SMART PHONES: PROBLEMS &

SULTIONS
Core & VAS Planning

HOU: Kamal Fahel

HOS: Wael Khateeb

Prepared By: Hasan Ahmad

JULY 16, 2014

SYRIATEL

Abstract
In response to the growth of Smartphones usage, several actions have been made
(activation of PCH Funtion) and are to be made (activation of enhanced fast
dormancy) in Syriatel Network.
In this document, we review basic characteristics and impacts of Smartphones on
Network (chapter 1). In chapter 2 we consider the problems from the core network
side and their possible solutions and from RAN side in chapter 3.
We conclude in chapter 4, trying to indicate actions to be made.

Contents
1

Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 3
1-1

Application Categories and Characteristics ..................................................................... 3

1-2 Characteristics of Small-Packet Services (SNS, IM, and VoIP) and their Impact on
Networks ..................................................................................................................................... 4
1-3 Web Applications Characteristics and Impact on Network .................................................. 5
1-4 Challenges on Network by mobile Terminals ...................................................................... 6
1-4-1 Mobile Terminals Capabilities ....................................................................................... 6
1-4-3 Section 1-4 Conclusion...................................................................................................... 7
2- Core Problems & Solutions ..................................................................................................... 8
2-1

Core Problems ...................................................................................................................... 8

2-1-1 Signaling Over load in Direct Tunnel Configuration ........................................................ 8

2-1-2 Repeated Activation Requests ........................................................................................... 9
2-2

Core Solutions.................................................................................................................... 10
2-2-1 PS Smart Direct Tunnel ............................................................................................... 10

2-2-3- Repeated Activation Request Controls .......................................................................... 10

2 UMTS RAN: Problems & Solutions ......................................................................................... 11
2-1 UTRAN Problems .................................................................................................................. 11
2-1-1 Increase in Access Request Signaling (Signalling Storm) .............................................. 11
2-1-2 Paging Signaling (Considered in Syriatel) ...................................................................... 12
2-1-3 Decreased Efficiency in Air Interface ............................................................................. 12
2-2 UTRAN Solutions .................................................................................................................. 13
2-2-1- Solution to the Signaling Storm in UTRAN .................................................................. 13
2-2-2 - UTRAN Hierarchical Paging ........................................................................................ 15
2-2-3 Air Interface Efficiency Improvement in UTRAN Networks ......................................... 15
3

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 16

1 Introduction
1-1 Application Categories and Characteristics
The following table illustrates the characteristics of different applications used using smart
phones.

The preceding features are defined as follows:

- If packet per second (PPS) is greater than 20, the data is transmitted continuously.
- If PPS is less than 10, the data is transmitted less frequently.
- A data packet larger than 1000 bytes is defined as a big packet.
- A data packet less than 600 bytes is defined as a small packet.

Main traffic volume for mobile Internet is used for web browsing, and the rest is used for streaming media
and file transfer. Mobile Internet is widely deployed and the traffic rate increases. Smartphones are
equipped with more functions. Mobile streaming media services will be widely used and the main traffic
volume will be occupied by video service. Instant communications with text, voice, and video are more
preferable, and network access becomes more frequently. Meanwhile, the technique Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML5) becomes increasingly mature. Cloud service will replace traditional web browsing and
file transfer as the dominant player. The smartphones for mobile Internet become small and diverse. More
and more smart machine terminals and M2M services, such as smart electrical household appliances,
auto meter reading, and mobile payment come into being.

The applications that are expected to be mostly used in our network are circled in red above and
can be listed as follows:
12345-

Instant Messaging (IM).

Voice Over IP (VoIP: Skype, Viber.).
Social Networks Sites (SNS: Facebook).
Web Browsing.
Gaming (Angry birds).

