2008 N&TC Radio Seminar

2G DCR Improvement
Workpackage

Hugo Araújo
Senior Service Engineer GSDC
UK

Ericssonwide Internal 1 2008-09-17

Introduction
! Since the beginning of 2008 Ericsson UK have been
assisting one of the largest UK operator with their Network
Performance Improvement program.
! Main focus: 2G drop call rate (DCR)
! 2G DCR increased 20% in 18 months
! Operator’s investment in 2G Nw ceased 3 years ago
! Aging network, both Hw & Sw (e.g. R12, OSS-RC 3.1)

Ericssonwide Internal 2 2008-09-17

Agenda

! Configuration Management
! Performance Management
! Cell Level analysis
! Conclusions

Ericssonwide Internal 3 2008-09-17

 Configuration Management

! Parameters alignment
• Cell level parameters aligned to operator’s default settings.
• BSC parameter alignment did not highlight major discrepancies.
• Although BSC Exchange properties showed features active on some
BSC and not others.
! Correction of configuration errors
• The consistency checking tool function within CNA was used to identify
the configuration errors, examples of errors corrected:
• 1-way neighbours,
• incorrect cell definitions,
• BCCH BSIC clashes.

Positive results from CM activities but not many issues found

Ericssonwide Internal 4 2008-09-17

Performance Management

Investigation areas:
! Cell-pair handover performance
! Interference Rejection Combining
! BSC Dimensioning issues
! BTS Power Control
! Measurement Result Recording (MRR) historical analysis
! Impact of 3G traffic on 2G DCR

Ericssonwide Internal 5 2008-09-17

Cell-pair handover performance

! NCS and STS used for HO performance analysis

! Handover pairs not used were removed.
! Pairs with less than 0.1% of the total handovers of a cell
were removed.
! Recommended to gradually increase this value to delete all
pairs doing less than 1% of the total handovers of a cell.

Ericssonwide Internal 6 2008-09-17

 New Feature Trials: Interference Rejection
Combining (IRC)

• DCR improvement on cells with high

drops due to UL Quality

• IRC was enabled on poor UL quality cells, up to 20% DCR improvement seen
• Operator decided to rollout optional feature network wide

Ericssonwide Internal 7 2008-09-17

 BSC Dimensioning issues
• BSC Transceiver Handler
device load above the design
recommended value (60%)

• Key Contributor to the

Operator’s ongoing Paging
degradation.

• AMR HR and HR Transcoder pools

congested across most old BSC in
central London

Ericssonwide Internal 8 2008-09-17

 BTS Power Control Settings
Operator

! Down regulation can occur in the bad quality area if the signal strength is high.
! How much this will affect the quality of the network depends on how often the served traffic with bad
quality has high signal strength.
! MRR can help identify traffic with this type of characteristic (bad quality and high signal strength)

Ericssonwide Internal 9 2008-09-17

 Power Control trial settings
Ericsson Proposal

! Objective: reduce the amount of down regulations in the bad quality area.
! Higher QCOMP makes the algorithm more aggressive for connections with good quality.
! This can be explained by the frequency re-use distance being short in the area and thereby a
higher risk for radio interference.

Ericssonwide Internal 10 2008-09-17

 MRR Historical Analysis
RxLev DL G-cells

6.00%
5.00%
Mar’05 vs. Mar’08*
4.00% ! Traffic further away from the RBS,
g_RxLevDL 2005
3.00%
g_RxLevDL 2008
! 10% decrease in samples in good
2.00% coverage areas
1.00%
! 10% traffic loss in the vicinity of the
0.00%
site (TA = 1).
-47

-51
-55
-59

-63
-67

-71
-75

-79
-83

-87
-91
-95

-99
-103

-107
TA comparison G cells ! The graphs show the average signal
60.00%
strength and average timing advance of
50.00%
2G users is now worse than 3 years
40.00%
ago.
g_TimAdv 2005
30.00%
g_TimAdv 2008
20.00%
10.00%

0.00%
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
* for a central London BSC, i.e. considering the same cells

MRR traffic profile change, with negative influence on 2G DCR.

Ericssonwide Internal 11 2008-09-17
Impact of 3G traffic on 2G DCR

! The following slides detail a study of the contribution of the

3G traffic towards the 2G Dropped Call Rate (DCR) using
billing call data records, 3G IRAT Success counters and 2G
STS.
! A study area was a central London BSC.
! The study period was the week of the 10th to the 16th of
March 2008.
! It’s assumed Inter-BSC Handovers In are equal to
Handovers Out
! 2G to 3G Handover is not enabled.

