Fresh Field MTC 004 Section 1

GSM System
Optimisation
Section One
Overview
Presentation Outline
• Optimisation Strategy
• Principal Network Data Sources
• Principal Network Metrics
• Typical Network Problems List
• Summary
 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 2

Company Confidential
Objectives
• At the end of this course, attendees will:

– Have an appreciation of optimisation responsibilities
– Understand the network data sources available
– Identify a strategy for optimisation

Optimisation Team Responsibilities
Planning & Design Generate final cell plan
Operations & Maintenance Build sites and integrate
Network Switching Manage network switching sub-system
Optimisation Ensure that network works!

Good signal Be aware of Be aware of
Customer has level (No special new cell site
network access coverage marketing traffic
deficiency) promotions forecasting
(No blocking or
dropped calls) Be aware of
seasonal
changes on RF
Be aware of
hardware
every point in
Good speech GSM
quality architecture
Optimisation
where faults
No delayed can arise
Be aware of
setups
effects of
Reduced seasonal
signalling Be aware of the Be aware of
changes on
(SDCCH) load competition new network
traffic
features
Optimisation makes
suggestions and New sites for
recommendations on coverage and
traffic
Radio
Frequency
Assignments Antenna
downtilting, re-
orientations and
heights
BSS Database
BTS-BSC
Parameters for
Connectivity
RF
Environment BTS hardware

Optimisation must
GSM 04.06, collate and manage
04.08, 05.02, BSC and MSC
the following
05.08 site parenting
specifications information
information
PSTN
Customer exchange
complaints locations and
parented
numbers
OMC Statistics
RF Frequency Typical BTS
plan and site hardware and
locations software
problems

Optimisation Strategy
• Identify objective
– Identify objective such as dropped calls, SDCCH congestion, high
handover count, etc., and document it
• Remove variables
– Isolate objective from other possible problems which may arise
• Isolate system components
– Identify what aspect of the system you are trying to work on such as
MSC, BSC, BTS Hardware, BTS-BSC link, mobile or RF environment
• Test plan
– Establish battle plan and write down what you want to accomplish,
how you will accomplish it and the expected results

Optimisation Strategy
• Communicate
– Inform your line manager and other colleagues about what you intend
to do and why
• Take action
– Conduct the work or trouble shooting that is identified in your test plan
• Conduct post-analysis
– Issue a closing document either supporting or refuting your initial
conclusions and identifying the next actionable items
• Update Trouble-shooting manual
– Provide a brief description and solution to a problem which can then
be used by other colleagues

Principal Network Data Sources
• Principal regular sources of data
– Drive-test mobile surveys
– OMC-R statistics and alarms
– Customer complaints and trouble-tickets
– Interference islands identified by radio planning tool
• Other less regular but important sources
– A/Abis data collection
– Pre-retune / site activation RF frequency scanning
– CW measurements and model calibration
– Actual speech generation and listening tests
– Post-retune / site activation interference measurement
– Competing network bench-marking

Principal Network Metrics
• Metrics available from OMC-R
– Call volume per cell and BSC
– Call success rate per cell and BSC
– Assignment success or failure rate per cell and BSC
– SDCCH congestion rate per cell
– TCH congestion rate per cell
– Maximum Busy TCH slots per cell
– Handover success or failure rate per cell and BSC

• Metrics available from OMC-R
– Setup congestion rate per cell
– Dropped call rate per cell and BSC
– FR / HR / EFR usage ratio
– Dual-band / single-band usage ratio
– Failed hardware as reported by alarms (hardware could include RF
equipment, A/C equipment, BTS-BSC link equipment)

• Metrics available from drive-test mobile surveys
– Dropped calls by geographical area
– Blocked calls by geographical area
– Failed assignments by geographical area
– Coverage area deficiency (low RXLEV) by geographical area
– Poor quality (bad RXQUAL and FER) by geographical area
– Poor uplink quality (cyclic MS TX Pwr at fixed location)
– Handover quantities (high or low) by geographical area
– Handover “ping-pong” by geographical area
– Over-reaching cells (high timing advance) by geographical area
– Poor speech quality by geographical area
– Inadequate neighbours in OMC database

• Metrics available from drive-test mobile surveys
Failed
Handover /
Assignments

• Metrics available from customer complaints
– Dropped calls by geographical area
– Dropped calls by handset manufacturer and model number
– Bad speech quality by geographical area
– Cell link imbalance (“I can hear him but he can’t hear me”)
– Low signal level (“I am not getting five bars”)
– Congestion (“I cannot make a call even after several retries”)
– Poor SMS retry settings (“It takes hours to receive SMSs”)
– High interference at high elevation (“I get good signal levels in my
penthouse, but I cannot make a call”)
– Low in-building penetration (“I cannot make calls in my basement or
living room”)

• Metrics available from radio planning tool
– Poor frequency, BSIC or HSN planning
– Co-channel interference islands due to over-reaching coverage
– Adjacent channels assigned to neighbouring cells
– Co-channels assigned to neighbouring cells
– Potential cell dragging due to extended coverage (cell requires
downtilting)
– Co-channel, co-BSIC neighbour problems
– Conflicts between planned EiRP and BSS database settings
– Interference problems due to bad downtilted antenna backlobe
– Interference problems across the sea or in a bay
– Inadequate neighbours in OMC database