In the following two sections we will go more in details about the applications of interest

1-2 Characteristics of Small-Packet Services (SNS, IM, and VoIP) and their Impact on
Networks
Small packet services on mobile Internet consist of SNS, IM, and VoIP. Depending on the traffic
conditions, small packets are divided into intermittent small packets and continuous small packets.
Intermittent small packets, continuous small packets and their impact on networks are analyzed in
the following.
Factors leading to intermittent small packets include the following items:
Short messages with little information, such as friends presence update, text chatting, and IM
Periodic keep alive messages, for example, keep alive messages for connections between servers
and subscribers
For these messages with less than 2000 bytes total traffic and less than 20 packets, the transmission
duration is less than 3s, and the interval is 30s to 40 minutes periodically. On one hand, these
messages lead to frequent RRC status switches. The RRC status switches from IDLE/PCH to
FACH/CELL_DCH frequently. Service requests and IU releases become more frequent, which
bring great signaling impact on RAN and PS network terminals. On the other hand, the data
transmission duration is short. Radio channels remain in the CELL_DCH status for a long period
of time due to an inactive timer, which is a waste of radio channel resources.
Servers maintain network connections with clients. When the clients send requests, servers send
notifications to receive ends. Paging messages are generated over the network and air interface. If
emergencies occur or timed messages are required, servers send messages to large numbers of
smartphones in the network at the same time. This inflicts severe impact on paging.
Continuous small packets are mostly generated in audio calls and video calls in VoIP applications.

During a call, the packet interval is 40 ms to 60 ms and the length of a packet is smaller than 300
bytes (100 bytes for an audio packet and 300 bytes for a video packet). The forwarding
performance of a network terminal is calculated using the packet length of 500 bytes. Too many
small packets lead to unqualified forwarding.
Packet aggregation can eliminate the impact of small packets on networks. The following
mechanisms are used to eliminate the impact of small packets on networks.
NSRM: Requests from multiple applications are delayed for a certain period of time and then sent
together.
APNS, C2DM: One application manages notifications of all applications.

1-3 Web Applications Characteristics and Impact on Network

Web browsing service is most widely used on mobile Internet at present. Most mobile phone
browsers send requests with HTTP to download HTML web pages from a web server. The HTML
web pages are parsed and shown on mobile phones. The data volume transmitted over mobile
phone browsers is equal to that over personal computer browsers, and data distortion never occurs.
Mobile phone browsers, such as Opera Mini and UCWEB browse web pages with a third-party
agent server. A mobile phone sends a browsing request to the third-party server. The third-party
server connects the mobile phone and the website. The website transmits data to the third-party
server. The third-party server compresses the data and generates smaller pages with less traffic
volume for the mobile phone browser. The mobile phone browser parses the compressed data and
displays it on the screen. In this mode, the data transmission volume is smaller, but data distortion
occurs.
HTML5 provides browsers with overall applications using the technologies of Canvas,
WebSocket, Storage, Audio, and Video. Most local programs function appropriately. Web-based
applications bring great impact on network traffic volume and behaviors. Therefore, subscriber
service usages and commercial modes change, which leads to greater impact on
telecommunications industry.
Impact

Cause

Solutions

Signaling

Uplink small packets,

including keeping alive
and status query
messages
Checks the updates with
periodic polling

Qualcomm Network Socket

Request Manager (NSRM)

Capacity and subscriber

experience

The transmission
contains a large amount
data.

Push mechanisms in the

operating system, including
Apple Push Notification
Service (APNS) and Cloud
to Device Messaging
(C2DM)
Compressions such as
UCWEB
Adaptive content protocols,
including HTTP and Live
Streaming
Local Cache

1-4 Challenges on Network by mobile Terminals

1-4-1 Mobile Terminals Capabilities
More and more smartphones support HSPA+ features like 64QAM, multi input and multi output
(MIMO), continuous packet connectivity (CPC), and enhanced Cell_FACH. The iPad compliant
with 3GPP Release 7 has a downlink capability of Cat. 14 Mbit/s to 21.1 Mbit/s. The iPad
supports DC-HSDPA feature in Release 8, with a downlink capability of Cat. 24 Mbit/s to 42
Mbit/s. iPad also supports HSPA+.
Smartphone screen size and resolution have been improved rapidly. Lumia 800 screen resolution
is 480 x 800 pixels, and the screen resolution for the latest Samsung terminal is 720 x 1280
pixels. New iPad screen resolution reaches 1536 x 2048 pixels. All mainstream devices support
1080P@30fps video display.

