TR-196

Last updated

TR-196 (Technical Report 196) is a Broadband Forum technical specification. Its official title is "Femto Access Point Service Data Model." The purpose of this Technical Report is to specify the Data Model for the Femto Access Point (FAP) for remote management purposes using the TR-069 CWMP.

The Broadband Forum is a non-profit industry consortium dedicated to developing broadband network specifications. Members include telecommunications networking and service provider companies, broadband device and equipment vendors, consultants and independent testing labs (ITLs). Service provider members are primarily wire-line service providers (non-mobile) telephone companies.

Femtocell

In telecommunications, a femtocell is a small, low-power cellular base station, typically designed for use in a home or small business. A broader term which is more widespread in the industry is small cell, with femtocell as a subset. It is also called femto AccessPoint (AP). It connects to the service provider’s network via broadband ; current designs typically support four to eight simultaneously active mobile phones in a residential setting depending on version number and femtocell hardware, and eight to sixteen mobile phones in enterprise settings. A femtocell allows service providers to extend service coverage indoors or at the cell edge, especially where access would otherwise be limited or unavailable. Although much attention is focused on WCDMA, the concept is applicable to all standards, including GSM, CDMA2000, TD-SCDMA, WiMAX and LTE solutions.

Technical Report 069 (TR-069) is a technical specification of the Broadband Forum that defines an application layer protocol for remote management of customer-premises equipment (CPE) connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network. TR-069 uses the CPE WAN Management Protocol (CWMP) which provides support functions for auto-configuration, software or firmware image management, software module management, status and performance managements, and diagnostics.

Contents

FAP is a generic terminology that implies any Radio Access Technology (RAT). In 3GPP's terminology, Home Node B is the name for 3G (UMTS) and Home eNode B for LTE.

The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP, UMTS is a component of the International Telecommunications Union IMT-2000 standard set and compares with the CDMA2000 standard set for networks based on the competing cdmaOne technology. UMTS uses wideband code division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technology to offer greater spectral efficiency and bandwidth to mobile network operators.

In telecommunication, Long-Term Evolution (LTE) is a standard for wireless broadband communication for mobile devices and data terminals, based on the GSM/EDGE and UMTS/HSPA technologies. It increases the capacity and speed using a different radio interface together with core network improvements. The standard is developed by the 3GPP and is specified in its Release 8 document series, with minor enhancements described in Release 9. LTE is the upgrade path for carriers with both GSM/UMTS networks and CDMA2000 networks. The different LTE frequencies and bands used in different countries mean that only multi-band phones are able to use LTE in all countries where it is supported.

Details

There are two major releases ("Issue" in BBF terminology) of TR-196 data model. Issue 1 is the first publication which supports UMTS HNB only. It was later expanded to include LTE HeNB and CDMA2000 FAP, and was released as Issue 2.

TR-196 Release 3GPP Release alignment UMTS LTE CDMA2000
Issue1 (published in April 2009)Release 8SupportedNot supportedNot supported
Issue2 (published in November 2011)Release 9SupportedSupportedSupported

TR-196 is a specification of Broadband Forum (BBF). But its work is closely related to 3GPP's work on HNB and HeNB, and 3GPP2's work on femtocell. In turn, 3GPP and 3GPP2's work were originally driven by the activities in Femto Forum (now called Small Cell Forum).

Most of the work for the first publication of TR-196 was done within Femto Forum. The work was later submitted to 3GPP SA WG5 to standardize it as respective Technical Specifications (TS). It led to the collaboration between 3GPP and Broadband Forum to officially publish it as BBF Data Model called TR-196.

History

When Femto Forum (current Small Cell Forum) was launched in 2007, one of the main issues in the Femtocell industry was the lack of standardized femtocell architecture, including the standardized O&M framework. In order to avoid the fragmentation in the market, Femto Forum initially focused on these areas. As the Forum reached consensus, the leading companies brought the joint proposal to 3GPP to standardize the HNB architecture.

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) is a standards organization which develops protocols for mobile telephony. Its best known work is the development and maintenance of:

The standardization in the signalling (Control Plane) architecture later resulted in Iu-h interface in 3GPP. It includes the specification of signalling protocol Home Node B Application Part (HNBAP) and RANAP User Adaptation (RUA). The Data Model was subsequently published by Broadband Forum as TR-196 Issue 1 (Femto Access Point Service Data Model). It is based on Broadband Forum's TR-069 CWMP as the signalling protocol.

