UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

UTRAN Recommendation
for
Christmas and New Years Eve for V2R10

2016-12-19

HUAWEI Confidential

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UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1

Introduction....................................................................................................3

Parameter Tuning Before Heavy Traffic......................................................3

2.1

RNC Overload Control....................................................................................

2.1.1

SPU Board CPU Load Sharing Function............................................................

2.1.2

Low Priority Tasks Flow Control.........................................................................

2.1.3

Flow Control Parameter Optimization.................................................................

2.1.4

N300 Parameter Value..........................................................................................

2.1.5

Periodic Location and Routing Update Timer....................................................

2.1.6

Sending Paging Message Using TMSI................................................................

2.1.7

Access Class Restriction.....................................................................................

2.1.8

CN Overload Control............................................................................................

Emergency Situation Solutions...................................................................9

3.1

Very High SPU Board Load and Few Users Can Make Calls........................

3.2

Low SPU Board Load, Very High RRC Connection Request Message
Number And Many Users Cant Make Calls...................................................

3.3

Iu Interface SAAL Link Congestion Alarm...................................................10

3.4

No Traffic In One SPU Board Or In One SPU Subsystem...........................10

3.5

Transmission Alarm on the Interface Board (FG2, GOU, UOI, AOU and
so on).............................................................................................................10

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UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

1 Introduction
The service traffic will increase a lot on Christmas and New Year's Day and if it exceeds the
RNC capability, there will be an overload alarm. Generally speaking, the overload in this
situation is not an accident because Huawei RNC has an automatic flow control mechanism to
reduce the RNC load which will guarantee the system reliability in the high traffic situation.
The most important thing is to ensure that the flow control algorithm is working properly before
the heavy traffic. Some parameters also can be tuned to reduce the traffic temporarily.

2 Parameter Tuning Before Heavy Traffic

2.1 RNC Overload Control
Currently, the SPU system is the bottleneck for RNC and usually its overload is due to traffic. If
the peak traffic exceeds the load threshold of SPU, the RNC will generate overload alarm. This
alarm threshold for SPU overload is different for the different service, and the RNC adopts flow
control automatically for them. With this flow control, low priority service is rejected firstly and
then higher priority service, so that the RNC can work normally during high traffic.
On Christmas and New Years Eve, the RNC is likely to be overloaded because of the suddenly
increased traffic for telephone congratulations and wishes. In this situation, the RNC will start
flow control for RRC Requests and it will also discard some low priority RRC messages
according to the SPU overload threshold.
When the flow control starts, the system load will be controlled automatically by the flow control
algorithm, so there is no need for the overload alarm to be handled manually. The important thing
is to monitor and deal with other unexpected alarms and KPI degradation of the system which
means to pay attention to the CS and PS traffic and find abnormal cells or NodeBs.
Following sections provide the recommended parameters setting during high traffic festival.
These setting should be rollback to current value after festival.
The current setting could backup by the related MML command:
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UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

EXP CFGMML:;

2.1.1 SPU Board CPU Load Sharing Function

The SPU board load sharing function implemented in RNC V18 and later software version can
distribute the traffic among all SPU boards in one RNC and avoid the overload of individual SPU
board. The load sharing function should be turned on through the related MML command:
SET RRCTRLSWITCH: PROCESSSWITCH=RNC_SHARE_SWITCH-1;

SET FCCPUTHD: BT=SPU, SPUSHAREOUTTHD=60, SPUSHAREINOFFSETTHD=5;

SET CTRLPLNSHAREPARA: CtrlPlnSharingOutThd=60, CtrlPlnSharingOutOffset=5;

2.1.2 Low Priority Tasks Flow Control

If the SPU board CPU is overloaded, the lower priority tasks such as log task, print task, trace
task, etc will be terminated firstly. The flow control switches of these tasks are switched on by
default and the related MML command is as follows:
SET

FCSW:

