TR-196 (Technical Report 196) is a

Broadband Forum 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 ...

technical specification. Its official title is "Femto Access Point Service Data Model." The purpose of this

Technical Report A technical report (also scientific report) is a document that describes the process, progress, or results of technical or scientific research or the state of a technical or scientific research problem. It might also include recommendations and co ...

is to specify the Data Model for the Femto Access Point (FAP) for remote management purposes using the

TR-069 Technical Report 069 (TR-069) is a technical specification of the Broadband Forum that defines an application layer protocol for remote management and provisioning of customer-premises equipment (CPE) connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network. ...

CWMP. FAP is a generic terminology that implies any Radio Access Technology (RAT). In 3GPP's terminology,

Home Node B A Home Node B, or HNB, is the 3GPP's term for a 3G femtocell or Small Cell. A Node B is an element of a 3G macro Radio Access Network, or RAN. A femtocell performs many of the function of a Node B, but is optimized for deployment in the indoor p ...

is the name for 3G (

UMTS 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 (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the Inte ...

) and

Home eNode B A Home eNodeB, or HeNB, is the 3GPP's term for an LTE femtocell or Small Cell. An eNodeB is an element of an LTE Radio Access Network, or E-UTRAN. A HeNB performs the same function of an eNodeB, but is optimized for deployment for smaller coverag ...

for LTE.

Details

There are two major releases ("Issue" in BBF terminology) of TR-196 data model. Issue 1 is the first publication which supports

HNB only. It was later expanded to include LTE HeNB and CDMA2000 FAP, and was released as Issue 2. {, class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; font-size:96%;" , - !width=75, TR-196 Release!!width=75, 3GPP Release alignment!!width=75,

!!width=75, LTE!!width=75,

CDMA2000 CDMA2000 (also known as C2K or IMT Multi‑Carrier (IMT‑MC)) is a family of 3G mobile technology standards for sending voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. It is developed by 3GPP2 as a backwards-compatible ...

, - , Issue1 (published in April 2009), , Release 8, , Supported, , Not supported, , Not supported , - , Issue2 (published in November 2011), , Release 9, , Supported, , Supported, , Supported TR-196 is a specification of

(BBF). But its work is closely related to 3GPP's work on HNB and HeNB, and

3GPP2 The 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) is a collaboration between telecommunications associations to make a globally applicable third generation ( 3G) mobile phone system specification within the scope of the ITU's IMT-2000 project. In ...

'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 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 c ...

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 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 HNBAP is a control protocol found in Home Node B networks on the Iu-h interface. The Home Node B Application Part (HNBAP) protocol provides the following functions: *Registration of HNB with the HNB-GW *Identification of the HNB *Registration of UE ...

) and ''RANAP User Adaptation'' (RUA). The Data Model was subsequently published by

as TR-196 Issue 1 (Femto Access Point Service Data Model). It is based on

's TR-069 CWMP as the signalling protocol.

Publication of Issue 1

In the second half of 2008, Femto Forum reached agreement on O&M framework to be based on

'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):
TS 32.581
Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Concepts and requirements for Type 1 interface HNB to HNB Management System (HMS)

Home Node B (HNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Information model for Type 1 interface HNB to HNB Management System (HMS)

Home Node B (HNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Procedure flows for Type 1 interface HNB to HNB Management System (HMS)

Home Node B (HNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); XML definitions for Type 1 interface HNB to HNB Management System (HMS) The second TS

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

(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

. This work in 3GPP SA5 resulted in the following set of Technical Specifications (TS):
TS 32.591
Telecommunication management; Home enhanced Node B (HeNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Concepts and requirements for Type 1 interface HeNB to HeNB Management System (HeMS)

Telecommunication management; Home enhanced Node B (HeNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Information model for Type 1 interface HeNB to HeNB Management System (HeMS)

Telecommunication management; Home enhanced Node B (HeNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Procedure flows for Type 1 interface HeNB to HeNB Management System (HeMS)

Telecommunication management; Home enhanced Node B (HeNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); XML definitions for Type 1 interface HeNB to HeNB Management System (HeMS) The second TS

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,

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

HNB only. Therefore, Issue 1 content aligns wit
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 wit
3GPP TS 32.582
In addition, LTE HeNB part aligns 1-to-1 wit

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.

Related Standard

Home Node B (HNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Information model for Type 1 interface HNB to HNB Management System (HMS)

Telecommunication management; Home enhanced Node B (HeNB) Operations, Administration, Maintenance and Provisioning (OAM&P); Information model for Type 1 interface HeNB to HeNB Management System (HeMS)

External links

Technical Report 196 From Broadband ForumList of Technical Reports

References

Standardization of Femtocells
Telecommunications standards