Case study: OBSAI – beating
the wireless base station challenge
By Peter Kennington, Technical Chair
of OBSAI and Tero Mustala, Chairperson of OBSAI
OBSAI – the base station challenge
The wireless industry
is currently at a significant point in its evolutionary path, as mobile
technology moves from 2G to 3G and verges on the boundaries of 4G. An
upshot of this is that mobile operators are constantly faced with the
hurdle of updating their network infrastructure to provide sufficient
capacity for advanced mobile technologies and new data services. Consequently,
as part of this infrastructure upkeep, many more base stations are
required to enable the network bandwidth to be increased and provide
the coverage needed to accommodate next-generation mobile technologies.
Developing and building base stations
in an efficient, cost-effective way to meet the demands of mobile
industry developments can be extremely challenging. This is why, in September
2002, the Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (OBSAI) was established
by leading telecommunications companies to bring more innovative and
cost effective base stations to mobile operators. By defining a basic
modular architecture and detailed specifications for the internal interfaces
between base station modules, OBSAI's overall aim was to create a global
open market for building cellular base stations. This open
market would look to ensure the availability of world-class modules
for next-generation base stations, substantially reducing the development
effort and costs that have been traditionally associated with creating
new base station product ranges.
Now with over 130
members, OBSAI has met its overall objective for a world open
market for base station components by defining standard interfaces
for the four base station modules - Radio Frequency (RF), Baseband,
Transport and Clock/Control. OBSAI's members worked to produce a complete
set of interface, hardware and test specifications for the base station
market, which are compatible with all of the main air interface standards
in use or emerging today, and are related to key parts of the base
station subsystem. These specifications enable the production of base
station modules to fit any base station designed using the OBSAI interfaces
and cover the four module areas.
The availability of
OBSAI's off-the-shelf base station modules is now enabling OBSAI members – base
station vendors, module and component manufacturers – to build base
station subsystems based on the OBSAI standards. This allows
vendors and manufacturers to focus their development efforts on creating
further added value within the base station, encouraging greater innovation
and more cost-effective products. Furthermore, as product development
cycles are now reduced, new base station functions will become available
on the market more quickly.
In turn, mobile operators are now
benefiting from greater competition among base station vendors, but
also have the opportunity to bring new and advanced services to market
earlier. A knock on effect of this is that end-users will eventually
benefit too by having access to mobile services at the price levels
they are prepared to pay and earlier than would otherwise be possible.
Building a base station - OBSAI members take advantage of specifications
There
a number of OBSAI members that are taking advantage of OBSAI specifications
in their in their solution designs. Below four companies talk
about how they have used OBSAI's specifications and the benefits seen.
Altera
Altera Corporation
is the world's pioneer of system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) solutions,
supplying programmable silicon solutions to the electronics industry. In
the wireless industry, Altera and its partners service system OEMs,
providing maximum value by offering reference designs and IP for digital
radio. Altera also offers Baseband solutions for WCDMA, HSDPA, HSUPA
and WiMAX.
With today's wireless
standards and systems continually evolving, hardware platforms are
needed that can provide high-throughput, flexibility, and a time-to-market
advantage to meet mobile industry demands. To meet this industry demand
and evolution, Altera had early access to OBSAI standards, becoming
the first FPGA (field programmable-gate array) vendor to meet OBSAI's
standard Reference Point 3-01 (RP3-01) interface specification in its
digital radio solutions,. This enabled Altera to promote and roll these
out to its customers, positioning the company as an industry forerunner. The
RP3-01 interface specification defines the way in which data and control
information is exchanged between the Baseband and RF sections of the
base station. It also includes all the operational, administrative,
maintenance and performance (OAM&P) related design elements of
the base station.
Altera now offers
complete RF module solutions and reference designs for radio heads,
which are based on the OBSAI RP3-01 specification, for radio standards
including HSDPA, EVDO, WiMAX and LTE. “By using OBSAI's standards,
Altera and it customers can reduce costs on base station R&D and
quarantine interoperability between other Baseband and RF units,” said
Jonathan Law, Market Development Manager – Wireless,
Europe at Altera. “Up until the point where OBSAI's standards
were widely available, operators found it difficult to embrace the
base station because there are so many proprietary interfaces within
base stations. Operators required a large engineer skill base
to maintain base station networks. OBSAI's standards now ensure that,
not only can operators reduce base station expenses but so can every
supplier within the base station value chain, presenting significant
opportunities and allowing the base station to evolve.
“In addition, OBSAI
standards allow our customers to build up an eco-system of partners – companies
that are more specialised and no longer have to produce components
from scratch – which provides a greater choice of suppliers, higher
profit margins, and higher quality products.”
In May 2005, OBSAI
completed work on the integration of WiMax technology into its Baseband
RF interface specifications and has, more recently, updated all of
its other specifications to incorporate the requirements of WiMax. This
has led to companies, like Altera, to focus on WiMax to continue to
utilise the OBSAI specifications.
Law explained “Altera
has seen an accelerated acceptance of WiMax over the last year. By
using OBSAI's RP3-01 specifications we can enable many remote radio
heads to be connected to one base station and be updated remotely.”
“In the long-term,
we would like OBSAI is to continue doing what it is doing, which is
to evolve the specs to meet new mobile industry challenges,” Law concluded.
Elektrobit
Elektrobit
is a world leading embedded software and hardware company in selected
wireless and automotive environments. The company provides wireless communication
solutions to businesses, and has two specific business units in which
it applies the OBSAI specifications – its Radio Network Solutions business
unit and System Test business unit.
