TECHNICAL NOTE

Tellabs 8600 Managed Edge System SIAE Microelettronica Microwave Radio Systems - Interoperability Test Report -

Introduction
The evolution of service traffic over a full-IP network, together with the access bandwidth explosion, requires increased investments for input and backhauling capacity. This growth must be carefully handled in such a way capital and operational costs are contained while new revenues come from advanced IP services, so that margins are preserved. As far as the backhauling network is concerned, this translates into strong requirements from multiplexing efficiency. While even legacy services are gradually migrated to IP and new value-added IP-based services experience a huge growth, it becomes mandatory to adopt a transport technology that is better suited to host packet-based tributaries, with a higher multiplexing efficiency than TDMbased framing (e.g. E1 or SDH). At the same time much higher transmission speeds are required. The combined effects of better multiplexing and higher bandwidths per port bring a reduction of capital and operational costs. Thus, migrating the backhauling network towards a packetbased paradigm has great business significance. In this scenario, the SIAE-Tellabs solution proposes itself as a flexible tool for Mobile Operators in managing their migration path towards a full packet network. SIAE Microelettronica S.P.A, in its continuous effort to be at the leading edge of the telecommunication market, has developed the ALS and ALFO radio equipment families with the aim to meet the different needs of Mobile Operators, by providing cost effective transport solutions with high spectral efficiency, Adaptive Modulation, mixed native TDM/Ethernet transport, Ethernet switching and QoS support. The Tellabs 8600 Managed Edge System is the latest IP/MPLS based platform for mobile networks with full support of fixed services for network convergence. The platform is optimized for mobile transport with 3G and 2G transport applications. The main benefits provided by the Tellabs equipment in the Microwave Radio Mobile backhaul scenario are: IP Routing, MPLS and ATM switching support; Ethernet, ATM and TDM pseudo wires; Diffserv and ATM based QoS support; cost effective cell site solutions. The main driver for the Backhauling Network migration towards IP is the dramatic increase in the peak capacities for 3G data services, with particular reference to HSPA traffic. In todays networks, the capacity generated by the
Figure 2: Full IP solution for 3G Network Backhauling

NodeB is carried to the RNC by using ATM over TDM (NxE1 IMA) as transport technology.

Figure 1: Full TDM solution for 3G Network Backhauling

The NodeB traffic is going to increase, by following the growing trend of HSPA from 3.6 Mbps to 14.4 Mbps and the further enhancements foreseen with HSPA+ and LTE technology. This increase in capacity can require additional capacity on the Tail Links, but the main impact is on the Feeder Links, where network evolution cannot be affordable with the present TDM network. Taking as an example the Feeder Link of Figure 1 that carries the traffic of 5 NodeBs, one E1 of peak capacity increase for each NodeB is reflected into an additional 5xE1 capacity required on the Feeder Link. Considering that traditional PDH Feeder Links are mainly dimensioned to carry 16x2 Mbps or 32x2 Mbps capacities, it is clear that soon there will not be room to host additional capacity. To counteract these problems, mobile operators are planning to move their networks towards full IP transport, as shown in Figure 2. In this case the impact on the traffic growth can be mitigated thanks to the Ethernet aggregation in the POC site by applying a proper overbooking factor to the data traffic on the Feeder Link.

However, the migration of the backhauling network from TDM to Ethernet presents several issues that must be taken into account. In particular, two main factors today are limiting the deployment: Lack of a full-IP version from most NodeB suppliers Need to contain CAPEX and maximize the ROI

TECHNICAL NOTE

SIAE ALS and ALFO Radio Equipments

The NodeB vendors present different roadmaps, but it seems reasonable to foresee that most operators will not be able to start an extensive deployment of full-IP NodeBs before 2010. This requires finding a way to front the traffic increases during this period. Regarding the second point, the migration could require a strong upgrading intervention on the existing network: 1. 2.
3.

