Analysis of CQI Traces from LTE MIMO Deployments

and Impact on Classical Schedulers

Jose Fajardo, Ianire Taboada, Fidel Liberal

To cite this version:

Jose Fajardo, Ianire Taboada, Fidel Liberal. Analysis of CQI Traces from LTE MIMO Deploy-
ments and Impact on Classical Schedulers. 13th International Conference on Wired/Wireless
Internet Communication (WWIC), May 2015, Malaga, Spain. pp.60-73, 10.1007/978-3-319-22572-
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 Analysis of CQI traces from LTE MIMO
deployments and impact on classical schedulers

Jose Oscar Fajardo, Ianire Taboada, and Fidel Liberal

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), ETSI Bilbao, Alameda Urquijo s/n,
48013 Bilbao, Spain,
{joseoscar.fajardo, ianire.taboada, fidel.liberal}@ehu.es

Abstract. This paper deals with the classical problem of radio

resource management in LTE MIMO, with special focus to the
specific radio channel characteristics in commercial LTE networks.
First, we provide some conclusions about the Channel Quality
Information traces obtained through field testing. From this analysis,
we perform a series of experi- ments by means of an LTE emulator in
order to evaluate the accuracy of different fading models used in the
3GPP. As a first outcome of the paper, we infer several fine-grain
channel characteristics useful to feed further research work in the
area of LTE MIMO. As a second contri- bution of the paper, we
analyze the performance of classical schedulers (i.e., Round Robin,
Best CQI and Proportional Fair) under the obtained LTE MIMO
channel conditions. Specifically, we analyze the impact of the
channel feedback reporting rate in scenarios with multiple greedy
sources.

Keywords: LTE MIMO traces; live testing; radio resource scheduling;

CQI Reporting Rate.

