.g. 8
streams) as well as multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO).
For mmWave frequency bands where large bandwidths such as 2GHz are
used, a large number of antennas can be used to generate narrow beams to
mitigate the increased path loss, coupled with low rank SU-MIMO (e.g. 2-4
streams) as well as MU-MIMO.
Similar coverage can be achieved at different bands ranging from 28-100 GHz,
since for the same form factor, larger antenna arrays can be used in high bands
to compensate for the path loss difference between high and low bands.

Page 6

networks.nokia.com

Table 1. System configuration for LTE-Advanced and evaluated 5G systems from 6-100 GHz
Parameter

LTE-Advanced

cmWave

mmWave

Frequency band

6 GHz

6-30 GHz

30-100 GHz

Carrier bandwidth

100 & 200 MHz

500 MHz

2 GHz

Modulation order

64 QAM

256 QAM

64 QAM

MIMO combination

8x8

8x8

2x2

SU-MIMO rank

MU-MIMO rank

Antenna configuration

10x1 AAS 8 antenna

ports MIMO (macro)

Omni directional
4 antenna ports

4x4 AAS 4 sectors 2

antenna ports

Table 1 outlines the key assumption used for three different systems LTE-Advanced, cmWave, and mmWave.
To make a realistic model and analysis we have focused on the radio wave
propagation from 2 GHz to 73 GHz, which has been used throughout this study.

Probability on the cumulative density

function

Figure 2 shows the line of sight (LoS) path loss comparison for the different
frequency ranges. The shape of the CDF shows that the path loss components
are consistent across the frequency bands. In our 5G deployment analysis,
LTE-Advanced is deployed at 2 GHz with up to 100 or 200 MHz bandwidth; the
cmWave system is deployed at 10 and 28 GHz with a 500 MHz bandwidth, while
the mmWave system is deployed at 28, 39 and 73 GHz with a 2 GHz bandwidth.
Ray tracing based on 3D city models was used to generate the path losses used
in the case study. The variation in path loss is based on the distance between
the device and the eNB.
1
0.9

2GHz
5.6GHz
10.25GHz
28.5GHz
39.3GHz
73.5GHz

0.8
0.7
0.6

Freq.

0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

50

60

70

80

90
100
Pathloss [dB]

110

120

130

140

Figure 2. LOS path loss consistent across bands

Page 7

networks.nokia.com

3dB mean loss

CDF

0.8

13dB mean loss

0.6

In both cases
40dB attenuation
per ray is used
(73.5GHz)

0.4
0.2
0

Tablet/laptop device model

40dB body loss per ray
0

10

20

30

40

User body loss attenuation per link [dB]

Figure 3. Body loss model for tablet use case (40dB attenuation per ray at 73.5 GHz)
Another important aspect for deployment at different frequency ranges is the
penetration loss experienced by radio signals crossing various objects in the
propagation environment. In the case of low frequency (<6 GHz) deployments,
the main penetration loss is typically the outdoor-to-indoor propagation
loss. However, in higher frequency bands, the users own body can also
cause strong shadowing for the radio signal, in some cases fully blocking the
communication link. Figure 3 shows the tablet body loss model that we have
developed for this analysis. The radio wave propagation is modeled by multipath ray tracing with reflection, diffraction and scattering for each individual
ray. The body loss model adds attenuation for those rays passing through the
body and no loss for those rays received without interference from the user.
The scenarios analyzed in this study concentrate on three models that enable
comparable results:
Simple outdoor urban case study (e.g. small subset of a city center)
Realistic outdoor urban case study (e.g. Tokyo)
Simple indoor deployment case study (e.g. office, conference, shopping mall
scenario)
The next section outlines the results for LTE-Advanced, cmWave and mmWave
deployments in the three scenarios.

