note

Configuration guidelines for 2G Radio Link Timeout,

3G/LTE Layer 1 timers and re-establishment features
Authors: Adboulaye Diallo, Vincent Diascorn (OLN/RNM/REP/RES)
September 2015

Executive summary:

In Radio Network monitoring, several KPIs are used to evaluate the performance of the network and the
main considered KPI is the Drop Call Rate (DCR). This KPI which evaluates the rate of abnormal
terminations of CS or PS sessions is also generally used for operators’ benchmarks as it is well reflecting
the success of CS of PS sessions.

This KPI have to be used with caution as it can be easily changed by more or less stringent parameter
settings of Radio Link Timeout in GSM or Layer 1 timers in UMTS and LTE. If such parameters are
configured to really high values, this Drop Call Rate does not reflect anymore a realistic user experience.

The objective of this technical note is to recommend a maximal value for the radio link time out in GSM
and L1 timers in UMTS and LTE to have consistent drop call rate KPI on MCOs network. In addition some
adjustment of some timers can improve the user experience. This technical note aims to describe these
recommendations on two aspects:

 Radio Link Timeout in GSM

 Layer 1 timers and Re-establishment feature in UMTS and LTE

Recommendations on GSM Radio Link Timeout (RLT) configuration to have a relevant Drop call rate:

 Do not configure a RLT for the GSM full rate v1 and AMR Half rate higher than 28
 Do not configure a RLT for the AMR full rate higher than 32
 If the value of RLT is higher than the recommended value, it is recommended to decrease RLT
step by step to avoid any big drop in the drop call rate value. After each step, the MCO have to
launch optimization actions to improve the drop call rate before launching another decrease.
 Once the RLT is put to these maximum values, it is not recommended to increase again the RLT
as a “potential solution to solve the Drop Call Rate”.
 The feature CM-reestablishment has not been tested with satisfaction and is not yet
recommended by the Group to solve Drop Call Rate issues.

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Recommendations on UMTS configuration to improve end user experience:
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 The Reestablishment feature is recommended to be activated. This tested feature globally
shows strong improvements on Drop Call Rate without drastic negative impact for the user.
 If the feature Re-establishment is not activated, timers T313,T315 and T314 have to be set at 6
seconds
 If the feature Re-establishment is activated, the timer T313 and T315 has to set at 3 seconds.
The timer T314 has to be set to 6 seconds

Recommendations on LTE configuration of Layer timers to have a relevant Drop call rate:

 The Timer T310 have to be set to 2000ms

 The Timer T311 have to be set to 3000ms
 The Timer T301 have to be set to 600ms
 RRC Connection re-establishment is native in LTE. Then, it is not needed to activate it. This
proposal of parameter setting will permit to experience similar behavior in LTE and UMTS for
data services.

Obviously, in addition to these recommendations, it is still necessary to ensure suitable design and
optimization for voice service coverage

1. Radio Link Time Out

In GSM, the Traffic channel is working without any Acknowledge mode to verify the voice packet arrival
management. The 3GPP standard chose to use the control channel which is periodically exchanging
packets to monitor the radio connection state. Each 480 ms, control messages are send by both entities,
mobile and Base station, with information like in SACCH:

 Timing advance adjustment

 Transmission power control
 Measurement report of neighbor cells
 Power and quality of serving cell signal

Assuming that the level of interference is the same on TCH and SACCH channels with the codec FR GSM
v1 and HR GSM v1, the amount of SACCH frame non decoded allows the base station and the mobile to
assess the quality of the communication. The mobile counts the number of non-decoded SACCH frames
and when the count reaches the limit set by the operator the link is considered as lost.

The radio link timeout parameter is the maximum amount of non-decoded SACCH before declaring the
radio link is lost. Higher is the value of this parameter lower is the probability of drop for a call even if
the voice packets are not decoded. In this case the radio connection can be maintained even if the voice

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is not audible and the user is going to disconnect the call. In this scenario, the call is not counted as a
drop but for the end user this call is not a properly ended. This behavior due to the relaxed configuration
of Radio Link Timeout introduces a bias on the drop call rate statistic. So it is important to understand
that even if the increase of the radio link timeout parameter is going to improve the drop call rate KPI,
the KPI is going to lose accuracy due to cases of call disconnect by the user as explain previously. n for

 So a main recommendation is to keep the parameter as tight as possible on the network to keep
the DCR KPI accurate.
 The recommended value for the Radio Link time out is maximum 28

But the AMR codec thanks to the new channel coding scheme allow maintaining acceptable quality of
service in degraded radio condition. So the control Channel is going to drop before the impact on the
quality of the communication for the end user. So in degraded radio condition, the communication can
be closed because of the Radio link timeout expiration while the end user is still able to ear with a good
quality. In this case the radio link timeout has to be configured to a higher value to avoid considering as
a drop a call even if the voice is clear for the end user.

