SDCCH BLOCKING

Optimization Strategy
 SDcch blocking factors
• Check for availability
• Check Site location/Cell Border
• Check TCH congestion
• SMS traffic
• Frequency of periodic registration
 SDCCH blocking factors

• LOW AVAILABILTY
– This is to ensure there is no hardware problem as faulty
equipment can affect SDCCH availability by reducing the
amount of resources for SDCCH and TCH traffic.

• SITE LOCATION/CELL BORDER

– Misplaced Location Area border, results in many unnecessary
Location Updating.
– Poor cell border can cause RF spillage, which leads to a cell
picking up traffic from unintentional area
 SDCCH blocking factors
• TCH CONGESTION
– TCH congestion causes the mobiles to stay longer on the
SDCCH. Increasing TCH capacity is sometimes required to
make an increase in the amount of SDCCH practical.

• SMS TRAFFIC
– Extensive SMS usage increases the SDCCH traffic and could
cause congestion in badly dimensioned SDCCH channels.
– SMS on the SDCCH also has a long MHT of about 6.2s
 SDCCH blocking factors

• High Periodic Registration

– Intervals of Location Area Updating which are too short will cause
Random Access Performance to deteriorate.
• Other Factors
– SDCCH dimensioning/Features
– CBCH status
– Short term traffic Growth
– Long Mean Holding Time
• SDCCH traffic comes from the following events:
– Location Updating 3.5s
– IMSI Attach-Detach 3.5s – 2.9s
– Periodic Registration 3.5s
– Call Setup 2.9s
– SMS 6.2s
 STS counters for measuring SDCCH congestion

Rate

Counter Meaning Comment

S_EST S_EST = { (CMSESTAB) / [CCALLS - (CCONGS+CCONGSSUB)]} * 100 % SD Access Succ Rate
S_CONG S_CONG = (CCCONGS / CCALLS) *100 % SD Congestion Rate

CCALLS Call attempt counter (call attempt on the SDCCH)

CMSESTAB Successful MS channel establishment on SDCCH
CCONGS Congestion counter for underlaid subcell.
CCONGSSUB COngestion counter for overlaid subcell.
CCONGS Stepped each time an allocation attempt in an underlaid cellfails due to SD congestion
SD Congestion Underlaid Cell
CTCONGS SD Congestion counter for overlaid cell SD Congestion Overlaid Cell
# of released connection on SD due to TCH or Transcoder congetsion ; CNDROP both Over Laid and Under Laid cell ; use CNRELCONGSUB for
CNRELCONG is stepped at the same time. OL subcell. If TCH is not congested check for XCDR cong.
 Analysis of sdcch blocking
Site location/Cell TCH Congestion
Low availability
Border
Long MHT

High SDCCH
Blocking

High SMS Traffic High Periodic SDCCH Dimension/ Short-term Traffic

Registration Features

Fish bone diagram for analysis of high SDCCH congestion rate

 Analysis Recommendations

• Low Availability
– Run BSC commands to see if the channels are manual, control or
automatic blocked, SDCCH and TN. (RLCFP)
– Can also be seen in BO
– TN identifies the timeslot numbers where the SDCCH/8s will be
located. The amount of SDCCH’s defined must have the same or
more time slots defined by TN.

• Site Location/ Cell Border

– If the site is located close to major road or railway, or has high
traffic consider adjusting CRH (RLSSP) to reduce LAU’s or moving
the Location Area border to cell with less or lower traffic.
– Run an MRR for cell and check the percentage of traffic coming in
from high unwanted timing advances and then design appropriate
antenna down tilts or antenna height reductions.
 Analysis Recommendations
• TCH Congestion
– Check congestion and utilization in BO
– Increase capacity by, adding TRU’s, and adjusting half-rate parameters
DTHAMR (RLDHP) and DMTHAMR (RLDMP) if 70 >utilization <160
– Redistribute traffic with the features CLS and Assignment to Worse Cell
– Look at sub-cell parameters to ensure adequate distribution to overlaid
cells
– Check neighbors for sharing traffic load with change in tilts, azimuths,
heights, CRO (RLSBP), ACCMIN (RLSSP), etc
• High SMS Traffic
– Check SMS traffic in BO the counters are CSMSDWN and CSMSUP
– Re-dimension SDCCH to provide necessary capacity
 Analysis Recommendations

• High Periodic Registration

– Adjust periodic registration timer T3212 (RLSBP)(higher values of
T3212 can bring down the load on SDCCH for periodic location
updating by mobiles in idle mode, but can adversely impact paging
performance). This would be reflected in most of the BSC
– Ensure BTDM (MGIDP) is as long as T3212
• Short term Traffic Growth
– This come from social events that result in temporary high SDCCH and
TCH demand. Locate these growth by trending traffic in BO, if regular
optimize to compensate.
• Long Mean Holding Time
– on an average SDCCH mean hold time for a cell should be less than 6
seconds (with the exception of site with ABIS on VSAT).
– If too long , check for stuck (sleeping) SDCCH timeslots within the cell
(TRX reset usually clears this problem) or excess transmission
fluctuations / excess BER on the E1. This could be checked by running
a CTR (Cell Traffic Recording) and analysing the Layer 3 messages
 Analysis Recommendations

