MONTHLY REPORT

DATE: 2011-02-28

NAME: Ts’epo Mololo DIVISION: Mobile Switch Operations DEPT: CTO

Introduction

This report serves as the indication of the daily activities or tasks being carried out from
the beginning of the internship programme on the 20110110. The activities were carried
out under the supervision of permanent employees in the Mobile Switch Operations
together with the Mobile Switch Manager. These tasks are sub-divided into groups on
weekly basis.

Under this division, we mainly do operations and maintenance of the main network
elements of the core network (GSM and WCDMA) namely; Base Station Controller,
Mobile Switching Center or Visitor Location Register and Home Location Register,
Radio Network Controller and Media Gateway. This maintenance includes faults
management on all nodes, monitoring status of all routers and signaling links, system
configuration and integration, monitoring state of radio base stations and system backups.

Week 1 (110213 -110221)

I was given an overview of the GSM and WCDMA networks, how they work and how
they are different from each other. I then learned the structure of ETL’s GSM network
topology shown on the network diagram attached, how it connects with the NGN network
as well as the interconnection of GSM and WCDMA networks. Furthermore, I studied
the MSS/MSC server and learned that it is a layered architecture mobile core network
with a centralized control of the distributed switching. It has features such as call control,
user plane resource for circuit based services in Mobile Media Gateway, and it controls
different transport network and finally it supports GSM and WCDMA traffic control in
the same node.

Apart from that I learned how to configure systems and manage faults on all nodes. This
was achieved by studying both the BSS and MSS basic commands from the Alex library
which is software of all libraries of the installed GSM and WCDMA network elements.
For instance the command RLCRP: CELL=ALL; is radio control cell, cell resource print
command which actually prints all cell resources. A print out ordered for all cell prints
for each cell, a total number of unblocked channels per channel type the total number of
queued mobile subscribers for each cell and also additional information is printed for
both blocked and unblocked channels.
The command C7RSP: DEST=ALL; is a CCITT7, routing specification print and it
prints routing data for one or more signaling routes. There are actually two alternative
parameters, DEST or LS. If one or more destinations are indicated, the data is printed for
all routes to each destination. If parameter DEST is equal to ALL, all routing data is
printed. If a link set is indicated, the routing data is printed for all destinations reached
through that link set. The two examples are applicable in the BSC node. Most of the basic
Commands are done on daily basis as daily routines on MSS and BSS some of which are
run to ensure the active nodes e.g. HOSTNAME and PRCSTATE, monitor alarms status
on all nodes and monitor state of radio base stations.

Week 2 (110122 -110127)

During this week I learned how to process the system backups, CP backup from CP to
DAT tape. This type of backup is done on weekly basis and it is a procedural process for
both MSS and BSS nodes: First I ensure the active node for both nodes and connect to
APG40 “AP local mode” on active node, then connect to cluster using winFiol
application. At this point the MSS and BSS clusters differ by IP addresses that are
10.1.15.25 and 10.1.15.22 respectively. I then connect to local mode with command
APLOC; the confirm node status and name with commands PRCSTATE and
HOSTNAME respectively, then I list all processes to confirm that NTBACKUP
Application is not running (wait if NTBACKUP is running).

After the above procedure I backup APZ to CP file system using the following
commands; DPWSP; to check CP status, SYBFP: FILE; to print current list if CP
backups, SYBUE; to end passive automatic dumping and SYBUP; FILE=RELFSW2; to
print current list if CP backups. Then I export CP backup file from CP to AP. In this
regard I connect to AP local mode on active node of the MSS1 network element and print
the attributes of file to be copied using the following two commands; cpftl-l REFSW2
and cpfls-ls RELFSW2. I again export the file from CP file system to AP – cpfport –e
RELFSW1 G: \ftpvol\RELFSWDIR\RELFSW2_yymmdd, then confirm again the
attributes of the file on CP – cpfls –ls REFLSW2 and confirm the export of the file.
Finally I rotate the latest backup (RELFSW2) to position RELFSW0 using; SYTUC; to
rotate CP backup fiber and SYBUL: DISC; to activate automatic dumping and copy CP
backup file from AP to DAT tape.

Week 3 (110131 - 110214)

I performed the usual BSS and MSS daily routines and monitoring of the Base
Transceiver Station alarms, for instance Metolong BTS experienced a permanent fault
and I reset all its Transceiver Groups (TGs) using the following commands; RXBLI:
MO= RXOTG-54, SUBORD; which initiates the blocking of all the TGs together with
their subordinates, RXESE: MO=RXOTG-54, SUBORD; which puts all the TGs and
their subordinate out of service, RXESI: MO=RXOTG-54, SUBORD; it puts the TGs
and subordinate back into service. RXBLE: MO=RXOTG-54, SUBORD; to allow the
unblocking of all the TGs and their subordinates, the TGs will load for few seconds and
eventually the whole site will be up. The above set of commands reset the state of the
managed object instance. Some of the BTS alarms such as link fault or OML fault and
mains failure cannot be managed and monitored in the same way as the above alarm but
they are reported to NOC for further investigation and maintenance. Other alarms were
that there was no GPRS traffic on a number of sites due to the fact that GPRS traffic time
slots was not defined on those sites for example at Maputsoe 95, for its configuration
time slot 1 to 30 is defined for speech and the rest are defined for GPRS traffic. There
was a pre-defined script for cells definition which we used to clear that alarm.

I also attended mobile subscribers’ problems on their mobile stations, someone couldn’t
receive calls because all incoming call were barred (BOIC-Active) and this was cleared
with the command; HGSDC: MSISDN=26663171239.BOIC=0; which deactivates
barring of incoming calls. Someone couldn’t recharge his mobile station and was referred
to Billing section.

Week 4 (110207 - 110211)

Mohaleshoekhill was upgraded from 2/2/2 configuration to 4/2/2 configuration. Two

TRXs were added to achieve 4/2/2 configuration. We communicated with someone who
visited that site in order to complete the whole process of site upgrade by resetting site
after TRXs were replaced. I also learned how to perform LMSS1_TTFile backups which
a daily exercise as well. I did BSS and MSS daily routines and end of week CP backups.

Week 5 (110214 - 110219)

Mohaleshoekhill was down and through monitoring I found the following fault code: TX
FC 27 class 1B and TRX TC 25 class 2A and reported it to RBS people who visited the
site and fixed the alarm. Thaba-TsekaExch experienced mains failure and it was reported
to us that it was due to incorrect powering of RBS. I took TTFiles backups on SET #95
(HQ and SWITCH). Airport1 sector A was down and it needed board replacement all
together. I updated cells IDs document for site configuration and site names. There were
still outstanding WCDMA faults on the following sites which I still have to learn how to
fix them: Ramokhele –switched off due to failure to allow calls to go through beyond
certain distance, Leribe –witched off due to allow calls and Maseru Sun –switched off
due to failure to handle calls.