1 Introduction
Nowadays, Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology has widespread support
through all the continents. According to the Global mobile Suppliers
Association (GSA), as for January 2015 there are 360 commercial LTE
networks deployed in 124 countries [1]. From the five different LTE device
categories defined in 3GPP TS 36.306 (until Release 9) [2], actual
deployments only support up to Category
4. This feature implies a peak downlink bitrate in LTE networks of 75Mbps
when single-input single-output (SISO) is used, and 150Mbps in multiple-
input and multiple-output (MIMO) transmission mode. Additionally, 49 of
these networks support LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) (3GPP Release 10 and on)
with Carrier Ag- gregation (CA) and peak data rates of 300 Mbps for MIMO-
enabled Category 6 devices.
Jointly with these worldwide deployments, there is an increasing interest
from the research community to study the performance of different proposals
(e.g., channel-aware schedulers, channel-aware application servers, etc.) in
real- world conditions (e.g., [3]). Although well-known LTE simulators [4–6]
have been
widely used in the past years, it is important to analyze and characterize the
real-world radio performance in different conditions and mobility patterns.
The quality of the radio channel may be estimated through a series of radio
parameters, i.e.: Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), Reference Signal
Received Power (RSRP), Reference Signal Receive Quality (RSRQ) and Signal-
to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Most of these radio parameters can be monitored in
reg- ular LTE smartphones though dedicated software (e,g, [7]). Beyond all
these power-related measurements, the key parameter to determine the
performance of User Equipments (UE) in LTE is the Channel Quality
Information (CQI). This parameter determines the coding efficiency [8]
supported to meet the tar- get Block Error Rate (BLER) of 10%. Under good
radio channel conditions, the CQI value reported by the UE to the E-UTRAN
Node B (eNodeB) would be high, resulting in a high Modulation and Coding
Scheme (MCS) index and better radio efficiency.
UEs may be requested to report CQI values in a periodic basis and to send
aperiodic CQI reports upon request by the eNodeB. Reported CQI values can
be configured to a unique value for the whole bandwidth (wideband CQI) or
different CQI values for determined frequencies (sub-band CQI). In addition
to CQIs, UEs are requested to report the Rank Indicator (RI) parameter in
MIMO transmissions. This parameter is critical to understand if UEs estimate
that two spatially multiplexed layers shall be used (RI=2) or if it is better to
receive the same information from different antennas (RI=1). When reported
periodically, the CQI Reporting Rate (CRR) determines the frequency for
sending quality feedbacks in the uplink [9]. The frequency for reporting RI
values is usually configured as a multiple of CRR value.
Unfortunately, CQI values cannot be generally accessed though
commercial LTE devices and UEs specifically enabled for drive testing are
required. Few studies provide detailed information concerning CQI values. In
[10], authors illustrate the temporal evolution of CQI values in stationary and
mobility con- ditions in one LTE network with 10MHz of bandwidth. However,
no information is provided about the RI value and consequently the specific
MIMO mode at each moment is unknown. In [11], an almost linear
relationship between CQI and RSRP values is depicted. However, these
experiments are performed in an experimental testbed and not in real-world
commercial LTE networks. Addition- ally, the experiments are based on SISO
transmissions and the applied fading channels are not detailed.
Most of LTE performance studies are based on other radio parameters.
Gen- erally speaking, measured SNR is used to estimate the expected BLER in
dif- ferent coding schemes, and thus to generate the most accurate CQI value
for the current conditions. However, this relationship may be complex in
MIMO scenarios [12] and its actual implementation is up to device vendors.
Thus, SNR values are not always an accurate estimator of the reported
channel quality and CQI traces are generally preferred to analyze the
experienced performance. As shown in [10], the relationship between SNR
and CQI at different antennas de- pends on the experienced channel
variability at each antenna. Additionally, SNR
values are not always accessible from LTE devices. In [13], authors propose a
method to estimate SNR values from RSRP and RSSI measurements. Finally,
some other authors try to analyze the experienced performance and its root
causes by profiling application-level data [14–16].
In summary, it is evidenced that analyzing and characterizing the behavior
of CQI values in modern LTE networks is a very challenging but appealing
prob- lem. This paper is intended to provide some evidence about the
expected radio channel characteristics, focusing on the downlink of LTE
MIMO transmissions. In Section 2, beyond providing raw CQI traces, we
identify several specific effects and limitations that we found when performing
drive tests, and we discuss the main causes of these issues. Additionally, in
Section 3 we show a basic perfor- mance study concerning classical radio
resource schedulers under the identified propagation conditions. Finally,
Section 4 provides the conclusions to the paper.

2 Characterizing LTE MIMO channels

This section deals with the first objective of the paper, namely the
characteriza- tion of downlink radio channels in deployed LTE MIMO
networks. As explained before, instead of using radio parameters such as
RSSI, RSRP, RSRQ or SNR, we analyze the behavior of CQI traces obtained
from real-world measurements in commercial networks. Regular LTE devices
do not provide these CQI values to drive test tools, and thus specialized
equipment must be used to gather CQI traces from outside the operator. As we
will discuss in this section, mapping lower level radio parameters (even SNR
values) to CQI is not always a direct relationship. First, specific mapping
schemes are open to vendors implementa- tions. Second, the values for radio
parameters that can be gathered by different drive test tools only provide
limited information in LTE MIMO scenarios.
As a result, we make use of a specialized drive test toolset that allows us to
gather CQI values and analyze their relationship to other parameters.
However, even this kind of specialized equipment imposes a series of
limitations to the collected CQI traces that need to be studied and addressed.
As a step forward, we use an LTE emulator to run a series of experiments
taking into account different LTE Test Points used by the 3GPP in TS 37.901
[17]. This way, we are able to compare the coarse-grain characteristics of the
drive test traces with the experimental traces, and to detect some behavioral
patterns. Finally, we infer a series of fine-grain characteristics that could be
used to derive CQI models useful for realistic LTE MIMO simulations.

