Vol. 10, No. 5, Jun 2015
In this issue:
1. Under the spotlight
2. People
3. Publications
4. Conferences, Meetings & Seminars
5. Projects
1. Under the spotlight
Bringing your attention to a matter in this issue of the Newsletter
The nowadays continuously increasing number of mobile users, devices and new mobile applications has resulted in the mobile data traffic growing at an unprecedented rate, which alternatively has a significant impact on the complexity of processes required to provide reliable cellular networks. Over the last few years, mobile operators are struggling to cope with these challenges. Still they rely on highly centralised and custom hardware components that are not designed with elasticity in mind, leading to a weak optimisation of resources during non-peak hours and frequent overloads during peak hours. A model was proposed for network performance, comparison the location of data centres in an LTE-A network with an implementation of a virtualised infrastructure, by separating base stations into Remote Radio Heads (RRHs) and Base Band Processing Units (BBUs). A Portugal countrywide network (cell site locations), with some thousands of base stations, was taken as application example.
The number of BBU Pools required to support the set of cell sites positioned countrywide was analysed. It decreases with the maximum fronthaul delay increase, from 273 BBU Pools for 75 μs to 56 for 200 μs; a rational model fits very well this behaviour. The share of single site BBU Pools was assessed, the maximum pooling gains being achieved for 150 μs of maximum fronthaul delay. The maximum, minimum and average fronthaul delay and fronthaul distance evolution were examined, as well as their standard deviation; for both quantities, a linear increase in their average and standard deviation with the maximum fronthaul delay is observed, the average values being significantly below the imposed maximum constraint. The minimum fronthaul delay is zero in every case, due to the ever positive share of single site BBU Pools, and consequently this exact scenario translates into an always null minimum fronthaul distance. Regarding fronthaul distance, the spreading of cell sites along the BBU Pools coverage areas has quite an influence, where in rural areas the sites are more or less equally scattered, as opposed to urban areas, where sites tend to be more concentrated near the BBU Pool – for these purpose, BBU Pools were divided in three classes (Urban, Suburban and Rural) according to the number of sites within their coverage area.
Miguel Sá
2. People
Information about incoming and outgoing people, besides other related news.
As usual, July is the month for one more gathering of GROW members, and their families, in Monsaraz, for one more STAR WARM (STill AnotheR Wonderful Annual Reunion in Monsaraz), this year on July 4th, for the 15th edition.
3. Publications
Information about publications, at both national and international levels, concerning papers submitted, accepted, or published in the period.
Luisa Caeiro, Filipe D. Cardoso and Luis M. Correia, “OnDemand Radio Resource Allocation for Virtual Wireless Access”, Wireless Personal Communications, Vol. 82, No. 4, June 2015, pp. 2431-2456.
Sina Khatibi and Luis M. Correia, “Modelling Virtual Radio Resource Management with Traffic Offloading Support”, Proc. of EuCNC’2015 – 24th European Conference on Networks and Communications, Paris, France, June 2015.
Luisa Caeiro, Filipe D. Cardoso and Luis M. Correia, “Addressing Multiple Virtual Resources in the Same Geographical Area”, Proc. of EuCNC’2015 – 24th European Conference on Networks and Communications, Paris, France, June 2015.
Carla Oliveira, Michal Mackowiak and Luis M. Correia, “Uplink Exposure Assessment of 3G/4G Wireless Devices”, accepted to Special Session on Low‐EMF Radio‐link Technologies and Wireless Networks Management, at ISWCS’2015 — International Symposium on Wireless Communication Systems, Brussels, Belgium, Aug. 2015.
Luis M. Correia, “A Perspective on Virtual Radio Access Networks”, Proc. of 1st Oporto University Doctoral Congress in Engineering, Porto, Portugal, June 2015.
4. Conferences, Meetings & Seminars
List of Conferences, Meetings, Seminars, and other events held and attended during this period, and to be held the following month.
2015-06-02/04
Luis M. Correia
Visit to Gdansk Tech. Univ., Gdansk, Poland
2015-06-08/10
Luis M. Correia
IEEE ICC’2015, London, UK
2015-06-12
Luis M. Correia
“A Perspective on Virtual Radio Access Networks”,
1st FEUP Doctoral Congress in Engineering, Porto, Portugal, June 2015.
2015-06-22/23
Luis M. Correia
NEWCOM# Executive Board meeting, Bologna, Italy
2015-06-25
Luísa Caeiro, “Addressing Multiple Virtual Resources in the Same Geographical Area”
Carla Oliveira, “Capacity Analysis for On-Body Communications in an Indoor Environment”
Sina Khatibi, “Modelling Virtual Radio Resource Management with Traffic Offloading Support”
GROWing meeting
2015-06-29/07-02
Luis M. Correia, Luisa Caeiro, Sina Khatibi, Daniel Sebastião, Mónica Branco
EuCNC’2015, Paris, France
2015-07-04
Carla Oliveira, Daniel Sebastião, Monica Branco, Ema Catarré, Vera Almeida, Luisa Caeiro, Filipe Cardoso, Luis M. Correia, Manuel Ferreira, Sina Kathibi, Lucio Ferreira, Behnan Rouzbehani, Mojgan Barahman, Andrea Marotta, …
STAR WARM, Monsaraz, Portugal
2015-07-07
Luis M. Correia “Low EMF Communications and Networking”
LEXNET Summer School, Santander, Spain
2015-07-06/07
Carla Oliveira, Luis M .Correia
“Capacity Analysis for On-body Communications in an Indoor Environment”
PIERS’2015, Prague, Czech Republic
2015-07-11
Carla Oliveira, Daniel Sebastião, Monica Branco, Ema Catarré, Vera Almeida, Luis M Correia
Final Ceremony of “Prémio FAQtos”, Lisbon, Portugal
2015-07-16
Sina Khatibi, “The Effect of Channel Quality on Virtual Radio Resource Management”
Carla Oliveira, “Capacity Analysis for On-Body Communications in an Indoor Environment”
Carla Oliveira, “Exposure Assessment of Smartphones and Tablets”
GROWing Meeting
2015-07-23
Andrea Marotta, “Optimisation of Radio Access Network Cloud Architectures Deployment in LTE-Advanced”
Miguel Sá, “Performance analysis of Software Defined Networks in LTE-A”
GROWing Meeting
5. Projects
News about the several projects in which GROW is involved.
COST IC1004 – http://www.ic1004.org
Contributions to the section on “off-body” communications were sent.
LEXNET – http://www.lexnet-project.eu
New simulations with the Google Glasses are being carried on, in WP2. A paper with a survey on low EMF exposure techniques and networks is being prepared to be submitted to IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials. Deliverable D5.2 is being finalised and will be delivered soon.
MCN – http://www.mobile-cloud-networking.eu
The work on the implementation of VRRM in OAI LTE base station emulator, as well as integrating traffic scenarios, has been concluded. It is currently being evaluated for various scenarios.
NEWCOM# – http://www.newcom-project.eu
A book with the key results of the project is being prepared.
FAQtos – http://faqtos.pt
The 10 finalists have been announced and they will present their project in the final ceremony to be held July 11th.