• For example, identifying interference locations and improving
through automatic frequency planning
– Red areas have C/I < 12 dB
– East=Mountains, West=Ocean
Before adjustments After adjustments

from automatic from automatic
frequency planning frequency planning

• Metrics available from A/Abis Data
– Uplink signal level (RXLEV) per call
– Uplink quality (RXQUAL not FER) per call
– Dropped calls by handset manufacturer and model number
– Identification of cells with poor competitor coverage from location
update rejects
– Traffic hotspots by examining number of normal location updates
– Identification of hardware failure
– Identification of major causes of problems which are switch and not
radio resource related

• Metrics available from A/Abis Data
A interface
Abis interface

• A/Abis Data Collection possible fault identification areas

• Metrics available from pre-retune/site activation RF scanning
– Bad frequency selection by RF planning if measured signal level is
high with interference source due to own channels or external
interference (e.g. MTC ETACS network interfering with GSM)
• Metrics available from CW measurements and model
calibration
– Inaccuracy in any existing propagation models and therefore better
coverage prediction
– Coverage inadequacies
– Potential poor interference locations

• Metrics available from pre-retune/site activation RF scanning

• Utilising a CW measurement system, data is collated and used
in a modelling tool to generate a propagation model

• Metrics available from actual speech generation and listening
tests
– Exact uplink speech quality as perceived by subscribers
– Exact downlink speech quality as perceived by subscribers
– Exact uplink music quality as perceived by subscribers
– Exact downlink music quality as perceived by subscribers
– Calibration of vendor supplied speech quality index for Kuwait

• Metrics available from post-retune / site activation interference
measurements
– Quality (RXQUAL/FER) performance of new frequency plan
– Signal level (RXLEV) performance of new frequency plan
– Suitability of power control, handover and congestion relief thresholds for new
plan
• Metrics available from competing network benchmarking
– Cell count comparison
– Quality (RXQUAL/FER) comparison
– Signal level (RXLEV) comparison
– Site proximity (comparison of timing advance figures)
– Competitors technology
• Is SFH in use? Is DL PC in use? Is DTX in use?

• Metrics available from competing network benchmarking

Typical Network Problems List
• Dropped calls
– Symptoms: High TCH RF loss, High SDCCH RF loss at OMC;
dropped call statistics from drive-tests, customer-reported dropped
calls
• Too many handovers:
– Symptoms: Several handovers per call -> high signalling load in
network -> if SDCCH is used for handover, SDCCH congestion -> long
call setup times
– Why: hreqt, hreqave set incorrectly; power-budget / pathloss based
handover instead of quality; N and P parameters set incorrectly

• Too few handovers:
– Symptoms: Too few handovers per call -> possible cell dragging since
handovers do not take place quickly enough -> interference to other
cells.
– Symptoms: Too few handovers->dropped calls
• Large handover failures
– If a high number of handover failures are due to “radio interface loss”,
then coverage deficiency is the problem
– Failures may also occur due to “inadequate circuits/channels” at the
target cell
– If the handover failure rate between 2 cells is 100%, then the source
cell is missing in the OMC database for the target cell

• Co- / adjacent-channel interference:
– Symptoms: Poor FER / RXQUAL measured in drive-test even if
RXLEV is high->dropped calls.
– Why: Bad frequency planning e.g. assignment of co-channels and
adjacent channels to neighbouring cells
• BTS Connectivity Problems:
– Failure of microwave radios, failure of other types of BTS-BSC links
such as laser-based links, failure of PSTN links; Symptoms include
zero call volume, 100 % handover failure from other sites

• Overshooting coverage
– Symptoms: Cell dragging, leading to possible dropped calls.
Remedied by effecting antenna downtilts or re-orientation
• Cell congestion
– Symptoms: TCH Congestion. Remedied by introducing additional sites
or transceivers.

• Peculiar Problems:
– Poor dropped call rates on a network could even be due to problems
such as calling an engineering number linked to failed interactive voice
response system
– In indoor locations, if the indoor antenna is placed too low and in close
proximity to mobiles, some mobiles will not be able to make calls
because the transmitter in the indoor BTS may be “swamping” the
receiver.
– Incorrectly supplied transceiver hardware for example, incorrect
encryption algorithm.

Summary
• Network optimisation is the most challenging aspect of the
operating a network
• Several data sources are available including OMC-R, drive-
test, A/Abis data, etc.
• Several performance metrics are also available
• The optimisation engineers task is to ensure that these metrics
are examined and processed daily to find faults and solve
problems.


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GSM System

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 2

• At the end of this course, attendees will:

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 3

Planning & Design Generate final cell plan

Operations & Maintenance Build sites and integrate

Network Switching Manage network switching sub-system

Optimisation Ensure that network works!

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 4

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 6

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Before adjustments After adjustments

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