2.1 Coarse-grain CQI traces through field testing

At an initial step, drive tests were performed to gather the performance

experi- enced by UEs in different live LTE networks. Test data were gathered
in different mobility patterns and different cities in the North of Spain, using
commercial cells deployed in the 2.6 GHz band (LTE Band 7) with 20 MHz of
bandwidth.
 The test equipment consisted of a laptop connected to LTE with a Samsung
GT-B3730 USB dongle and running ASCOM TEMS Investigation as drive test
tool. This USB dongle is an LTE Category 3 device, which imposes a series of
constraints in the measurements.
First, Category 3 devices are capable of operating in SISO and MIMO with
a maximum of two layers for spatial multiplexing in the downlink [2]. Since
October 2014, several deployments in Spain support LTE-A with Carrier
Aggregation of 40 MHz, by mixing downlink transmissions from 1.8 GHz and
2.6 GHz bands. However, Category 6 or higher devices are required to support
CA and therefore the downlink bandwidth is limited to 20 MHz with
Category 3 devices.
Secondly, Category 3 devices are limited to support up to 75 Mbps in the
downlink with one layer, and 100 Mbps with two spatial layers in MIMO. This
limitation imposes a restriction in the MCS value that can be assigned to an
UE in MIMO (MCS of 23 for 20 MHz cells). Category 4 devices do not impose
this limitation, and therefore 150 Mbps could be achieved in downlink.
However, this effect does not impact generation and reporting of CQI values
since the limitation is applied in the eNodeB.
In addition to UE capacities, the configuration of the deployed LTE
networks has an impact on the experienced results. As an example, Figure 1
illustrates an excerpt of 260 s from a drive test trace obtained from TEMS
Investigation.

−90 20
RSRP
−100 SNR 15

SNR
RSRP

−110 10

−120 5

−130 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (s)

15
RI=2 CQI−1
CQI−2
10
C

RI=1
5

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Time (s)

Fig. 1. Example trace from field testing in LTE MIMO.

In the first subplot, we show RSRP and SNR values reported by the device.
Ideally, SNR is used to calculate CQI values in the two available antennas, al-
though the actual mapping is open to device manufacturers. As can be
observed, UEs mobility implies high variability and wide range of SNR
values.
In the second subplot, we show the collected CQI values reported by the
two antennas. First, it must be noted that reported SNR values are aggregated
for the two antennas, being difficult to infer the contribution of each antenna
and
the expected individual CQI values. Second, it can be observed that the second
CQI value is either zero or the same as the first CQI value.
This effect must be understood by taking into account the Transmission
Mode of the LTE cell [8]. The monitored networks are mainly based on
Transmission Mode 3, which allows one of the following transmission
schemes at each moment:
– Transmit Diversity or Space Frequency Block Codes (SFBC). In this MIMO
scheme, the eNodeB transmits the same information through two
antennas. CQI values reported by UEs are associated to the best channel
condition from the two antennas and RI values are set to one.
– Large delay CDD or Open Loop Spatial Multiplexing (OLSM). In this MIMO
scheme, the eNodeB transmits different information through two
antennas and higher bitrates can be achieved. CQI values reported by UEs
are asso- ciated to the best condition achievable at the two antennas
simultaneously, which is the worst of the two channel conditions.
Reported RI values are set to two in this case.
As a result, based on the radio performance experienced by two different
re- ception antennas, the MIMO scheme varies along time as illustrated in
Figure 1. UEs are in charge of generating both CQI values and estimating the
most be- neficial transmission scheme that maximizes the downlink bitrate.
From that estimation, UEs report a single CQI value together with the
preferred RI.
The main implication of this effect is the complexity to characterize the
behavior of CQI values directly from CQI traces. Since different fading
conditions may affect to different antennas, similar SNR values may result on
higher or lower CQI-1 values if SFBC or OLSM is preferred. Thus, it must be
noted that CQI-1 and CQI-2 values reported by the drive test tool are not
directly those estimated for the two antennas. Instead, those CQI traces would
include some periods of individual CQI values and some periods of the
maximum CQI achievable at both antennas at the same time.
As a step forward, we processed the captured traces isolating the different
transmission schemes. Figure 2 illustrates these results for a series of traces in
similar mobility conditions at 20 km/h.
The left plot in Figure 2 illustrates the Empirical Cumulative Distribution
Function (ECDF) of CQI values. As can be observed, OLSM periods provide
lower CQI values than SFBC periods. Although this fact is observed in most
of the performed drive tests, several scenarios provide high CQI values also for
OLSM, when both antennas experience good channel conditions at the same
time.
In order to provide some further evidence of the different characteristics
experienced by CQI in both transmission schemes, the right plot in Figure 2
shows the ECDF of monitored CQI burstlengths. In this paper, CQI
burstlengths are considered as periods of time with non-variable CQI value. At
this time scale, CQI values seem to be less variable for OLSM periods than
SFBC periods although for both of them maximum burstlengths are around
15 s.
Figure 2 also provides evidence of another limitation of the drive test
toolset concerning the granularity of the samples. As can be observed, CQI
burstlengths
 1 1

