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Radio Network Optimization Guideline PDF
Radio Network Optimization Guideline PDF
Optimization
Guideline
Statement of Confidentiality
Copyright in this document is the property of RIC and its contents shall be held in strict confidence by the recipient hereof and
shall be used solely for the purposes of RIC. Neither this document nor its contents shall be disclosed to any other person or
used for any other purpose without prior written permission of RIC.
DOCUMENT RELEASE HISTORY
APPROVALS
APPROVED BY SIGNATURE DATE
2.
TU UT INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 5
TU UT
3.
TU UT NEIGHBOUR ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. 6
TU UT
3.1.3 Finding neighbours with same BCCH in source and target cell.........................7
TU UT TU UT
3.1.4 Delete or correct neighbours with same BCCH in source and target cell ..........7
TU UT TU UT
4.
TU UT FREQUENCY PLANNING ........................................................................................................... 12
TU UT
4.1
TU UT Choose Frequency Planning Methodology ................................................................12
TU UT
4.2
TU UT Analysis of existing frequency plan ...........................................................................14
TU UT
4.3
TU UT Creation of a new frequency plan ...............................................................................16
TU UT
5.
TU UT ANTENNA HEIGHT, AZIMUTH AND TILT ANALYSIS .............................................................. 18
TU UT
5.1
TU UT Identify overshooting cells and optimize antenna tilts, heights and azimuths ...........18
TU UT
6.
TU UT ANALYSIS OF DRIVE TEST LOGFILES .................................................................................... 23
TU UT
6.1
TU UT Drive Test Methodology.............................................................................................23
TU UT
6.2
TU UT Analysis of scanning data ...........................................................................................23
TU UT
6.3
TU UT Analysis of dedicated mode data (long call) ..............................................................25
TU UT
7.
TU UT ANALYSIS OF STATISTICS ....................................................................................................... 28
TU UT
7.1
TU UT Analysis of daily reports .............................................................................................28
TU UT
8.
TU UT BSS PARAMETER SETTINGS ................................................................................................... 31
TU UT
8.1
TU UT General guidelines ......................................................................................................31
TU UT
8.2
TU UT Taliya default settings.................................................................................................32
TU UT
9.
TU UT CAPACITY PLANNING ............................................................................................................... 32
TU UT
9.1
TU UT Averaging of traffic ....................................................................................................32
TU UT
9.2
TU UT TCH and SDCCH capacity dimensioning ..................................................................32
TU UT
10.
TU UT LOCATION AREA DIMENSIONING ....................................................................................... 33
TU UT
10.1
TU UT CCCH channel configurations ................................................................................33
TU UT
10.2
TU UT Paging Dimensioning Guidelines ............................................................................33
TU UT
10.3
TU UT Paging statistics .......................................................................................................34
TU UT
11.
TU UT APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................................... 35
TU UT
11.1.1 Neighbours........................................................................................................35
TU UT TU UT
12.
TU UT APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................... 40
TU UT
13.
TU UT APPENDIX C ........................................................................................................................... 40
TU UT
The purpose of having a common optimization guideline nation wide is to achieve a high
quality level for all regions regardless of the experience of each individual in each region.
Comments and improvement proposals of the optimization guideline are welcomed and
should be send to the RNP manager to be evaluated to see if optimization guideline should be
updated or not.
2. INTRODUCTION
There are many different ideas how GSM radio networks shall be optimized. It takes long
time before having a full understanding of how different modifications of the radio network
will affect the network quality. Without any clear guideline there is a risk for mistakes and
that a lot of optimization work might result in very small improvements or even cause more
problems. This document describes a straight forward optimization methodology based on
many years of experience. As a result optimization will be fast and efficient with very small
risks of making fundamental mistakes.
It is also possible to check the neighbor definitions by excel. One example of how to find
non-mutual neighbors in Excel is described below:
Assume there are three cells ABC1, ABC2 and ABC3. ABC1 and ABC2 have a mutual
neighbor relation and ABC1 and ABC3 have a non-mutual neighbor relation. To find non-
mutual neighbors it is recommended to concatenate the Cell IDs in two different columns
forwards and backwards and finally use “vlookup” formula to find out if the each single item
in column 1 (named concat1) can be found in column 2 (named concat2) as shown below:
3.1.3 Finding neighbours with same BCCH in source and target cell
In order for the MS to distinguish between the serving cell and its neighbors and to minimize
handover problems, source cell and target cell in a neighbor relation must have different
BCCH frequencies.