HNBAP is a control protocol found in Home Node B networks on the Iu-h interface.

Publication of Issue 1

In the second half of 2008, Femto Forum reached agreement on O&M framework to be based on Broadband Forum's TR-069 CWMP as the signalling protocol. This followed the Forum's O&M subgroup to start the HNB Data Model work. It included the definition of object organization and parameters, including the detail XML editing work.

At the same time, leading companies proposed a new Work Item (WI) in 3GPP SA WG5 (SA5) for the specification of HNB Data Model ("Information Model" in SA5's terminology). It resulted in the WI "UTRA HNB: 3G Home NodeB OAM&P Type 1 Management Interface." It is worth noting that it was the first time that 3GPP SA5 created specification for Type 1 interface (management interface between Element Manager (EM) and Network Element (NE)). Up to this point, Type 1 interface has been vendor implementation specific only.

The specification work in 3GPP SA5 results in the following set of Technical Specifications (TS):

The second TS (TS 32.582) defines the "Information Model" for HNB. During the specification work, it was decided that the Data Model itself is to be owned and published by the Broadband Forum (BBF) rather than 3GPP SA5 to have the ownership of it. This agreement led to the collaboration between 3GPP SA5 and BBF. Then BBF subsequently published the Data Model as the BBF specification TR-196 Issue 1.

Publication of Issue 2

After the completion of 3GPP Release 8, a group of companies proposed a new WI "Enhanced Home NodeB / eNodeB: 3G HNB and LTE HeNB OAM&P Type 1 Interface" to define Data Model for LTE Home eNode B. This work in 3GPP SA5 resulted in the following set of Technical Specifications (TS):

The second TS (TS 32.592) defines the "Information Model" for HeNB. This time, all detail work including object / parameter definitions and the detail XML editing work was done by 3GPP SA5. The reality was that the same set of small group of core people did much of the work in both Issue 1 and Issue 2. Based on the collaboration framework that was established between 3GPP SA5 and BBF at the time of publication of Issue 1, the former liaised with BBF to publish the new Data Model.

At the same time, 3GPP2 established similar collaboration framework with BBF to standardize the CDMA2000 FAP Data Model. BBF took inputs from both 3GPP and 3GPP2, merged them into a single Data Model.

At this time BBF saw that there are some issues with the resulting Data Model and saw the need to re-organize it. This includes extracting commonly used objects and parameters, and aligning other existing BBF Data Models. This resulted in moving some parts of the objects / parameters in original Issue 1 to another BBF Data Model, creating a separate Data Model specification, and re-organizing some of the existing object / parameter structure and definition. As a result, Issue 2 became non-backward compatible with Issue 1.

Relationship Between 3GPP Specification and BBF TR-196

Issue 1 defines Data Model for UMTS HNB only. Therefore, Issue 1 content aligns with 3GPP TS 32.582 (TS 32.582 is a high-level definition of objects and parameters only).

Issue 2 expands Issue 1 by including LTE HeNB and 3GPP2's FAP Data Model. UMTS HNB part still aligns with 3GPP TS 32.582. In addition, LTE HeNB part aligns 1-to-1 with 3GPP TS 32.592.

Issue with Migrating from Issue 1 to Issue 2 Data Model

As discussed in the earlier section on the historical background of Issue 2, Issue 2 is not backward-compatible with Issue 1 Data Model. This implies that migrating from Issue 1 to Issue 2 requires complete change in the Data Model support and implementation in the software. This can potentially lead to migration issue in commercial deployment.

See also

Related Research Articles

In the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE), user equipment (UE) is any device used directly by an end-user to communicate. It can be a hand-held telephone, a laptop computer equipped with a mobile broadband adapter, or any other device. It connects to the base station Node B/eNodeB as specified in the ETSI 125/136-series and 3GPP 25/36-series of specifications. It roughly corresponds to the mobile station (MS) in GSM systems.

Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (MBMS) is a point-to-multipoint interface specification for existing and upcoming 3GPP cellular networks, which is designed to provide efficient delivery of broadcast and multicast services, both within a cell as well as within the core network. For broadcast transmission across multiple cells, it defines transmission via single-frequency network configurations. The specification is referred to as Evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (eMBMS) when transmissions are delivered through an LTE network. eMBMS is also known as LTE Broadcast.