BT=SPU,

FCSW=ON,

PRINTSW=ON,

TRACESW=ON,

PMSW=ON,

RESAUDITSW=ON, PAGESW=ON, HANDOVERSW=ON, IURULSW=ON, IURDLSW=ON,

CBSSW=ON, LOGSW=ON, CELLURASW=ON, IUCTHD=70, ACSW=ON, IUFCSW=ON;
2.1.3 Flow Control Parameter Optimization
Some flow control thresholds for specific traffic types can be modified to optimize the network
performance for Christmas and New Years Day:
Description
SMS paging control threshold
SMS paging restore threshold
SS and LCS paging control
threshold
SS and LCS paging restore
threshold
Log control threshold
Log restore threshold
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ID

Default

Recommended

SMPAGECTHD
SMPAGERTHD
SLPAGECTHD

70%
60%
80%

85%
70%
70%

SLPAGERTHD

70%

60%

LOGCTHD
LOGRTHD

95%
85%

70%
60%

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Internal Use

Related MML command:

SET FCCPUTHD: BT=SPU, SMPAGECTHD=85, SMPAGERTHD=70, SLPAGECTHD=70,
SLPAGERTHD=60, LOGCTHD=70, LOGRTHD=60;
2.1.4 N300 Parameter Value
The N300 parameter is the maximum number of retransmission of RRC CONNECTION
REQUEST message (default value is 3). When the UMTS network becomes congested, the RRC
CONNECTION REQUEST messages will be rejected by the RNC and the UE will retransmit the
CONNECTION REQUEST message according to the N300 and T300 values. In this way there
will be useless requests generated in congestion situation and the SPU will still be consumed
because of the redundancy of the RRC request.
For the Christmas and New Years Day, the N300 value can be modified to 1, so that the RRC
CONNECTION REQUEST message will be retransmitted only one time which will decrease the
RRC signaling messages. After that the original value of N300 should be restored.
Related MML command:
SET IDLEMODETIMER: N300=1;
2.1.5 Periodic Location and Routing Update Timer
The T3212 parameter indicates the timer length of the periodical location update which is
implemented by the MS through the location update procedure. The current configuration in the
network is four hours (default configuration is one hour).
When there are a lot of subscribers on Christmas and New Years Day, we can increase the value
to 12 hours which can reduce the RRC signaling messages.
Related MML command:
MOD CNDOMAIN:CNDOMAINID=CS_DOMAIN, T3212=120;
The periodical route update timer in SGSN is also recommended to be set as 12 hours.
Please note that these parameters needs to be negotiated with CN and should be restored to their
original values after the Christmas and New Years Eve.
2.1.6 Sending Paging Message Using TMSI
The Core Network should send the paging request message to UTRAN using UE TMSI, not the
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IMSI which will reduce the congestion on the PCH channel.

2.1.7

Access Class Restriction

Access class restriction provides a solution to implement access flow control when the CPU
occupancy is high. It reduces the signaling overload (call attempts) to allow accessibility of
certain users on the network.
The RNC monitors the CPU occupancy of a SPU subsystem and if it is higher than the [AC
Control Threshold] the access restriction starts. The RNC handles the access restriction for all
cells under the CPU at an interval of [AC Restriction Interval of Cell]. If the CPU occupancy is
lower than the [AC Restore Threshold], the access restriction is stopped and all cellss restricted
access classes are set to not-barred. Ensure that the AC Restriction Switch is on.
The access class restriction is set by an [AC Restriction Percent] percentage of restriction from
10% to 100% with a step of 10%. At any time during an [AC Restriction Interval Length], only
[AC Restriction Percent] of ACs are restricted. In the next [AC Restriction Interval Length], the
barred ACs are unrestricted and another set of ACs are set to barred, and so on until the CPU
occupancy is normal.