The NodeB must be migrated from ATM to IP Microwave links must be migrated from a TDM to an Ethernet transport Microwave link capacity must also be upgraded in several cases

The ALS Series provides PDH, SDH and Native IP connections. It is the ideal solution for a wide range of applications in access networks and backbone areas, covering any market segment ranging from cost-sensitive applications to advanced network implementations in which high capacities, complex protection schemes and excellent reliability are mandatory. A complete set of user interfaces (E1, E3, Gigabit/Fast Ethernet and STM-1) and a high degree of versatility allow very easy network planning and management. The ALS series includes nodal configuration for crowded stations where many different hops are converging. It allows for a drastic reduction of equipment complexity both in terms of unit counts and physical connections. The ALS series is available in all frequency bands from 4 to 38 GHz in single or duplicated configuration, with radio capacity from 4 up to 622 Mbps. XPIC functionality is available for high capacity cross-polar implementations. The ALFO series is a full-outdoor Native IP digital radio system for point-to-point applications. It has been designed to target LAN extensions with high data throughput or/and low capacity PDH traffic requirements. The ALFO series transports up to full 100 Mbps of Ethernet traffic as well as up to 4xE1 TDM traffic. Depending on transmission capacity and on available signal quality, the appropriate modulation scheme (4/16/32 QAM) is selected.

As a result, with the aim to optimize investments, it is reasonable to expect a smooth migration (at least in a first phase) of operator networks. The use of ATM pseudo wire, combined with a mixed TDM/Ethernet transport on the MW links, allows operators to enable traffic growth in a gradual way; initially focusing the upgrade on the more critical links and then extending it to the rest of the network. In this way, the ROI can be optimised by spreading the total investment over a longer period.

Figure 3 : Pseudo Wire solution during the network transition

In conclusion, the SIAE-Tellabs solution provides the Mobile Operators with a backhauling solution over MW, with added ATM aggregation capabilities that enable them to smooth migration and optimize costs. The aim of this document is to describe the SIAE-Tellabs solution and to provide overall performance data to verify the applicability of this solution in the backhauling of the mobile operator networks.
ALFO (Access Link Full Outdoor Series)

ALS (PDH / SDH / ETHERNET Series)

TECHNICAL NOTE

Tellabs 8600 Series

The Tellabs 8600 managed edge system, paired with the intelligent Tellabs 8000 Network Manager, is a scalable and versatile solution for evolving access networks. It is designed to meet the ever-growing requirements of mobile service users worldwide; providing a single, truly future-proof platform supporting all technologies: Time Division Multiplexing TDM, Frame Relay (FR), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Ethernet, Internet Protocol (IP) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), which are needed to evolve the network from 2G and 3G to 4G and beyond. The Tellabs 8600 system makes it possible for service providers to benefit from previous network investments. The system provides a seamless migration from circuit to packet, enabling the network to evolve and grow to keep endcustomers satisfied with their ever increasing communication demands and requirements. Coupled with Tellabs 8000 network manager, which provides end-to-end management, the Tellabs 8600 managed edge system is highly cost-efficient and scalable. The system scales from a single small managed network element up to tens of thousands of network elements. The Tellabs 8660 Edge Switch is an IP/MPLS-based switch designed to fulfil the most demanding requirements of carriers. Thanks to its distributed switching and modular architecture, it has a low initial cost of deployment and excellent scalability. The Tellabs 8660 switch can cover all locations of the mobile network between the core network and local exchange sites. It has all the features needed for both 2G and 3G and supports mobile evolution towards LTE and the requirements of Fixed/Mobile Convergence (FMC). Tellabs 8660 edge switch supports various interfaces from channelized TDM and POS to Ethernet and offers the full redundancy needed in carrier networks. The Tellabs 8630 Access Switch is an IP/MPLS-based switch with thorough implementation of carrier-class functions. Following the same cost-efficient architecture with the Tellabs 8660 switch, the Tellabs 8630 has been specifically designed to offer the functionality needed in mobile networks and its optimized size makes it ideal for use in operator sites with limited space. The Tellabs 8630 access switch supports various interfaces from channelized TDM and POS to Ethernet with full redundancy, which is needed in the carrier networks today. Tellabs 8605 Access Switch is a 1RU high compact cell site optimized IP/MPLS-based switch that delivers a variety of connectivity options from E-1/T-1s to FEs and GEs. Tellabs 8605 switch supports services with guaranteed quality to the base station, small hub site and customer premises. Tellabs 8605 is environmentally hardened to support installations in cabinets without climate control and has a protected DC power input. Tellabs 8607 Access Switch is a compact and highly modular access element with multi-protocol support. Integration of Ethernet, DSL and pseudowire technology makes it attractive for 2G, 3G and WiMAX cell sites and network evolution.

The SIAE-Tellabs Solution

The SIAE-Tellabs solution combines the TDM/Ethernet transport over MW links provided by SIAE equipments with the ATM/TDM/Ethernet pseudo wire capability of the Tellabs 8600 systems, to provide an efficient end-to-end solution for the Mobile Network Backhauling. In the following, many network solution topologies are described. Cell Site: For the cell site deployment, Tellabs has developed the 8605 model that can be used to encapsulate up to 16xE1 ATM or TDM traffic into PW packets. Figure 4 shows the cell site layout.