E-UTRA air interface of 3GPP LTE upgrade path for mobile networks

E-UTRA is the air interface of 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) upgrade path for mobile networks. It is an acronym for Evolved Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) Terrestrial Radio Access, also referred to as the 3GPP work item on the Long Term Evolution (LTE) also known as the Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA) in early drafts of the 3GPP LTE specification. E-UTRAN is the initialism of Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network and is the combination of E-UTRA, user equipment (UE), and E-UTRAN Node B or Evolved Node B (EnodeB).

Evolved High Speed Packet Access technical standard for wireless, broadband telecommunication

Evolved High Speed Packet Access, or HSPA+, or HSPA(Plus), or HSPAP is a technical standard for wireless broadband telecommunication. It is the second phase of HSPA which has been introduced in 3GPP release 7 and being further improved in later 3GPP releases. HSPA+ can achieve data rates of up to 42.2 Mbit/s. It introduces antenna array technologies such as beamforming and multiple-input multiple-output communications (MIMO). Beam forming focuses the transmitted power of an antenna in a beam towards the user's direction. MIMO uses multiple antennas at the sending and receiving side. Further releases of the standard have introduced dual carrier operation, i.e. the simultaneous use of two 5 MHz carriers. The technology also delivers significant battery life improvements and dramatically quicker wake-from-idle time, delivering a true always-on connection. HSPA+ is an evolution of HSPA that upgrades the existing 3G network and provides a method for telecom operators to migrate towards 4G speeds that are more comparable to the initially available speeds of newer LTE networks without deploying a new radio interface. HSPA+ should not be confused with LTE though, which uses an air interface based on Orthogonal frequency-division multiple access modulation and multiple access.

System Architecture Evolution (SAE) is the core network architecture of 3GPP's LTE wireless communication standard.

A Home Node B, or HNB, is the 3GPP's term for a 3G femtocell or Small Cell.

Proxy Mobile IPv6 is a network-based mobility management protocol standardized by IETF and is specified in RFC 5213. It is a protocol for building a common and access technology independent of mobile core networks, accommodating various access technologies such as WiMAX, 3GPP, 3GPP2 and WLAN based access architectures. Proxy Mobile IPv6 is the only network-based mobility management protocol standardized by IETF.

LTE Advanced

LTE Advanced is a mobile communication standard and a major enhancement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. It was formally submitted as a candidate 4G to ITU-T in late 2009 as meeting the requirements of the IMT-Advanced standard, and was standardized by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in March 2011 as 3GPP Release 10.

International Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced are the requirements issued by the ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2008 for what is marketed as 4G mobile phone and Internet access service.

Operations Support Systems (OSS), or Operational Support Systems in British usage, are computer systems used by telecommunications service providers to manage their networks. They support management functions such as network inventory, service provisioning, network configuration and fault management.

Next Generation Mobile Networks

The Next Generation Mobile Networks (NGMN) Alliance is a mobile telecommunications association of mobile operators, vendors, manufacturers and research institutes. It was founded by major mobile operators in 2006 as an open forum to evaluate candidate technologies to develop a common view of solutions for the next evolution of wireless networks. Its objective is to ensure the successful commercial launch of future mobile broadband networks through a roadmap for technology and friendly user trials. Its office is in Frankfurt, Germany.

ip.access

ip.access Limited is a multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and markets small cells technologies and infrastructure equipment for GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 4G and 5G. The firm has headquarters in Cambourne, England, the company also maintains operations and offices in Bellevue, United States, and Gurgaon and Pune, India.

A Home eNodeB, or HeNB, is the 3GPP's term for an LTE femtocell or Small Cell.

Small cell

Small cells are low-powered cellular radio access nodes that operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum that have a range of 10 meters to a few kilometers. They are "small" compared to a mobile macrocell, partly because they have a shorter range and partly because they typically handle fewer concurrent calls or sessions. They make best use of available spectrum by re-using the same frequencies many times within a geographical area. Fewer new macrocell sites are being built, with larger numbers of small cells recognised as an important method of increasing cellular network capacity, quality and resilience with a growing focus using LTE Advanced.

E-UTRAN Node B, also known as Evolved Node B, is the element in E-UTRA of LTE that is the evolution of the element Node B in UTRA of UMTS. It is the hardware that is connected to the mobile phone network that communicates directly wirelessly with mobile handsets (UEs), like a base transceiver station (BTS) in GSM networks.

LTE-M, which includes eMTC, is a type of low power wide area network (LPWAN) radio technology standard developed by 3GPP to enable a wide range of cellular devices and services. The specification for eMTC was frozen in 3GPP Release 13, in June 2016. Other 3GPP IoT technologies include NB-IoT and EC-GSM-IoT.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.