RI=1
0.8 RI=2 0.8

0.6 0.6
EC

EC
0.4 0.4
RI=1
RI=2
0.2 0.2

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 0
CQI 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
CQI burstlength (s)

Fig. 2. Different characteristics of CQI traces in SFBC (RI=1) and OLSM (RI=2)
periods.

start with a lower value of 1 s and this fact is not caused by either the network
configuration or the drive test software.
Monitored LTE networks are configured to operate with Transmission
Mode 3, requesting UEs to send wideband CQI reports every 5 ms and RI
feedbacks every 80 ms. The former value determines the granularity of CQI
measurements at the eNodeB, while the latter value limits the frequency for
switching between transmission schemes. Likewise, the drive test software is
configured to gather test data every 200 ms from the UE. Therefore, the
limitation seems to be related to the granularity used by the LTE device to
report radio parameters to the drive test software. In this sense, it is not clear
how these values are generated from the whole set of values in the last
period.
In summary, we state that specialized drive test tools, as used in this paper,
provide significant information to understand the experienced performance of
radio channels in LTE MIMO through the analysis of CQI values. However, in
order to characterize its temporal evolution, we must identify the transmission
scheme at each moment. Additionally, although useful for coarse-grain
estima- tions, the granularity of CQI traces is too low and invalidates the
results to generate fine-grain CQI traces aimed to feed further LTE simulation
studies.

2.2 Fine-grain CQI traces through LTE emulation

Taking into account the previous conclusions, we performed a series of experi-
ments in order to understand the possible behavior of CQI traces at sub-
second scope. The most accurate methodology would involve accessing real-
world traces from deployed commercial eNodeB equipments, which is
problematic due to ac- cessibility / privacy and performance issues. Even in
that case, the trace gra- nularity would be limited to the CRR value configured
at the mobile network operator, i.e. 5 ms in the monitored networks.
Therefore, this paper addresses the problem from an alternative
methodology, which is illustrated in Figure 3. We used the Aeroflex 7100
LTE emulator to
gather finer-grain radio measurements, which provides CQI samples up to the
practical limit of 2ms in CRR. This emulator performs the role of the eNodeB,
since it creates the LTE radio signal and all the necessary LTE protocol events
to support the attachment and registration of the Samsung GT-B3730 dongle
through a radiofrequency cable. In order to emulate the overall radio
conditions of the field tests, the LTE emulator is properly configured with the
monitored LTE radio characteristics in terms of frequency, bandwidth, power
levels, etc. Additionally, we use the Aeroflex 7100 Test System Application
Programming Interface (API) in order to dynamically modify the target SNR
according to the values collected by TEMS Investigation in a per second basis.
The LTE emulator is configured to request CQI reports from the UE every 2
ms, and the received CQI values are logged and saved to a file for further
offline processing. At the same time, TEMS Investigation is used to collect
coarse-grain statistics in different experimental conditions in order to check
reported values against real-world data.