With over 20 years
experience in designing and delivering advanced wireless network units
and modules for radio infrastructure, Elektrobit develops IP products
spearheaded by WiMax base station modules. As part of this, one
of Elektrobit's core products is its IP design blocks based on OBSAI's
RP3 specification.
Elektrobit's advanced
OBSAI RP3 standards-based design blocks
enable cost savings, flexibility and design time reduction for
telecom OBSAI-compliant base station designs. Elektrobit's
advanced technology includes both Baseband and RF OBSAI block versions
and its interface solutions support RF chaining. Using the
Elektrobit OBSAI design makes the R&D phase of a base station
shorter and guarantees the interoperability between the Baseband
and RF units. “It was important that the base station market was
unlocked and OBSAI did this. This initiative has provided
the capability for this industry to progress forward and grow,” said
Seppo Salonen, Business Line Manager at Elektrobit. “Our
expertise in base station technology and OBSAI's specifications
can be used to support system-level integration challenges. Elektrobit
also provides R&D service solutions when additional development
is needed with OBSAI interfaces.”
As part of its product
development, Elektrobit's System Test business unit is also in
the process of building test instruments for OBSAI's RP3 specification. “At
present there is a lack of testing instruments on the market for this
interface and manufacturers are worried about implementing RP3 modules
without testing equipment being available. OBSAI has specified
guidelines for this type of test equipment and, in turn, opened up
market opportunities for us and other test equipment manufacturers,” continued
Salonen.
Altera and Elektrobit – working together
Demonstrating
how OBSAI members work together, Altera and Elektrobit have recently
announced the industry‘s first development kits for designing applications
in compliance with OBSAI's RP3 specification for remote RF heads. Companies
leveraging the kits for OBSAI-compliant wireless base station development
will again receive cost savings and a significantly reduced design
time.
”Altera and Elektrobit
joined forces to provide a clear time-to-market advantage for OEMs
designing remote radio heads for WiMAX, 3GPP and 3GPP2 systems,“ said
Arun Lyengar, senior director of Altera‘s communications business unit. ”Established
wireless infrastructure and radio module developers as well as new
market entrants can now apply the latest OBSAI specifications to their
products.“
SR Telecom – Using WiMax specifications
SR Telecom, a leading
provider of broadband wireless access technology, incorporated the
WiMax specification into its new class of Symmetry WiMax base stations. Chad
Pralle, vice president of Marketing at SR Telecom said, “We are always
looking to offer our customers the highest-quality products possible. OBSAI's
open specifications are helping us to do this by allowing us to buy
from a wider range of suppliers.”
As an acknowledged
leader in the broadband wireless space, SR Telecom designs, manufactures
and deploys versatile solutions that enable telecommunications companies
to deliver high-quality voice, Internet access and broadband data services
to business and residential users in both urban and rural settings.
Now with its focus on WiMax, SR Telecom is developing their products – outdoor
radios and indoor base stations – using OBSAI specifications.
“The optical interface
on OBSAI's specifications is great because it provides our products
with higher bandwidth as well as OBSAI's standardisation benefits. Open
specifications help the bottom line, allowing us to buy from a wider
range of suppliers, driving down costs and reducing the R&D resources
required in-house to develop radio technology.
“OBSAI has developed
a well thought out set of specifications, which incorporate lots of
features and allows us to build more radio options into our access
solutions and build relationships with other industry suppliers. This
was the first time we used OBSAI”, said Pralle, “and we found their
specification to be an excellent fit for us. As we look to further
WiMax implementations we will continue to use OBSAI for all new products.”
PicoChip – digital signal processor
PicoChip,
a leading provider of processing chips for base stations, has found
many benefits from using the open specifications. PicoChip is using
OBSAI's RP3 specification for remote radio heads in its chips for WiMax
base stations – a specification
which was originally designed for 3G networks. PicoChip
is deploying its OBSAI-based chips all over the world. Rupert
Baines, vice president of marketing at PicoChip said, “OBSAI has had
a huge impact on the mobile industry globally. The open specifications
have allowed component manufacturers like us to specialise in specific
areas, which in turn has brought about a greater degree of competition,
driving prices down. The ability to specialise also encourages
innovation as manufacturers can spend more of their research and development
budgets in a focused way ultimately benefiting the whole industry and
end users.”
Being technology agnostic,
OBSAI's RP3 enables the standardisation of the interconnect from WiMAX
base station radio heads to Baseband cards. The use of this interface
allows equipment manufacturers a choice of supplier and decouples the
radio from the Baseband. Being a digital interface, it also allows
for the support of beamforming techniques using multiple antennas,
whereby calibration and control is simplified vs proprietary analogue
systems.
OBSAI designed its specifications
to be as flexible as possible in order to react to new technologies. The
practical implementation of the specifications has demonstrated the
extent of this flexibility. ”We think this admirably demonstrates the
adaptability of the OBSAI specifications and wholly believe in the
philosophy and logic of OBSAI,” said Baines.
“The whole industry is
moving forward towards an open architecture, providing increased competition,
choice of supplier and price reductions. Traditionally you couldn't
make products compatible to specific standards and the pace of innovation
was slower. But with an open architecture you know your products
will be compatible with other market players,” Baines concluded.
To
view OBSAI's specifications simply visit www.obsai.com and
upon acceptance of the OBSAI terms and conditions, you may immediately
download the OBSAI interface and testing specification documents.
About
OBSAI:
The Open Base Station Architecture Initiative (obsai) is a forum of over 130 telecommunications
companies - spanning, module, component and base station vendor activity. Together
they have created both open internal interface specifications for base
station architecture and module specifications covering the areas of
Transport, Control, Baseband and Radio. For a list of OBSAI members
and further information go to: www.obsai.com
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