Desk analysis

Use the charts and tables from Turtle as input to the analysis. Do the analysis of
the worst cells regarding assignments in conjunction with other related NPI
areas. Related NPI areas are feature utilisation, radio related data check, random
access, interference, dropped calls and SDCCH & TCH.
SDCCH is used for the signalling during the call setup phase, at location
updating and for SMS. A TCH assignment occurs during a call setup when
changing from the SDCCH to the TCH. Congestion, hardware problems,
insufficient coverage or interference can cause low assignment success rate.
Some useful guidelines on how to find possible explanations for bad call setup
performance can be found below. Make sure that there are at least some SDCCH
and TCH call attempts in a cell before judging a cell to have bad call setup
performance.
Check the SDCCH time congestion.
For R6 and R6.1:Especially cells close to a location area border can be
heavily loaded and need additional SDCCH capacity to be able to set up
calls. It does not matter how many idle TCHs there are in a cell if there at the
same time is congestion on the SDCCH.
For R7: In R7 there is a new feature called adaptive configuration of logical
channels. Check if it is turned on or not.
Check the TCH time congestion.
Is the cell situated in a poor coverage area, for example on the countryside?
Correlate with the analysis of dropped calls and interference.
Low SDCCH establishment success rate might indicate problems with the
response to Immediate Assignment from mobiles (e.g. because of low signal
strength or interference). It can also depend on a wrong setting of MAXRET
and TX. One example: If MAXRET=7 and TX=50, there is a possibility
that more random accesses are sent before the MS has got the message
immediate assignment from the BSC. The BSC allocates a SDCCH for the
2nd RA even though the 1st one was successful. This gives unnecessary
SDCCH load (since the SDCCH is never used).
Check the setting of the parameter ACCMIN. The parameter ACCMIN gives
the minimum signal strength that have to be received in the mobile for
permission to access the system. A low value of ACCMIN means that the
accessibility to the network in idle mode is increased, at the expense of the
risk of having an increased number of call setup failures.