5G: THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH!

Vol 40: Give me a B, W and P (Quantifying the benefits of Carrier Bandwidth Part in a commercial 5G network)

04/18/2024 | 45 pages
Price: $995.00

SRG just completed its 40th 5G benchmark study. For this endeavor we collaborated with Accuver Americas and Spirent Communications to conduct an independent benchmark study of carrier bandwidth part (BWP) on the T-Mobile commercial 5G SA network outside of Seattle, WA where Nokia Networks is the infrastructure supplier.

Highlights of the Report include the following:

Our Thanks.  We did this study in collaboration with Accuver Americas (XCAL-M and XCAP) and Spirent Communications (Umetrix Data).  SRG is responsible for the data collection and all analysis and commentary provided in this report.

BWP Background.  Carrier bandwidth part is a Release 15 feature, which is now emerging as a critical part of an operator’s 5G strategy.  In summary, BWP allows a smartphone to only use a portion of a radio channel, thereby improving energy efficiency with low bit rate applications, like VoNR, or allowing a smartphone to use a portion of the channel since it isn’t able to use the full bandwidth available in the channel due to its total bandwidth limitation.

Network Capabilities.  We tested in T-Mobile’s commercial network. The operator had implemented a 20 MHz BWP in its 100 MHz Band n41 channel to support low bit rate applications, like VoNR.  The operator had also configured a 20 MHz BWP in a 40 MHz Band n41 channel and a 20 MHz BWP in its 30 MHz Band n25 channel.

UE Capabilities.  We tested the energy efficiency feature of BWP with 2 Galaxy S23 smartphones – one smartphone supported the feature and one did not.  We included a Galaxy S22 smartphone which only supported 20 MHz in Band n25, where T-Mobile had deployed a 30 MHz channel.  We tested with an entry-level A14 smartphone which was limited to 120 MHz of total 5G channel bandwidth, meaning it couldn’t support carrier aggregation without BWP.

The Results. We quantify the energy savings due to BWP and how it translates into other use cases, such as leaving a phone’s backlight display on longer.  We also show how the network scheduled resources between the phones with varying bandwidth capabilities.  Finally, we show RF performance differences between the S23 and S22 smartphone as well as demonstrate the coverage limits of a 30 MHz FDD channel.