Heterogeneous Network is a collective term for a network comprising radio nodes of varying sizes and roles, from small base station nodes to big macro base station nodes. The purpose of using a heterogeneous network is to improve capacity and/or coverage, and to allow a variation of role over time for some of the nodes in order to optimize the overall performance. Also small base station nodes may perform two roles and may switch role as necessary:

• acting as a coverage extender, most likely resulting in low traffic volumes in the node
• acting as a capacity booster, most likely resulting in high traffic volumes in the node

As the number of nodes to be managed will increase significantly by introducing small base station nodes, the management of the network must change. Because of the large number of small base stations, it is essential to minimize the set of configuration parameters. It is also desirable to minimize the set of configuration parameters for the macro base stations. This means that there is no difference from minimization of configuration point of view for managing small or large base stations. Because a significant proportion of the network traffic will be carried by small base stations, the need for providing alarms and network KPIs are the same for small base stations as for big macro base stations. So also from PM and FM point of view there is no difference on the type of information that needs to be managed depending on the size of the base station. What needs to change is the volume of data that needs to be decreased over Itf-N. However, some base stations are more important to be managed in real time. In order to keep CAPEX and OPEX down, it must be possible to choose how the management info is propagated to the NMS. Different criteria can be used to have all information on line (as before), to only get information when the manager requests it, or something in between.

The present document investigates and makes recommendations on how management information can be selected by the manager over Itf-N for heterogeneous networks (see TR 21.905) nodes that are owned, deployed and maintained by the operator. The nodes that are owned, deployed or maintained by residential users are out of scope of the present document, such as Home NodeBs, Home eNodeBs.