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WCDMA RAN
RECOMMENDATION
Disclaimer
The contents of this document are subject to revision without notice due to
continued progress in methodology, design and manufacturing. Ericsson shall
have no liability for any error or damage of any kind resulting from the use
of this document.
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Purpose and Scope 1
1.2 Target Groups 1
2 Flow of Users 3
3 Dimensioning 5
3.1 Introduction 5
3.2 CPICH Planning 5
3.3 Carrier Planning 6
3.4 Receiver Diversity 6
3.5 Dimensioning EUL and HS User Licenses 9
3.6 UL Baseband Capacity 10
3.7 DL Baseband Capacity 13
3.8 Dimensioning of EUL Control Channels 18
Reference List 87
1 Introduction
2 Flow of Users
When a user accesses the WCDMA RAN the operator wants to provide the
best service possible. Once the user has been granted access to DCH state the
user should get the service that it requires, a speech service or a data service
with throughput sufficient for a good user experience.
For each user that access the network signaling resources are reserved. The
remaining resources can be used for user data transfer of either speech frames
or data frames. In the case where there are equal number of users entering
and leaving the system the flow of users is steady. This means that the users
can easily flow through the system.
As more users are admitted into the system the amount of signaling resources
needed increases and the available headroom for user data transfer reduces,
see Figure 1. If too many users are admitted the available headroom for user
data transfer becomes too small to cater to all users’ need and the system end
up stalling. The users are not able to finish their activity and start experiencing
no or low throughput.
System stable, steady flow of users System overloaded, fewer users/second served
Overhead cost
Payload Payload
U0001063C
The point when this happens depends on network configuration and traffic
behavior.
In order to avoid a stalling system and ensure a steady flow of users there are
guiding principles to follow that focus on three areas:
• Dimensioning
• Arrival Rate
• Departure Rate
Dimensioning
- CPICH and Carrier Planning
- HW Capacity
- HS and EUL User Licenses
- EUL Control Channel
Departure rate
Controlling Arrival rate - Maximize Network Efficiency
Arrival rate
- Admission control Arrival Departure - Reduce Overhead
- Efficient State Transition - Secure Headroom for HSPA
- Control Interference
U0001352A
Dimensioning considers how to get the most out of each installed site in terms
of CE and EUL/HS licenses, CPICH and carrier planning.
Arrival rate considers how many users to grant access in order to provide the
already admitted users with enough capacity for their needs. This is done by
applying admission rules where PS accesses are delayed if the admission
thresholds are reached and provide efficient state transitions. Speech user
access is prioritized compared to PS user access.
Departure rate considers how to give the admitted users the resources
they need by reducing overhead, control uplink interference, enable carrier
capabilities to promote high throughput and secure headroom for HSPA.
To ensure a good flow of users, where users access the network, get their
service and leave the network fast, a number of feature combinations and
parameters have been identified. Maximizing the departure rate described in
Section 5 on page 37 is the proposed area to start with however many features
and parameter settings described in this document are dependent on each
other. Therefore, it is advisable to implement all recommendations since they
are dependent on each other in many cases.
3 Dimensioning
3.1 Introduction
A well dimensioned radio network is the foundation in order to provide excellent
end-user experience to users in a WCDMA network. The number of sites and
their locations play a significant role in the radio network performance.
This section focuses on the next level of dimensioning where getting the most
out of each installed site is the major goal. Network expansion by adding more
sites or carriers is not further discussed in this document.
A high ratio between CPICH and maximum output power (>16%) reduces the
available DL power for Speech, F-DPCH, A-DCH, HS, PS R99 and so reduces
the capacity of the cell. A low ratio (<5%) may result in performance issues
such as
The recommended ratio between CPICH and maximum output power is 8-10%.
For example, a 20 W (43 dBm) output power would result in a 2 W CPICH (33
dBm). The ratio must be calculated in Watt. If the CPICH and output power are
given in dBm they both need to be converted to Watt.
CPICH W [ ] = 10
((( CPICH dBm 0
[ ]) 30) = 10)
It is important to equally distribute all traffic and services among the carriers
in the sector to get the most efficient network. It is always the preferred to
co-site cells in different frequency bands in the same sector, for example
WCDMA2100 and WCDMA900.
This document focuses on how to be most efficient within each WCDMA carrier
with the focus on flow of users. More details on carrier strategies and feature
and parameter recommendations for equal load sharing between WCDMA
carriers are found in Reference [2].
Unbalanced Feeders
10-1
no attentuation
10-3
Relative EbN0 [dB]
U0001075B
Figure 3 Link Simulation Results for AMR 12.2 with Different Degree of
Feeder Loss
The Find Faulty Antenna Data feature, FAJ 121 1352, can be used to find
imbalances between RX branches. The data is collected from the antenna
receive branches in Node B, and is processed in OSS-RC, thereby enabling the
system to identify poor performing antenna installations as well as providing
an indication of the type of fault. This feature needs the OSS-RC Find Faulty
Antenna Expert for WCDMA, FAJ 121 1285 feature.