Coarse-grain
field test
radio conditions

TEMS
Investigation

Fading
Samsung
GT-B3730
Aeroflex 7100
LTE emulator

Post-processing
Fine-grain Coarse-grain
experimental experimental
log file log file

Fig. 3. Testbed for realistic LTE experiments.

In order to test different fading conditions, each experiment adds to the

generated LTE signal a different fading pattern. According to 3GPP TR 37.901
Test Points for LTE, three different Extended Vehicular A (EVA) propagation
conditions have been tested:

– EVA5: EVA occurs frequently in deployments.

– EVA70: Adds EVA70, high SNR coverage which is common in low
frequency (< 1 GHz) band networks.
– EVA200: Covers high Doppler, high SNR scenario which is common in high
frequency (≥1 GHz) band networks.
 Figure 4 illustrates obtained experimental coarse-grain results in terms of
CQI ECDF (upper plot) and CQI burstlength ECDF (lower plot) as reported by
TEMS Investigation. This figure also includes the statistical properties of the
selected field test CQI traces, separated between OLSM and SFBC periods.

0.8 RI=1
RI=2
0.6 EVA5
EC

EVA70 EVA200
0.4

0.2

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
CQI

0.8
RI=1
0.6
RI=2
EC

0.4 EVA5

0.2

0
0 1 2
10 10 10
CQI burstlength (s)

Fig. 4. Experimental traces vs. 3GPP LTE Test Points.

As expected, none of the propagation conditions perfectly matches any of

the real-world traces. However, we can observe specific trends as follows:

– CQI traces in MIMO Transmit Diversity periods are closer to EVA5 fading
condition in both CQI and CQI burstlength first order statistics.
– CQI traces in MIMO OLSM periods are closer to EVA70 and EVA200
fading conditions in both statistics.

We may interpret these results considering the LTE Transmission Mode 3

and possible switching between the two alternative transmission schemes. As
explained before, SFBC is used when one of the antennas experiences a signi-
ficant better channel condition compared to the other antenna. In this case, it
seems that the best antenna follows a less severe fading condition such as
EVA5. OLSM is used when the estimated bitrate using two layers in the worst
radio condition achieves a higher bitrate than a unique layer through the best
antenna. Therefore, OLSM CQI traces are associated to the more severe fading
condition of the two antennas. Although high CQI values have been monitored
in OLSM, most of the field test experiments provide lower CQI values and are
therefore associated to more severe fading conditions.
 In order to infer the possible behavior of CQI at sub-second level, we use
the experimental CQI traces reported by the Samsung GT-B3730 and captured
at the LTE emulator. Figure 5 illustrates the results of the actual CQI traces at
2 ms of reporting period.

0.8 EVA5 TEMS

EVA5 7100
0.6 EVA70 TEMS
EC

EVA70 7100
0.4
EVA200 TEMS
0.2 EVA200 7100

0
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
CQI

0.8

0.6
EC

0.4 EVA5 7100

EVA70 7100
0.2
EVA200 7100
0
−3 −2 −1
10 10 10
CQI burstlength (s)

Fig. 5. Burstlength of CQI traces at LTE frame level.

In the upper plot, we confirm that aggregated CQI values reported by

TEMS and actual CQI values reported by UE to the eNodeB follow similar
statistics. However, CQI values over time are much more variable than coarse-
grain reports. In the lower plot, we illustrate the ECDF of CQI burstlengths
and we confirm that burstlengths beyond 200 ms are hardly probable in any
scenario.
Additionally, we observe that EVA5 fading channels exhibit higher
burstlengths than the other two fading conditions. This feature may be
benefitial to avoid low-level retransmissions due to fast channel variability, and
can be exploited by channel-aware scheduling strategies to optimize the
performance of the cell.