To find neighbor relations with same BCCH frequencies for both source and target cell it is
recommended to use the BSC extractor in order to generate into excel the neighbors with the
BCCH for the source and target cell. Then simply use the formula “Exact” to find out if the
BCCH frequencies for source cell and target cells are the same as shown below:
Source Cell Source BCCH Target Cell Target BCCH Exact
ABC1 1 ABC2 6 FALSE
ABC2 6 ABC1 1 FALSE
ABC1 1 ABC3 1 TRUE
Table 2: Table showing how to find source and target cells with same BCCH frequencies
As shown in Table 2 ABC1 and ABC3 have same BCCH and is found by the “exact” formula
X X
3.1.4 Delete or correct neighbours with same BCCH in source and target cell
Neighbors with same BCCH frequency for source and target cell must be deleted. If the
neighbor is required the BCCH frequency of either the source cell or target cell must be
changed. This is required to be checked after each new frequency plan and neighbor
definition.
To find all missing neighbors both drive test logfiles and existing neighbors displayed in
Asset must been analyzed. Drive tests should include both a MS in scanning mode (BCCH
frequencies) and a MS in dedicated mode. If the MS in scanning mode found a cell with
higher signal strength than the cell that is allocated by the MS in dedicated mode and a
handover is not made to the best scanned cell, the neighbor is probably missing. Below the
dedicated mode and the strongest scanned frequency are compared. As long as the MS in
dedicated mode is using the same frequency as the strongest scanned channel no neighbors
are missing:
Reference: RIC/NWG/RNP/OPTIMIZATION GUIDELINE Page 7 of 40 Date: 7/16/2006
Figure 2: TEMS plot showing the serving cell frequency of the MS in dedicated mode and the strongest scanned
channel. In this example both frequencies are the same and no missing neighbour is detected.
Figure 3: TEMS Investigation with a cell file with neighbours. Neighbouring cells are shown with a different color
1. Create a tab delimited .txt import file from the DB dumps and the BSC extractor of
the on-air sites as shown below. Make sure to modify the cell ID’s in Asset in order to
match with the import file. All cells for the on-air sites should be named with a site-id
and a number representing the sector, e.g. 10001, 10002 and 10003. Example of the
import file can be found in the RNP server under ‘’Tools\Asset\Asset import files’’.
2. Import the .txt file including all the neighbors into Asset using GSM Import/neighbors
4. Using Best Server array the Asset tool can be used to find missing neighbors using
“NEIGHBOR ANALYSIS”. Consequently, the tool will give you which neighbor
definition has to be added or deleted based on existing/on-air neighbor definition.
Note that indoor sites have to be treated separately.
6. Analyze TEMS drive test logfiles to find missing neighbors by comparing the serving
cell of the MS in dedicated mode with the strongest scanned frequency.
7. Finally, re-validation of neighbor has to be made with reference to actual drive test
and proximity of the sites.
9. After all work orders have been implemented, check the neighbors from the NMC are
the same as the new .txt file to verify that all new planned neighbors have been added
to the radio network This can be done by importing the DB dumps into BSC extractor.
Too many neighbors are in general not a big problem. Many neighbor definitions per cell
slightly reduce the time for the MS to measure on each single neighbor. As a result handovers
will be based on less reliable measurements and there might be a small risk that handovers
are done to non-best servers. Missing neighbors result more often in dropped calls than too
many neighbors. Therefore it is better to have too many neighbors than missing
neighbors.
To find neighbors that shall be removed is more difficult than to find missing neighbors and
should be done very carefully. If a required neighbor is removed call drop rate will be
increased immediately.