Figure 4: Cell site solution with hybrid TDM/Eth transport over the Air

The 3G ATM IMA traffic is encapsulated into PW packets using PWE3/MPLS protocol, through the Tellabs 8605 access switch.

TECHNICAL NOTE

This switch adds an IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tag to each PW packet, before sending it to the SIAE equipment on an Ethernet connection. In this way, the ATM QoS is reflected onto the VLAN tags, allowing SIAE packet radio to give precedence to high priority and delay sensitive traffic when congestions occur. In fact the SIAE radio, while carrying this Ethernet traffic, can manage QoS based on the priority bits of the IEEE 802.1Q TAG (IEEE 802.1p). In most of the cases, the 3G NodeB is co-located with a 2G BTS. In this case the traffic can be carried over the SIAE packet radio as native TDM traffic. In this way, the 2G voice traffic can be transferred on traditional TDM lines preserving its quality from any conflict with the packet data transmission. At the same time, the 2G TDM traffic can be used to distribute the primary reference clock into the network, including the 3G NodeBs. As an alternative deployment, all cell traffic can be encapsulated into PW packets using PWE3/MPLS CESoPSN for the 2G traffic (Figure 5).

The PW solution deployed at the cell site applies mainly in two cases: When Adaptive Modulation is used on the tail link, with the aim to reduce the frequency channel bandwidth. In such case, the high priority traffic (e.g. R.99 voice and 2G TDM) is preserved when the radio works at reduced speed, during fading conditions. When the NodeB is equipped with a 16xE1 card and where the legacy Tail Link was originally designed to carry a lower capacity. In this case the radio link must be upgraded, but the use of Adaptive Modulation can prevent a change in the antenna diameters.

In the other cases, the PW is usually applied closer to the core network to reduce the impact on CAPEX of the migration. In these cases, a single Tellabs 8605 unit is used to collect the traffic of more than one NodeB, reducing the total number of required devices and radio links upgrading. POC Site: The POC (Point Of Concentration) site is characterized by both local and transit traffics to be sent over a Feeder Link, as shown in the following picture.

Figure 5 : Cell site solution with Full Eth transport over the MW link

The Ethernet packets carrying the 2G TDM traffic are marked as high priority by Tellabs equipment, in order to preserve them on the radio connection in case of congestions. In this case a full Ethernet transport over the radio link is required. The advantage of this solution is that all the TDM cabling disappears from the network nodes and some capacity gain can be achieved if the 2G E1s are only partially filled. On the other side, the problem of synchronization will arise. In this case a possible solution is to use packet based synchronization protocols like Adaptive Timing or IEEE 1588v2. The configuration of Figure 6 could be used where the Tellabs 8605 equipment splits R.99 traffic portion of the NodeB traffic from the HSPA component, sending the first on a new ATM IMA over NxE1 group and the other over Ethernet.

Figure 7: POC site solution

The incoming Ethernet and TDM traffic is directly switched by the SIAE Nodal IDU (ALS), without any external cabling. The ATM aggregation is achieved on the feeder link thanks to the Ethernet aggregation capabilities of the SIAE packet radio. The local traffic can be added to the Feeder Link, as shown in the cell site deployment. As a final result, ATM traffic overbooking can be applied on the Feeder Link. HUB Site: The HUB site is the point of contact between the MW Radio Backhauling section and the Backbone Network. The radio equipment collects all traffic coming from the converging radio links.

Figure 6: Cell site solution with NodeB traffic separation

Figure 8: HUB site solution

TECHNICAL NOTE

In this application the SIAE Nodal IDU provides GE and STM-1 interfaces to forward all Ethernet and TDM backhauling traffic to the backbone. Even in this case, the local Ethernet and TDM traffic can be added on the GE and STM-1 connections. RNC Site: At the RNC site all the PW connections must be terminated in order to provide the NodeB ATM IMA traffic to the RNC with the proper physical interfaces. The Tellabs 8600 family is provided with Edge Switch of different size that can be used for this application. Typical models used are the 8630 or 8660, depending on the number of connections to be terminated. The same Network Element can be also used to terminate the CESoPSN pseudo wire (if used), in order to carry the 2G BTS traffic to the BSC, as shown in the following Figure. In this way an End-to-End solution can be provided.