The feature 4-way Receiver diversity FAJ 121 1351, increases the coverage
and air interface capacity by supporting up to four receiver antennas in the
RBS. This increases the coverage for both common and dedicated channels.
Figure 4 compares drive test measurements with 2-way and 4-way Rx Diversity,
using AIR21. The results show an improvement in terms of coverage and
throughput, when using 4-way Rx Diversity.
5000
4-Way RxDiv
2-Way RxDiv
4000
UL Throughput [kbps]
3000
2000
1000
0
-135 -130 -125 -120 -115 -110 -105 -100 -95 -90 -85 -80
RSCP [dBm]
U0001165B
-103.5
-104
UL RSSI [dBm]
-104.5
-105
-105.5
~10%
-106
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Number of EUL users
ULCOMP_OFF
ULCOMP_ON
Linear (ULCOMP_OFF)
Linear (ULCOMP_ON)
U0001346A
The typical peak to average ratio is 2 for HS users. Therefore, the number of
HSPA user licenses should be set to 2 times the average number of HS users
in the system, measured based on 15 min ROP periods. In certain situations,
for example in subway, the peak to average is significantly higher. Here the
number of HSPA user licenses should be set to a factor of 4 times the average
HS users.
Figure 6 shows an example of peak to average ratio for EUL users measured
in a live network.
50
40
Subway
3-4x average traffic
Peak served EUL users
30
20
Small macro
1.8x average traffic
10
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Average served EUL users - counter
U0001164B
The average peak number of HS and EUL users can be evaluated with GPEH
events, using for example event INTERNAL_SYSTEM_UTILIZATION sampled
every 2 s.
Table 4 lists the features that are recommended to achieve the lowest possible
UL CE cost for EUL users. With this set of features the UL CE cost for a 2 ms
TTI EUL user or a 10 ms TTI EUL user is equal to 1. This is same UL CE cost
as for a speech user.
• pmNoFailedRabEstAttemptLackUlHw, pmNoFailedRabEstAttempt
LackUlHwBest, rbsSoftCongUlHw
• pmCapacityAllocRejUlCe
Live measurements with the feature Channel Element Capacity for EUL
Smartphones show a reduction of up to 60% in terms of static UL CEs for the
same EUL traffic, for example 30 Erl, see Figure 7. With significant reduction
in static UL CEs for EUL, more dynamic UL CEs are available for example to
allow higher EUL rates. Increasing the number of EUL 2 ms users from 4 to 16
(blue and red curves) in a site with 3x2 configuration, an improvement can be
seen in terms of the static UL CEs.
300
Avg Static Hw CE Pool Eul [CEs]
250
OFF
200
150
ON
-60%
100
ON
50
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70
Figure 7 Relation Between Static CEs Used for EUL and EUL Traffic in
Terms of Erlang.
In the case where more than two cells are allocated to the same HS processing
resource the feature Increased HSDPA Code Capacity on DUW FAJ 121 2870,
is needed, see Reference [24]. It increases the number of codes supported by
one HS processing resource from 30 to 60 codes.
13,5
Feature ON Feature ON
13,0
12,5
Number of HS Codes available
12,0
11,5
11,0
10,5
10,0
9,5
9,0
Feature OFF
8,5
8,0
06:00
06:30
07:00
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18:30
U0001094C
18
Feature ON Feature OFF
16
14
12
Throughput [Mbps]
10
8
Average speed Average speed
6
13,4 Mbps 9.23 Mbps
4
0
U0001095A
• HS Throughput
Primary DUW
HS1 HS4
HS2 HS5
HS3 HS6
U0001345B
Dynamic Power Sharing FAJ 121 3698. The power sharing cells need to be
handled by the same HS processing resource.
The number of needed EUL control channels, E-AGCH, E-HICH and E-RGCH,
depends on the following:
• Number of EUL users in the cell and share of EUL 2 ms and EUL 10 ms
users
where:
Figure 11 shows an example of code tree consumption for 96 EUL users using
where code multiplexing for HSDPA is used:
SF=16
SF=32
FACH
SF=64
PCH 3 * HS-SCCH
SF=128
SF=256
CPICH BCH AICH PICH
SF=16
SF=32
SF=64
4 * E-HICH/E-RGCH
SF=128
SF=256
4 * E-AGCH
U0001078B
4.1 Introduction
It is not always possible to prevent overload by adding new resources. When
one or more resource is scarce there must be functions to prioritize some
users and delaying access for others in order to offer enough quality for those
already in the system.
• The highest allowed R99 PS single RAB is 16 kbps, uplink and downlink.
The number is limited to 10 users.
• The highest allowed R99 PS Multi RAB is 64 kbps, uplink and downlink.
The reason is to support old UE models not capable of EUL/HS Multi RABs.
The number is limited to 10 users.
• Set the admission levels per cell to 10 to limit the number of 16 kbps users
(sf64AdmUl and sf128Adm).
• Set the admission levels per cell to 10 to limit the number of 64 kbps
(sf16AdmUl and sf32Adm).
