The new LTE mobile broadband standard promises
significantly higher data rates for consumers than current HSPA technology, and
at a significantly lower cost per bit for the Operator. Field tests show that
end user download rates in excess of 150Mbps are achievable where conditions
allow. While this seems like great news for the end users, there are
concerns in the operator community on how to backhaul what initially appears to
be vast volumes of data: If just one user can download at 150Mbps, what is the
total backhaul traffic from a multi-cell base station supporting tens of users?
This paper answers this question by considering the total
user traffic that LTE base stations can handle both during the busy hours and
in the quiet times. A model is developed to predict traffic levels in transport
networks used to backhaul LTE eNodeBs. Backhaul traffic is made up of a number
of different components of which user plane data is the largest, comprising
around 80-90% of overall traffic, slightly less when IPsec encryption is added.
The remainder consists of the transport protocol overhead and traffic
forwarding to another base-station during handover. Network signalling,
management and synchronisation were assumed to be negligible. READ ON:
Guidelines for LTE Backhaul Traffi c Estimation
Guidelines for LTE Backhaul Traffi c Estimation