3GPP capabilities for typical smartphones

Galaxy S
II HD
LTE(Andr
oid4.0)

New
iPad
(iOS5.1
)

Qualcom
m
MDM66
10

Lumia
800
(Windo
ws
Phone
7.5
Mango)
Qualcom
m
MSM82
55

Qualcom
m
MSM86
60

Qualcom
m
MDM96
00

R6
Cat.10 14.4
Mbps
Cat.6
5.76
Mbps

R6
Cat.10 14.4
Mbps
Cat.6
5.76
Mbps

R7
Cat.14 21.1
Mbps
Cat.6
5.76
Mbps

R8
Cat. 24 42
Mbps
Cat.6 5.76
Mbps

Capabil
ity

iPhone
4
(iOS4.2
)

iPad 2
(iOS4.2
)

HTC
HD7
(Window
s
phone7)

Nexus S
(Android
2.3)

iPhone
4S
(iOS5)

Chip

Infineon
X-Gold
618

Qualcom
m
MDM66
10

QSD82
50

1GHz
Hummi
ngbird

3GPP
HSDPA

R6
Cat.8 7.2
Mbps
Cat.6 5.76
Mbps

R6
Cat.8 7.2
Mbps
Cat.6 5.76
Mbps

R6
Cat.8 7.2
Mbps
Cat.5 2.0
Mbps

R6
Cat.8 7.2
Mbps
Cat.6
5.76
Mbps

HSUPA

The computing capability and multi-radio capability for smartphones develop quickly, and their screen becomes larger and larger.
Mobile Internet applications shift from email to abundant services, such as web browsing, instant messaging, SNS, VoIP, cloud
service, video on demand, and live cast.

For web browsing and video playing services, higher screen resolution leads to increases in
traffic volume. Power consumption has been a bottleneck for smartphones all along.
1-4-2 OS Development
The most widely used operating systems for smartphones are Google Android, Apple iOS and
Microsoft Windows Phone. We need statistics showing traffic volume in function of the Mobile
OS.
The network resource utilization and user experience of push services due to permanent online
requirement are different for iOS and Android devices. For iOS, background applications do not
generate cellular data flows. The heartbeats of background services are regarded as those for
Apple push server. These services are in the deactivated status. For Android, most background

services have a single heartbeat. The unified heartbeat mechanism in iOS reduces the frequent
network connection requests and disconnection signaling during screen off. Table below
describes the comparison of background behaviors for screen off between iOS and Android
devices.

Network connection requests for iOS and Android are 2 and 30 respectively in one hour according to
Table above. When the terminal is in the connected status but without push messages, the number of
connections for devices Android operating system is 15 times of that for devices using iOS operating
system. Frequent connection requests from devices with the Android operating system bring congestion
for network.

1-4-3 Section 1-4 Conclusion

We need Statistics for:
1- Used Mobile Operating systems percentage.
2- Background behavior for iOS, Android.

2- Core Problems & Solutions

2-1 Core Problems
2-1-1 Signaling Over load in Direct Tunnel Configuration
On a common network, the signaling impacts the RNC and SGSN. In direct tunnel networking
mode, the signaling has more impact on the SGSN, and the impact even spreads to the GGSN.
In direct tunnel networking mode, IU Release and Service Request messages trigger a PDP update procedure over
the Gn interface. The serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) process related
signaling. The details are shown in following two Figures.

Frequent data services and fast dormancy for smartphones cause many IU releases and service
requests.

2-1-2 Repeated Activation Requests

Even if the subscriber doesnt have enough balance, Smart phones will try to access the network.
They continuously keep attempting activations if any failure occurs. For activation failures due
to network faults, smartphones continuously attempt to be activated, so that services can be
activated once the network equipment recovers. On live networks, network equipment faults
seldom occur.
Activation failures are mostly caused by:
-

Incorrect terminal configurations.

Absence of subscription
Lack of call cost.