3 Impact on classical scheduling strategies

In order to evaluate the impact of the obtained channel characteristics, this
section presents the results of a simple exercise concerning the introduction of
experimental CQI traces into the analysis of LTE eNodeB scheduling strategies.
We analyze the performance of well-known scheduling algorithms (Round
Robin, Best CQI and Proportional Fair) under the obtained LTE MIMO chan-
nel conditions. Specifically, we focus on the impact of CRR in a controlled
simulation-driven LTE scenario due to the significance of CQI feedback gra-
nularity in variable radio channels.
3.1 Simulation methodology
In order to introduce the required experimental CQI values in the simulations,
we implemented a basic LTE simulation environment in MATLAB, where
obtained LTE MIMO CQI traces are configured as input vectors for the event-
driven simulation. The main features considered in the simulation code are
the effect of different multi-user scheduling strategies and the effect of
retransmissions due to inaccurate channel estimations associated to CRR and
CQI delay values.
Table 1 summarizes the main simulation parameters.

Parameter Value
Transmission Time Interval (TTI) 1 ms
Number of Resource Blocks (RB) 100
LTE Transmission Mode MIMO OLSM
Scheduling algorithms BC, RR, PF
CQI Reporting Rate 2, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, 160 ms
CQI delay 3 ms
Number of UEs 20 UEs, in two classes
Channel model EVA5, EVA200
Traffic model Greedy sources
Simulation length 1000 s
Table 1. Simulation parameters.

As typical in current LTE networks, we use scheduling decisions and trans-

mission slots of 1 ms. Considering an LTE cell of 20 MHz, the scheduler needs
to determine how to assign a total of 100 Resource Blocks (RB) among the
different users at each transmission slot.
The scheduling policies used in our experiments are:
– Round Robin (RR): With this discipline, the RBs are fairly shared among
users.
– Best CQI (BC): This policy assigns RBs fairly among the users with the
estimated highest instantaneous CQI.
– Proportional Fair (PF): This discipline consists in assigning RBs fairly
among the users with the highest ratio of the estimated current
transmission rate and the current averaged throughput for a window of
100 ms (without taking into account retransmitted bits).
Once the scheduler decides the number of assigned RBs per user, the
eNodeB determines the MCS and the Transport Block Size (TBS) for each user
according to [8] (Table 7.1.7.2.2-1 employed for MIMO). Both MCS and TBS
values depend on the reported CQI value and the number of assigned RBs.
Aimed at analyzing the impact of the CRR in classical schedulers, we
consider CRR values employed in commercial LTE networks [17]: 2, 5, 10, 20,
40, 80, 160 (in ms). Moreover, we assume a CQI delay of 3 ms caused by the
CQI measure- ment at the UE side, the CQI feedback transmission and the
CQI processing
at the eNodeB [18]. This way, the resource allocation algorithms use partial
channel quality information. If the available CQI estimation in the scheduler is
higher than the actual CQI at the UE, we force a retransmission in the
following Transmission Time Interval.
We have carried out simulations of 1000 s length. We consider 20 greedy
traffic sources in the cell, each traffic source corresponding to a mobile user.
We consider two classes of users in reference to the channel characteristics: 10
users follow the obtained EVA5 CQI model and 10 users follow EVA200.
Concerning these two channel models, we shall note that EVA5 provides lower
CQI variability and higher CQI values.

3.2 Analysis of results

We focus on the study of the achievable aggregated cell throughput as a mea-
sure to evaluate the performance of the different scheduling strategies under
the described LTE channel characteristics and CRR configurations.
First, we analyze the results for the aggregate values taking into account
the two considered classes of users.
Left-graph in Figure 6 shows the results for the effective throughput, which
refers to correctly transmitted data (without taking into account retransmis-
sions). Right-graph of Figure 6 illustrates the total amount of traffic used in
the cell for retransmissions due to inaccurate channel estimations at the
eNodeB.

RR BC
70 70 PF

60 60

50 50
Retransmissions
Throughput

40 40

30 30

20 20
RR BC
10 PF 10

0
2 5 10 20 40 80 160 0
2 5 10 20 40 80 160
CRR (ms)
CRR (ms)

Fig. 6. Effective throughput (left) and wasted throughput caused by retransmissions

(right).

