Current Channel:
Radio Parameters
ACCEPTED:
-80 to -90
BAD:
-90 to -110
Rx Qual: Quality of voice which is measured on basis of
BER. Range of Rx Qual 0 -7.
EXCELLENT:
0 to 2
GOOD:
2 to 4
BAD:
4 to 6
VERY BAD:
6 to 7
The FULL values are based upon all frames on the SACCH
multiframe, whether they have been transmitted from the
base station or not.
The SUB values are based on the mandatory frames on
the SACCH multifame. These frames must always be
transmitted
FER: Frame Erasure Rate it represents the percentage of
frames being dropped due to high number of noncorrected bit errors in the frame. It is indication of voice
quality in network. (OR)
A measure of the number of frames of data that
contained errors and could not be processed.FER is
usually expressed in percentage or exponent.
FER should be less than 4%.
FER greater than 4% degrades RX Lev, Rx Quality,
BER, SQI, and C/I that leads to Drop call, blocked call,
Mute Call, and Handover Failure.
BER Actual: Ratio of the number of bit errors to the total
number of bits transmitted in a given time interval. BER is
a measure for the voice quality in network.
RXQUAL
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
COVERAGE ISSUES:
NOTE: You have to make sure that these TCHs RxLevels aren't bad because of cross feeder problem
that these TCHs power are not being transmitted in
INTERFERENCE:
When noticing that quality in 2G GSM Radio
Parameters window [Rx Qual] and value of C/I in GSM
Hopping Channels window are bad for specific ARFCNs
while levels of 2G coverage for the same ARFCNs are
good, where
There exist 2 types of interference:
1. Up-link interference.
2.Downlink interference.
1-Up-link interference: (Mobile to BTS)
Your serving cell will not be able to decode any of your
up-link messages if your MS suffers any up-link
interference.
Up-link interference is interference on your MS mobile
handset, causes bad quality in up-link between your MS
and the network, where an external system transmits
OVERSHOOTING
When we get the signal from an away site that not close
to the current area of drive test, whether this site was
serving you or just appears as a neighbor with good Rx
levels to you.
Usually we get bad [Rx Qual] due to down-link
interference from neighboring cells with Co. or Adjacent
channel BCCH and large value for TA [Time Advance]
also it may causes call drop by the time as you will not be
able to perform handover because all the neighboring
sites to you will be missing neighbors for it [not in your
serving site BA list], you will remain on serving site until
call drops due to bad radio conditions. It may also cause
[congestion] problem under this overshooting site as it
is now serving away from its supposed coverage region
so the site near-by users may found no resources to use
+ levels under site may be bad causing coverage
problems specially indoor.
NOTE: Any sites near water may overshoots due to
the ducting phenomena in water that it could
transfers signal for a large distances.
Blocking/Reflections:
Causes temporary bad levels problem
Cell Barred
When served by a cell in dedicated mode and as soon as
you end your call you find yourself in (No Service Mode)
as this cell is banned to be accessed in idle mode, so this
cell only accepts handovers in dedicated mode with good
levels normally but you can't access or initiate a call on it
as it is closed/barred in idle mode.
NOTE:
A cell may sometimes barred by optimization
teams if this cell suffers:
Handover
Ping
(Repeated):
Pong
VSWR-Hardware
problem
No or Late Handover
Leads to call dropped due to bad radio conditions
In window [GSM Serving + Neighbors] , you find a better
neighbor in level which is better than your now-serving
cell but no or late(takes a while and not quickly) handover
occurred to this neighbor which leads to bad radio
conditions from your serving now cell by the time and
might cause call dropped.
No or late handover can be due to:
1. TCH congestion.
2. Poor-wrong H.O parameters.
1-TCH congestion:
This better neighbor in level back then it may was
suffering from TCH congestion, so it has no TCH resources
left to be assigned to new users, so no H.O occurred to it
until call is dropped.
2-Poor H.O parameters:
Imagine you were served by Cell 1 with bad levels due to
large distance away from it, you see cell2 as neighbor
Wrong Handover
When a handover procedure occurs from a better Rx-level
serving cell to a lower/worse Rx-level neighbor cell [occur
when H.O target cell is lower in level than serving cell]
which is wrong.
