Definition of Optimization Cellular system Optimization is the continuation of the design process that occurs after site construction,

to ensure that a cell site is incorporated into the overall RF plan in a way that maximizes its potential for coverage and capacity while at the same time minimizes its detrimental effects on co-channel areas. Elements of Good Optimization 1. An Optimization engineer must be aware of all aspects of RF engineering from the design process and the implementation stage before he/she can make well informed decisions about optimization. 2. An Optimization engineer must consider the entire cellular system as whole and not just piece by piece, that is practicing think globally, act locally. 3. An Optimization engineer must be proficient in his knowledge of important database parameters in order that he/she may know what to change and how the changes affect the behavior of serving and neighboring sites. 4. An Optimization engineer must have an eye for detail for the entire network. For example, in matters relating to the maintenance of the neighbor list and database parameters. Who is responsible for Optimization Optimization Engineer Responsible for setting database parameters so that mobile station (MS) hand in and hand out of each site at the appropriate signal levels and locations. The main objective for this is so that subscribers are able to experience continual calls with equal or better quality than the previous call whilst minimizing dropped handovers or drop calls. He/she is also responsible for minimization of interference to co-channel cells by ensuring that the serving cell is not dragged beyond its intended serving area. RF Engineer Responsible for building sites that significantly improve coverage and capacity without contributing to excessive interference to co-channel sites. Frequency Planner Responsible for assigning channels that have the best chance of successful Optimization.

Optimization Duties 1. Call quality maintenance

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Each optimization engineer in MNPP is specifically in charge of a given area. That engineers primary responsibility is to ensure that the call quality and congestion of the area is at an acceptable level area via drop call and blocking statistics respectively as an indicator. Regular drive tests on the field will also be necessary in order that real problems maybe discovered and attended to. Neighbor list maintenance A correct and accurate neighbor list the heart of correctly defined handovers. Therefore, an Optimization engineer should have strict control over this list. Reparenting of sites & LAC change Reparenting takes place when there is a need to transfer the site to another BSC as determined by capacity requirements specified by BSS network design. An Optimization engineer must provide the correct neighbor list to BSS and carry out the drive test to verify handover performance whenever this takes place. Frequency & BSIC retunes This happens when new frequencies specified by the frequency planner need to be implemented in order that new sites can come up. Alternatively, retunes take places for interference control reasons. In any case, a neighbor list has to be provided to the frequency planner for this to take place. Bringing into service (BIS) of new sites The BIS of new sites happens as and when RF engineering rolls out their growth plans to meet capacity and coverage requirements. An Optimization engineer must follow the procedure as in New Site Verification and Functionality form that is to ensure that the hardware is in proper working order, check and verify for call origination and termination, ms power control, site information is as in work order, familiarize with the coverage area of the new site and ensure that this new site is integrated without causing any problems to the existing network.

Basic Optimization Theory 1. What is handover?

Consider cell A and cell B. The MS travel from cell A to cell B. At the edge, we observed that the rxlev perceived by the MS of cell B is stronger as the MS goes further away from cell A. To sustain the call, the MS therefore should hand into cell B.

Handover is required to maintain a call in progress as a MS passes from one cell coverage area to another and may also be employed to meet network management requirements e.g. relief of congestion. In general, there are two types of handover, namely intracell and intercell. Intracell handover occurs within a same cell from one carrier to another. It would only be required if an MS is on the radio channel that is subjected to co-channel interference. Poor signal strength measurements taken on the original radio channel would not normally be improved by performing intra-cell handovers as the signal strength of all radio channels within that cell would be similar. Intercell handover occurs between two different cells. It can be categorize into two, internal or external. Internal handover occurs between two cells within the same BSC. While external handover occurs between two cells of different BSC. Handover Criteria i. Criteria 1 Rxlev_ncell (n) > Rxlev_min (n) + Max (0, Pa) (1)

