FIG 3 Birth death fading, 3GPP-specified for mobile conformance tests,
generated by the Signal Generator R&S SMIQ and measured with the R&S PN scanner. Two pseudo-randomly selected paths out of a total of 11 are active with the same signal power on an alternating basis.
TDMA, calls for careful analysis of the
multipath propagation when setting up and optimizing UMTS networks.
PN scanners help with
problems in UMTS networks Pseudo random noise code scanners (PN scanners) are used to closely analyze the reception conditions in a 3GPP network. By means of the measured data, network operators can quickly detect errors in planning and setup, eliminate them and also refine their planning tools. Pilot pollution can be caused by a number of factors, e.g. uneven terrain, bridges and overpasses that are covered by too many transmitter stations at the same time and on the same RF channel (FIG 2). Despite high field strength, connection is poor because of the co-channel interference. In these situations, UMTS is more tolerant than GSM interference does not lead to disconnection, only to a reduced data rate. This, however, causes additional load on the radio channel. To maintain the required minimum transmission rate, transmit power is increased and handovers are made to the base stations with the best reception in this area. Since the desired characteristic, best server, is only of short duration with pilot pollution, handovers that tie up further precious channel resources occur frequently. By adjusting cell size parameters or aligning a few antennas, pilot pollution can often be eliminated by means of the measurement data from PN scanners, thus enabling better use of the precious frequency band and increasing the average data rate. Quick fading and multipath propagation are similar sources of interference FIG 1 The high-precision PN Scanner R&S TS5K51C (here: laptop version) sets new standards for analyzing UMTS spurious signals. News from Rohde&Schwarz Number 176 (2002/ IV)
for UMTS connections (FIG 3). In these
cases, too, the incoming RF power at the mobile phone is at first sufficient. It is, however, partitioned into different paths which, depending on the quality of the mobile phone, provide a greater or lesser
number of signal components for transmission.
In the case of different signal delays, the orthogonality of all codes transmitted by a base station fades. This causes all signals sent by the server station, and in particular the signals of other subscribers, to strongly interfere with mobiles that have multipath reception.
PN scanners are superior
to UMTS test mobiles Network operators face the challenge of making full use of the improved features of mobile radio coverage provided by UMTS technology. As with GSM networks, test mobiles are utilized with UMTS to determine the coverage quality. However, they cannot adequately determine the causes for poor quality. PN scanners are far better suited for these tasks, because they have superior characteristics compared to a terminal and can keep track of the overall situation, especially in difficult areas. In contrast to UMTS mobile phones that process only a few signals from the strongest paths of one or two base stations simultaneously, PN scanners must be able to measure the pilot carriers of any number of base stations in as many paths as possible so that interference such as pilot pollution, multipath propagation and fading can be reliably detected. This capability is provided in News from