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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Managing the Quality of a Radio Network

Field Experience & Methodology

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Agenda What is quality The network tuning process How to monitor the radio network performance

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

How shall the radio network be managed to meet specified quality criteria. The described procedures and tools can be applied in general. The described functionality and tools are related to Ericsson systems.

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How is Network Quality defined?


User (subscriber)

Quality of service

Service support performance

Service operability performance

Service accessibility performance

Service retainability performance

Service integrity

Service securiity performance

Serveability performance Quality of Service Network Performance

Provider (operator)
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Terms are defined in the CCITT Recommendation E.880 Quality of service: How the subscriber is satisfied with the overall service Accessibility: To be able to get in contact with the network Retainability: To continue the connection with the network until all tasks are successfully terminated Service Integrity: To be able to perform a service and to keep the quality of the connection on a level,where the information can successfully be exchanged in the shortest possible time Support Perf.: The ability of the operator to provide the service and to use its utilization Operability Perf.: The ability of a service to be successfully and easily used by the user Security: EIR, secure billing, no unauthorized monitoring, TMSI, etc.

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General Tuning Process


Start:
good network

Reference Network Monitor Performance

Yes
Performance satisfying?

Yes
Performance satisfying?

No

No Performance Analysis
Change Decision Possible?

Monitor Performance

Changes

Yes

Analysis

Collect additional information


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No

GSM Radio Network Tuning

Which performance can be achieved with the individual network configuration (architecture, terrain, etc.)? Experience from the own network => Reference Network => Performance Requirements Experience from other similar networks => General performance requirements In the flow chart above, the start point is a good network. Of course it is possible to start with a badly performing network. In this case the procedure starts with the box performance analysis, as it is already known, that the performance is bad. In this case the reference network for performance comparison is not available.

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Monitoring the Network Performance


Good? Bad? Information Overflow!!!

Goal:
Perceive the performance at a glance!

Solution:
Extract and calculate, of all available information, key indicators, which are directly connected to the quality Information about why the performance is as it is, does not need to be provided during this step
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Performance Monitoring: - Does the network fulfil the performance requirements - Has the performance changed compared to earlier - Key performance indicators (KPIs) are needed since too much information is available

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Where can Information about the Network Quality be collected?


MSC BSC MSC BSC BSC

MS MS MS

BTSBTS BTSBTS BTSBTS

Network Information Mobile Information


Sources for Performance Monitoring Information are: Statistical information from the network elements Information from a single test mobiles Information from several special mobiles distributed to selected users Customer complaints
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Test drives are expensive, therefore it is beneficial to get the information to monitor the radio network performance from the network elements Most of the information is available in the different network elements. Information, which is only available from the mobiles is: - idle mode information - geographical information (position) - information about subjective speech quality

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Performance Indicators describing the Radio Network Performance in a GSM System


Accessibility:
Call set-up success rate
For mobile originated calls, this information is only partly available in the network elements

Paging success rate SDCCH establishments out of all random accesses SDCCH drops (also retainability) Assignment success rate Congestion on SDCCH and TCH

Retainability:
Dropped calls
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

For call set-ups at originating calls, information is only available in the network elements, if information has been received by the system. For originating calls the best way to collect call set-up performance data is repeated short call set-ups with a test mobile. For monitoring purposes it can be assumed that the information for originating call set-ups, available in the network elements, is exact enough.

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Performance Indicators describing the Radio Network Quality in a GSM System


Service Integrity:
Subjective speech quality and number of retransmissions
for the downlink this information is only available on the mobile side

Indicators collected from the network which give information about the speech quality:
Dropped calls due to bad quality Call releases due to bad quality Handover failures Handover, quality controlled Intra-cell handover, quality controlled RXQUAL distribution FER measurements/distributions
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Due to the specification of GSM, it is not possible to get information above the real speech quality, as perceived by the subscribers. It is only possible to estimate the subscriber perceived speech quality. In R8, speech quality supervision was introduced which gives statistics based on SQI samples reported to the BSC

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Monitoring Quality together with Frequency Hopping


0.6 0.5 0.4 FER 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 RXQUAL FER: no hop, no DTX FER: hop, no DTX FER: hop, DTX