Main recommendation for the Radio link time out parameter for AMR codec

 The recommended value for the radio Link time out is maximum 32 for the AMR full rate codec
 For the AMR half rate codec the radio link time out have to be the same as the GSMv1 so 28

In some affiliate, the Radio link timeout can be currently set to very high values and decreasing this
value can have dramatic impact on the drop call rate KPI. In those cases, the recommendation of the
Group is to decrease step by step the radio link timeout to allow the affiliate launching optimization
actions to control de call drop rate KPI.

The CM Re-establishment feature can have a positive impact on the end user experience. The voice call
robustness is the capacity to maintain a call up to its end, even when radio conditions become
degraded. The main principle brought by these Voice Call Re-establishment features is the following:
When the Radio link supporting a voice call is lost, the UE can trigger automatically a Reestablishment
procedure.
The feature to activate in 2G is the CM Re-establishment feature (illustrated in the following figure):

 The reestablishment procedure is going to be launch after the radio link timeout expiry.
 This feature needs a radio link timeout configured to a low value in order to launch the CM re-
establishment before a voice call disconnection is initiated by the client initiative.
 The radio link timeout’s reduction has a dramatic impact on the Voice DCR so the reduction of
this timeout parameter has to be careful.
 Even if the call is going to be saved, the KPI of Drop call Rate will be degraded

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Figure 1: Illustration of Voice Call Re-establishment procedure in 2G

Main recommendation for CM-reestablishment:

 The CM-reestablishment do not had been yet validated and massively deploy in any affiliate.
Assuming this function is not yet T6 this feature is not recommended
 The CM-reestablishment is a layer 3 procedure so have to be authorize in the CS core network

But this feature can have a positive impact on the drop call rate so have to be test in the future

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2. Layer 1 UMTS synchronization

In UMTS, the dedicated channel DCH is carrying the voice traffic. The radio link can have to layer 1 state
In sync and Out of sync. Those two states indicated if the radio link is available or not to the upper
layers. In sync state the radio link is available and in out of sync the radio link is lost. The Ue measure the
quality of the DPCCH and if the quality of link is under a threshold Qout. When the Ue detect occurrence
of measurement under the Qout threshold counter N313 have to be increment. If the counter reach the
N313 parameter limit set by the operator the radio state is out of sync and the radio link is no more
available.

Figure 2: Illustration of Radio Link state in UMTS

If the radio link state stays “out of sync” more than the timer T313 the radio is considered as dropped
and the UE detects a Radio Link failure. When the UE detects the Radio Link failure, he tries to recover
from it by sending CELL UPDATE message indicating the cause “Radio Link Failure” and going to try to
retrieve the communication. The target cell is going to respond by a “Cell Update confirm” with the
physical layer configuration setup the new radio connection.

To stop the T313, the UE has to receive successive “in-sync” states (the number of messages must
exceed N315).

To improve the end user perception the re-establishment feature allows retrieving the CS call:

 If the UE detects DL synchronization failure, it searches for a cell and launches a cell update with
the cause “radiolinkfailure”
 The RNC will then restore the RAB on the new call and avoid the call drop.
 A tuning of two 3G timers is necessary to ensure a fast DL synchronization failure and to
maintain sufficient time to enable RRC re-establishment. These two timers are T313 and T314.
 As far as the call drop rate is based on the Iu Release Request, the deployment of such feature
will lead to an improvement the drop call rate KPI and also the Voice quality of experience
(strong difference with 2G KPI behavior on this aspect).

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Figure 3: Illustration of signaling message flow during a CS Re-establishment procedure

As you can see in this call flow, the UE sends a cell Update and the network re-establishes the call with
the message “transportChannelReconfigurationComplete” and the call is reconnected on the new cell. It
takes around 340ms to restore the call.

Figure 4: Illustration of the procedure of CS Re-establishment

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When the feature CS Re-establishment is activated, the Timer T313 must be restrained to a low value.
The radio link failure procedure has to be launched quicker to retrieve the call faster. In this case the
automatic re-establishment has to transparent for the end user.