that they have strict requirements in terms of bandwidth, latency and jitter. So, during the busiest hours of the day, network throughput can be insufficient to guarantee required performances. In such a scenario, QoS mechanisms can reduce the problem, giving higher priority to critical packets (real time) and discarding best effort data when the traffic exceeds the available bandwidth. In the test the following features have been verified: Ability of the Tellabs 8600 equipment to get different kinds of traffic and transmit them on a common Ethernet infrastructure, by means of PW techniques. The priority of the outgoing Ethernet packets is properly set through the QoS bits of the VLAN tag (IEEE 802.1p). Ability of the SIAE equipments to preserve the high priority traffic on the radio connection when the total Ethernet traffic from payload interfaces is greater than the available bandwidth.

Figure 9: RNC site solution

Figure 10: Test bench with BE traffic sent on the Tellabs 8600

Test Results
The SIAE-Tellabs solution has been bench-tested focusing on the following factors: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. QoS management. Impact of Adaptive Modulation on ATM service continuity Delay and jitter measurements Adaptive Timing Clock Recovery. Throughput and resiliency

As shown above, the following traffic types have been processed by the Tellabs 8600 system: 1. TDM traffic: One E1 has been sent across a radio link by PWE3/MPLS CESoPSN encapsulation. This PW has been marked with Expedite Forwarding priority (QoS=7). 2. ATM traffic: these packets have been encapsulated by PWE3/MPLS ATM PW. During the test two different ATM traffic streams have been generated, each one with a 4 Mbps throughput, and identified by two different VPIs. A different PW has been defined for each VPI and two different Assured Forwarding priorities (QoS=4 and 2) have been marked on the relevant Ethernet packets. 3. Ethernet traffic: the PWE3 Ethernet over MPLS PW protocol has been used to encapsulate the traffic from the Ethernet tester, before sending it over the radio connection. In this case, all the traffic belonging to this PW has been marked with Best Effort priority (QoS=0).

QoS management Quality of service (QoS) is an essential feature when the Ethernet network must carry interactive and real time applications other than internet browsing data. With the advent of technologies such as Voice over IP and Video over IP, this requirement is increasingly emerging in modern networks. The main issue related to these technologies is

TECHNICAL NOTE

In order to simulate congestion on the radio link, the SIAE ALS equipment has been configured to provide a 42 Mbps capacity on the radio connection (28MHz frequency channel with 4QAM modulation) while the Ethernet Tester was sending traffic greater than 50 Mbps. The SIAE radio equipment has been configured in order to manage IEEE802.1p Qos and the Strict Priority rule has been chosen to empty the output queues. The best effort traffic (QoS=0) was sent through the low priority queue on the radio link, while the TDM and ATM traffics (QoS2) were sent by means of the other upper queues. During the tests, no losses on the TDM and ATM traffic were registered, while only part of the packets from the Ethernet tester were discarded onto the radio link. In a second phase, the traffic from the Ethernet Tester was sent directly onto the radio link without encapsulating it into a PW circuit, as shown in the following Figure. The ALS radio marked this traffic with a VLAN label and QoS bits set to 0. In addition, the ALS added a second VLAN tag (through QinQ tagging) to the packets received from the Tellabs devices (TDM and ATM PW), in order to keep it independent from the Ethernet tester traffic. In this case, in order to maintain the correct QoS management, the ALS radio copied the IEEE 802.1p priority value of the incoming packets into the second VLAN tag before sending it onto the radio link. Also in this second phase, best-effort packets were discarded onto the radio link without any loss on the TDM and ATM traffic. During these tests it has also been verified the ability of SIAE radios to carry PWE3/MPLS traffics with particular reference to Ethernet packets which length is greater than the standard 1518 bytes.

Impact of Adaptive Modulation on ATM service continuity Adaptive Modulation is a very important feature that allows the more efficient use of the spectral resource. During normal propagation conditions, the radio link can work with its highest modulation level in order to maximize the radio capacity. This is a condition that persists for the most part of the time (usually more than 99.9% of the time). However, during anomalous propagation conditions (deeper fading) the system can switch to lower and stronger modulation levels that enable reducing the total unavailability for the high priority traffic to values less than 99.99% of the time. When the system switches to lower modulation levels the frequency channel width remains unchanged and, as a consequence, the radio capacity is reduced. Two main factors must be taken into account with Adaptive Modulation: 1. Traffic interruption during modulation upshift and downshift. When the radio system detects errors on the radio link it changes the modulation level. A traffic interruption can occur between the error detection and the modulation switch and this interval should be as low as possible, in order to guarantee service continuity and to reduce high priority traffic losses. Additionally, SIAE implements Adaptive Modulation algorithms predict weakening RF signals and can switch modulation levels, without any traffic interruption. High priority traffic preservation. When the modulation is switched down the link capacity is reduced and is no longer able to carry the total throughput. In such cases the radio equipment must preserve the high priority traffic through the proper QoS management.

