Adaptive Modulation

White Paper

Adaptive Modulation What is it for?

What is it?
Adaptive Modulation (AM) is a technique used to provide more user capacity over the air during good propagation conditions, where the modulation level of the radio link adapts dynamically to the conditions of the path. In traditional point to point systems the modulation is fixed at a certain level, delivering a constant throughput for a defined channel bandwidth. Adaptive techniques have been used before in microwave systems, such as Automatic Transmit Power Control (ATPC), which lowers output power when conditions are good to reduce power consumption and network interference. Under fading conditions the power is automatically increased to ensure the link continues to meet the required performance level. AM takes ATPC a step further, by controlling both power output and modulation level dynamically, to adjust the link capacity to suit the propagation conditions.

Multiplying Available Link Capacity

The compelling benefit of AM systems is that operators can multiply the available capacity of links, without requiring any hardware changes, without having to increase the antenna size, and without affecting license conditions. Licensed microwave radio links typically designed to deliver system availability due to propagation induced outages of 99.99% (for example), meaning that the link will be unavailable for about 50 minutes in a year. However, for the rest of the time the fade margin (the difference between the instantaneous receiver level and the equipment receiver threshold) is essentially unused, being held in reserve. This unused margin comes at a high price, requiring links to be shorter, antennas to be larger, or link capacity to be more limited than necessary. AM allows you to make use of that excess fade margin when it is not needed, to dramatically increase the link capacity at little or no cost.

Introduction of Carrier Ethernet

AM really comes into its own when you want to deploy Carrier Ethernet services. This is particularly relevant for mobile network operators planning to migrate their networks to all-IP. In this case Carrier Ethernet is implemented as an overlay on top of an existing TDM network. On TDM-only links throttling traffic flows as the modulation rate changed was problematic. New Carrier Ethernet over Wireless systems include embedded Layer 2 intelligence to enable traffic flows to be managed and adapted in circumstances where the link capacity varies. When link capacity reduces by modulation level down-shifting to adapt to poor link propagation conditions, high priority traffic (such as real-time TDM or IP voice or video services) is maintained, while lower priority traffic (non-real time data applications) are dropped. Switching between modulation levels must be errorless so that maintained traffic is not affected (some adaptive systems on the market impose traffic interruptions of up to a few seconds for each modulation shift).

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4/30/2008

Adaptive Modulation White Paper.doc

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The Layer 2 switch performs traffic shaping to control or police the output rate of the transport (airlink) channel, while a scheduler coordinates the traffic using an 8:4:2:1 WRR (weighted round robin) algorithm to fit the available bandwidth. This gives 8 out of 15 opportunities to transport the high priority traffic, 4 out of 15 opportunities to carry the medium-high priority traffic, 2 out of 15 opportunities to carry the medium-low priority traffic and 1 out of 15 opportunities to carry the low priority traffic.

An Example
Figure 1 below shows an AM link operating over time. Without AM this link would be designed to deliver 32 Mbit/s of capacity for 99.99% of the time using QPSK modulation in a fixed bandwidth. By adding AM with an additional two modulation states, the link capacity can be quadrupled to 128 Mbit/s using 64QAM, in the same bandwidth, using the same antenna. This increased capacity is available for 99.9% of the time (more than 364 days in one year), just by taking advantage of the unused link margin, giving an extra 96 Mbit/s of capacity for new Carrier Ethernet services, with the original 32 Mbit/s being preserved for the highest priority traffic.

Figure 1. Adaptive Modulation link throughput over time

4/30/2008 Adaptive Modulation White Paper.doc Copyright 2008 Harris Stratex Networks, all rights reserved.

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Regulatory Implications
The concept of adaptive modulation was introduced into ETSI Point to Point standardization in the ETSI DTR/TM-4147, which first specified the requirements and bit rates for packet data interfaces, effects of flexible system parameters and the use of mixed interfaces. A new harmonized standard EN 302 217-2-2 was recently published, which explicitly provides for adaptive modulation within the existing system classes. Systems with lower orders of modulation may be upgradeable to adaptive modulation systems if they continue to comply with the same lower order transmit mask. This means that these systems must adjust the transmit power when using the higher modulation scheme to meet the original mask. In the US, FCC Part 101 Regulations do not address adaptive modulation explicitly, but provide channeling plans and certain technical parameters within which the transmissions must be limited such as channel bandwidths, minimum capacity requirements, power limitations, transmission masks and antenna performance. Provided AM systems meet these requirements then they are allowed under the FCC provisions.

More Information
Click here to learn more about how Harris Stratex Networks has introduced Adaptive Modulation on the Eclipse Carrier Ethernet over Wireless platform.

4/30/2008 Adaptive Modulation White Paper.doc Copyright 2008 Harris Stratex Networks, all rights reserved.

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