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Femtocell Standards Update

Femto Hub Blog (Dec 15 2008) Standards

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  1. Femtocell Standards Update

    By Doug Knisely

    To the naked eye, the telecom standards process can seem incredibly slow and impossibly complex.  But on the femtocell front, 2008 has been a productive year.

    Core Network
    After a rocky start in early 2008, 3GPP femtocell (Home Node B or HNB) standardization efforts have reached a feverish pace at the end of the year.  3GPP is the organization that defines communications standards for the majority of the world’s mobile networks, those that use GSM/UMTS technology. Driven by intense demand by virtually all major UMTS (“UTRAN”) system operators, three major efforts have been launched to complete the key standards specifications within the UTRAN Release 8 time limit (Q1 2009).  The first major component specifies the interface between the femtocell (HNB) device and the gateway to the core network (HNB-GW).  Work on this interface, called Iuh, began in earnest in mid-2008, and, despite major architecture and technical disagreements among vendors and operators, a herculean last minute effort to build consensus led to the on-schedule completion of the baseline versions of all the critical Stage 2 (architecture) and Stage 3 (procedure) specification at the December 2008 3GPP2 RAN plenary.  This represents a huge milestone toward the development of open, interoperable, multi-vendor femtocell network solutions.

    Management
    Substantial progress has also been made in the area of standardizing the management objects that will be the basis for the Operation, Administration, and Maintenance (OA&M) of femtocells. The vendor and carrier communities, facilitated by discussions in the Femto Forum throughout 2008, have reached wide consensus that the TR-069 family of standards (produced by the Broadband Forum, formerly known as the DSL Forum) should serve as the foundation for HNB OA&M.  3GPP RAN3 did some of the key technical work to agree on the exact radio and core network parameters that should be included.  Building on this work, the OA&M group in 3GPP SA5 undertook an aggressive program to complete the Stage 2 and Stage 3 specifications that need to be in place in order to permit the Broadband Forum to complete the actual publication of the HNB management objects at their March 2009 meeting.  Through the extraordinary commitment of the system operators, vendors, and 3GPP SA leadership, that work plan will lead to an excellent foundation for managing femtocells in an open, multi-vendor manner, and all within the critical UTRAN Release 8 timeframe.  These efforts have shown an outstanding commitment by the 3GPP community to go the extra mile to meet the needs of an industry that is hungry for open, interoperable femtocell devices and their supporting network elements.

    Running Interference
    In the area of radio frequency (RF) interference mitigation (i.e. to address the concerns that femtocells may interfere with existing macro cellular systems) the Femto Forum has exercised its advocacy role by recently completing an extensive technical evaluation of femtocell interference cases.  The Forum issued a report indicating that femtocell interference is generally not a serious problem, and that, moreover, for the cases where femtocells can cause difficulties, practical workarounds and methods exist to mitigate them.  Portions of the work that culminated in this report have also incorporated into 3GPP RAN4 efforts on RF interference.

    Stay Tuned
    Other key efforts are taking place in 3GPP SA3 (security group) to ensure that the underpinnings for HNB Security Gateways will be documented in a technical report.  In addition, the Femto Forum continues to lead the way toward addressing requirements and technical solutions for additional HNB capabilities and for features that need to be included in later industry standard releases.  The synergy between the Femto Forum and the related organizations that actually produce the critical standards specifications (3GPP, Broadband Forum, etc.) is setting an outstanding example of how open industry standards can lead to very high-quality technical solutions on aggressive schedules that satisfy the consumers, system operators, and development community.

    Editor’s note: Doug Knisely is Airvana’s vice president of technology, responsible for standards.  He is active in a number of standards and industry organizations including 3GPP, 3GPP2, CDG, ETSI, Femto Forum and TIA.

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