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

RxQual is obtained by transforming the bit error rate (BER) into a scale from 0 to 7. RxQual is the average BER over a certain period of time (0.5 s). By contrast, a listener's assessment of speech quality is a complex process which is influenced by many factors. Some of these, all of which RxQual fails to take into account, are the following: The distribution of bit errors over time. For a given BER, if the BER fluctuates very much, the perceived quality is lower than if the BER remains rather constant most of the time. Different channel conditions give rise to radically different BER distributions. However, since RxQual just measures the average BER, it cannot capture this. (In fact, the logarithmic scale of RxQual gives rise to the opposite effect: a high BER variance gives a better RxQual than a low variance does. This is completely misleading from a speech quality point of view.) Frame erasures. When entire speech frames are lost, this affects the perceived quality in a very negative way. Handovers. Handovers always cause some frames to be lost, which generally gives rise to audible disturbances. This does not show at all in RxQual, however, since during handovers BER measurements are suppressed. The choice of speech codec. The general quality level and the highest attainable quality vary widely between speech codecs. Moreover, each codec has its own strengths and weaknesses as regards types of input and channel conditions.

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

SQI Speech Quality Index


TEMS Speech Quality Index (SQI):
Based on Handover and BER/FER distributions Measured continuously Scale -15 to +30 Over 90% correlation for a 5s sentence

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

SQI can be measured with e.g TEMS Investigation. SQI has been designed to take into consideration all the phenomena discussed in the preceding section. This ensures that it will produce an unbiased prediction of the speech quality, independently of channel conditions and other circumstances. Somewhat roughly, the computation of SQI involves the bit error rate (BER) the frame erasure rate (FER) data on handover events statistics on the distributions of each of these parameters. Furthermore, for each speech codec, SQI is computed by a separate algorithm which is tuned to the characteristics of that codec. Like RxQual, SQI is updated at 0.5 s intervals.

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

SQI and RxQual relation (FR codec)

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The curve represents the average RxQual-to-SQI relation for different channels. The figure is based on simulations. The following conditions have been examined: Four different 900 MHz channels: tu0ifh (typical urban, 0 km/h, ideal frequency hopping) tu30mphnfh (typical urban, 30 mph, no frequency hopping) ff12nfh (flat fading, 12 km/h, no frequency hopping) tu3nfh (typical urban, 3 km/h, no frequency hopping). The C/I levels have been varied between 2 and 20 dB For each channel and C/I level a 60 second simulation has been done. The data from the simulations have been divided into 2.5 second long sentences, and the corresponding SQI values (for both the FR and the EFR codecs) have been calculated for each sentence. RxQual have been calculated for each 0.5 second interval, i.e. there are five RxQual values for each sentence. For each simulation, average parameter values has been calculated for each parameter (SQI, RxQual etc.). The graphs in this document are all based on these average parameter values.

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Performance Monitoring with TEMS (I) Procedure:


Specify a fixed test route, covering the areas which shall be monitored Perform periodic test drives on this route For accessibility: Repeated short call set-ups For retainability and integrity: Long continuous calls

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Depending on the status of the network, the methods to be used for the performance monitoring can vary. At the beginning, before there are even users in the network, drive testing is really the only way to handle the performance monitoring. As the number of users increases, it is possible to start using various complaints as well as network statistics (STS).

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Performance Monitoring with TEMS (II)


Evaluation:
Produce statistics covering the call set-up success rate the dropped call rate the handover success rate distribution for signal strength and speech quality Present graphically on a street map (GIMS, Map Info, etc.): signal strength speech quality traffic events, such as dropped calls and handover
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Three mobiles are normally used for drive testing. One test mobile could be used for the test of coverage and should work in scanning mode. A second mobile could be used for the test of accessibility using short call test. A third mobile could be used for the tests of speech quality and retainability using long call test.

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Results of the Performance Monitoring

Detect problems in the radio network Locate problems geographically Detect areas for expansion Detect money makers

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Detect problems => Quality requirements are not fulfilled. Locate problems => Which area, which cell, which TRX or which time slot shows the problem. Detect areas for expansion => Where do hardware needs to be added. Detect money makers => How important is it to react against the problem.

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Performance Analysis
What creates the problem How can the problem be solved Problems related to the radio network: Dimensioning and Architecture HW Problems Interference Neighbour Cell Definitions Locating Parameters Idle Mode Parameters Other Cell Parameters Power Balance
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High Capacity High Capacity

GSM Radio Network Tuning

Common problems when implementing a high capacity solution are: Dimensioning and architecture of the radio network Interference

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GSM Radio Network Tuning

Final Remarks

=
About performance and performance optimization:
The best optimization tool is experience The performance can not be better than allowed by the cell configuration and the cell plan Radio network optimization usually means fixing a poor frequency plan
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GSM Radio Network Tuning

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