As can be observed, channel-aware disciplines exhibit severe degradations

as CRR increases, while RR shows a more stable performance. Furthermore, it
is clear that channel-aware policies cause more retransmissions than RR; with
a notable increase with the CRR value.
 This effect is mainly associated to the inherent behavior of the analyzed
schedulers. Channel-aware schedulers prioritize the transmission of traffic as-
sociated to users with high CQI values. However, those channel states exhibit
more variability and the probability to transit to channel states with lower CQI
is high. As a result, the eNodeB would overestimate the transmission capacity
for those users leading to higher error probability in the transmissions. In the
case of RR, users are selected regardless their channel condition. As cited
before, users with lower CQI values are associated to less variable channel
states, thus leading to lower transmission capacity but lower error
probability.
As a result, the overall performance of BC provides higher bitrates in the
lower CRR values (up to CRR=20 ms) and exhibits more severe degradations
for higher CRR values where the probability of inaccurate CQI estimations
increase. Beyond aggregate cell performance values, Figure 7 illustrates the
through- put results of the two classes of users; the left-graph belongs to users
in better channel conditions (EVA5) and right-graph belongs to users in
worse channel conditions (EVA200). EVA5 results in higher CQI values and
less CQI variabil- ity compared to the EVA200 channel model. In the left-
graph, we can see the prominent improvement of BC for the class of users in
good channel conditions, while users in bad channel conditions are
penalized. In these conditions, RR behaves as the fairest scheduler and the
most reliable against high CRR values.

EVA5 EVA200

70 16

60 14

50 12
RR BC
PF
10
Throughput

Throughput

40
8
30
6
20
4
RR BC
10 PF 2

0 0
2 5 10 20 40 80 160 2 5 10 20 40 80 160
CRR (ms) CRR (ms)

Fig. 7. Per-class effective throughput.

4 Conclusions
The main contribution of this work is the characterization of downlink radio
channels in deployed LTE MIMO by means of CQI traces obtained from real-
world measurements in commercial networks. We state that, although
specialized
drive test tools provide useful information to understand the achieved perfor-
mance of LTE MIMO channels, the granularity of CQI traces is not enough for
characterize its temporal evolution. For that purpose, we achieve to obtain CQI
samples each 2 ms by means of Aeroflex 7100 LTE emulator for different
fading conditions. We conclude that CQI traces in MIMO Transmit Diversity
are closer to less severe fading conditions (such as EVA5), and that OLSM CQI
traces are associated to more severe fading conditions (such as EVA70 and
EVA200).
Although this is not an intrinsic feature to the different MIMO
transmission modes, it has to do with the fact that MIMO OLSM uses the
lower of the different CQI values. In the scenarios analyzed in this paper, it is
hardly probable that all the antennas are in good channel conditions. Anyway,
the results obtained in this paper do not preclude the possibility of
experiencing high CQI values in MIMO OLSM in other scenarios.
Furthermore, we briefly depict the performance of classical schedulers
under the obtained LTE MIMO CQI traces for different channel quality
reporting pe- riods. We consider a simulation scenario with two classes of
users that differ in channel characteristics, EVA5 (good conditions) and
EVA200 (bad conditions), driven in both cases by the coarse-grain SNR
values. As main conclusion, we state that for CRR values lower than 20 ms BC
exhibits the best performance in terms of throughput, even though it causes a
notable number of retransmissions. As future work, we identify two main
areas for study. First, obtained CQI traces could be used to derive a
parametrized LTE channel model that pro- vides accurate
statistical/temporal LTE channel information. Second, in order to avoid the
excessive wasted throughput due to retransmissions, channel-aware
scheduling policies that cope with partially observable channels should be
stud- ied/proposed. Therefore, a future CQI-based channel model will be
useful to
feed up channel-aware schedulers employed in LTE networks.

Acknowledgement
This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Economa y
Competitividad (MINECO) under grant TEC2013-46766-R: QoEverage - QoE-
aware optimization mechanisms for next generation networks and services.

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