Ericssonwide Internal 12 2008-09-17

 Impact of 3G - Release Cause
Analysis
3G3G
Establishment
Establishment 2G 2G
Establishment
Establishment
2G2G
Termination
Termination 2G 2G
Termination
Termination

The absence of release (‘blank’) cause denotes a successfully terminated call

CDR shows 50% higher 2G DCR for calls initiated in the 3G network!

Ericssonwide Internal 13 2008-09-17

Impact of 3G - No. voice calls
establishments per Technology
Call Data Records - Calls per Technology
Calls Ended in BECKS BSC 10/Mar - 16/Mar

2G 3G

6.13% of all calls ending in the BSC were established in 3G

3G, 129201

Total

2G, 1979944

0 500000 1000000 1500000 2000000 2500000

Ericssonwide Internal 14 2008-09-17

Impact of 3G - Contribution to DCR
per establishment technology
Call Data Records - Calls per Technology
Calls Ended in BECKS BSC 10/Mar - 16/Mar

2G 3G

8.8% of drops from calls established in 3G

3G, 1613

Total

2G, 16721

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 16000 18000

Ericssonwide Internal 15 2008-09-17

 Impact of 3G - 2G DCR Formula
Breakdown
DCR = (tfndrop + thndrop) / (thcassal + tfcassal)

Where:
tfndrop: Dropped connections due to failure. (Full Rate)
thndrop: Dropped connections due to failure. (Half Rate)
tfcassal: Assignment complete (Full Rate)
thcassal: Assignment complete (Half rate)

tfcassal and thcassal do not peg on successful incoming HO traffic.

Area wide it’s assumed Handovers In = Handovers Out

and therefore the formula above is valid however this is not valid for
IRAT HO since the operator doesn’t have 2G to 3G Handover.

Ericssonwide Internal 16 2008-09-17

Impact of 3G - IRAT HO Success on
2G DCR
! A possible way to compensate for 3G IRAT traffic on 2G is to discount the No. of 3G
calls that switched to 2G.

! The No. of IRAT HO successes (pmNoSuccessOutIratHoSpeech) from all RNC into cells
belonging to the target BSC gives us the handed in calls.

! We can then adapt the DCR formula:

!DCR = (tfndrop + thndrop) / (thcassal + tfcassal)

to compensate for the IRAT traffic:

!DCR Adjusted =
!(Tdropped + Thndrop) / (Thcassal + Congall+ pmNoSuccessOutIratHoSpeech)

DCR Adjusted DCR 3G Contribution to 2G DCR

1.01% 1.04% 0.03

Ericssonwide Internal 17 2008-09-17

Impact of 3G – IRAT traffic drops
contribution to 2G DCR
Using the billing call data records we can verify the delta value obtained in the
previous slide.

By comparing the abnormal termination ratio for calls established in 3G and 2G

which were released in the 2G BSC
Total
2G 3G 2G+3G
Abnormal Call Release 16721 1613 18334

Normal Call Release 1963223 127588 2090811

Grand Total 1979944 129201 2109145

DCR Billing Records 0.84% 1.25% 0.87%

0.03 Contribution from 3G calls

Ericssonwide Internal 18 2008-09-17
Impact of 3G - Conclusions

! 6% of the traffic ending in the 2G BSC had the call

established in the 3G network
! 2G DCR for 3G established calls is 50% higher than for calls
established in the 2G network.
! Currently the 3G established calls contribute with only 0.03
percentage points to the non-adjusted 2G DCR of this
operator
! This contribution is increasing month by month

Ericssonwide Internal 19 2008-09-17

Impact of 3G - Recommendations

! The 2G DCR KPI formula has limitations.

! An evaluation of the 2G retainability KPI is recommended,

alternatives are:
– Adjusted DCR formula
! excluding the No. of successful IRAT hand-ins from the No. of
establishments
– Erlang Minutes Per Drop, (EMPD)
– Aggregate (2G + 3G) retainability KPI

Ericssonwide Internal 20 2008-09-17

 0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Earl's Court

Finchley Road

TubeNearby Yes
Shepherd's Bush

South Kensington

Sloane Square

Ladbroke Grove

Barons Court

Latimer Road

Edgware Road

West Brompton

Ericssonwide Internal
Fulham Broadway
Sum of Daily Drop Excess (No. of drops above 1%)

Stockwell

21
Paddington

Kensington (Olympia)

High Street Kensington

Lancaster Gate

Queen's Park

TUBE
Bayswater
Area level analysis

West Kensington

Maida Vale

Holland Park

Gloucester Road
Drops per Tube station area

Royal Oak

Knightsbridge

Notting Hill Gate

Queensway

Kilburn Park

Swiss Cottage

Parsons Green
2008-09-17

Warwick Avenue

Hyde Park Corner

Worst performers coincide with Underground tunnel entrances

Hammersmith

Baker Street

Marylebone
 Commuter drops
Finchley Road Hourly Performance
Most drops occur during the morning rush hour when the packed
commuter trains heading into London go into the tunnel.
Morning Wembley
Commuter Events
Carling Cup Final Traffic Commuters
(7-10AM)