• Enabling feature Flexible Initial Rate Selection PS Interactive FAJ 121 977,
and set the parameters rateSelectionPsInteractive.ulPrefRate
and rateSelectionPsInteractive.dlPrefRate to 16. This is
required in order to allow R99 PS to start on 16 kbps meaning allow it to
start at all.
• Enabling feature Dynamic PS I/B RAB Establishment FAJ 121 845, DRE. In
case there is a lack of resources that stops the PS establishment on for
example EUL/HS, a user accessing from Idle is allowed to fall back on
FACH. If DRE feature is not enabled, the fallback is directed to DCH/HS or
DCH/DCH.
It is very important that an HSDPA user is not denied EUL due to admission or
a license limitation. Spill over to 16/HS cost more UL resources than EUL/HS
and therefore, the admission limit for number of EUL users should be equal
to the admission limit of HS users. Also, there is no need for HS and EUL
admission limits to be lower than the licensed limits. Note that the feature
HSDPA MC inter DU joint scheduling FAJ 121 2709, may be necessary in
order to allow many HS users.
The licenses and admission levels are controlled by the following parameters:
To see if the maximum number of HSPA users has reached its limit, specific
PM counters can be used, pmNoOfNonHoReqDeniedHs for HS users and
pmNoOfNonHoReqDeniedEul for EUL users. This can be the trigger to
increase the license and admission level of HS and EUL Users.
Soft
Comm.
HS-ADCH, Speech, SRB Cong. HS data
Ch
Soft HO
sf16 codes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
U0001347A
sf16 codes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
U0001348A
Figure 13 Reserving More Codes for Soft Congestion and Less for HS Data.
Note: Keeping the absolute value of the code admission threshold requires
changing the relative value in % (dlCodeAdm) in case the number of
reserved HS codes is changed.
• Accessibility KPIs ( Reference [5]) when DL codes are the limiting factor
(using pmNoFailedRabEstAttemptLackDlChnlCode.
• DL Codes use by Speech and PS R99 (or code tree use) - pmSumDlCode/
pmSamplesDlCode,
For example, speech and SRB requires one channel element in UL and in DL.
An admission threshold of 95% on a low capacity node with 64 CE allows 3
CE as a soft handover and softcongestion margin that can be used for speech
users, SRBs or A-DCH. To maintain the margin with 32 CE, a 90% admission
threshold will be required to offer the same margin. A typical DUW offers 2-3
times more, depending on number of cells and how evenly they share the load.
There are features that can be used to regulate signaling load towards the
RAN or the Core Network (CN) nodes, or both. These features could be very
useful in highly loaded scenarios.
When there is extreme RRC load, due to for instance weather disaster or arena
event, it is beneficial to prevent some UEs from sending anything at all, not
even RACH preambles. PS attempts from Idle can be barred temporarily in a
rotational scheme by the feature Automatic-triggered Access Class Barring
on Cell Level FAJ 121 3946.
More details regarding those two features can be found in Reference [10].
With users on URA_PCH instead of Idle mode comes faster setup times and
lower signaling load both in radio and core network. This results in less RNC
processor load and less required SGSN capacity. With more users being
connected in URA state instead of being in Idle mode, it may be required to
increase the parameters maxConn in the RNC and numberofConnections
in the SGSN. Also, to ensure that the paging and location update signalling
overhead is under control it is important to reevaluate LA, RA and URA area
sizes and related parameters. See Reference [11] for more information.
The following features are recommended in order to take advantage of state
URA_PCH.
There are two parameters to consider when deploying URA. Those are
described in Table 21.
The total load on CELL_FACH, consisting of the load on FACH1 (used for
signaling) and FACH2 (used for user plane data) should be reduced. FACH1
always has priority over FACH2. So, it is important to start by evaluating the
FACH1 load.
• Decrease the upswitch thresholds to reduce total FACH load (FACH1 and
FACH2). If the RLC buffer sizes are too high for UL and DL, the users stay
in CELL_FACH instead of doing upswitch to CELL_DCH. It is recommended
to set ulRlcBufUpswitch to 256 and dlRlcBufUpswitch to 500
• Make sure that the FACH load per carrier is evenly distributed between
cells in the same sector. If not, the HSDPA Load Sharing distribution is not
synced with the idle/FACH/URA Cell Reselection parameters. If they are
not working together in distributing the load, the result is unnecessary high
FACH load on some carriers. To evaluate the Cell Re-selection, check
UtranRelation.qOffset, UtranCell.fachMeasOccaCycLenCoeff
and UtranCell.sInterSearch settings. For further information, see
Reference [2].
For certain cells that have substantial FACH load it is possible to adjust channel
switch timers per cell. That requires the feature Inactivity Timers on Cell Level,
FAJ 121 2134.
