Design Paper: Impact of TMA on GSM Network Design

IMPACT OF TMA ON GSM

NETWORK DESIGN

1. SCOPE

This Design Paper provides an explanation on the effect of the Tower-Mounted Receive Amplifier
(TMA) when designing GSM networks.

2. INTRODUCTION

Tower mounted receive amplifiers, or TMAs (sometimes also referred to as Mast Head Amplifier MHA,
Antenna Preamplifier Equipment APE or Double Duplex Tower Mounted Amplifier DDTMA) have five
principal effects on network design:

Positive effects:

Improved cell range & coverage when uplink limited. The analysis of link budgets for GSM
reveals that certain configurations are limited by the link budget in the uplink direction (uplink
limited). The most prominent examples are High-Power configurations without combiner stages
in rural areas, where the downlink can cope with about 3 to 6 dB more path loss than the
uplink.

Higher capacity per spectrum due to lower uplink interference. The mobile power is reduced
with adaptive power control (APC).

Higher GPRS/EGPRS data throughput in the uplink due to lower uplink interference (APC reduces
the interference generated by GSM users).

Negative effect: Antennas

Additional loss in the downlink due to TMA insertion loss and Jumper
additional jumper cable Duplexer Duplexer

TMA
Potential impact on BTS performance when a mobile of another Tx Rx Tx Rx
Duplexer Duplexer
operator comes very close to the own base station antenna (close
Jumper
proximity scenario).
Feeder
Bias Bias
tee tee

Jumper
3. IMPLEMENTATION OF TMA PDU

Tx / Rx Tx / Rx
230 V
AC
The Alcatel-Lucent Evolium BTS (as most equipment on the market) BTS

deploys duplexers at the output connecting both the RX and the TX

path to the same antenna(s).

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 Design Paper: Impact of TMA on GSM Network Design

This requires the TMA to implement duplex-filters at the input and the output, to bypass the TX signal
around the low noise receive amplifier. This explains the above-mentioned impact on the downlink:
The duplex filters have a small loss of around 0.5 dB. In addition, we need a jumper cable between
the TMA and the antenna, which would not be necessary without TMA.

The power supply for the TMA is provided via the antenna feeder cables using bias-tees and power
distribution units PDU. These entities can be integrated in the BTS cabinet for outdoor BTS.

4. TMA CONTRIBUTION TO THE LINK-BUDGET

4.1 System Sensitivity / Noise Figure

The introduction of a TMA makes it possible to amplify the signal at the beginning of the receiver
chain, i.e. before feeders and jumpers, instead of amplifying in the LNA that is embedded in the
antenna network. As a consequence, the gain in terms of link budget is not directly the TMA gain but
the reduction of the overall noise figure of the receiver chain. This noise figure is given by the Friis
formula:

ncable 1 nDX 1 nBS 1

ntot _ with _ TMA = nTMA + + +
gTMA gTMA g cable gTMA g cable g DX
Equation 1: Friis formula with TMA

NFelement Gelement
where nelement = 10 10
and g element = 10 10

where NFelement is the noise figure in dB and Gelement is the gain in dB of the corresponding element. The
element can be TMA, cables (including connectors), DX (denotes diplexer or filter) or BS (denotes
BTS). If there are no diplexer or filters in the chain, nDX and gDX are set to 1.

In case we have no TMA, the Friis formula becomes:

nDX 1 nBS 1
ntot _ noTMA = ncable + +
g cable g cable g DX
Equation 2: Friis formula without TMA

We can now calculate the TMA-contribution (the sensitivity improvement due to TMA usage):

TMA contribution [dB ] = 10 LOG ntot _ noTMA 10 LOG ntot _ with _ TMA NFjumper1
Equation 3: TMA contribution

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 Design Paper: Impact of TMA on GSM Network Design

NFjumper1 is the noise figure in dB of the jumper cable between the TMA and the antenna (this noise
figure is around 0.3 dB, see the table in chapter 4.2 below for details).

The noise figure of the EVOLIUM A9100 BTS is 4 dB, the receiver sensitivity is 111 dBm.

When integrating TMAs, the Link Budget gain corresponds to the reduction of the overall
noise figure of the receiver chain.
As a consequence, when selecting a TMA, both the noise figure and the gain are important.

4.2 Impact on Downlink

The TMA introduces an insertion loss of around 0.5 dB. As in the uplink, an additional jumper cable is
required in case of TMA. Typical losses of the jumper cables including connector losses are given
below for different frequencies and jumper lengths:

Jumper length 850 MHz / 900 MHz 1800 MHz / 1900 MHz
1m 0.15 dB 0.20 dB
2m 0.25 dB 0.35 dB
3m 0.36 dB 0.51 dB

It is necessary to be aware of the effect on the downlink when considering the use of a TMA.