Or
When H.O process occurs from a cell [serving cell 1] to
another cell [target H.O cell 2] which is normally better
than [serving cell 1], while there exists a better
neighboring cell 3 which is better in level than both
[serving cell 1] and[target H.O cell 2].
H.O command was supposed to be on cell 3 instead of
cell 2 as cell 3 level is > cell 2 level but may be cell 3 was
suffering from TCH congestion so you didn't receive a H.O
command to camp on it from BSC.
Missing Neighbor
Might leads to call dropped due to bad radio
conditions from serving cell.
When approaching near cell 2 while attached by another
serving cell 1 in dedicated mode [during a call], you
notice that cell 2 BCCH doesn't exist in GSM Serving +
Neighbors window at all
(disappeared)
EDGE vs GPRS
EDGE:
Enhanced GPRS or Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution or IMT Single Carrier
makes superior data transmission rates possible.
1: EDGE data rate is 3 times of GPRS data rate
2: It has a higher bit rate precisely because the technology is based on a modulation structure of
8PSK
3: EDGE can be used for any packet switched application, such as an Internet connection
EDGE:
EDGE Modulation and
Coding
Scheme (MCS)
Bit Rate
(kbit/s/slot)
Modulation
MCS-1
8.80
GMSK
MCS-2
11.2
GMSK
MCS-3
14.8
GMSK
MCS-4
17.6
GMSK
MCS-5
22.4
8-PSK
MCS-6
29.6
8-PSK
MCS-7
43.8
8-PSK
MCS-8
54.4
8-PSK
MCS-9
59.2
8-PSK
GPRS: General packet radio service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data service on
the 2G and 3G cellular communication system's global system for mobile communications
(GSM).
GPRS uses four coding schemes (CS-1 to 4) and modulation GMSK.
Coding scheme
Speed (kbit/s)
CS-1
8.0
CS-2
12.0
CS-3
14.4
CS-4
20.0
Coding scheme (CS-4) is available near a base transceiver station (BTS), while the most robust
coding scheme (CS-1) is used when the mobile station (MS) is further away from a BTS.
Using the CS-4 it is possible to achieve a user speed of 20.0 kbit/s per time slot. However, using
this scheme the cell coverage is 25% of normal. CS-1 can achieve a user speed of only 8.0
kbit/s per time slot, but has 98% of normal coverage.
CHANNELS
TRAFFIC CHANNELS
Once call set-up procedures have been completed on the control physical channel, the MS
tunes to a traffic physical channel. It uses the Traffic Channel (TCH) logical channel. There are
two types of TCH :
Full rate (TCH): transmits full rate speech (13 k bits/s). A full rate TCH occupies one physical
channel.
Half rate (TCH/2): transmits half rate speech (6.5 k bits/s). Two half rate TCH's can share one
physical channel, thus doubling the capacity of a cell.
A low-speed bidirectional point-to-point control channel used to transmit service request, subscriber
authentication, ciphering initiation, equipment validation and traffic channel assignment
messages between the mobile and the network.
Physical Channel: The actual radio channel that carries the various logical and
traffic channels in a wireless system.
A logical channel in
GSM systems used to transmit a frequency correction data burst of all "zeros". The resulting
frequency shift seen by the mobile is then used for frequency correction.
A low-speed
control channel associated with a traffic channel and used to transmit supervision and control
messages between the mobile and the network.
The channel
derived by preempting information in a traffic channel. It is used to send handoff and similar
messages.
Because
BCCH is used to transmit all the overhead information needed for an MS to recognize the
network in idle mode, so there is no need for a hopping radio. But we keep the SDCCH and
TCH on hopping TRXs so that the MS does not experience call drops when it is either in
dedicated mode or during call setup procedure.
GSM 900
DCS 1800
One of several
digital wireless transmission methods in which signals are encoded using a specific pseudorandom sequence, or code, to define a communication channel. A receiver, knowing the code, can
use it to decode the received signal in the presence of other signals in the channel.