GSM Network SDCCH

Congestion & Solutions

Training goals

 To know the signaling flow of SD seizure

 To the causes of SD congestion
 To know the flow of checking SD congestion
Contents

 SD Seizure Signaling & Relevant Counters

 Causes of SDCCH Signaling Channel
Congestion
 Procedure of Checking SD Congestion
 Typical Cases
 What is SD congestion ？

 During LOC and the early stage of MOC and MTC process, MS
usually seizes SDCCH to exchange signaling.

 When BSC receives SD request from MS, it checks SD resource. If

all SDCCHs are occupied at the moment, congestion happens
once.

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 Definition of SDCCH congestion indicator

KPI name SDCCH blocking rate

Definition Number of signaling channel blocking times*100%/ Number of
signaling channel call attempts

BSC BTS Ms When there is no

SDCCH available,
Channel Request
network sends an
Channel Required IMMEDIATE
A
ASSIGNMENT
REJECT message,
which contains
initial value of
Immediate Assignment Reject T3122. MS is not
Immediate Assignment Reject allowed to restart
SD request until
Ms starts T3122
T3122 expires,.

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 SD seizure and release flow

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Contents

 SD Seizure Signaling & Relevant Counters

 Causes of SDCCH Signaling Channel
Congestion
 Procedure of Checking SD Congestion
 Typical Cases
 Classification of SDCCH congestion causes

System capacity not big

Too many short messages
or weather forecast
messages.
Strategy: do not centralize
transmission; configure
more SDCCH
enough, small number of
SDCCH.
Strategy: expansion
Unreasonable setting of
system parameters and RACH
parameters, etc.
Strategy: increase RACH access
SDCCH congestion causes: threshold appropriately (to
•Large traffic volume exceeding
cope with interference); reduce
network capacity; MaxRetrans appropriately,
•Signaling flow doesn’t end in increase number of
time. transmission timeslot.

Too many SDCCH LOC at LAC

boundaries.
Strategy: adjust LAC selection,
adjust CRH (cell reselection
histeresis), adjust parameter
setting of periodic LOC.
Single board （ TRX/FPU
） fault, transmission
fault.

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Contents

 SD Seizure Signaling & Relevant Counters

 Causes of SDCCH Signaling Channel
Congestion
 Procedure of Checking SD Congestion
 Typical Cases
 Procedure of Checking SD Congestion

Check
transmission
equipment
and alarms

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 Analysis of SD access causes

 Generally, the number of LOC attempts takes 35% of the total SD

access times (the percentage may increases to 70%, if the site is
located at LAC boundary); the number of SD access caused by
MOC and that caused by MTC are almost equal; other causes
rarely happen.
 If there are a big number of attempts due to other reasons, and all end in
failure, the cause can be confirmed that is interference.
 If the number of MOC attempts is large and the rate of the number to the
total of attempts is high, there may be MS malicious pager operating in the
network.
 If number of LOC increases abnormally, there may be changes on LAC
planning or amendments of HLR and VLR.
 If SD congestion is accompanied with large number of assignment failures,
it’s very possible that the cell traffic volume is high or co-channel
interference exists.

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Contents

 SD Seizure Signaling & Relevant Counters

 Causes of SDCCH Signaling Channel
Congestion
 Procedure of Checking SD Congestion
 Typical Cases
 Typical case of SD congestion-I

 SD congestion due to LAPD delay caused by transmission fault.

 The performance report showed that during SD congestion

(SDCCH occupancy failure counter), the number of SDCCH
allocation failures was high.

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 Typical case of SD congestion-I

The signaling flow shows that BTS didn’t

respond to the Channel Activation sent by BSC.

 There was transmission warning during SD congestion;

 After BTS was reset, the problem disappeared;
 After transmission was adjusted, the problem was completely
solved.

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 Typical case of SD congestion-II

 SD congestion due to large quantity of LOC (caused by cross-

LAC coverage)
 From analysis of radio access measurement, it’s discovered that
the SD congestion was caused by large quantity of LOC.

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 Typical case of SD congestion-II

Through signaling
tracing, we could
see the large
quantity of LOC
under the cell was
from LAC09533 to
LAC09523.

 The site was located between two location areas (LAC), the cell belonged to one LAC. A
road, 1.5km from the site, was under the coverage of another LAC.
 In on-site DT, the cell was found stretched its coverage to the road, and resulted in
frequent LOC on the road.
 After adjustment of antenna to control the cell’s coverage, SD congestion obviously
reduced.

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 Typical case of SD congestion-III

 SD congestion due to short message pager

Serious SD congestion suddenly occurred in 900/1800M

cells under a site, but no transmission problem was found.
Radio performance data showed that the cause of all radio
access was MS sending short messages.

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 Typical case of SD congestion-III

 SD congestion due to short message pager

 By observing other daily data of the BTS, engineers found the traffic volume
was not high.
 It’s concluded that the problem was caused by heavy transmission load.
Mass-sending device of short message caused heavy transmission load, which
led to LAPD delay, and then led to SD allocation overtime, wasted SD
resource, and finally resulted in SD congestion.
 Through signaling tracing, found the source of short messages. After the
source was blocked, the problem disappeared.

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