06.

April 2006

HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT
LOW THROUGHPUT

www.huawei.com

BY IYAMABO PHILIP, RNP/RNO ENGINEER

14TH FEBRUARY 2011

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.

1
Part 1 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHPUT

Part 2 HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT

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FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT

• VSWR
• RTWP
• CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE
• HARQ/ARQ ENABLED
• MIMO ENABLED
• QOS SETTING
• FREQUENCY RESOURCES AND NETWORK MODE USED
• TOO MANY ONLINE USERS
• UNSYNCHRONIZED GPS CLOCK

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 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT

VSWR
VSWR occurs when there is mismatched impedance (resistance to current flow
measured in Ohms) between devices in an RF system. VSWR is caused by an RF signal
reflected at a point of impedance mismatch in the signal path. VSWR causes return loss,
which is defined as the loss of forward energy through a system due to some of the power
being reflected back towards the transmitter. If the impedances of the ends of a
connection do not match, then the maximum amount of the transmitted power will not be
received at the antenna. When part of the RF signal is reflected back toward the
transmitter, the signal level on the line varies instead of being steady. This variance is an
indicator of VSWR.

RTWP
Received Total Wideband Power (RTWP) is the total bandwidth power that is received by the BS, including noises,
interferences, and valid power. This counter can be used to detect the reverse receive status of the channel. The total
power of all bands is measured. When there is no UL subscriber, you can use this counter to check whether interference
exists

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 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT

VSWR SCENARIO

A user complained that the service in the house was

unstable and the download speed is low. The user was
connected to BTS C sector 1, at first the problem
appears to be caused by interference from BTS B
sector 1 since they are both on the same frequency and
bearing, but on further troubleshooting it was
discovered that the real cause of the problem was from
BTS A sector 1, which had high fluctuating VSWR on 2
of its channels which caused the unstable service and
slow download speed.

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 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT

HARQ/ARQ ENABLED
Used to ensure reliable transmission in communication systems through feedback mechanism and limited
Retransmission. HARQ is an error control tech used together with FEC and ARQ to improve communication
reliability. The use of HARQ improves system performance and makes it possible to adjust coding rates
flexibility. On the physical layer HARQ relies on FEC to suppress adverse effects of channel loss caused by
noise, natural and man made interference and fading, HARQ guarantees reliability in data transmission
through requested retransmission mechanism, the FEC tries its best to correct as many errors hence the
receiver only requires data that cannot be corrected to be retransmitted which also reduces the impact of
ARQ.

Adopt the HARQ mixed automatic re-send technology to reduce the

resend time, related to ARQ increases the cell throughput

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FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT

MIMO
Exploit multiple antennas at both the transmitter
and receiver to send and receive multiple parallel
data streams.
• Dramatic reduction of fade due to
MIMO A diversity.
• Significant increase in system capacity
due to spatial multiplexing.
• Improve resistance to interference.
• Improves coverage.

MIMO B

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 MIMO A Vs MIMO B

The spectral efficiency of MIMO A is less than that of MIMO B and

requires less link quality hence enhancing the coverage, while MIMO B
requires good link quality, used for users near the site.

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FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT
QOS

QOS determines the single user throughput

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 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHTPUT
FREQUENCY RESOURCES AND NETWORK MODE
The system bandwidth directly affect the system capacity. If the bandwidth increases, so
does the system capacity.
Fixed parameters:
• DL-FUSC: The number of sub-channels is 16. Each slot has 1 sub-channel X 1 symbol.
• DL-PUSC: The number of sub-channels is 30. Each slot has 1 sub-channel X 2 symbols.
• UL-PUSC: The number of sub-channels is 35. Each slot has 1 sub-channel X 3 symbols.
Assumption condition:
• Assign 32 characters for downlink, assign 15 characters for uplink. The TDD scale time is DL:UL =
32:15.
• The downlink modulation mode is 64QAM, and the coding mode is 5/6. Uplink modulation mode is
16QAM, and the coding mode is 3/4.
• The channel bandwidth is 10MHz.
DL-FUSC throughput = 16 (number of sub-channels) X 48 (data sub-carriers) X 32 (number of symbols) X 6
(64QAM) X (5/6) (coding mode)/5(duration of each frame) = 24576000bps, namely 24.576Mbps
UL-PUSC throughput = 35 (number of sub-channels) X 16 (data sub-carriers) X 15 (number of symbols) X 4
(16QAM) X (3/4) (coding mode)/5(duration of each frame) = 5040000bps, namely 5.04Mbps
DL-PUSC throughput = 30 (number of sub-channels) X 24 (data sub-carriers) X 32 (number of symbols)
X 6 (64QAM) X (5/6) (coding mode)/5 (duration of each frame) = 23040000bps, namely 23.04Mbps
UL-PUSC throughput = 35 (number of sub-channels) X 16 (data sub-carriers) X 15 (number of symbols)
X 4 (16QAM) X (3/4) (coding mode)/5 (duration of each frame) = 5040000bps, namely 5.04Mbps

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Part 1 FACTORS THAT AFFECT THROUGHPUT

Part 2 HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT

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 HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT OF A SUBSCRIBER
STEP 1
Check the physical layer status of the subscriber by using the command “cmd showssphy”
on the user maintenance interface on 192.168.1.1 the result is shown below

IF THE MAC ADDRESS OF THE

SUBSCRIBER IS AVAILABLE M2000 CAN BE
USED TO TRACE THE SUBSCRIBER.

STEP 2
Check the modulation and coding using “cmd showss”
command

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HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT OF A SUBSCRIBER

STEP 3
Check for error packets using the command “showpacketflow”

STEP 4
Check if MIMO has been enabled using
“showsscaps”

Total SDU transmitted SDU with errors

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HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT OF A SUBSCRIBER
STEP 5 STEP 6
Check if HARQ/ARQ is enabled using cmd showsf 1
Check the MIMO mode using “cmd mss”

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HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT OF A SUBSCRIBER
If all terminal parameters are ok, then the problem could be an equipment
problem or wrong BS configuration.

STEP 7
Check the VSWR of the sector the terminal is connected to
using the command GET RRU VSWR from MML on M2000.
Normal value for VSWR is less than 14

STEP 8
Check the RTWP of the sector the terminal is connected to
using the command GET RRU RTWP from MML on M2000.
Normal range for RTWP is between 90dBm and 115dBm

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HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT LOW THROUGHPUT OF A SUBSCRIBER

STEP 9
Check the status of the GPS clock of the serving and neighbor BS using
the command “ DSP CLKSTAT “ from MML on M2000.

The PLL status should be on LOCKED and the current clock

source status should be on NORMAL

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 SUMMARY

This slide is a summary of the basic steps used to troubleshoot

low throughput experienced by subscribers

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Thank You
www.huawei.com

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