4.3 Typical Link Budgets

Below, three typical link budgets for GSM 1800 are given (simplified view, values are rounded):
Urban Residential Rural
Uplink Downlink Uplink Downlink Uplink Downlink
RX RX Sensitivity -111.0 -102.0 -111.0 -102.0 -111.0 -102.0 dBm
Cable, Jumper and Connector Losses -2.0 -2.5 -3.0 dB
RX Antenna Gain 17.0 17.0 17.0 dBi
Diversity Gain Uplink 6.0 4.5 3.5 dB
TMA contribution minus additional jumper 3.3 3.8 4.2 dB
TX TX output 30.0 41.0 30.0 44.4 30.0 46.8 dBm
Cable, Jumper and Connector Losses -2.0 -2.5 -3.0 dB
TMA and additional jumper losses -0.9 -0.9 -0.9 dB
TX Antenna Gain 17.0 17.0 17.0 dBi
Margins Slow Fading and interference margin, 31.3 31.3 24.3 24.3 16.3 16.3 dB
penetration and body loss
Max. Allowable Path Loss per Link, no TMA 130.7 126.7 135.7 136.6 142.2 146.5 dB
Max. Allowable Path Loss per Link, with TMA 134.0 125.8 139.5 135.7 146.4 145.6 dB
Total gain / loss due to TMA -0.9 0.0 3.4 dB
Gain in terms of base station sites 6% more sites 0% 24% less sites

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 Design Paper: Impact of TMA on GSM Network Design

The receiver performance combined with the enhanced antenna diversity scheme of the Alcatel-
Lucent Evolium BTS mainly limits the use for TMAs to rural areas, when considered from a coverage
point of view. In urban areas, the TMA can even lead to a coverage loss in downlink. In residential
areas, the uplink gain is balanced with the downlink loss.

Looking into the link budget examples above, it becomes clear that a case-by-case evaluation is
required. In case of using high-power TRX in residential areas, for example, the TMA might be
interesting there as well.

TMAs do not always improve cell ranges, they may even reduce them in certain cases.

5. IMPACT OF THE TMA ON BTS CHARACTERISTICS

In section 4.1, we examined the cell range aspects of TMA, i.e. the scenario of a receive signal close
to the thermal noise floor.

Now let us examine the case of mobiles being close to the base station: The receive signal is
considerably higher than the thermal noise floor, and the impact of the noise figure is negligible. The
signal amplification is the same as the TMA gain, hence the input signal to the BTS could be much
higher with the TMA.

The output power of a mobile connected to the respective BTS will be reduced by Power Control, we
dont need to be too much concerned about this case. And as long as the TMA gain does not exceed
the feeder loss (including connectors, jumper cables, perhaps external diplexer etc.) between the
TMA and the BTS input, there is no negative impact to other performance parameters of the BTS
itself.

But what happens if the TMA gain exceeds the feeder losses ? Lets try to judge the potential impact:

Receiver Situation: A mobile connected to the network of a competing operator could

blocking transmit with the maximum output power while being very close to our
(in-band own BTS. The unwanted receive signal drives the receiver into
blocking) saturation, reducing the sensitivity for the wanted signal

Interference
TMA

ation
Blocked
ommunic
C

Own BTS Other Operator

Impact: The limit values specified in the 3GPP TS 05.05 could be violated.
Maximum two timeslots are affected.

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 Design Paper: Impact of TMA on GSM Network Design

When: Worst-case: Interfering mobile directly in main-beam direction, mobile

antenna polarization in line with BTS antenna polarization, free line of
sight, height difference between BTS antenna and mobile < 12 m
Risk: Low
Inter- Situation: The signals from two mobiles create intermodulation products in the
modulation receiver, which fall inside the receive band
Wanted
and/or
unwante
d signa
ls

TMA
Interfered

f3 f2
m x f1 n x f2 = f3 f1

Impact: The limit values specified in the 3GPP TS 05.05 could be violated.
Maximum two timeslots are affected.
When: Worst-case: Two mobiles are simultaneously in the main beam
direction, using a frequency combination, which produces an
intermodulation product, which falls on a receive frequency used by the
base station,
Risk: Very low. No degradation expected in case of frequency hopping

There is an impact of TMA on the BTS performance. But it is almost always negligible.

6. CONCLUSION

TMAs are efficient in increasing cell ranges for rural areas when combined with high-power TRX
and/or low-loss configurations.

There is no or little benefit on cell range / coverage in urban areas, as the limiting link is usually the
downlink, and the network is often capacity-driven. TMAs can even reduce the coverage in urban
areas due to the insertion loss in the downlink direction. Impact of TMA on cell range in suburban
areas requires a case-by-case analysis.

TMA can be considered for urban and sub-urban areas for interference-reduction reasons (higher
GPRS/EDGE data throughput in uplink, improved QoS, slightly better capacity).

Concerns on the TMA impacting the BTS performance due to mobiles of competing networks
transmitting close the own BTS are not usually justified in real-world scenarios.

Related Documents:
Design Paper Coverage Enhancements for GSM Networks
Design Paper Antenna Diversity in EVOLIUM BTS

End of DOCUMENT

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