2.

The SIAE-Tellabs solution has been tested by verifying the impact of the modulation switching on the ATM traffic and using the test bench shown in the following Figure.

Fig 11: Test bench with BE Eth traffic directly sent on the SIAE radio equipments

Figure 12: Test bench for ATM service continuity verification

TECHNICAL NOTE

The ATM tester has been used to generate a single VPI traffic with 8 Mbps throughput. This was encapsulated by the Tellabs 8600 in a PWE3/MPLS ATM PW and sent through the radio link. The test has been done using SIAE ALS equipments, configured to work with a 100 Mbps capacity and 32QAM modulation as nominal bitrate, and 42 Mbps/4QAM when the received RF signal power goes below a proper threshold. A change in the propagation conditions has been simulated using RF attenuators, through which the system was forced to switch between the two modulation levels. During each switching the traffic interruption was estimated by counting the number of ATM cells lost, obtaining values up to about 70 ms. The same results have been then achieved when the test was repeated injecting best effort Ethernet traffic on the radio link, in order to reach the capacity limit. . The same tests have been repeated using the SIAE ALFO equipments. In this case it has been verified that no ATM packets were lost during the modulation switching. A second test has been done, by estimating the traffic interruption on the TDM line carried on the radio link. In this case two different VPs have been generated by the ATM tester (see following Figure): VP1 (4 Mbps), encapsulated by the Tellabs 8600 in a PWE3/MPLS ATM PW; VP2 (4 Mbps), switched by the Tellabs 8600 on a 2xE1 connection and sent on the radio link.

TDM PseudoWire

In its CESoPSN implementation, the Tellabs 8600 equipment offers two main parameters to control delay and jitter: 1. Frame size: this parameter depends on the number of E1 frames encapsulated into a single PW packet. This parameter is useful to set a trade-off between capacity efficiency and packet delay reduction. Capacity efficiency is inversely proportional to packet length, because the relative weight of the additional PWE header decreases as the payload size increases. On the contrary, delay increases with frame size, because of the time needed to collect payload information. 2. Jitter Buffer Size: this is a buffer with configurable length to compensate for the different arrival time of the PW packets. The jitter compensation capacity is directly proportional to the buffer length. However, its value has a direct impact on packet delay, as shown in the following graph, where the E1 delay has been measured as function of the jitter buffer value, without a radio link between the two Tellabs 8600 equipments (direct cable connection)

In this case the traffic interruption was estimated by counting the number of ATM cells lost on the VP2 ATM stream, obtaining values up to about 350 ms.

Figure 14 . TDM delay without any MW Radio connections

During these tests the payload frame size was set to 240 bytes that means 1 ms of encapsulation time (one PW packet contains 8 frames of the E1 connection). The jitter buffer was set to 3 ms. Lower values have been tested, but in these cases the PW connection showed some instabilities, for example, errors were detected by the TDM Tester on the E1 line during tests lasting over 24 hours. The end-to-end delay has been measured through the TDM Tester, using the test benches shown in Figure 10 and Figure 11. Several tests have been done in different traffic conditions: With or without concurrent High Priority ATM traffic (max throughput 8 Mbps). With or without Best Effort Ethernet traffic injected either on the Tellabs 8600 equipment or directly into the radio equipment port, using a 100 Mbps throughput in order to congest the radio channel. The Ethernet traffic

Figure 13: Test bench for ATM over TDM service continuity verification

Delay and jitter measurements Delay and jitter are often issues of great importance in mobile networks. Jitter is the main factor that influences voice quality. However, delay is very important in wireless networks too, because some signalling and control protocols cannot tolerate excessive delay. Delay and jitter measurements have been carried out both for TDM and ATM PW.