4. FREQUENCY PLANNING
4.1 Choose Frequency Planning Methodology
A good frequency plan is necessary to create good quality and C/I values in the network. The
frequency plan can be adjusted to compensate for bad site locations e.g. high sites can have a
more loose frequency re-use to avoid interference and low sites can use a tighter re-use which
should not cause any quality problems if the cell coverage is well controlled. To be able to
create the best possible frequency plan, knowledge of the actual coverage from each cell is
important.
2. Group Planning
U
Frequencies are defined in different frequency groups i.e. the first group of frequencies
shall be used for sector1, second group of frequencies shall be used for sector2 and the
third group of frequencies shall be used for sector3.
There are many different opinions of which frequency planning methodology is the best to
use. Usually a combination of all three frequency planning methodologies results in the best
network quality in a big network covering both rural and dense urban areas. It is important to
Cells that are facing out from the city that are coverage limited can use frequencies from
other groups to minimize interference in the outskirts of the city if allocated carefully.
Figure 7: Example of a frequency allocation based on group planning used in Tehran. Note’’ h’’ stand for hopping
group which is 19-30
By using group planning there is no risk that antennas with crossing azimuths will be
allocated the same frequency since only sectors shooting in the same directions can have the
same frequencies.
Note, do NOT use a strict frequency re-use where sites are divided into A, B, C, and D etc as
shown below since the flexibility of allocating frequencies freely within each frequency
group is removed:
Sector 1 Sector 2 Sector 3
A1 B1 C1 D1 E1 A2 B2 C2 D2 E2 A3 B3 C3 D3 E3
BCCH 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
TCH h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h
Automatic or deterministic frequency planning can create good frequency plans if used
properly but also result in fundamental mistakes by allocating the same frequencies to cells
shooting into each other as shown in the figure below:
The quality of a frequency plan generated by an automatic frequency planning tool e.g. ILSA
is dependent on accurate predictions and mapping data. If predictions are good ILSA can help
to create very good frequency plans but it is always needed to do manual checks and
modifications after ILSA’s initial frequency suggestions to avoid interference problems.
Hence depending on mapping data, prediction model and experience of ILSA and how to use
ILSA in the best way, ILSA might generate the best frequency plan. It is recommended to test
ILSA on a number of sites first to get familiar with the tool and what it does before using
ILSA in a larger scale. E.g. the setup of the cost matrix must be done properly as well as the
final manual modifications.
If there are very few sites, the best possible frequency plan can be made with as few
restrictions as possible. Group planning might result in tighter frequency reuse than
necessary. Due to the limited number of sites it is easy to make sure that cells with different
azimuths with same frequencies are shooting into each other even if no group planning is
used. It is recommended to use group planning as a base even for a few numbers of sites.
When fine tuning the plan, more violation from the group plan can be allowed than for a large
number of sites as long as no sector with co-channels are crossing each others azimuths in
their serving areas.
1. Create a tab delimited .txt Asset import file from the adjacent cell list from NMC-R as
shown below. Make sure to modify the cell ID’s in Asset in order to match with the
import file. All cells for the on-air sites should be named with a site-id and a number
representing the sector, e.g. 10001, 10002 and 10003. Example of the import file can
be found in the RNP server under ‘’Tools\Asset\Asset import files’’.
2. Import the .txt file into Asset with GSM Import/Import carriers.
3. Create an interference array in Asset to find possible problem areas. An interference
plot from Asset is shown below:
Figure 10: Interference plot from Asset showing possible problem areas.
Note that there might be areas with bad quality that are not found by Asset but can be
found with drive tests.
4. Use the frequency reuse option in Asset to plot the best server areas using same
frequencies with same colors.
3. Use the define frequency strategy used in the RNP department for BCCH and TCH.
The strategy to be used is group planning with the BCCH frequencies divided into
three frequency groups to be used for sector1, sector2 and sector3 as shown in Figure
X
7.X
4. Plan all frequencies manually sector by sector and write down the frequencies on the
printout with a pencil. Do not use a pen since many changes might be required. A tip
can be to write 1, 2, 3, etc, instead of e.g. 32, 33, 34 etc to facilitate the frequency
allocation. The temporary numbers will be re-placed easily later by the correct
ARFCNs.