There is the same feature for the PS RAB but manage by another timer who is the T315.

Main recommendation concerning the Layer 1 Timers

 The Reestablishment feature is recommended to be activated for CS and PS services.

 If the feature Re-establishment is not activated, the timers T313,T315 and T314 have to be
set to 6 seconds
 If the feature Re-establishment is activated, the timers T313 and T315 have to set at 3
seconds. The timer T314 has to be set to 6 seconds.

Hereafter is shown the impact of the Re-establishment feature activation on Orange Tunisia network.

Has you can see there a strong impact on the DCR assuming that when the drop call rate indicator is
incremented by the message of “Iu connection release”

Counters associate:

There are counters showing the amount of Re-establishment attempt and the success rate of the
procedure:

Ericsson:

 pmCallReestAttCs: attempt of call Reestablishment

 pmCallReestSuccCs : success rate of call Reestablishment

Alcatel-Lucent:

 RRC.AttConnEstab#409sub16: attempt of call Reestablishment

 RRC.SuccConnEtab#403sub16: success rate of call Reestablishment

Huawei: No specific counters for this feature

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Activation of the CS Re-establishment

Figure 5: Illustration of CS Re-establishment feature activation on Orange Tunisia KPIs (2 examples)

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3. Layer 1 LTE synchronization

Like in UMTS, the LTE Layer 1 synchronization is measured every 200ms. The UE is expected to monitor
the RS (Reference Signals) in the downlink. Based on the signal strength of the Reference Signals (i.e.,
the RSRP), the UE will determine if it can decode the PDCCH channel based on a certain set of
parameters that are provided in the specs. If the UE has a number of “out of synch” greater than N310,
the Radio link is declared failed

Figure 6: Illustration of Radio Link state in LTE

When the link is detected as failed, the UE launch the T310 timer. This timer gives the Opportunity
either to have N311 “In synch” and come back to “In synch” state, or to launch a RRC Re-establishment
procedure.

The RRC Re-establishment procedure is native in LTE and it involves three mains timers:

 Timer T310: Upon detecting physical layer problems i.e. upon receiving N310 consecutive “out-
of-sync” indications from lower layers, this timer allows to either coming back in “In Synch”
state or launch the Re-establishment procedure. This timer starts when the N310 is reached and
stops at the timer expiration or when the re-establishment procedure is launched.
 Timer T311: When the re-establishment procedure is launched, the timer T311 is launched until
either the re-establishment procedure ends or the timer expires
 Timer T301: When the RRC connection reestablishment request is sent by the UE, the timer
T301 is launched and stops by the reception of the RRC Connection Reestablishment by the
EnodeB or the timer expiration.

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Figure 7: Illustration of the procedure of re-establishment and the management of timers in LTE

As it can be observed, the timer T310 gives the opportunity to either get back in synchronization or
launch a Re-establishment procedure. The timer T301 limits the Re-establishment procedure within the
expiration of its. The timer T311 is going to limits the full re-establishment procedure including the
security and cyphering part. Timers on 3G and LTE are quite different in the way those are used. Taking
in account the fact that the data service is the same on both layers, the amount of time waited before
the statement of a link as dropped has to be equivalent on both layers too, in order to have a common
view of CDR.

Main recommendation concerning the Layer 1 Timers:

 The Timer T310 have to be set to 2000ms

 The Timer T311 have to be set to 3000ms
 The Timer T301 have to be set to 600ms
 RRC Connection re-establishment is native in LTE. Then, it is not needed to activate it.
This proposal of parameter setting will permit to experience similar behavior in LTE and
UMTS for data services.
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3 Conclusion and next steps

This technical note aims to describe Group recommendations on network features and optimization to
improve the Drop call rate accuracy and give new solutions to improve the reliability on 3G calls with
three main ways:

 Limit the timer of radio link timeout on the GSM for the codec GSMv1 and the AMR Full rate and
Half rate
 Activation of the Re-establishment with the relevant timers T313,T315 and T314 in UMTS
 Put the relevant timers T310, T311 and T301 in LTE

Obviously, in addition to these recommendations, it is still necessary to ensure the reliability of the call a
suitable design of voice services coverage (no specific feature for that)

As next steps, it is now necessary to broadcast these recommendations and feedback on the effective’s
actions in the countries.

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