TECHNICAL NOTE

streams have been generated using IP packets with length of either 64 or 1518 bytes. The delay values measured are shown in Table 1. In general, a comparison between these values and those measured with a direct wire connection between the Tellabs equipments reveals that the radio link has a negligible impact on the overall delay. In fact, the delay is mainly determined by the jitter buffer. When the channel is congested with Best Effort traffic, a slight increase in the delay has been noted. However, each delay measure is not deterministic, because the delay introduced by the jitter buffer is dependent not only on the present traffic conditions, but it can be also influenced by the past traffic dynamics. In general, typical delay values measured are between 3.3 and 4.3 ms. Regarding the jitter, in all the tests only negligible values have been measured thanks to the effect of the jitter buffer (never greater than 0.1 Uipp, which is well below the limits specified in recommendation ITU-T G.823). ATM HP Capacity [Mbps] 08 08 08 Ethernet BE Frame Size [Bytes] --64 1518

the first ATM cell, the packet is sent anyway even if less than 10 ATM cells have been received. The end-to-end delay has been first evaluated without a radio link between the two Tellabs 8600 equipment, (using a direct cable connection), with or without Best Effort Ethernet traffic injected into the equipment to congest the Fast Ethernet line. The measured delay values are shown in the following Table 2.

ATM HP Capacity [Mbps] 8 8 8

Ethernet BE Frame Size [bytes] --64 1518

Delay [ms] 2.7 2.9 3

Jitter [ms]

0.4 0.4 0.5

Table 2: Measured ATM delay w/o any MW Radio connections

Delay [ms] 3.3 3.7 - 4.2 3.7 - 4.3

Table 1: Measured TDM delay

The end-to-end delay was then measured with the ATM Tester, by using the test benches shown in Figure 10 and Figure 11. During these tests, the TDM pseudo wire has been always maintained active, and optionally Best Effort Ethernet traffic has been injected either on the Tellabs 8600 equipment or directly into the radio equipment port, in order to congest the radio channel. The Ethernet traffic streams have been generated using IP packets with length of either 64 or 1518 bytes. The delay values measured are shown in Table 3.

A critical working condition has been identified when the radio link is working with an amount of High Priority traffic close to the maximum capacity of the connection. The test was done by reducing the radio link capacity to 10 Mbps. With neither Ethernet Best Effort nor ATM High Priority traffic, the measured delay on the TDM pseudo wire is around 3.5 ms. However, when 8 Mbps of High Priority ATM traffic and the Ethernet Best Effort are added, the delay of the TDM pseudo wire increases to about 7 ms. So, in general, high volumes of high priority traffic (close to the maximum radio link capacity) can cause significant delay increases.
ATM Pseudo Wire

ATM HP Capacity [Mbps] 8 8 8 8 8

Ethernet BE Delay [ms] Frame Size [bytes] --64 (RADIO) 64 (Tellabs) 1518 (RADIO) 1518 (Tellabs) 2.9 3.3 3.5 3.4 3.8

Jitter [ms]

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.5 1.3

Table 3: Measured ATM delay

In case of the ATM pseudo wire, the main factor that influences the delay on the Tellabs equipment is the frame size. This depends basically on the number of ATM cells that are encapsulated in the same PW packet, in order to gain efficiency. The following tests have been performed with the Tellabs 8600 equipment configured to encapsulate up to 10 ATM cells in the same packet, with a maximum delay of 2 ms, i.e., after 2 ms from the reception of

As can be seen from the table, delay values between 2.9 and 3.8 ms have been measured. In general, the delay increases when the radio link is congested with Best Effort traffic and it has also been noted a slight dependence on the packet size. The jitter was measured as Peak-to-Peak Delay Variation of the ATM cells. In almost all the measures the jitter was stable to 0.4 - 0.5 ms, and it never exceeded 1.3 ms. An additional solution has been tested with the test bench shown in Figure 13, where part of the ATM traffic coming from the ATM Tester was mapped onto a 2xE1 ATM IMA

