DFCA spectral efficiency feature more

than doubled the BTS site capacity

to meet booming Indian demand

With a subscriber base growing by more that 3 million per month and a
restricted spectrum allocation, one GSM service provider in the Indian market
needed a cost-effective way to maintain its quality of service and accommodate
the growing subscriber base without resorting to a large-scale deployment of
new sites.

India’s booming telecoms market
was creating big challenges for one
of the country’s leading providers
of GSM services. With a limited
spectrum allocation of 4.4 MHz, the
communications service provider
(CSP) was finding it difficult to
accommodate its subscriber base,
which was growing by more than 3
million per month. In fact, the combined
effects of capacity and spectrum
constraints were starting to result in
declining quality of service (QoS).
The CSP was initially considering the
conventional approach of building new
capacity, which would have required a
large-scale deployment of macro and
micro sites, or a large-scale femtocell
deployment. However, Nokia Siemens
Networks stepped in with its unique
Dynamic Frequency and Channel
Allocation (DFCA) feature to boost the
capacity of the existing network and
meet the traffic challenge in the most
cost-effective way.
Increase capacity using
existing sites
DFCA is a unique software feature
that dynamically assigns an optimum
radio channel for every voice call and
thereby enhances the network capacity
and Quality of Service (QoS). It uses
a combination of software features to
increase the amount of traffic that can
be handled by existing network sites
and thus minimizes the number of
additional base stations required
to keep up with growing traffic. The
solution offered to the CSP included
Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) progressive
power control feature and STIRC
(Space Time Interference Rejection)
feature to minimize interference,
alongside the DFCA feature.
Two months of live network trials
demonstrated the benefits of the
Nokia Siemens Networks solution by
enhancing the traffic carrying capacity
of each network site by almost 50%,
up to 62 Erlangs. This was achieved by
implementing a 3/3/3 site configuration,
which uses three carriers per sector
and which would otherwise have been
impractical to deploy within the QoS
and spectrum limitations.
“A two-month trial convinced
us that Dynamic Frequency
and Channel Allocation
could dramatically increase
the capacity of our existing
network, and when the
system went live it delivered
an immediate improvement
in the quality of service to
our customers.”
A senior CSP manager.
 Subscribers benefit from
capacity and quality
The successful trial resulted in the
CSP’s decision to deploy the solution
across its network in tier-I and II
cities, and this resulted in a QoS
improvement of 65% as confirmed by
Challenges
• A booming market created a
rapidly expanding subscriber
base, growing by 3 million per
month, and the demand for
capacity was straining the
network
• With restricted spectrum
available, the demand for
capacity was starting to affect
QoS
Product code: C401-00669-R-201010-1-EN
Copyright 2010 Nokia Siemens Networks. All rights reserved.
Nokia Siemens Networks, Karaportti 3, FIN-02610 ESPOO, FINLAND
the network performance reports. The
CSP has not only met all QoS targets
set by India’s telecom regulator but
has also achieved a traffic-carrying
capacity of up to 90 Erlangs per site
which is more than double the initial
capacity of the sites.
Solutions
• DFCA is Nokia Siemens
Networks’ unique software
feature that can up to double
the traffic carrying capacity of
existing base station sites
• Nokia Siemens Networks
teamed this with other
software-based features
to optimize QoS
The boom in the Indian telecoms
market shows no sign of slowing, so
the CSP has since followed up this
initial success with an order for an
enhanced DFCA feature, with a view
to enabling 4/4/4 site configurations in
the future.
Benefits
• DFCA more than doubled the
traffic carrying ability of the
existing network BTS sites,
eliminating the need for a
wholesale deployment of new
sites
• Implementation improved
network quality by 65%
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