Where Pa = ms_txpwr_max (n) - P P = max power of ms = 2Watts or 33dBm and ms_txpwr_max is the parameter max_tx_ms set in the database as 33dBm Criteria 1 states that the neighbors receive level otherwise know as Rxlev_ncell must be greater that a minimum level for that neighbor. Currently the default value of the Rxlev_min is -105dBm. The value is so low that the first criteria has no effects on handover but in a correctly optimized system this value would be set depending on the measure signal strength of the neighbor at the desired point of the handoff. Setting a higher value of Rxlev_min will bias the traffic to stay on the serving cell longer. By setting a correct value of Rxlev_min, you can force MS to stay on a cell throughout its intended coverage area even if a neighbor cell become stronger. Any neighbor failing Criteria 1 is not further considered in any handover decision process. ii. Criteria 2 PBGT (n) - Ho_margin > 0 (2)

Criteria 2 states that the PBGT(n) value must be greater than the ho_margin value which is specified in the add neighbor parameter for a handoff to be requested. iii. Power Budget Assessment Process Handover are generally triggered by a mathematical process based on Power Budget calculation. The power budget formula is given as: PBGT = [ min (ms_txpwr_max, P) - Rxlev_DL - Pwr_C_D] serving - [ min (ms_txpwr_max, P) - Rxlev_DL] neighbor (3)

where ms_txpwr_max is the parameter max_tx_ms set in the database as 33dBm Pwr_C_D is max_tx_bts - Actual BTS output power = power correction factor P is max power of the MS = 2 Watt or 33dBm Rxlev_DL is the downlink receive level as measured by the MS Substituting the values given and simplifying Equation 2 yields PBGT = [ Rxlev_DL ] - [ Rxlev_DL + Pwr_C_D) neighbor server (4)

2. Interference There are basically three types of interference that an Optimization engineer has to deal with, namely co-channel interference, adjacent channel interference and external interference.

Co-channel interference - comes from sites using the same frequency as its carrier some distance away, typically 4 cells away (for n = 4 reuse pattern) Adjacent interference - is a result of frequencies transmitting in the adjacent frequency band next to the carrier in question. Every channel has therefore 2 adjacent channels. External interference - can classified as interference that is external to our own Maxis Network. The most common source is Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras that are found in a wide area of retail and commercial shopping complexes. Other sources include interference from other operators namely, Celcom. This interference causes the desensitization to our MS receiver causing the phone to be unable to receive our own Maxis signals. Another source is Mobikom. This will cause high interference on idle to our sites and increasing the drop call. Maintaining Carrier to Interferer ratio (C/I) The most common specification in Optimization is what is know as Carrier to Inteferer (C/I) ratio. This figure specifies the minimum requirement that the system can tolerate before suffering from bad quality calls. The C/I has a direct reflection on the perceived quality of the call. For co-channel interference, the interferer must be at least 12dB lower than the carrier. For adjacent channel interference, the interferer must not be allowed to be stronger than the carrier by 9dB. The goal of any good Optimization is to maximize the capacity of the cell without comprising the quality of the call experienced by the subscriber. In order to achieve this, the C/I of every serving cell must be closely maintained. Should the C/I degrade, the system must be able to handover the call to its best neighbor in order that the subscriber can still experience a goof quality call.

3. Controlling Interference An Optimization engineer must make decisions about the handover boundaries in order to deal with interference that is inherent in the system. Below is a summary of some of the methods used for controlling interference. 3.1 Defining correct handover boundaries This task involves knowing where the serving cell covers both for the BCCH and the TCH DRCUs. The Optimization engineer needs to deal with both power budget defined boundaries as well as quality defined boundaries. For power budget defined boundaries, these boundaries can be different due to irregularity of DRCU power levels. For quality defined boundaries, these boundaries can be different because the BCCH frequencies