If such failures occur, services cannot be activated in a short period. Repeated activation request
signaling leads to extensive unnecessary signaling load.
Repeated activation request signaling is generated when activation fails. Many repeated
activation requests are accompanied with activation failures, and therefore activation success rate
decreases.
On networks of operator T, repeated activation request signaling caused by activation failures
accounts for 98.76% of total signaling. Total activation success rate is lower than 3% as shown
in.

If unexpected network faults occur, repeated activation requests cause severe network overload.
The AAA server cannot be reached due to operator B firewall faults, and many activations fail. A
large number of terminals send repeated activation requests and generate signaling about five
times more than that in normal conditions. The wireless network is overloaded as shown in.

2-2 Core Solutions

For the problems described in the previous section, PS core network provides solutions to reduce
signaling impacts on networks from the following aspects.
Configure the network to control terminal behaviors to prevent repeated activation requests and
unexpected signaling.
Not applying the direct tunnel networking mode for terminals using huge signaling volume, so
as to reduce the impact on networks.
2-2-1 PS Smart Direct Tunnel
In direct tunnel networking mode, appropriate signaling load planning for GGSN must be used to
prevent network overload.
The SGSN identifies signaling from terminals and traffic volume, and uses direct tunnel solutions
flexibly to reduce signaling impacts on the GGSN. Direct tunnel is not used for terminals with
frequent signaling. Direct tunnel is only available to some specific terminals such as USB Dongle,
which can be determined based on international mobile equipment identity (IMEI).
Proposals:
Appropriately evaluate and plan the GGSN based on the direct tunnel solution and traffic models.
Operators determine whether to apply the direct tunnel solution based on network traffic volume
and signaling.

2-2-3- Repeated Activation Request Controls

For repeated activations, the network can form fake activations by using certain cause values, and
even separate subscribers to reduce impacts on networks.
Terminal providers must process the rejected cause value delivered by networks, and standardize
terminal behaviors. Terminal providers, network equipment suppliers, and operators can discuss
terminal behaviors jointly and provide optimization proposals.

Proposals:
For GU networks, the network side controls repeated activations to reduce the impacts on existing
networks.

2 UMTS RAN: Problems & Solutions

2-1 UTRAN Problems
2-1-1 Increase in Access Request Signaling (Signalling Storm)
Small packets are mostly transmitted in smartphone services. Smartphones are frequently
synchronized with Internet server in short cycles. Large numbers of PS services are generated and
each has small data volume as shown in the first Figure below. For power saving, some
smartphones send signaling connection release indication procedure (SCRI) to RNC release RRC
connection. Each small packet transmission must experience RRC connection, synchronization of
PS data, and release of RRC connection. Frequent connections and releases lead to access signaling
storm as shown in the second figure below.
Frequent services for smartphones cause large signaling volume. The RNC must process more
signaling, and the LBBP CPU usage increases. Some operators do not take measures to tackle
smartphone signaling storm. Overloads for RNCs and eNodeBs affect the network stability

2-1-2 Paging Signaling (Considered in Syriatel)

The paging due to push services of smartphones affect PS core network and wireless network. In
UMTS, Paging Area is the entire location area, routing area, and UTRAN registration area. If UEs
in idle/URA_PCH status receive paging, about 1000 cells can receive the paging. The increasing
number of these UEs leads to paging channel congestion, high paging drop rate.

2-1-3 Decreased Efficiency in Air Interface

Small packets for smartphones lead to signaling impact and decreased efficiency in air interface.
Small packets are characterized by small data volume, short duration, frequent transmissions, and
long online time. When data transmission ends, enhanced dedicated channel (DCH) resources are
released only after inactive timer expires. Therefore, large numbers of UEs stay in CELL_DCH
status. Uplink and downlink power is consumed on dedicated signaling channels, high speed
dedicated physical control channel (HS-DPCCH), and E-DPCCH. Decreases in data transmission
power lead to decreases in cell throughput and air interface efficiency. For cells under full load,
an average of 40 High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) users are online. The HSDPA
throughput is less than 1 Mbit/s, and only 30% power is used for data transmission. The air
interface efficiency is low.