• RACH NACK Ratio should not be higher than 1%, see Equation 3
• UL RSSI
(pmNegativeMessages)
RachUNegativeAich = 100 3 (pmNegativeMessages + pmPositiveMessages)
Equation 3 RACH NACK Ratio
5.1 Introduction
It is important that the users which have already been granted access in the
system are served as fast as possible. This can be achieved by utilizing the
full potential of the network when it comes to carrier capabilities, by securing
the HSPA headroom, by maintaining control of uplink interference, by keeping
the use of PS R99 at a minimum and by reducing overhead with both Ericsson
unique functions and standardized improvements from 3GPP. It is also
recommended to reduce the number of unnecessary transitions to GSM to a
minimum in order for the users to stay on the best available technology as
much as possible. See Reference [14] and Reference [2].
Figure 14 shows how the increase of the number of EUL users is related with
the MHT. By allowing more EUL users, the MHT reduced up to 50%. This
results in a more efficient use of the existing resources and a better end user
experience. In other words, it is much more efficient to transfer data using
EUL instead of PS R99 in UL.
60
40 30
30
25
20
20
10
EUL/HS users per cell
0 15
22-Oct 29-Oct 05-Nov 12-Nov 19-Nov 26-Nov 03-Dec
U0001166B
In order to improve EUL drop rate, there is a need to improve EUL coverage at
cell edge. This is done using:
• Improved EUL Cell Edge Coverage FAJ 121 1376: Improves coverage for
EUL 2 ms TTI and 10 ms TTI. Changes the ratio between power allocated
to data versus control channels when the UE is at cell edge.
Figure 15 shows results from lab measurements when using the coverage
improvement features. From those results, when only EUL 2 ms TTI users are
used and feature Improved EUL Cell Edge Coverage is active FAJ 121 1376, a
coverage gain around 3-4 dB in UL is observed. When only EUL 10 ms was
active (blue line), an additional gain is observed with feature FAJ 121 2636,
Improved EUL 10 ms TTI Coverage (compared to red line) around 6-7 dB.
32
Potencial coverage
UL Throughput [kbps]
16
improvement (only
EUL 10ms)
Only EUL ~6-7 dB
8
2ms users
1
135 137 139 141 143 145 147 149 151 153 155
Pathloss [dB]
Lab measurements, Pedestrian A channel model
U0001167B
Field trials have shown that enabling the feature gives an improvement on
the HS drop rate.
400
350
300
Erlang [Erl]
250
200
150
100
50
0
7:00
8:00
9:00
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Conv CS Speech 12.2 + Interact, PS (EUL/HS)
Conv CS Speech 12.2 + Interact, PS (64/HS)
Conv CS Speech 12.2 + Interact, PS (16/HS)
U0001288A
It is important to enable the feature Speech and 0 kbps Packet Data Rate
FAJ 121 754, and AMR WB Speech and PS Interactive RAB combination
FAJ 121 1060, to allow a more efficient use of the radio resources for Speech
and Packet data Radio Access Bearer (RAB) combination.
With URA_PCH activated, packet users stay in the URA_PCH state after
they become inactive. If a speech call is initiated by users in URA_PCH or
CELL_FACH, it is more efficient in terms of radio resources, to establish a
Speech + 0/0 kbps rate instead of Speech + EUL/HS. Speech and Speech +
0/0 kbps uses the same amount of radio resources. In high loaded scenarios,
when a speech call is initiated when a user is in URA_PCH and CELL_FACH,
this reduces the risk of blocking a speech call.
The more power that can be used for HSDPA transmissions the higher data
rate and cell throughput can be achieved. The feature HSDPA Dynamic Power
Sharing (DPS) FAJ 121 3698, is recommended because it allows the unused
power available for HSDPA transmissions to be pooled across carriers at each
2 ms Transmission Time Interval (TTI). This means that the available unused
power in one carrier can be allocated to other carrier(s) that have HSDPA
data to be transmitted.
Unused
HSDPA
Sectort 1 Sectort 2 power Sectort 3
PCell
DPS = OFF
C1 C2 C3 C4 C1 C2 C3 C4 C1 C2 C3 C4
Additional
Sectort 1 Sectort 2 HSDPA Sectort 3
power
PCell
DPS = ON
C1 C2 C3 C4 C1 C2 C3 C4 C1 C2 C3 C4
U0001349A
HSDPA Dynamic Power Sharing reduces the risk of power resource shortage
per TTI for HS users in the cells. Live tests show that when power resource
shortage decreases with the use of DPS, it has a general positive effect on
other resource shortages as well, for example codes. The total reduction of
resource shortages is larger than the power resource shortage alone.
Figure 18 shows results from live network, in 3x4 sites, with and without
Dynamic Power Sharing active. An improvement between 8 and 25% in terms
of DL throughput was observed. This means a better end user experience.
The gain of this feature is larger when the percentage of TTI's limited by the
available HSDPA power is large.
4000
HSDPA Cell Throughput [kbps]
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
Tues 00:00
Tues 04:00
Tues 08:00
Tues 12:00
Tues 16:00
Tues 20:00
Wed 00:00
Wed 04:00
Wed 08:00
Wed 12:00
Wed 16:00
Wed 20:00
Thur 00:00
Thur 06:00
Thur 10:00
Thur 14:00
Thur 18:00
Thur 22:00
Fri 02:00
Fri 06:00
Fri 10:00
Fri 14:00
Fri 18:00
Fri 22:00
DPS OFF
DPS ON
U0001169A
With HSDPA Dynamic Power Sharing, the carriers that use extra available
power for HS transmissions will during those TTI’s experience lower CPICH
Ec/No in the serving cell compared to not using DPS.