does not employ frequency hopping whilst the TCH has aggressive frequency over 9 frequencies. By knowing where your serving cell boundaries, you can ensure that your serving cell covers the intended area of service before experiencing interference from co-channel sites. Should the server experiences interference, a handover to the best target should occur. This will in turn ensure that the subscribers the best quality calls wherever he is. 3.2 Downtilting antennae This option is done in conjunction with the RF engineer and is only used when you are certain that the main beam and far field of an interference site is causing a problem at another co-channel site. By downtilting the antenna, we can reduce the interferer anywhere from 1dB to 20dB. Note that the power of the side lobes of an antenna is not reduced by downtilts. This means that there is no benefits from downtilting if the side lobes is causing interference. 3.3 Power down of sites The powering down of a sites will enable you to meet the C/I at the areas you are experiencing bad quality calls. This option, while being very effective in a localized area, has been known to cause other problems in other areas that are further away. For instance, the powering down of an interfering site can cause problem to in-building sites where it was originally serving. Therefore, it should be used only when necessary and with great care. 3.4 Lowering down sites/antennae This option is also done in conjunction with the RF engineer This method is only used when you are certain that you do not need the site to serve so far, and that no areas especially far field will suffer from low rf or bad quality after the lowering down. Lowering down a site/antennae will let you have a better control over the site boundaries and thus, reducing interference.

3.5 Employing Power Control - Long term interference control Power control is a feature available to GSM and can be described as follows. When the BTS/MS is receiving the MS/BTS transmission clearly, the BTS/MS will dynamically reduce the power until a level that will not compromise the quality of the call. This idea is based on the fact that the human ear is unable to differentiate between the voice quality of Rxqual 0 and 1, and no subscriber should enjoy the rxqual of 0 while other subscribers in the network suffer from a bad quality call due to co-channel interference. By employing BTS/MS power control carefully, the average BTS/MS transmit power will reduce significantly whilst the C/I ratio is another co-channel site will increase thereby improving the quality of the call. 4. Optimization Tools (TEMS) -Test Mobile System

The basic tools Optimization engineers use is TEMS. Below is a summary of how it looks like.

5. Handover Algorithms There are a number of reasons that can cause a MS to handover from one cell to another. The Radio Sub-System (RSS) software decides on the appropriate handovers cause values according to the following priority order: i. uplink receive quality ii. uplink interference iii. downlink receive quality iv. downlink interference v. uplink receive level vi. downlink receive level vii. mobile station distance viii. power budget

If a handover is triggered through one decision process in the priority list, the others further down the list are ignored. The handover trigger will then lead to further processing for Criteria 1 and Criteria 2. 5.1 UL/DL rxqual The uplink and downlink quality handover procedures are identical. Rxqual handover has the highest priority so as to reduce the possibility of a drop call. If ul/dl rxqual handover are enabled, the RSS will have to determine when the quality is considered bad, so that the MS will hand out of that serving cell. This threshold is then set by the optimization engineer. The threshold is set at l_rxqual_ul/dl_h = 350 which is between a quality of 4 to 5 (rxqual 0 is best, rxqual 7 is worst). If hop_qual_enabled is turn on, then, the hopping carrier will then use l_rxqual_ul/dl_h_hopping. To enable ul/dl rxqual handover, set ul/dl_rxqual_ho_allowed = 1. 5.2 UL/DL interference Interference handover igs a intracell handover, namely handover between radios in the same cell. The concept behind this is most applicable for non-hopping cells, e.g. concentric cells, where a particular channel (having been assigned to given radio) is interfered greater than other channels in the same cell. Thus intra_cell_handover_allowed = 1 and interfer_ho_allowed = 1. For an interference handover to occur, the MS must first qualify for an ul/dl rxqual handover, at which point the BTS will determine whether to handover due to quality or interference. This discriminating parameter is u_rxlev_ul/dl_ih. The default value is 40. As such, for a signal strength (rxlev) of above 40 with a quality (rxqual) of above 350, the BTS will initiate an interference handover and the MS will handover to another channel within the same cell. If the rxlev is 40 and below with rxqual above 350, the BTS will initiate a quality handover and will handover to another cell. 5.3 UL/DL rxlev Rxlev handover algorithm is basically a comparison of receive signal strength. It is initiated if the signal strength of the MS or BTS decreases below a given threshold. To enable, ul/dl_rxlev_ho_allowed = 1 and the threshold set is l_rxlev_ul/dl_h = 10. However, if power budget handover is also enabled, it is likely to qualify for pbgt handover before ever qualifying for rxlev handover. So, ordinarily, pbgt handover is disabled when turning on rxlev handover. A common usage for rxlev handover is when a cell is significantly powered down or downtilted in order to combat interference. Since the powered down cell has shrunk, by enabling rxlev handover, the optimization engineer is able to extend the cells coverage. However, since power budget handover is disabled, a great amount of care must be taken when enabling rxlev handover. 5.4 Ms_distance Here is a handover is initiated because the MS is being served by a cell to faraway, which is determined y its timing advance value. The Motorola recommended value is 1.5times

