LTE1089: Downlink carrier aggregation - 20 MHz

Carrier Aggregation functionality (as introduced in RL50 LTE 1089) is the flagship RL50
feature that brings into life LTE Advanced concept. It provides means to aggregate two
downlink carriers configured on two overlapped cells that operate in two separate bands. This
feature will be activated for the UEs that have such CA capability on board that matches with
bands where CA operates in the network.
Improving the user perceived throughput (both peak and instantaneous) is the primary design
target of this feature. The level of potential gains in this respect depends on many factors like:
network load and resultant resource occupancy and interference level, overlapping of the
sectors to be aggregated, ratio of Carrier Aggregation users and also network
parameterization. It is worth to notice that there are certain means to assure some CA gains
also in the highly loaded scenarios - however, at the cost of the throughput perceived by nonCA UEs.
Feature provides also gains with respect to load balancing between cells - such balance could
be smoothly achieved with co-operative schedulers working in RL50 without involving interfrequency handovers (either load balancing or better cell ones).
As far as network dimensioning is concerned three major areas should be considered:

influence of Carrier Aggregation related load on the cell capacity

baseband load in case of Carrier Aggregation

link budget calculations for the UE with two carriers

Cell capacity improvement was out of primary focus during feature specification and
potential gains in this area will come rather as a "side effect". These gains will come from the
improved scheduling flexibility especially for the traffic with highly bursty nature. Note
however that even without CA the DL scheduler is already dealing with resource allocation in
highly efficient manner.
Figure:
Carrier aggregation cell capacity requirement

One of the significant influences on the baseband capacity is in the area of maximum amount
of active users (so RRC connected UEs with DRB established): still 420 users per cell could

be active (like in non-CA case with 6 cells), however, maximum 50 out of them can have this
cell configured as a primary one. Additionally, maximum other 50 UEs can have this cell
configured as a secondary one.
This means that at maximum 50*6 = 300 users could be configured with Carrier Aggregation
- in such a case the total number of active users per eNB is equal to 6*(420-50) = 2220. The
concept is shown in the following figure.
Link Budget is calculated taking into account achievable DL/UL throughput for the single UE
at certain distance/pathloss from the serving eNB. Considering the fact that the CA UE
receives the data from two carriers the maximum allowable pathloss, for which the DL
service requirements are still satisfied, will be increased. However, note that cause Carrier
Aggregation is introduced solely in the downlink direction, the overall DL/UL budget would
not benefit from CA activation once the service is UL limited.
Figure:
Carrier aggregation cell capacity requirement

LTE1332: Downlink carrier aggregation - 40 MHz management data

For information on alarm, counter, key performance indicator, and parameter documents, see
Reference documentation.
Alarms
There are no alarms related to this feature.
Measurements and counters
c85109623.xml#c85109623/table_icc_gmq_4n lists existing counters for this feature.
Table:
Related existing counters
Counter ID Counter name
Measurement
M8001C494 Average number of DL carrier aggregated capable
LTE Cell Load
UEs
M8001C495 Average number of UEs with a configured Scell
LTE Cell Load
M8001C496 Average number of UEs with an activated Scell
LTE Cell Load
M8011C67 Number of SCell configuration attempts
LTE Cell Resource
M8011C68 Number of successful SCell configurations
LTE Cell Resource
M8012C151 PCell RLC data volume in DL via SCell
LTE Cell Throughput
Key performance indicators
c85109623.xml#c85109623/table_otr_g4q_4n lists the existing key performance indicators
related to this feature.

Table:
Related existing key performance indicators
KPI ID
KPI name
LTE_5318a E-UTRAN Average CA Capable UEs in DL
LTE_5319a E-UTRAN Average UEs with a Configured SCell in DL
LTE_5320a E-UTRAN Average UEs with an Activated SCell in DL
LTE_5321a E-UTRAN Penetration of the CA Capable UEs into the Network
LTE_5323a E-UTRAN SCell Configuration Success Ratio
LTE_5323a E-UTRAN RLC PDU Volume DL via Scell
Parameters
Table: New parameters lists parameters introduced with this feature.
Table:
New parameters
Full name
Abbreviated name
Managed
Structure
object
Uplink power control
uplinkPCCommonr10 LNCEL
common rel10 add-ons
UL power offset for PUCCH deltaFPucchF1bCSr10 LNCEL
uplinkPCCommonr10
format 1bCS
UL power offset for PUCCH deltaFPucchF3r10
LNCEL
uplinkPCCommonr10
format 3
Table: Related existing parameters lists existing parameters related to this feature.
Table:
Related existing parameters
Full name
Abbreviated name
Managed object
Local cell resource ID of cell to be
lcrId
CAREL
aggregated
Activation of downlink carrier aggregation actDLCAggr
LNBTS
EARFCN downlink
earfcnDL
LNCEL
Cell sector id
sectorId
LCELL
Sched Carrier Aggr fairness control factor
caSchedFairFact
CAREL
SCell activation cycle period
sCellActivationCyclePeriod LNBTS
Max number Carrier Aggr configured UEs maxNumCaConfUeDc
LNCEL
double carrier
Min UE-AMBR downlink for carrier
caMinDlAmbr
LNBTS
aggregation
SCell activation method
sCellActivationMethod
LNBTS
Disable PDCCH outer loop link adaptation disableSCellPDCCHOlLa CAREL
in SCell
SCell and PCell ambiguous HARQ feedback sCellpCellHARQFdbkUsage LNBTS
usage
SCell deactivation timer eNB
sCellDeactivationTimereNB LNBTS
Carrier aggregation relation identifier
caRelId
CAREL