Figure1-1 Access restriction mechanism for 10% access restriction

AC0 UEs
AC1 UEs
AC2 UEs
AC3 UEs
AC4 UEs
AC5 UEs
AC6 UEs
AC7 UEs
AC8 UEs

AC0 Restriction
AC1 Restriction
AC2 Restriction
AC3 Restriction

AC1 Restriction

AC4 Restriction
AC5 Restriction
AC6 Restriction
AC7 Restriction
AC8 Restriction
AC9 Restriction

AC9 UEs
Restriction interval

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AC0 Restriction

Time

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UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

Related MML command:

SET FCCPUTHD: BT=SPU, ACCTHD=80, ACRTHD=70;
SET

ACALGO:

AcRstrctSwitch=ON,

AcRstrctPercent=1,

AcIntervalOfCell=10,

AcRstrctIntervalLen=50;

The access class restriction performance is related to the AC distribution in HLR for all the
subscribers, so we dont recommend using this method without the subscriber AC information.
2.1.8 CN Overload Control
When the RNC receives an OVERLOAD Message from CN, it will reduce the traffic class step
by step and if no OVERLOAD message is received for a certain period of time, it will restore the
traffic class step by step. Every traffic class has its corresponding discarded probability and the
RNC will discard the Initial UE Message to decrease the CN overload.
Related MML command:
SET IUTIMERANDNUM: CnOpIndex=XXX, CNId=XXX, IgorTmr=5000, IntrTmr=100000;

3 Emergency Situation Solutions

Below you can find some possible solutions for scenarios where the RNC is abnormal.
3.1 Very High SPU Board Load and Few Users Can Make Calls
Monitor:
Monitor the CPU occupancy factor of the SPU board, the RAB setup success rate on Iu interface
and the alarm window. If the Call RRC Connection Control alarm has appeared on the alarm
window, this indicates that the CPU occupancy has exceeded 95%.
Use the MML command DSP USERNUM to check the user number in the subrack. If the user
number and Erlang values are decreased, this denotes that there is some problem with the RAB
setup procedure.
Operation:
Contact the CN maintenance engineers to check the cause for the abnormal Iu interface. The
RNC can also gradually block some NodeBs to drive some users to 2G to relieve the congestion
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UTRAN Recommendation for Christmas and

New Years Eve

Internal Use

over the Iu interface.

3.2 Low SPU Board Load, Very High RRC Connection Request Message Number And
Many Users Cant Make Calls.
Monitor:
The RRC connection setup KPI is decreased but the CPU occupation of the SPU boards is not
very high. We can analyze the KPI according to the subrack. If most of the RRC connection
setup failures occur in one subrack, this probably means that there is an abnormal cell which
performs a lot of unsuccessful RRC connection attempts.
Operation:
Check the RRC connection setup KPI and find the cell which has very low RRC connection
setup success rate and very high number of RRC connection requests. Find the corresponding
NodeB in which the cell is and reset it.
3.3 Iu Interface SAAL Link Congestion Alarm
Monitor:
If there is congestion alarm for the Iu interface SAAL link in the alarm window, this means that
many signaling messages of the Iu interface are discarded so we need to relieve the SAAL link
from the congestion.
Operation:
Gradually block some NodeBs in the RNC to push some users to 2G to relieve the Iu interface
congestion.
3.4 No Traffic In One SPU Board Or In One SPU Subsystem
Monitor:
If there are a lot of IPC Interrupted alarms in the alarm window and in the alarms the
destination board is the same SPU board, this probably means that there is something wrong with
this SPU board. Trace the Iu and Uu interfaces to check whether this SPU board is abnormal.
Operation:
Pull out the SPU board and pull in the board again.

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New Years Eve

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3.5 Transmission Alarm on the Interface Board (FG2, GOU, UOI, AOU and so on)
Monitor:
Monitoring the Alarm window, if transmission alarm raises then start the trace in the standard
interface, if there is no traffic, there will be some problem.
Operation:
Swap the board or the port and contact the maintenance engineer of transmission.

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