• HS Throughput
5.2.3 Multi-Carrier
Multi-carrier enables simultaneous DL HS DSCH transmission to a UE from
two cells. Thus a UE in Multi-Carrier mode can double the throughput. This
reduces the time users receive their data, reducing the MHT and improving flow
of users. Multi-Carrier also offers instant load sharing between carriers.
Figure 19 compares web download time for different websites with and without
DACC feature. A reduction of the web download time up to 70% for the DACC
capable UEs was observed.
Gain %
20
50%
58%
30%
15 42% 40%
36%
42% 30%
10
32%
20%
5
10%
0 0%
Aftonbladet.se CNN E/// focus.de Google News mfocus.de Nytimes.com swisscom.ch WSJ
U0001168B
Figure 19 Web Download Time for Different Websites With and Without DACC
• In average there was 15-30% data compression for the DACC users
combined traffic.
• In total traffic over the air, about 3% less data was transmitted in UL when
DACC feature was active.
The Data Compression gain for DACC users can be calculated by:
pmSumEulRlcUserPktThpDacc + pmSumDchRlcUserPktThpDacc)
DaccCompressionGain = 1 0 ((pmSumEulUserPktThpDaccDec + pmSumDchUserPktThpDaccDec)
Equation 6 DACC Compression Gain
In low FACH load the radio link is typically held for 1.5 s in average. At high
FACH load it is higher. With this feature, the radio link is deleted when UE
leaves CELL_DCH and the holding time of the radio link is typically reduced to
0.1 s using SRB on HS (0.4 s using SRB on DCH). When traffic is bursty, the
savings in DL power, codes, UL/DL channel elements and number of EUL/HS
users is considerable. Figure 20 is an example from a live network where RL
admin reject decreased 50%.
60000 3500
3000
# Admission Rejects
# Admission Rejects
50000
2500
40000
2000
30000
1500
20000
1000
10000 5000
0 0
RAB_LackUIHw
RRCRAB_AdmRej
RL_AdmRej
PsRRC_AdmRej
RRC_AdmRej
RRC_LackHw
EUL_AdmRej
HS_AdmRej
PSInter_AdmRej
Speech_AdmRej
CSRRC_AdmRej
RRC_LackDIChnlCode
RRC_LackDIHw
RRC_LackUIHw
RRC_LackDIPwr
RAB_LackDIPwr
U0001318A
With more users supporting Fractional DPCH (F-DPCH) and with the feature
Fractional DPCH FAJ 121 1481 and SRB on HSDPA FAJ 121 1320 active,
a reduction of DL code and non-HS power usage is expected, resulting in
increased available HS power and HS throughput. DL codes are saved since
up to 10 separate SRB on HSDPA connections can be mapped into one single
SF256 code in DL, instead of using one separate SF256 code in DL for each
one of the 10 A-DCH connections. DL power is saved since no dedicated pilot
bits are sent with F-DPCH.
Live measurements using parameters in Table 30, with 50% of F-DPCH capable
UEs, shows improvements of 10% in DL codes, 10% in available power for HS.
Activate the feature F-DPCH and SRB on HS in the entire network to avoid
reconfigurations from SRB on HSDPA to SRB on DCH. Activation details for the
features F-DPCH and SRB on HSDPA are available in Reference [16]. It is also
recommended to enable Improved EUL Cell Edge Coverage FAJ 121 1376,
together with SRB on HS and F-DPCH.
The percentage of RRC requests from F-DPCH capable UEs is obtained using:
• DL power
• HS throughput
• Payload in DL - pmDlTrafficVolumeSrbOnlyHs
Relative Radio
Link Power
[0.1 dB steps] 370 845 40690
maxPwrMax 30
interPwrMax
minPwrMax -15
U0001092E
This setting allows to have a different maximum power for A-DCH and Speech.
Values of minPwrMax below -15 have been used with no impact on HS
retainability. For more details, see Reference [17].
To maximize the available power for HSDPA, set the power margin for HSDPA
(hsPowerMargin) to =0.
the EUL Scheduler. To ensure that the EUL scheduler utilizes the full uplink
headroom, it is recommended to use eulMinMarginCoverage=0.
eulMaxAllowedSchRate limits the peak rate for EUL users. By limiting the
peak rate, more EUL users can be served. The reason is a reduction in the
overhead cost of DPCCH for the large transport formats. The recommended
values are different with and without the feature Interference Suppression.
The feature EUL single HARQ process scheduling FAJ 121 1443, allows a
higher granularity for 2 ms TTI EUL users. The smallest grant is lowered to
20 kbps by using the 160 kbps grant but only in one of 8 transmission time
intervals. The 20-kbps step created by a single-HARQ-process grant is used
during overloaded situations where there is not enough resource to grant 160
kbps to every user. There is no need to tune the eul2msFirstSchedStep to
<160kbps in order to get the benefits of this feature.