the cells serving area. The parameters used are ms_max_range = <0 to 63>, timing_advance_period = <0 to 31> and ms_distance_allowed = 1. Example: The MS hands out from a cell A to cell B, which is 12km away due to quality. Cell B has ms_distance handover turned on with a ms_max_range = 20 (approx 10km). Will the MS in cell B handout? ___________ 5.5 Power budget handover By far, the most important handover and is enable by setting pwr_handover_allowed = 1. The default handover margin = 4, which simply means that whenever the power of a neighboring cell is greater than the server by 4dB, the MS will handover to this neighbor. As such, the cell boundary (of say Cell A) is defined by the relative signal strength of its neighboring cells (say Cell B, C, D, etc.). 6. Microcell Handover There are a total of 7 types of handovers and are popularly know as Algorithms and are determined on a per neighbor basis. All this means is that the MS in a serving cell may handover to a different neighbor based on different handover conditions. Type 1 to 7 are various forms of Power Budget Handovers. The parameter used to set the handover type is pbgt_alg_type = <1 to 7>. The 3 main mechanisms for microcell handovers are handover margins, delay timer and threshold. The delays are based on number of SACCH multiframes (approximately in steps of 0.5s) and the threshold are based on signal strength (rxlev dB). 6.1 Type 1 Algorithm (PBGT algorithm) This algorithm simply allows all the handover reasons to function is they are enabled. Type 1 handover is the used for macrocell to macrocell handover. 6.2 Type 2 Algorithm (Emergency handover) This algorithm is known as emergency handover since the MS will handover to another cell with any reasons except power budget. Type 2 handover is typically used to handover from a microcell to macrocell. 6.3 Type 3 Algorithm Commonly known as around-the-corner handover and is defined by a handover margin, where [PBGT - ho_margin > 0] and as well as uplink and downlink rxlev threshold where [ul_rxlev(s) < ul_rxlev_serv_l & dl_rxlev(s) < dl_rxlev_serv_l]. When all 3 conditions are met, only then the MS will qualify for a handover. 6.4 Type 4 Algorithm The handover is determined by the handover margin and a delay timer which started upon a hand in into that cell. Upon a hand in, a timer is started and no handovers are allowed until the timer expires. It may be used to keep fast moving mobiles on the macro and reduce handovers in cell that are extremely strong for only a short period of time. 6.5 Type 5 Algorithm

