Network Planning

Section One
Microwave Planning
 Presentation Outline

• Abis Interface Dimensioning

• A Interface Dimensioning
• Impact of Transcoder (XCDR)
• Example MSC Parameters

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 2

Company Confidential
 Objectives

• At the end of this course, attendees will:

– Have an appreciation of the dimensioning process for Abis / A
interface
– Understand the impact of locating the transcoder close to the BSC or
MSC
– Examine sample parameters for MSCs

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 3

Company Confidential
Microwave Links
• Alternative to cable-based transmission systems
• Advantages
– Installation is easier and quicker, as no work is required along the link
– The link can cross difficult terrain or over the sea
– Capital cost and running costs are lower
• Disadvantages
– Link must be line of sight
– Antenna / repeaters may be sited in remote locations where access is
difficult
– Adequate power supplies for antenna / repeaters in remote locations
may be difficult
– Adverse weather conditions can cause fading of signals

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 4

Company Confidential
Microwave Links
• Planning requires
– Good understanding of microwave propagation phenomena
– Knowledge of impact of propagation on the link outage of the overall
system
– Access to path profile tools for generation of terrain profile between
transmitter and receiver

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 5

Company Confidential
Microwave Antennas
• Antennas used for microwave transmission are parabolic
reflectors.
– The antenna consists of a large reflecting surface that creates a focal
point from which energy can be fed to illuminate the dish

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 6

Company Confidential
Abis Interface
• Traffic Channels
– Normally no blocking occurs on Abis interface between BTS and BSC.
– Traffic channel on air-interface directly maps onto a traffic channel on
terrestrial link
– Therefore if a BTS was configured as 3 cell site with 2 transceivers
and 2 air-interface control channel per cell, it would be logical to
assume 42 x 16 kb/s channels would be required.
– However, most manufacturers require 8 x 16kb/s channels per
transceiver I.e. 2 x timeslots on the E1 link

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 7

Company Confidential
Reflection and Scattering

Rough Surface

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 8

Company Confidential
Refraction, Diffraction

Positive and Negative

Reinforcement

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 9

Company Confidential
Abis Traffic Timeslot Mapping
0 Synchronisation
BSC T/S 1 A B C D
2 E F G H
3 I J K L
4 M N O P
. . . . .
. . . . .
BTS 31 . . . .

TRX1 TRX0

A B C D E F G H
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
I J K L M N O P
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 10
Company Confidential
Abis Interface
• Control Channels
– Abis Control channels are be used for both MS and BTS control.
– MS control involves mobility management and call management.
– BTS control includes operations and maintenance (O&M) (e.g. fault
reporting, software downloads, site configuration and statistics) and
resource management.
– Number of timeslots required for control varies between vendors
• Nokia BTSs require 2 x 16 kb/s channels per transceiver, 1 timeslot being used for
MS control and the other for O & M. Therefore, 1 E1 (32 nos. 64kb/s links) can
support 12 transceivers
• Motorola BTSs only require 1 x 64 kb/s timeslots to control 120 traffic channels and
the BTS itself. This is because Motorola BTS has some BSC functionality. Therefore
1 E1 link can support 15 transceivers.
• Ericsson BTSs require 1 x 64 kb/s timeslot per transceiver for MS control and 1 x 64
kb/s timeslot for O & M. Therefore 1 E1 link supports 10 transceivers.

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 11

Company Confidential
Abis Control
Nokia
BTS
1 x E1
1 x TRX:
BSC 12 x TRX 2 x 64 kb/s
2 x 16 kb/s

Motorola
BTS
1 x E1 1 x 64 Kb/s
BSC 15 x TRX 1 x TRX:
2 x 64 kb/s

Ericsson
BTS
1 x E1 1 x 64 Kb/s
BSC 10 x TRX 1 x TRX:
2 x 64 kb/s
1 x 64 kb/s

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 12

Company Confidential
BTS-BSC Connectivity
• Abis links
– Large cost for operators
– Several techniques are used to optimise usage of links
– One problem is that each BTS site requires only a small number of
timeslots. For example a microcell site with 2 transceivers requires
either 7 or 5 timeslots (depending upon manufacturer) of a possible 31
on an E1 link.
– In some countries, GSM operators can pay the terrestrial circuit
operators for a specified number of timeslots.
– Alternatively, the GSM operator can install a microwave link which
minimises on-going costs
– Or operators can use HDSL
– or basic rate ISDN