TECHNICAL NOTE

group transmitted on the radio link as native TDM traffic. The remaining radio capacity was filled with Best Effort Ethernet traffic. In this case, a 4 ms delay was measured , with a jitter of about 0.7 ms. As expected, with the TDM transport managed independently from the Ethernet traffic by the radio equipment, no influence of the Ethernet traffic was noted. The same tests were repeated after a radio link capacity reduction to 10 Mbps. In this case, the same phenomena already discovered for TDM PW was detected: when the High Priority traffic is close to the available radio link throughput, the delay suffer a consistent increase. During these tests, delays between 7 ms and about 8 ms were measured. When the ATM traffic was switched onto a second 2xE1 ATM IMA group instead, the delay still remained around 4 ms. Adaptive Timing Clock Recovery A very important requirement for reliable mobile backhaul mobile services is synchronization or clocking. Cell sites must use a clock source that is synchronized with the overall network clock. In TDM networks, the synchronization signal is mainly distributed to the network nodes through the TDM connections that carry the payload traffic. However, packet based networks usually cannot rely on TDM connections, so different solutions for the clock distribution must be found. Packet Based algorithms can be a solution to overcome this problem. These algorithms rely either on dedicated signalling packets or pseudo wire packets that are sent by a PRC (Primary Reference Clock) equipment to the other network elements that use these packets to synchronize frequency and phase of their internal clock. Recovered clock must not only be very accurate, but must meet strenuous jitter and wander requirements. The Tellabs 8600 equipment support Adaptive Timing. To test the quality of the recovered clock, the test bench shown in Figure 15 was used.

The reference clock has been taken from a GPS receiver and used as reference for the TDM Tester. The E1 signal generated by the TDM Tester has been encapsulated into PWE3/MPLS CESoPSN packets by the Tellabs 8600 #1 equipment, which uses this incoming signal as a reference clock. The second Tellabs equipment was set as slave and used Adaptive Timing to regenerate the clock of the E1 connected to the Wander Tester. This instrument was used to measure the TIE (Time Interval Error) between the reference GPS signal and the E1 clock generated by the Tellabs 8600 #2 equipment. During the tests the radio link was working with a capacity of 100 Mbps. The first test was relevant to the frequency precision of the regenerated clock. The measure was taken by adding Best Effort traffic on the radio link according to the NTM1 (Network Traffic Model 1) as defined in recommendation ITU-T G.8261. The frequency precision has been calculated from the Time Interval Error measured with the Wander Tester. The results are shown in Figures 16 and Figure 17 below. These results have been obtained with an NTM1 capacity equal to 80 Mbps (Figure 16) or 40 Mbps (Figure 17). As can be noted, the frequency precision is dependent on the channel occupation. However, in both cases the frequency precision of the regenerated clock was below the 3G Base Stations 50 ppb required accuracy.

Fig16: Frequency Offset with 80 Mbps of ITU-T G.8261-NTM1 cont traffic

Fig17: Frequency Offset with 40 Mbps of ITU-T G.8261-NTM1 cont traffic

Fig15: Test bench for Clock Recovery measurements

TECHNICAL NOTE

The Wander tests have been done with different traffic profiles, according to ITU-T G.8261 Case 1, 2 and 5 test specifications that foresee different traffic conditions: Case 1: Constant traffic according to NTM2 with 80 Mbps of throughput. Case 2: Traffic according to NTM1/2, that change between two values (20 Mbps and 80 Mbps) with a duty-cycle of 1 hour. Case 5: Traffic according NTM1/2, with congestion periods (100 Mbps of capacity) of variable duration (10 sec and 100 sec).

As illustrated in these figures, long congestion periods influence the quality of the regenerated clock. In fact, in Case 5, the MTIE measure is very close to the ITU-T G.8261 mask. Looking at the frequency precision, the accuracy still remains meanly below 50 ppb, even if in some some peaks were observed beyond this limit, as shown in Figure 21. For the tests relevant to Case 1 and 2, instead, accuracies better than 15 ppb were usually recorded, as shown in Figure 22 below.

The reference masks for the Wander measurement are those defined in ITU-T G.823, which meet mobile base station requirements. In addition, it has been considered also the mask defined in ITU-T G.8261, which meets SDH/SONET requirements. As can be noted from the following Figures 18, 19 and 20, the Mean Time Interval Error measured met both masks. Figure21:FrequencyOffsetforITUTG.8261Case5

Figure18:WandermeasurementforITUTG.8261Case1 Figure22:FrequencyOffsetforITUTG.8261Case2 Throughput As introduced in the delay/jitter measurements description, the PW implementation allows a trade-off to be reached between delay and traffic efficiency. During the tests the following configurations were set: TDM Pseudo Wire: 8 frames of a framed E1 connection (G.704) are encapsulated into a single PWE3/MPLS CESoPSN packet. Time slots 0 and 16 have not been carried on the PW connection (i.e., 30 tributary Time Slots carried on the PW connection).

Figure19:WandermeasurementforITUTG.8261Case2

Figure23:TDMPseudowireprotocolstack

Figure 20: Wander measurement for ITU-T G.8261-Case 5

TECHNICAL NOTE

ATM Pseudowire: up to 10 ATM cells are encapsulated into a single PWE3/MPLS packet.