9. Analyze interference levels and identify problem areas. Interference shall be removed
from areas with many sites and pushed from city areas to rural areas.
10. Replace bad frequency allocations with new frequencies by using the frequency re-
use option in Asset to find better frequencies. Update the new frequencies by updating
the import file. It is recommended to update the frequency plan both on the paper and
in the carrier import file and not directly in Asset. This will facilitating keeping track
on all changes and if a frequency is changed by mistake the mistake can be found and
corrected more easily.
11. Use the frequency reuse option in Asset to plot the best server areas using same
frequencies with same colors. Plot one frequency group at the time and primary look
for cells shooting into each other with same frequency and try to distribute
frequencies to maximize the re-use distance of each frequency.
14. Create a new BSIC Plan by sorting all BCCH frequencies in Excel and give all cells a
unique BCCH - BSIC combination if possible. If allocating unique BCCH – BSIC
combination is not possible, the reuse should be as far as possible. More than one
NCC value can be used if the area is far away from the country border but then the
parameter NCC permitted must be updated too.
BCCH BCC NCC BSIC
8 0 0 00
8 1 0 10
8 2 0 20
8 3 0 30
8 4 0 40
8 5 0 50
8 6 0 60
8 7 0 70
8 0 1 01
8 1 1 11
8 2 1 21
8 3 1 31
8 4 1 41
8 5 1 51
8 6 1 61
8 7 1 71
8 0 2 02
8 1 2 12
8 2 2 22
8 3 2 32
8 4 2 42
8 5 2 52
8 6 2 62
8 7 2 72
8 0 3 03
8 1 3 13
8 2 3 23
8 3 3 33
8 4 3 43
8 5 3 53
8 6 3 63
8 7 3 73
15. Issue work orders for the new frequencies and the deletion of neighbors. Make sure to
schedule the implementation during low traffic hours since this is a service affecting
activity. Normally the activity should be scheduled after midnight.
16. Verify that all implemented frequencies are implemented correctly by comparing the
new BCCH by the DB dumps from the NMC with the planned frequencies in the
import file
17. When new frequencies/work orders are implemented in the network, drive tests must
be done immediately to verify new frequency plan and to make sure that all sites are
back on-air properly.
To minimize interference levels in the network cells must not cover more than planned.
Cells having too big best server areas or having discontinuous best server areas must be
down tilted or lowered.
Antennas must NOT be down tilted if:
• Coverage of the cell coverage is already bad in the planned best server area
• The “overshooting” is very weak i.e. the coverage far away is very poor but no
other cell covers that area.
The required signal strength in the best server area is defined by the verification levels
which is the design level – outdoor fading margin (from link budgets). Usually a good
level in the best server area in dense urban should be around -75 dBm measured by
TEMS with external antenna.
When deciding antenna azimuths overlapping between cells, coverage gaps and purpose
of the site coverage must be taken into consideration. Adjusting antenna azimuths from
the nominal azimuths must be done very carefully since different antenna azimuths can
cause quality problems to other sites (create too much overlaps and coverage gaps) and
makes frequency planning more difficult.
2. Export the TEMS logfiles to Mapinfo. The information elements that should be
exported are at least “Strongest Scanned ARFCN” and “Strongest Scanned RxLev”. It
is recommended to export these information element with argument 0, 1 and 2 to get
the 3 strongest cells in each location as shown below:
Note that sectors can be shown with the same color as the BCCH allocated which
makes it easy to see which cell that providing coverage in the area. It also makes it
easier to find swapped feeders as shown below:
Figure 18: Plot showing how much the overshooting cell must be attenuated in order to remove
overshooting
5. Identify the height difference between the cell and the area of interest
7. Use an Excel sheet that takes the antenna diagram and the height difference of the cell
and area of interest into account to calculate the required tilt to get the required
reduction of signal strength. Below an example of an Excel calculation is shown
where the antenna gain of the main lobe at ground level is calculated.
CTSDG-06515-0DM
20
15
10
Antenna Gain
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
-5
-10
-15
Distance to site
Figure 20: Plot from an Excel program that calculates the gain of the antenna main lobe where the main lobe hits
the ground.