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 13

Company Confidential
BTS-BSC Connectivity

Terrestrial Link BTS

BSC Highest cost

HDSL BTS

BSC Medium cost

Microwave Link BTS

BSC Low cost

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 14

Company Confidential
BTS-BSC Connectivity
• Abis links
– Another solution is to connect more than 1 BTS site to a single E1 link.
This is usually known as drop-and-insert.
– Three main configurations are available to facilitate this namely:
• Star / Spoke
• Daisy Chain
• Loop
– The number of BTSs that can be connected in these configurations
will depend upon manufacturer as there are a finite number of E1 links
that can be physically terminated at a BTS site.
– For example Motorola’s M-Cell6 supports 6 x E1 links whereas
Motorola’s MCellcity supports 2 x E1s.

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 15

Company Confidential
Star Configuration
The star configuration is characterised by BTS sites
connected directly to the BSC each by their own E1
BSC link. This obviously does not optimise E1 link usage and
therefore a more efficient configuration is to use either a
BTS or switch to act as a focal point. This central BTS
or switch is then connected to the BSC by one or more
E1 links.

BTS 5 BTS 1

BTS 6 BTS 7 BTS 3

BTS 2
BTS 8 BTS 4

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 16

Company Confidential
Daisy Chain Configuration
The daisy chain configuration has a terminating BTS
and a number of intermediate BTSs, all connected via
BSC one or more E1 links. Manufacturers will normally
specify a limit as to the total number of BTSs that can
be supported on one chain. The limiting factor will be
the switching time delay that each intermediate BTS will
add to traffic channels of the terminating BTS.

BTS 5 BTS 1

BTS 6 BTS 7 BTS 3

BTS 2
BTS 8 BTS 4

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 17

Company Confidential
Loop Configuration

As its name implies, the loop configuration connects a

BSC chain of BTSs to the BSC by more than one different E1
link. The connection can be via one of the intermediate
BTSs or the terminating BTS. This configuration lends
itself to redundancy and expansion of BTS sites.

BTS 5 BTS 1

BTS 6 BTS 7 BTS 3

BTS 2
BTS 8 BTS 4

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 18

Company Confidential
BSC Control and Location
• Due to switching capacity and processor loading, the BSC will
be limited to the number of BTS sites it will be capable of
controlling:
– A Motorola BSC can control 40 BTS sites or 120 transceivers or 690
Erlangs.
– A Nokia BSC can control 256 transceivers or 1520 Erlangs
• The location of the BSC will vary widely between operators:
– Small BSCs close to (or co-located with) BTS sites
– Large BSCs close ro (or co-located with) the MSC
– Medium capacity BSCs located anywhere between the BTS and MSC

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 19

Company Confidential
BSC Control and Location
• Motorola BSC - 40 BTSs, 120TRX, 690 Erlangs
• Nokia BSC - 256 TRX, 1520 Erlangs
Small BSCs
MSC BSC BTS

MSC BSC BTS

Large BSCs MTC kuwait

MSC BSC BTS

Medium BSCs

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 20

Company Confidential
BSC Control and Location
• Small BSCs
– Ensure that the distance between E1 links to BTS are as short as
possible thereby aiding the use of microwave links.
• Medium BSCs
– Maximum operator flexibility
• Large BSCs
– Since BSCs control handovers, the large BSCs will reduce switching
load on the MSC

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 21

Company Confidential
A Interface
• Traffic Channels
– The traffic requirements between the BSC and MSC are derived from
traffic capacity in the BTSs managed by the BSC.
– Unlike the Abis interface, a percentage of blocking is accepted on the
A interface.
– The amount of blocking is much less than that used to calculate the
channel requirements on the air interface.
– A typical value would be 1% blocking between BSC and MSC

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 22

Company Confidential
A Interface
• Example:
– BTS configuration - 3 cells and 2 transceivers per cell
– BTS capacity = 24.6 Erlangs at 2% G.o.S.
– 1 BSC supports 10 x BTSs each with 24.6 Erlangs
– Therefore the BSC must support 246 Erlangs of traffic
– From Erlang B tables @ 1% blocking: 246 Erlangs requires 269 traffic
channels.
– Therefore A interface requires 269 traffic channels

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 23

Company Confidential
XCDR
• Transcoder
– The transcoder converts standard 64 kb/s PCM speech to 13 kb/s in
the MSC to BSC direction and 13 kb/s back to 64 kb/s in the opposite
direction.
– Half-rate vocoders support 6.5 kb/s and allow up to 16 traffic channels
per transceiver.
– AMR vocoders will permit even more traffic channels per transceiver.