Resiliency The MPLS features currently available on the Tellabs 8600 equipment give opportunities for rapid, deterministic traffic protection in the network. The 1:1 type of MPLS protection technique is RSVP-TEbased LSP path protection, where traffic is switched from a primary LSP to a pre-signalled secondary LSP in case the primary LSP goes down. This protection mechanism uses a combination of L1 defect, RSVP-TE signalling, and L3 routing information as the possible triggers for determining that the primary LSP is down. The fastest restoration times are typically achieved if the failure can be detected locally by the system doing the actual switching. However, it is possible to use a fault detection protocol called Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) to detect any kind of remote fault quickly advising the Routing or MPLS Signalling protocols that run in the system (OSPF, ISIS, RSVP-TE etc.) BFD provides a fault detection mechanism that enables fast traffic protection. It works as a trigger for rerouting or for protection switchover at the MPLS layer. When BFD is used in conjunction with OSPF, IS-IS or RSVP-TE, it can provide a fast and scalable solution for detecting faults in the Ethernet network between IP/MPLS. Resiliency tests have been done using the test bench shown in the following Figure, verifying the capacity of the Tellabs equipment to re-route the traffic on the alternative path when the primary one becomes unavailable. The tests have been done by reducing the received power level on the primary radio link, below the BER=10-6 threshold. The restoration time measured is usually 23 times the BFD. For example, with a BFD=100 ms, a restoration time of 200 ms has been measured.

Figure 24: ATM Pseudowire protocol stack

To evaluate the traffic efficiency of the SIAE-Tellabs solution, the Figure 11 test bench was used as in the following: The maximum Ethernet throughput of the radio link was estimated when no PW traffic was injected into the SIAE equipment, (Tellabs terminals being disconnected). The Best Effort Ethernet traffic throughput measurement was repeated after the Tellabs terminals connection and High Priority TDM PW traffic activation. The ATM traffic at this step was again kept null. Finally, an E1 of ATM traffic was activated and the relevant High Priority PW traffic was injected into the radio link.

The difference between the Ethernet throughputs measured at steps 2 and 1 gives an estimation of the capacity required on the radio link to carry an E1 with TDM PW. In the same way, the difference between the measurements taken at steps 3 and 2 provides an estimation of the capacity required on the radio link to carry about 2 Mbps of ATM traffic with ATM PW. The results are shown in the following Table. Due to the adopted measurements method, the estimated throughput on the radio link depends on the frame size used on the Ethernet Tester. For that reason, in the following Table 4, the values estimated with 64 and 1518 bytes of frame size have been detailed.

Source Traffic 1xE1 TDM 1xE1 ATM IMA

PW Protocol PWE3/MPLS CESoPSN PWE3/MPLS

Eth Tester packet size [bytes] 64 1518 64 1518

Estimated Throughput [Mbps] 2.54 2.31 2.26 2.05

Table 4: Measured throughput for TDM and ATM PW

Figure 25: Bench for resiliency test

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Conclusions
This paper describes the SIAE-Tellabs solution. The tests clearly show that the systems interoperate successfully, providing a suitable solution for Mobile Network backhauling. In addition, some interesting feedback can be drawn from the test results. First at all, it has been shown that the combination of the Ethernet QoS management of SIAE radio links and the Tellabs ability to map ATM over PW with a proper marking of the IEEE802.1p bits allows an operator to properly use Adaptive Modulation and to achieve ATM traffic aggregation capabilities. In particular, the use of the Strict Priority traffic policy on SIAE equipment allows the delay on High Priority traffic to be minimized. Regarding the delay, it has been shown that both for TDM and ATM traffic; the delay is mainly in the order of about 34 ms, with a typical jitter of about 0.5 ms for ATM traffic. These values have been measured with just one single radio hop between the two pieces of Tellabs equipment. However, it has been verified that the radio link contribution to this delay is minimal, because it is mainly generated by the PW algorithms. So it is reasonable to expect that the delay does not change significantly if a greater number of radio hops are deployed between the Tellabs equipment. Finally, the potential suitability of Adaptive Timing to distribute the clock into a Mobile Network has been verified. However, the tests have shown a quality worsening of the regenerated clock in presence of traffic congestion. So from this point of view, it seems more suitable to maintain some TDM traffic into the network in order to carry the synchronization, with an hybrid TDM/Ethernet transport over the MW radios.