The handover is determined by the handover margin, delay and a threshold. When the signal strength of the target cell is above the specified threshold, the timer will start. Upon expiry of the timer, if PBGT (n) > ho_margin, the handover will be triggered. This algorithm is commonly used to handover from macrocell to microcell. 6.6 Type 6 Algorithm This is a handover where the neighbor is made extremely unattractive when it is first detected, but becomes preferred neighbor after the expiry of a timer. The timer starts when PBGT(n) > ho_margin, upon which a static offset is added to the ho_margin to further discourage handover to it. After the expiry of the timer, a dynamic offset is subtracted from previous calculation, thus encouraging handovers into the particular cell. The Type 6 algorithm may be viewed as a more sophisticated type 5 algorithm. 6.7 Type 7 Algorithm The algorithm is used to avoid handovers to neighboring cell with adjacent interference problems. If the signal strength difference between the adjacent channels is greater than the parameter adj_chan_rxlev_diff, the neighbor will be taken off the candidate list. 7. Location Area Code The location area code indicates the location of the cell. It is part of the GSM cell identity (5 0 2 1 2 2021 27721) and is used to page mobiles within a group of cells defined by having the same Location Area Code (LAC). When a mobile moves from one cell to another cell having a different LAC, the MS will perform a Location Update (LAC update). This is to inform the network that the MS has now moved to a new location area. The area where 2 or more cells have different location areas, are known as Location Area border. 8. Some extra points 8.1 Standalone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH) The SDCCH is used for call setup, validation, attaching/detaching of an IMSI, Short Message Service (SMS) and Location Update. An important factor in determining SDCCH utilization is whether the cell is a Location Area border or not. SDCCH usage of a cell in a LAC border is approx. 3 times that of a non-LAC border. Dynamic channel reconfiguration is also used to balance out the need for SDCCH blocks and the TCH timeslots according to the traffic needs at a given time and reduce the blocking without the permanent loss of TCHs. 8.2 Phantom RACHs Phantom RACHs occur primarily as the result of sporadic noise and interference. Channel requests from distant mobiles can be affected by such noise. Having co-channel co-bsic sites close to one another, increases Phantom RACHs. These in turn, clog up an already limited SDCCH timeslots resource and influence SDCCH congestion. 8.3 SDCCH Blocking

SDCCH Blocking is influenced mainly by the Phantom RACHs and whether a cell is a LAC border cell. If a cell has abnormally high SDCCH blocking, then various other problems such as unable to make calls, and unable to send SMS may occur. 8.4 Common Control Channel (CCCH) Where SDCCH is crucial in making calls, Common Control Channels (CCCH) are essential for both making as well as receiving calls. On the uplink, it is used to send RACH messages, while Paging Channel (PCH) and Access Grant Channel (AGCH) operate in the downlink direction. The AGCH is used to assign resources to the MS, such as SDCCH, whereas the PCH is used to call a mobile. It should be noted however, the PCH and the AGCH are never used at the same time4. The number of paging blocks required will be determined by the paging rate and the number of subscribers within a given Location Area. The number of AGCH blocks are determined by the Call Rate, the Location Update Rate and the SMS Call Rate. 8.5 Traffic Channel (TCH) Blocking Also commonly known as congestion and is probably the second most common subscriber complain after drop calls. It is also influenced by the number of SDCCH blocks configured for a given site. When using dynamic SDCCH configuration 1 TCH (or more) is reconfigured to give 8 SDCCH sub-slots. Congestion relief is one method to circumvent blocking. TCH block normally occur when the traffic for the particular cell site increases or there is a site down event and may also due to hardware failure. 8.6 Congestion Relief Congestion relief is designed to handover candidates meeting the criteria, when there is congestion in a given cell, instead of the MS that is attempting to make the call. There are 2 types of CR. Type 1 only handover the required number of mobiles so that those mobiles which are trying to originate within that cell will be able to access it. Type 2 will handover all the mobiles which qualify for the handover due to congestion relief. The first type of CR is the preferred choice.
Reference 1. Basic RF Optimization 2. Introduction to Digital Cellular CP02 3. BSS Database SYS02 4. BSS Database Application SYS03 5. Microcellular Principles SYS08 6. BSS Sub-system Planning SYS04 7. BSS Sub Stem Performance SYS05