Page 8

networks.nokia.com

METIS TC2 Madrid

basic block 387x552m +20m
extension on each side (~0.25km2)
~40% outdoor area (including park)

Deployment types:
Small cells (3 ISD options, uniform deployments)
Macro cells (~250m ISD)
HetNet (mixtures of macro and small cells)
100m ISD
(120 APs/km2)

75m ISD
(250 APs/km2)

50m ISD
(450 APs/km2)

Figure 4. Simplified outdoor deployment scenario

<Change information classification in footer>

5G deployment recommendations
The basic outdoor model is the METIS test case 2 (TC2) also referred as the
Madrid environment [METIS deliverable D6.1] as shown in 4.
The Madrid case is deployed with a macro layer having an inter-site distance
(ISD) of 250 m and the small cell layer varying between 50, 75, and 100 m ISD.
Figure 5 shows the capacity and the spectral efficiency of the LTE-Advanced,
cmWave, and mmWave systems deployed at various carrier frequencies and
various ISDs.
10

8
Full network eciency [kb/s/Hz/km]

Full network capacity [Tb/s/km]

Thousands of
Gb/s/km

10
Hundreds of
Gb/s/km

10-

10-

Tens of
Gb/s/km

LTE, 50m ISD

cmWave, 50m ISD
mmWave, 50m ISD
LTE, 75m ISD
cmWave, 75m ISD
mmWave, 75m ISD
LTE, 100m ISD
cmWave, 100m ISD
mmWave, 100m ISD

7
6
5

mmWave uses
4 cells/site

4
3

Eciency of LTE and cmWave

the same in DL only simulations

2
1
0

10

10

10

10

Frequency [GHz]

10

10

Frequency [GHz]

Figure 5. Small cell deployment in the Madrid environment with different ISD
Page 9

networks.nokia.com

What we can see is that LTE-Advanced is able to provide tens of Gb/s/km2,

which is expected in the early part of 2020 [Evolution towards UDN Nokia
white paper]. The next step is deployment of cmWave radio, which can carry
hundreds of Gb/s/km2 as expected from 2025. Finally, mmWave radio can
provide capacity in the order of several Tb/s/km2 which even exceeds the
1Tb/s/km2 requirement outlined for 2030. The cmWave system has a stable
performance over the analyzed frequency ranges, whereas the mmWave
system provides significantly more capacity with certain deviation between
the considered bands. The main reason for the increased capacity of the
mmWave system is the additional carrier bandwidth and the four sectorized
antennas assumed for the mmWave access points.
Figure 5 shows three different small cell deployment cases where each
provides the required capacity for a given timeframe. However, the expected
deployment will be a HetNet. This will have layers of different cells, with a wide
area LTE-Advanced or 5G system as an overlay, with 5G small cells deployed
throughout the >6 GHz frequency ranges providing the required capacity
when and where needed. The macro cells are deployed mainly for coverage,
with an ISD of ~250m. A 100 m ISD for the small cell deployment provides full
outdoor coverage. The growing need for capacity can then be provided with
the deployment of different 5G small cells.
One of the issues affecting the deployment of a HetNet is the load balancing
technique for optimizing the user experience and the network capacity. In 5G
systems needing to provide 100 Mbit/s, many users may be in a boundary
zone, experiencing good coverage but not fully achieving the requested data
rate. For load balancing, the serving cell selection procedure is based on the
estimated available throughput per link, rather than simply the link quality as
typically done in legacy systems. For this purpose, the users signal quality
measurements of the potential serving cells are collected (wideband SINR
measurements, e.g. RSRQ). These measurements are used to estimate the link
capacity using the SINR-to-capacity mapping function. This link capacity is the
throughput a single user in a cell would get.
Secondly, an estimation of the potential number of other served users per cell
is made based on the system type (e.g. its bandwidth) and cell size (macro vs.
pico). For example, a cmWave cell serves typically four times more users than a
mmWave cell, because mmWave access points have four sectors to cover the
same area as a cmWave access point. Using the link capacity estimation and
the typical number of users per cell, the user decides which cell will offer the
higher throughput and connects to the cell. Another simple yet powerful way
to increase cell edge data rates is to use dual or multi connectivity in the user
devices. Table 2 shows the gain, from having load balancing with a single data
connection, to having multi connectivity between cmWave and mmWave small
cells. It can be seen that at 100m ISD when using load balancing, we have cell
edge performance of 87 Mbit/s, which is slightly below the target in 2030. By
adding dual connectivity between cmWave and mmWave, we can increase the
cell edge performance by a factor of three to 286 Mbit/s.