• SDCCH Dimension & Features

– Check for BCCHTYPE, for most SDCCH capacity use
BCCHTYPE=NCOMB (RLDEP)
– Check for CBCH, deactivate if enable but is not used CBCH =NO
(Operator request CBCH = YES) (RLDEP)
– It’s recommended to equip at “maximum” 2 SDCCH/8 channels
per TRX. This is so to keep the signalling load on the ABIS
manageable Before increasing the number of SDCCH study the
SDCCH usage in BO, look at utilization.
 SDCCH Dimension & Features
• Adaptive Configuration of Logical Channel: This feature is to make dynamic
reconfiguration of idle TCH channels to SDCCH channels when there is a high
load on SDCCH. It is controlled by the parameters ACSTATE, SLEVEL &
STIME (RLACP)

• Immediate Assignment on TCH: This feature allows signalling to also be carried

out by the TCH, if enabled CHAP=1 or 6 (RLHPP), means use TCH as the last
resort , i.e. if all the SDCCH are busy

• SCHO=OFF (RLLOP) , it enables handover on SDCCH on congestion (but can

lead to increase in SDCCH drop rate).

• With LAPD concentration CONFACT makes it possible to fit the signalling of up

to 4 TRU’s into 1 PCM timeslot
– Setting it at high values , say =4 , CONFACT=4 means signalling of four TRUs from
the RBS will share ONE PCM timeslot on the E1 instead of using 4 PCM timeslots.
– Such settings can increase the number of TRUs that could be equipped on one E1
between the BSC and the RBS but at the same time will put immense load on the
signalling bandwidth (bringing down signalling performance, lower paging success
rate)
 IMPORTANT PARAMETERS
PARAMETE DEFAUL RECOMMEND
R NAME RANGE T ED COMMENT
SDCCH  0 TO 32      Required number of SDCCH/8.
TN  0 TO 7  2    Timeslot numbers where the SDCCH/8s will be located.
 steps of 2. Cell Reselection Hysteresis. Receiving signal
strength (rxlev) hysteresis for required cell reselection over
CRH  0 TO 14 4    location area border.
 Indicates the ratio between idle and de-blocked TCHs in the
DTHAMR  0 to 100 30   cell
 Dynamic FR to HR Mode Adaptation threshold for mobiles
DMTHAMR  0 to 100     not capable of AMR
 Cell Reselection Offset. Defines an offset to encourage or
discourage MSs to select the cell while it is camping on
CRO  0 to 63  0   another cell
 Minimum received signal level in dBm at the MS for
ACCMIN  47 to 110  110   permission to access the system.
 Defines the time-out value that controls the location
T3212  0 to 255 40   updating procedure
Base time duration of implicit detach of a mobile subscriber
BTDM 6 to by the network. must be as long as the longest periodic
1530,OFF  OFF updating time (T3212) in the interworking BSCs. Set in MSC
Guard Time Duration. Guard time is used to prevent
unnecessary
GTDM 0 to 255     marking of MS as implicit detached. Set in MSC
 IMPORTANT PARAMETERS
PARAMETE DEFAU RECOMMEND
R NAME RANGE LT ED COMMENT
 COMB,COM NCOMB
BCCHTYPE BC,NCOMB   NCOMB   Type of BCCH
CBCH  YES,NO  NO    Cell broadcast channel.
 Activation state of the Adaptive Configuration of Logical
ACSTATE  ON,OFF OFF    Channels function in the cell
 Level of remaining SDCCH subchannels when an attempt
SLEVEL  0 to 2, cong  0   to increase the number of SDCCH/8
 Minimum time interval before an SDCCH/8 configured by
STIME  15 to 360  20   Adaptive Configuration of Logical Channels is reconfigured
Channel Allocation Profile. Selects channel allocation
CHAP  0 to 13 0   strategy for all traffic situations
 SCHO is used to identify if handovers on SDCCH are
SCHO  ON,OFF  OFF   allowed in the cell
 Defines the amount of SDCCH/8 to concentrated into 1
CONFACT  0 to 4  1   PCM timeslot
 Process
1. Select worst cells from BO report
- look at the trend to determine SDCCH and TCH, number of TS &
TRU’s configured and those active
- Look at the traffic trends to determine if TCH congestion is also
occurring and if SD congestion was short term.
2. Observe the trend of the mean holding time MHT
3. In Mapinfo check if cell is on location border
4. Use MRR to determine current cell border
5. Check SMS traffic volume in BO
Flow chart showing SDCCH blocking Analysis