2-2 UTRAN Solutions

In the UMTS RAN, the following measures are taken to solve the typical network problems
mentioned in RANs problems section:
-

Reducing activation request signaling, enable the control of smartphones state transition on
the network side, and enhance common channels to avoid impact on the network caused by
repeated activation request signaling.
Implementing hierarchical paging, narrowing the paging area, and reducing the paging
signaling in air interfaces.
Improving the air interface utilization efficiency by control channel overhead reduction and
smart state transition.

2-2-1- Solution to the Signaling Storm in UTRAN

The PCH function and the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function can be used to reduce the number of
RRC access signaling. If the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function is enabled, the RRC will not be
released after the RNC receives the SCRI signaling sent by the smartphone. Instead, the
smartphone is transferred to the CELL_FACH/PCH. The amount of RRC signaling is therefore
greatly reduced. The first figure bellow shows the signaling flow during a data transmission
process before the PCH function and the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function are enabled. The
second figure shows the signaling flow during the transmission process of a big data packet after
the PCH function and the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function are enabled. The third figure shows
the signaling flow during the transmission process of a small amount of data after the PCH function
and the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function are enabled.

Proposals:
-

In the short term, the PCH function and the Enhanced Fast Dormancy function is used to
reduce the impact of signaling storm.
In the long term, enhanced common channel can be used to reduce the number of network
access-related signaling and reduce the impact of signaling storm.

2-2-2 - UTRAN Hierarchical Paging

Enabling the hierarchical paging function to narrow the paging area and reduce the paging load of
the UMTS network. For example, paging is firstly performed in the cell where the activity of the
smartphone recently took place. If the paging fails, the RNC pages the smartphone in the entire
location area (LA), routing area (RA), or UTRAN registration area (URA).
Proposals:
-

Enable the hierarchical paging function to reduce the paging load of the UMTS network.

2-2-3 Air Interface Efficiency Improvement in UTRAN Networks

Reduce the control channel power by control channel overhead reduction and interference
reduction, so that most of the power in the cell can be used to transmit data. For example, the
uplink CQI feedback period can be adjusted dynamically based on the cell load or service
characteristics and the DPCCH power offset can be adjusted based on the cell load auto
negotiation function; using CCPIC technique can reduce DPCCH interference to other channels.
Enable the smart state transition function. For smartphone services (such as the heart beat service
and IM service), the duration between a data transmission is short and interval between two data
transmission processes is long. Therefore, after data transmission, the smartphone can be quickly
transferred from the dedicated channel to the common channel to save the resource of the
dedicated channel and improve the air interface utilization efficiency.
DTX_DRX (CPC) of CELL_DCH is introduced in UMTS Release 7. When the smartphone does
not transmit or receive data in the dedicated channel, its transmitter or receiver is closed to
reduce interference on other phones, save the resource of the dedicated channel, as well as
improve the utilization efficiency of the air interface.
Enhanced common channel (HS-FACH/HS-RACH and CELL_FACH-DRX) is introduced in
UMTS Release 7 and UMTS Release 8. A large number of small data packets can be transmitted
in the CELL_FACH instead of in the CELL_ DCH to save the dedicated channel resources.
Proposals:
-

In the long term, save the dedicated channel resources and improve air interface
efficiency by control channel overhead reduction and the smart state transition function.
In the long term, save the dedicated channel resources by CPC and enhanced common
channel

3 Conclusion
Based on the study following functions should be activated:
1- Enhanced Common Channel: Sending small packets using common Channels on Radio
Interface rather than dedicated channels.
2- Enhanced Fast Dormancy: To prevent Mobiles from going so much time to idle mode
and hence increasing signaling.
3- Applying Smart Direct Tunnel: To prevent Fake load on SGSN & GGSN.
4- Controlling Repetitive Activation Requests from CoreNetwork.

And following areas should be researched:

1- Statistics related to the applications and OSs mostly used in the Syrian market.
2- Improving air interface efficiency by control channel overhead reduction and the smart state
transition function.