Page 10

networks.nokia.com

Table 2. Average throughput and cell edge throughput enhancements for multi-connectivity (full buffer
model)
Load balancing

Multi-connectivity

cmWave ISD
(10 GHz band)

mmWave ISD
(73GHz band)

Avg. Thp

5%-ile Thp.

Avg. Thp

5%-ile Thp.

100m

100m

1.4 Gb/s

87 Mb/s

1.5 Gb/s

286 Mb/s

75m

75m

2.1 Gb/s

210 Mb/s

2.6 Gb/s

784 Mb/s

50m

50m

3.1 Gb/s

420 Mb/s

4.1 Gb/s

1300 Mb/s

This study was based on the expected spectrum allocation in the different
bands. An analysis was performed of how much spectrum is really needed to
fulfill the 5G requirements for 2030 and the minimum bandwidth required
to achieve 10 Gb/s peak throughput. The results show that this is currently
not possible in LTE with 3GPP Rel-12 - 5G cmWave needs 215 MHz and 5G
mmWave requires 1.25 GHz.
Furthermore, ~1 GHz of aggregated spectrum is required to deliver the
capacity and the cell edge data rates of 100 Mbit/s for 2030. Therefore,
LTE-Advanced with a 100 MHz bandwidth and cmWave with a 500 MHz
bandwidth are unable to deliver the required capacity and cell edge data rates
by 2030. In contrast, a 2 GHz bandwidth may be at the high end for mmWave
deployment and a lower bandwidth with a higher power spectral density could
be considered. However, LTE Rel. 13 standardization is working on 32 carrier
aggregation and LTE-U which will enhance the data rates of LTE significantly.
Backhaul is an important issue in the deployment of small cells. Nokia has
studied backhaul for 5G small cell deployments and found that mmWave
deployed at, for example, 73 GHz can provide 1 Gbit/s backhaul capacity
per cell in a mesh configuration with a maximum of two hops. This would
mean that, in a realistic environment, only around 20% of all access points
would require wired backhaul (for example macro access points) relaying the
backhaul capacity to the remaining access points in the network.
For a real dense urban city deployment, we have analyzed a real urban
environment in Tokyo, as shown in 6. The Tokyo deployment consists of an LTE
Advanced macro layer with 240 m ISD at 2 GHz representing an aggregated
spectrum of 100 MHz at 2 GHz and below. Furthermore, there is a small cell
layer of cmWave deployed at 10 GHz with 500MHz bandwidth and a colocated small cell layer of mmWave at 73 GHz with 2 GHz bandwidth. The
initial coverage analysis showed that full coverage at the full spectrum range
was not possible with the assumed antenna configurations, as the real city
environment with irregular infrastructure and foliage was more difficult than
the ideal deployment in the simplified outdoor case shown in Figure 5.
Therefore, all of the small cells are deployed at 75 m ISD with the cmWave and
mmWave access points co-located to provide full outdoor coverage.

Page 11

networks.nokia.com

1km

1km

Figure 6. 5G deployment in Tokyo

7 shows the coverage and capacity of a 5G HetNet deployment in Tokyo. The
LTE Advanced layer provides 100% coverage, the cmWave deployed at 10
GHz provides 97% coverage and the mmWave deployed at 73 GHz provides
68% outdoor coverage. The aggregated capacity provides only 80 Mbit/s cell
edge data rates for the combined three systems deployed with LTE Advanced
overlay and co-located cmWave and mmWave small cells. An increase in the

User

Coordinates

Throughput [Mbps]