When the RoT exceeds eulMaxRotCoverage, some users with data in their
buffers are still allowed to transmit with minimum 32 kbps if 10ms EUL or
minimum 20 kbps and per HARQ scheduling in case of 2ms EUL. The grant is
rotated among the users so that the sum of granted rates is kept below the limit
eulMaxTotalProtectedRate by default set to 1280 kbps.
If there are many users, typically all users get the minimum grant and if that is
not enough, grant rotation starts. If there are few users, some users can get a
higher grant than the minimum, handled internally by the EUL scheduler, but
the sum of all grants will always be limited by eulMaxTotalProtectedRate.
Field trials also show large improvement in EUL waiting time, as measured
by pmWaitingTimeEul. Figure 22 shows how EUL average waiting time is
improved when enabling IGR. EUL average waiting time is reduced to almost
zero. This is a large improvement from a latency perspective and is noticed as
improved user performance.
250
150
Time [ms]
100
50
0
2012-11-14-09:00:00
2012-11-14-15:15:00
2012-11-14-21:30:00
2012-11-15-04:00:00
2012-11-15-10:15:00
2012-11-15-16:30:00
2012-11-15-22:45:00
2012-11-16-05:00:00
2012-11-21-09:30:00
2012-11-21-15:45:00
2012-11-21-22:00:00
2012-11-22-04:15:00
2012-11-22-10:30:00
2012-11-22-16:45:00
2012-11-22-23:00:00
2012-11-23-05:15:00
2012-11-23-11:30:00
2012-11-23-17:45:00
2012-11-24-00:00:00
2012-11-24-06:15:00
2012-11-24-12:30:00
2012-11-24-18:45:00
2012-11-25-01:00:00
2012-11-25-07:15:00
2012-11-25-13:30:00
2012-11-25-19:45:00
2012-11-26-02:00:00
2012-11-26-08:15:00
2012-11-26-14:30:00
2012-11-26-20:45:00
2012-11-27-03:00:00
2012-11-27-09:15:00
2012-11-27-15:30:00
2012-11-27-21:45:00
2012-11-28-04:00:00
2012-11-28-10:15:00
2012-11-28-16:30:00
2012-11-28-22:45:00
2012-11-29-05:00:00
2012-11-29-11:15:00
2012-11-29-17:30:00
2012-11-29-23:45:00
2012-11-30-06:00:00
2012-11-30-12:15:00
2012-11-30-18:30:00
2012-12-01-00:45:00
2012-12-01-07:00:00
Date
EUL_avg_Wait_ms U0001080B
• pmWaitingTimeEul
• pmTotalRotCoverage
• pmNoSchEdchEul
• pmSumAckedBitsCellEulTti10 + pmSumAckedBitsCellEulTti2
• pmSumAckedBitsSpixx
With the use of IGR, an increase in the number of active frames is expected.
This means a change in the average user throughput KPI, see Equation 9
and Equation 10.
pmSumAckedBitsCellEulT ti10
PIntEUL0 I0 ULTP0 User0 10msL1 =
(T T I 10 3 pmNoactive10msF ramesEul)
Equation 9 EUL 10 ms TTI User Throughput
pmSumAckedBitsCellEulT ti2
P IntEUL0 I0 ULT P0 User02msL1 =
(T T I 2 3 pmNoActive2msF ramesEul )
Equation 10 EUL 2 ms TTI User Throughput
Table 36
Parameter Recommended Value
featureStateEulLowLatencyPr 1 (ACTIVATED)
esched
of Figure 23. As a result calls are dropped, accessibility is degraded and the
EUL throughput is starved.
UL Interference
Pole capacity
UL Load
UL Interference due to load
Stable region
U0001068B
5.5.2.1 General
The initial Signal to Interference Ratio (SIR) target aims at controlling the initial
UL radio link power of the UE. Different R99 rates and EUL rates are controlled
by different initial SIR target. Optimizing the initial setting reduces the excessive
power of the UE, see Figure 24.
SIR SIR
Excess
initial
power
time time
Non-Optimized Setting Ideal Setting
U0001072E
-80
-85
-90
Large gain
-95 for cells with
high RSSI
-100
-105
-110
Cells
Small or no gain in New Settings
cells with low RSSI
U0001073C
The recommended setting of initial SIR target values is given in Table 37.
Parameter Recommended
Value
ulInitSirTargetEdch 30 (3.0 dB)
ulInitSirTargetEdchTti2 40 (4.0 dB)
Lower values than in Table 37 results in higher BLER for R99 users and high
HARQ retransmission for EUL users.
Max SIR target is set to limit the UL interference that a UE can generate. For
high bitrate Radio Bearers (RBs) it is important to set the value of max SIR
target correctly. If the value is too low, it reduces the user throughput. If it
is too high, it causes UL interference rushes. The recommended values are
listed in Table 38.