Hence put in different tilts or heights and see what the expected change in signal
strength will be. Remember to use the antenna pattern for antenna used in the cell of
interest. Otherwise faulty antenna tilt decisions will be made. The excel diagram file
can be found in the RNP server.
Do NOT use an MS in Idle Mode since there is no value of idle mode measurements
since the idle mode behavior is different from the dedicated mode and coverage and best
server areas will be affected by possible missing neighbors and slow MS measurements.
Always use external antenna since the fading due to car penetration loss is high and
unpredictable. If an external antenna is not used, some interferers might be attenuated and it
will be more difficult to understand the actual coverage level and to find missing neighbors. It
is not true that by not using an external antenna, the real user experienced quality will be
measured. The reasons are that depending on the design of the car, placement of the MS in
the car, speed of the car and the placement of the car on the road might result in measurement
result with big differences. Even if the same route and the same car is used different results
will be achieved. Besides some users might not be driving at all but walking outside or in a
building next to the street.
2. Plot the strongest scanned RxLev in Mapinfo and create a legend that shows indoor
coverage, in-car coverage and outdoor coverage as shown below:
4. Plot the strongest scanned ARFCN and create a legend including all BCCH
frequencies.
Note: if having more than 16 frequencies for BCCH Mapinfo will be unable to give
all frequencies a unique color so analyze the frequencies outside the legend extra
carefully or divide the frequencies into two groups.
5. Analyze overshooting and undefined coverage i.e. areas covered by many cells with
approximately the same signal level. If sites are overshooting, check how strong the
second best server is and define how much the signal level of the overshooting cell
must be reduced as shown in Figure 2, see chapter 5 for more details of making tilt
X X XRR X
decisions.
1. Export most of the information elements related to dedicated mode for MS1 (MS in
dedicated mode). The most important information elements are: RxLevSub,
RxQualSub, ARFCN BCCH, C/I Worst, Neighbor cell RxLev, Neighbor cell
ARFCN, Cell Name, Hopping and TA. Refer to Appendix C.
2. Plot RxLevSub in Mapinfo. Look for areas with bad coverage near sites that might
indicate problems like missing neighbors. Problems can also be found by comparing
the coverage from the scanning measurements and dedicated mode measurements.
Coverage should be almost the same if there are no problems.
4. Plot C/I Worst in Mapinfo and create a suitable legend and identify bad quality areas.
C/I values > 12 dB are considered as good and C/I values < 9 dB are considered as
bad.
6. Play all logfiles one by one to find all possible optimization issues like overshooting,
bad quality or missing neighbors. Note that the TEMS feature “leave trail” can be
used to find overshooting, see below:
Figure 28: TEMS logfile played with the “leave trail” option that helps to find overshooting
7. ANALYSIS OF STATISTICS
7.1 Analysis of daily reports
Statistics is very good for identifying problematic cells since all cells are covered and many
calls are included. Hence a good rule is to use statistics to find the quality problems and to
use drive test to find the specific reasons for the quality problems. To make it easier to find
the problems it is recommended to show the statistics geographically in Asset or Mapinfo
with a color legend. It is recommended using Busy Hour (BH) or Daily Average values or
both depending on which KPIs that are analyzed.
2. Carried Traffic
Cells with no traffic or very low traffic can have HW problems, very bad quality or
possible no best server areas. Busy hour traffic can be imported into Asset in a
‘’traffic.tps’’ file format which can be found on RNP server.
2.5
70 1.5
60
1
50
0.5
40
30 0
20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20
06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06- 06-
06- 06- 06- 06- 07- 07- 07- 07- 07- 07- 07-
16 20 24 28 02 06 10 14 18 22 26
it r DQ ( Nr ), 10167, 2%
it r UQ ( Nr ), 6450, 2%
it e DQ
UQ (Nr) , 0, 0%
it e DR (Nr) , 5359, 1% it e US ( Nr ), 48598, 12%
it e DS ( Nr ), 130508,
32%
it e BC (Nr ), 207848,
51%
it e Dist (Nr) , 0, 0%
35
25
.