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 24

Company Confidential
XCDR
• Transcoder
– On the link between the BSC and XCDR 1 timeslot (64 kb/s) on the E1
can support 4 traffic channels (16kb/s each) or 8 traffic channels if
half-rate is used.
– On the link between the XCDR and the MSC, 1 timeslot on 1 E1
supports 1 traffic channel.
– It is therefore very common for the transceiver to be located close to
the MSC as this ensures optimum use of terrestrial circuits.

No of Traffic Timeslots + No of Control Timeslots

No of E1 links =
31

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 25

Company Confidential
XCDR Impact on the A interface

MSC
1 x TFC - 64kb/s
1 T/S - 64kb/s
No T/S = 269
XCDR

1 x TFC - 16kb/s
1 T/S - 64kb/s
No T/S = 2694=67.25 or 68

BSC 269 Traffic Channels

246 Erlangs
 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 26
Company Confidential
A Interface Control
• A Interface supports two control links
– O&M
– C7 Signalling
• O&M
– Will use X.25 packet switch protocol and normally requires a minimum
of 1 timeslot on the E1 link per BSC
– Transparent to the XCDR
– Some BSCs are capable of supporting more than one O & M link for
example to download software much quicker

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 27

Company Confidential
A Interface Control
• C7 Signalling
– Utilises 64 kb/s timeslots on the E1 link between a BSC and MSC
– Total number of links depends upon:
• Signalling load on A interface depends upon traffic handled by BSC
• The control on the air interface (SDCCHs) e.g. location updates, paging,
handovers, etc.

(Messages / sec) × (bytes / message) × (8 bits / byte)

Control signalling carried =
64,000

– Maximum recommended utilisation for a C7 link is 40%. This is

because C7 allows signalling traffic from a failed link to be
redistributed among other working links.
– Minimum of 2 and maximum of 16 links.

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 28

Company Confidential
A Interface Control
• C7 Signalling
– Using specific signalling message sequence scenarios
• Call setup and clearing requires 5 downlink messages each of 30 bytes and 6
uplink messages of 26 bytes
• Call duration of 120 seconds
• 0.1 SMSs per call
– One C7 link can support approximately 120 traffic channels
– It is very common for operators to install a redundant link in case of
failure.

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 29

Company Confidential
MSC
• Number of MSCs and GMSCs will depends upon:
– Traffic requirements of the BSSs
– Capacity of the MSC itself, which is manufacturer specific

MSC Subscribers 150,000

HLR Subscribers 300,000
Erlangs 4,500
E1 connections to PSTN 148
E1 connections to BSS 180
VLR Subscribers 150,000
Short messages 79,000
Location updates to VLR 308,000
Handovers 282,000
Authentication triples 1,560,000
IMEI checks 810,000

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 30

Company Confidential
Example MSC Parameters
• Small Installation
MSC Subscribers 10,000
HLR Subscribers 75,000
Erlangs 300
E1 connections to PSTN 14
E1 connections to BSS 14

• Medium Installation
MSC Subscribers 80,000
HLR Subscribers 100,000
Erlangs 2,400
E1 connections to PSTN 84
E1 connections to BSS 100

• Large Installation
MSC Subscribers 150,000
HLR Subscriber 300,000
Erlangs 4,500
E1 connections to PSTN 148
E1 connections to BSS 180

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 31

Company Confidential
Summary
• Network planning and dimensioning focuses on:
– Abis links between BTSs and BSCs
– A interface between BSCs via XCDRs to MSCs
– MSCs
• Several techniques are available for connection between
BTSs and BSCs to optimise the use of E1 or T1 links.
• Locations of components such as BSCs and XCDRs directly
influences planning design and overall cost of network

 2001 Freshfield Communications Limited. Slide 32

Company Confidential