Uplink Fast Congestion Control (UL FCC) FAJ 121 2444, is introduced to
optimize UL interference in loaded conditions. In the event of UL air interface
overload, one or several users are ordered to quickly reduce the transmission
power by lowering the SIR target.
The following two thresholds are introduced, targeting High Data Rate (HDR)
and Low Data Rate (LDR) EUL users, see Reference [18]:
Figure 26 and Figure 27 show two days comparison (ROP by ROP) between
UL FCC OFF and ON, during the busiest hours of EUL users.
6 750 000
7,0
6 500 000
6 250 000 6,5
EUL_avg_RoT [dB]
6 000 000
EUL_ACKed_Bits
6,0
5 750 000
5,5
5 500 000
5 250 000 5,0
5 000 000
4,5
4 750 000
4 500 000 4,0
19:15
19:30
19:45
20:00
20:15
20:30
20:45
21:00
21:15
21:30
21:45
22:00
22:15
22:30
22:45
23:00
23:15
23:30
23:45
00:00
00:15
Time
EUL_ACKed_Bits, FCC OFF EUL_avg_RoT, FCC OFF
EUL_ACKed_Bits, FCC ON EUL_avg_RoT, FCC ON
U0001081E
Figure 26 UL FCC OFF/ON – Impact in EUL Traffic (Acked Bits) and Average
RoT
EUL_MACe_Cell_Throughput [kbps]
800
775
750
725
700
675
650
625
600
575
550
525
500
475
19:00
19:15
19:30
19:45
20:00
20:15
20:30
20:45
21:00
21:15
21:30
21:45
22:00
22:15
22:30
22:45
23:00
23:15
23:30
23:45
00:00
Time
FCC off
FCC on
U0001082C
constantValueCprach value
1800 -21 dB -15 dB -97
1600 -98
1400 -99
Traffic Volume [MB]
UL RSSI [dBm]
1200 -100
1000 -101
800 -102
600 -103
400 -104
200 -105
0 -106
10/24
10/25
10/26
10/27
10/28
10/29
10/30
10/31
11/1
11/2
11/3
11/4
11/5
11/6
11/7
11/8
11/9
11/10
11/11
Srb136 Amr5900 Cs12 Cs64
Ps Common Ps8 Ps16 Ps64
Ps128 Ps384 PsIntEul UL_RSSI_Ave
U0001084D
Finished
sessions / s
Ar
riv
al
ra
te
>
de
te pa
ra rtu
re re
tu ra
par te
de
<
ate
a lr
riv
Ar
Load U0001351A
Should the arrival rate be too high so that the system cannot serve all admitted
users the flow of users decreases and users end up stuck not being able to
finish their task.
Evaluation of flow of users should focus on user experience more than RNC or
cell level KPIs. This means that some of the traditional RNC level KPIs need
to be abandoned in favor of other performance indicators of network quality.
One of those KPIs is PS accessibility which does not comply with the flow of
users’ concept. PS accessibility is expected to decrease when implementing
the features and parameters related to flow of users and instead other KPIs
should improve.
• HS data volume
• RSSI
6.1.1 Load
From a user experience perspective the number of users with data in buffer is a
good load estimate since those are the users that are in need of service. If, on
average in one ROP, more than 1 user want to be scheduled in a TTI the cell is
considered highly loaded. In the normal case, there are empty TTIs in a ROP
where no user is scheduled. In order to visualize both high load and low load
samples, a non-linear load definition can be used as in Equation 12.
UsersW ithData
Load =
1 + UsersWithData
Equation 12 DL Load Based on Users with Data in Buffer
A highly loaded cell is therefore defined as DL load > 0.5. The DL load can
never go beyond 1 as this signifies infinite load. More importantly, the load can
be used to evaluate the performance by correlating it to other performance
indicators focusing on flow of users.
Other load measures are needed when evaluating coverage or overhead cost,
those are further described inSection 6.1.3.2 on page 69 and Section 6.1.4
on page 70
evaluate in order to ensure that the network can support larger payload with the
implementation of recommended features and parameters.
HS V olume = 6 (pmSumAckedBitsSpiXX )
Equation 13 HS Volume Calculated from Node B counters
HS volume can also be evaluated per cell vs DL load, see Section 6.1.1
on page 64. It is also beneficial to get an estimate of the user experienced
throughput by plotting the HS volume/user with data vs the DL load, see Figure
32. This corresponds to the HS user throughput KPI described in Reference [5]
(PINTHS_I_DlTP_User_L1).
Figure 32 The Average User Throughput Almost Doubled in the Area where
the DL Load is Close to 1.
In Figure 32 the average user throughput almost doubled in the area where the
DL load is close to 1. The maximum DL load also reduced. This indicates that
the user experience improved when the network was highly loaded.
The corresponding counters for EUL volume can be retrieved from RNC
counterpmUlTrafficVolumePsIntEul or Node B counters and calculated
as inEquation 14.