FA Cup Semi-Final

Ericssonwide Internal 22 2008-09-17

 Drop Reasons – 2007 vs 2008
Feb 2007_Drops Feb 2008_Drops

DropSS
DropSS
DropsQual
DropsQual
DropsSudLoss
DropsSudLoss

41%
42% 43%
45%

Increase in quality drops

over a 1 year period
13% 16%

Feb 2007_Drops_Qual Feb 2008_Drops_Qual

5% 6%
DROP_TCH_UL_QUAL DROP_TCH_UL_QUAL
DROP_TCH_DL_QUAL DROP_TCH_DL_QUAL
DROP_TCH_BL_QUAL DROP_TCH_BL_QUAL

46% 35%

49% 59%

• 16% of drops attributable to Quality

• Drops due to quality up by 3% from previous year
• Uplink quality the greatest contributor - increased from 46% to 59%
Ericssonwide Internal 23 2008-09-17
Cell Level analysis

! BSC Cells assigned to two categories:

– Cells that experienced a visible step change

47 cells experienced a step change in drops
33 cells experienced a gradual increase in drops

– Historical worst performers, cells that have always had an

unusually high proportion of quality drops
153 cells have for the past year consistently had a poor drop rate

Ericssonwide Internal 24 2008-09-17

Cell level analysis - e.g insufficient
antenna downtilt
Cell covers about 5.5km
distance and TA confirms
that this cell even serves
traffic at that distance,
meaning that these mobiles
will transmit at max power
therefore contributing to the
interference level in that
distant area

Ericssonwide Internal 25 2008-09-17

Cell level analysis - e.g Unnecessary
Neighbour Relations

More then 60 neighbour

relations for 2G of which
more then 70% are outside
the desired equal power
boundary, leading to
excessive BA lists and
therefore delayed
handover, which increases
mobile output power
unnecessary thereby
causing more interference
for other mobiles

Ericssonwide Internal 26 2008-09-17

Top 10% of cells with the most distant
neighbour relations
These are only the neighbour relations in excess of 3km.
In reality more then 40% of 2g neighbour relations are further then 1km. If all
the necessary cells were down tilted then most of these 4000 excessive
relations would become unnecessary and interference and BA lists would be
dramatically reduced

Ericssonwide Internal 27 2008-09-17

No. of 2g neighbour definitions
The x-axis shows the number of neighbour definitions, while the y-axis shows
the number of cells. Almost 75% of GSM900 cells in our focus area have
>=30 GSM neighbours defined.

Ericssonwide Internal 28 2008-09-17

 Cell level analysis - e.g BCCH as the
interferer

The RED represents

G16271’s radiation at a
level better then -88dBm.
So G16271’s BCCH
“competes” with at least 6
other cells’ BCCH channels
to a level the downlink
equivalent of ICM Band 4

Ericssonwide Internal 29 2008-09-17

 Cell level Recommendations

! Down tilt high sites.

– use MRR data to support the downtilt recommendations.
! Confine high sites
– downtilt, gradually move on to the lower sites
! Increase area and frequency retune frequency
– be aware of retune border issues and traffic profile changes
! Remove unused neighbour relation
– using handover statistics, NCS and MRR
! Review Cell KPIs historically
! Address individual problem cells

Ericssonwide Internal 30 2008-09-17

Conclusions

! Regular configuration audits

– Quick wins! Even established operators have configuration and
parameter issues needing a fix
! Capture the right drop causes
– E.g. adjust LowSSDL and LowSSUL
! UL Quality drops allow quick wins
– can be tackled with features such as Interference Rejection Combining
! Regular large area retunes are recommended.
! Mobile traffic distribution is constantly changing.
– optimisation is a never ending job!
! Correct BSC Dimensioning
– Monitor and re-dimension TRH and Transcoder resources
! Adjust DCR KPI metric to include hand-in traffic from other technologies
! Use EMPD rather than DCR as a retainability PI

Ericssonwide Internal 31 2008-09-17

Reference Material

! Service delivery report for this service and the findings are available in
EriDoc:

http://anon.ericsson.se/eridoc/component/eriurl?docno=xxyUen&objectIdhttp://ano
n.ericsson.se/eridoc/component/eriurl?docno=ETL-
08:002074Uen&objectId=09004cff8280d236&action=current&format=pdf

Ericssonwide Internal 32 2008-09-17

Ericssonwide Internal 33 2008-09-17
Ericssonwide Internal 34 2008-09-17