Base Station

Coordinates
Figure 7. Coverage and throughput maps of Tokyo 5G deployment
Page 12

networks.nokia.com

macro layer spectrum to 200 MHz enabled the cell edge capacity to provide
105 Mbit/s. The additional spectrum could be deployed at 3.5 GHz, which is
assumed to be released for mobile communications. Alternative solutions with
more dense deployment in a few hot spot areas would also enable a 100 Mbit/s
cell edge capacity with 100 MHz macro spectrum.
One of the key conclusions from both the METIS Madrid and the Tokyo
deployment was that the outdoor cells were unable to provide the needed
capacity indoors. LTE Advanced macro cell deployment at 2 GHz could provide
indoor coverage but the 100 MHz combined carrier bandwidth was unable to
provide the required capacity. At the same time, the frequencies above 10 GHz
were unable to provide the required coverage. Therefore, it has become clear
that a dedicated indoor deployment is required. Indoor coverage and capacity
can be created by both cellular licensed technology and unlicensed technology.
Wi-Fi evolution will continue in parallel with cellular evolution. A mixture of
cellular coverage with capacity offload via unlicensed spectrum allows seamless
operation with cellular. Such a deployment can be done with integration
between Wi-Fi and cellular technologies or deploying cellular technologies
like LTE-U in the unlicensed spectrum. A case study of an indoor office or
conference center was analyzed as shown in Figure 8 based on 5G technologies.

Path Loss

Single-floor buildin
Ceiling height: 3.
Building area: 1,590
Pico density: ~ 8 m
Throughput

Figure 8. Indoor office/conference center deployment

Page 13

networks.nokia.com

Again, similar conclusions were drawn as for the outdoor deployment case.
The lower frequency band can provide coverage with a low number of access
points, but it cannot provide the needed capacity, because very dense
deployment will lead to high interference. The higher frequency band access
points can provide the needed capacity but require a very dense deployment
of basically an access point in every room or every 100 m2 for larger indoor
spaces.
The 10 key 5G deployment recommendations are:
1. LTE Advanced can provide the required capacity of tens of Gb/s/km2 for
2020 and beyond.
2. ~1 GHz of aggregated spectrum is required to provide the capacity and
cell edge data rates by 2030.
3. A 5G small cells deployment in the 6-30 GHz band (cmWave) with a 500
MHz carrier bandwidth can provide hundreds of Gb/s/km2 for 2025 and
beyond.
4. A 5G small cells deployment in up to 100 GHz bands (mmWave) with
2 GHz carrier bandwidth can provide several Tb/s/km2 for 2030 and
beyond.
5. mmWave radio can further provide backhaul to small cells in a mesh
configuration with a maximum of two hops.
6. Very large antenna arrays can be used to effectively compensate for the
higher path loss at higher frequency bands.
7. For both the cmWave and mmWave deployments, an inter-site distance
of 75-100 m can provide full coverage and satisfy the required capacity,
depending on the environment.
8. A 5G wide-area solution is needed to provide the required coverage and
cell edge data rates for 2030.
9. Dedicated indoor small cell deployments are needed to satisfy indoor
capacity requirements beyond 2020.
10. Multi-connectivity between LTE Advanced, cmWave and mmWave boosts
cell edge performance significantly and can lower the required density for
small cell deployment.

Page 14

networks.nokia.com

Summary and conclusions

Nokia studies on dense deployments in Madrid and Tokyo have shown that a
10,000- fold capacity can be provided in a dense urban environment as well
as indoor dense areas. 5G will require a coverage layer that could be provided
by macro cells and a coverage layer consisting of small cells providing capacity
using the available spectrum range from below 1 GHz up to 100 GHz. The
indoor capacity will require dedicated indoor 5G small cells. While 5G will
provide a significant boost in capacity, the deployment density of 5G outdoor
small cells can be limited to ~75 m ISD and for an indoor deployment, an
access point in every room is required for coverage and capacity.

Page 15

networks.nokia.com

Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of their
respective owners.
Nokia
Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy
P.O. Box 1
FI-02022
Finland
Visiting address:
Karaportti 3,
ESPOO,
Finland
Switchboard +358 71 400 4000
Product code C401-01178-WP-201503-1-EN
Nokia Solutions and Networks 2015

networks.nokia.com