15
5
2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006- 2006-
06-16 06-20 06-24 06-28 07-02 07-06 07-10 07-14 07-18 07-22 07-26
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25 ifBandRate 5
0.2 ifBandRate 4
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
2. Do not enable BSS functionalities unless the RNP department has approved that the
function will be good for network quality
3. Do not use cell specific parameter settings since it makes consistency checks
difficult and it can creates many problems since the combination of that specific
setting has not been analyzed carefully. Please keep in mind that the actual problem
that is trying to be solved by cell specific parameter settings can be solved in other
ways. There might be other reasons for the problems e.g. HW faults. If it is found out
that Taliya default setting is not good, it is recommended that a test of the new
parameter settings is done for all cells in one BSC. If the new BSS parameter setting
is verified to be better the default settings shall be updated and the new parameter
setting should be applied for the whole network. The only possible exceptions from
this rule are cells belonging to different frequency bands (900 or 1800), indoor
solutions or Macro/Micro cells (currently no micro cells are used).
9. CAPACITY PLANNING
9.1 Averaging of traffic
To make accurate and reliable capacity dimensioning, average values of the traffic must be
used. Otherwise it is a risk that capacity is added or reduced based on insufficient data and
might cause faulty capacity dimensioning.
It is recommended to measure the raw blocking values for 10 busiest hours per cell of the
offered traffic for a 4 week period both for TCH and SDCCH capacity dimensioning. If
the average of the raw blocking values are higher than the predefined GoS target defined in
chapter 9.2 capacity must be added to the cell.
XRR X
The differences are that in combined CCCH configuration, CCCH channels are combined
with 4 SDCCH subslots on time slot 0 and for non-combined CCCH configuration no
SDCCH time slots are configured on time slot 0. Another difference that can be found is the
51 multiframe structure that is used in GSM. For combined CCCH configurations there is 3
CCCH blocks/multiframe and for non-combined CCCH configurations there are 9 CCCH
blocks per multiframe. Each CCCH block can be used by either PCH or AGCH set by a cell
parameter (NBLKACGR). Therefore paging capacity is dependent on the CCCH
configuration and the setting of the cell parameter for blocks reserved for AGCH.
Paging messages are send out to all cells in one LA. Therefore paging dimensioning must be
done at LA level, not on cell level to get the same paging capacity for all cells. All cells shall
use non-combined CCCH channel configurations with 2 CCCH blocks reserved for AGCH. It
is recommended that all cells shall have following BSS parameter setting:
Where
0.235 is the duration of one mutiframe in seconds
However a safety margin should be applied and in practice it will not be possible to have
100% capacity utilization before paging success rate start to decrease significantly. In order
Total number of paging attempts per LA/BH = 70 000 pagings per LA/busy hour
Note: The actual paging capacity in terms of number of mobiles that can be paged per hour is
dependent on the paging type. The number of mobiles that can be paged per paging message
vary from 1 to 4 depending on the usage of IMSI or TMSI. Refer to GSM specification 05.02.
If there is a correlation between a high number of pagings and low paging success rate there
is a PCH or AGCH capacity problem. Otherwise a low paging success rate can indicate poor
radio network quality if we assume the core part is working properly.
11.1.1 Neighbours
1. Analysis of existing neighbors
a. Find non-mutual neighbors.
b. Make all non-mutual neighbors mutual or delete the neighbor definitions if
they are not required.
c. Find and neighbors with same BCCH in source and target cell.
d. Delete neighbor definitions with same BCCH in source and target cell or
change the BCCH frequency of either the source cell or the target cell.
tilt decisions.
11.1.5 Statistics
9. Analyze following Statistics
a. Call Drop Rate (CDR)
b. Carried Traffic
c. Handover success rate
d. Percentage of quality handovers
e. TCH Mean Holding Time
f. Interference Band 4 and 5
11. Do not enable BSS functionalities before approval from the RNP department
manager.
12. Do not use cell specific parameter settings since it makes consistency checks
difficult and it can create many problems during the optimization.
13. If it is suggested to test a new parameter setting the suggestion should be presented
for the RNP manager and if approved be tested for all cells in one BSC.
13. APPENDIX C
Tems Getting started
END OF DOCUMENT