6.1.3 RSSI
6.1.3.1 Coverage
With too high UL interference: Since the Downlink coverage still is good,
- Cell shrinks in Uplink these users will not do IRAT handover
- Users will be out of (Uplink) coverage
User cannot call User do not show up in statistics
Cell coverage
Downlink coverage
Uplink coverage at overload High UL RSSI
U0001353A
Some of the KPI’s of the cell may improve with high a UL Noise rise when
the cell shrinks, but with the cost of many unsatisfied users not being able to
access the system at all. This has been observed in outdoor cells as well as
indoor stadium cells. A typical scenario with high UL RSSI is that accessibility
KPIs looks good, but the customer department will see a large increase in
customer complaints and possible churn from the unsatisfied end users.
The Ericsson recommendations aim to limit the UL Noise Rise in the peaks to
10-12 dB. An UL Noise Rise of 20-50 dB is from the end user point of view
not acceptable. Users will be pushed out of the service area and stuck with
WCDMA DL Coverage, not being able to reach WCMDA or reselect to GSM,
since there is no WCDMA UL coverage.
The UL noise rise can be calculated by comparing the noise floor, which is the
minimum measured RSSI level, and the maximum measured RSSI level. This
can be done using the Node B pdf counter pmAverageRssi. The average
noise rise at peak hours can be calculated by finding the minimum average
measured RSSI value during a day and compare it to the maximum average
RSSI. It is also beneficial to capture noise rise peaks by evaluating for example
the worst 5% bins in the distribution of all bins for all individual cells per ROP
and compare it to the minimum bins in a day.
6.1.3.2 UL Loading
100 25
90
80 20
Cell Overload
60 15
50
40 10
30
20 5
10
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Number of users is the average number of users for all services in CELL_DCH
state.
UL Loading is based on the uplink RSSI and can be measured using the Node
B pdf counter pmAverageRssi. This counter is in dBm and must be converted
to Watt to calculate correct average RSSI. This means that the pdf bins must
be converted from dBm to Watt before calculating the average.
1. Convert the bin end points (upper and lower bound of the bin) to Watt, and
calculate the average. This results in one average Watt value per bin.
2. Calculate the weighted average for all bins in the pdf. This results in one
average RSSI value for the whole ROP.
where
One way to observe overload in the DL is to monitor the average used power
for HSDPA and correlate this with the number of users that are due to be
scheduled. The HS power will increase as the number of HS users increases,
until a point when the HS power use starts to reduce, see Figure 35. When less
HS power is available it takes longer for each user to complete the session and
the MHT per user increases.
The reason for lower HS power use is because the overhead cost for each user
becomes significantly higher when there are many HSDPA users in the system,
leaving less power for High-Speed Downlink Shared Channel (HS-DSCH).
The longer an HSPA user is connected to the network, the larger the overhead
cost is and the lower the overall performance is. When implementing feature
and parameters aiming to improve flow of users this is a KPI to evaluate. Note
that the difference before and after implementation should be evaluated rather
than the absolute values of the Mean Holding Time (MHT).
MHT is the average time an HSPA user is in connected state and can be
used as a measure to evaluate how fast users are served by the network, see
Equation 16 to Equation 19.
MHT = M HSPA2tROP [s]
N HSPA
Equation 16 Mean Holding Time
M HSPA = pmSumHsConnServ
pmSamplesHsConnServ
Equation 17 MHSPA = Average number of HS users, meaning UE
connections with at least one PS RAB mapped on a DCH/HS or
EUL/HS Radio Bearer.
Evaluation can be done on RNC level in order to capture network trend and
behavior change, for example when new features are introduced. Cell level
evaluation can be done to capture impact of load in the cell or to identify the
trigger point for capacity upgrade, for example when comparing the MHT with
use of High Speed (HS) power.
This analysis is only relevant for HSPA users and should be correlated to the
load due to HS users with data in downlink buffer. When evaluating the MHT
vs DL load before and after changes in the network it is important to evaluate
the median MHT where the load is close to 100%.
MHT vs DL load often looks like in Figure 36. Low load allows a few extremely
heavy and long lasting sessions, while most are short sessions. With increasing
number of active users, the download time and therefore the average MHT
increases slightly. At very high load there is usually a larger MHT increase.
Figure 36 Example of how Mean Holding Time versus DL Load may Change
in a Network
Note that long MHT at very high load, for example due to small EUL headroom,
is likely to cause low traffic or payload per user. When implementing features to
enable more EUL headroom it is likely that the traffic behavior changes since it
is now possible to acquire high rate data services. This will probably increase
MHT instead of decreasing it. MHT itself is therefore not a KPI to optimize, but
with maintained traffic behavior it can reflect change in the flow of users.
For further analysis of accessibility and retainability issues, use the GPEH events
INTERNAL_SYSTEM_BLOCK and INTERNAL_SYSTEM_RELEASE respectively.
For throughput analysis, use INTERNAL_PACKET_DEDICATED_THROUGHPUT.
For more information regarding PM counters and GPEH events, see Reference
[19] and Reference [20].
Use PM counters for overall traffic evaluation and identification of high traffic
cells. Use GPEH in areas with sudden traffic changes, such as special events,
Reference List