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Frequency Hopping Optimization

- TMN Network Portugal Comparing Reuse1 with Reuse3 / Discrete Hopping / Baseband Hopping Results / Methods / Tools

QUALITY OF SERVICE REPORT QOS_031016

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Edition Date Originators Approval

01 16 Oct 2003 Nuno MARQUES, MND/DE Ricardo Dinares, MND/DE nuno.marques@alcatel.pt ricardo.dinares@alcatel.pt Alcatel Portugal Alcatel Portugal

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SUMMARY
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A frequency planning optimization was performed in TMN network in Portugal in 2003, as part of a global program for voice quality improvement. A comparison of Reuse1 with Reuse3, Discrete Hopping and Baseband hopping strategies is shown on this report. The later strategy allowed a global Quality of Service improvement: SDCCH drop (1.1% 0.8%; improvement of 27%), RTCH assign fail rate (0.5% 0.3%; improvement of 40%), call-drop rate (1.2% 1.0%; improvement of 17%), and handover success rate 96.8% 97.5% (improvement of 22%). Globally, the revenue lost in the network due to radio interferences was reduced by 25%. An innovative approach for creating the frequency plan was followed, by using a tool chain including SONAR, a tool based on field measurements (BSS Type180 counters). A description of the use of the tool is also presented.

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REFERENCES
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[1]

F. Colin, Radio Frequency Hopping Implementation Strategy, ed. 2, (3DF 00976 0001 TQZZA);

INDEX
1 2 3 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 4 TMN NETWORK ......................................................................................................................... 4 FREQUENCY HOPPING STRATEGY: RESULTS OF OPTIMIZATION ............................................. 5 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 4 Frequency hopping strategies.......................................................................................... 5 Field-trial: Reuse3 ............................................................................................................ 6 Field-trial: Discrete Hopping............................................................................................ 9 Field-trial: Baseband Hopping ...................................................................................... 11

USING THE SONAR TOOL ....................................................................................................... 14 4.1 4.2 4.3 Outline of the SONAR tool.............................................................................................. 14 Workflow with SONAR .................................................................................................... 15 Advantages of SONAR.................................................................................................... 16

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1
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INTRODUCTION

This report describes the operations and methods used for frequency hopping optimization in TMN Network (Portugal) in 2003. The voice quality issue is performing an increasing role in the assessment of the networks quality in the competitive Portuguese mobile panorama. In this scenario, a set of operations was performed by Alcatel to improve the global QoS. These operations included parameter tuning and a review of the frequency hopping strategy. This reports focuses on the latter, giving special emphasis to the use of the tools (SONAR tool). The main objective of these frequency optimization operations, leading to an improvement of the global voice quality, was to improve KPI by reducing the overall interference in the network. To this end, several frequency hopping strategies were tested. The evaluation was done both by traditional QoS indicators analysis and drive-tests and by Voice Quality assessment campaigns (by using Qvoice tool). (extensive tests of parameter modifications were also done for these purposes, although its description and conclusions are not analyzed on this report).

TMN NETWORK

This section gives a short description of the TMN network.

LISBOA

Figure 1: TMN network: Alcatel turnkey area (GSM cells in black; DCS in red)
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19 BSC with 1400 cells (urban and rural areas) Dual-band network (28% of DCS cells installed on a traffic-needed basis) Some high sites due to historical and topographic conditions Azimuths with regular pattern with exceptions Area controlled in the regime of turnkey to Alcatel team.

Frequency policy (before these optimization operations): In GSM900: 21 frequencies for BCCH; 18 frequencies in RFH Reuse1 In DCS1800: 14 frequencies for BCCH; 16 frequencies in RFH Reuse1 Number of TRX per cell theoretically planned to allow less than 12% of Rfload (this rule is not followed in many cases see below)

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BCCH frequencies chosen cell-per-cell. The traditional method has used drive-tests, extensive knowledge of field conditions, A955 for coverage estimation (mainly on rural areas) and Piano tool.

The network presents a high RFload due to excessive number of TRX per cell, especially on urban areas:
Band GSM900 DCS1800 % cells with more TRX than recommended 45% of cells have more TRX than recommended (for Rfload < 12%) 85% of cells have more TRX than recommended (for Rfload < 12%)

Table 1: Excessive number of TRX per cell in TMN network Data from drive-tests show that RxQual in hopping TRX is worse that RxQual in BCCH:
BCCH/Hop BCCH (RxQual > 4) Hopping (RxQual > 5) % bad RxQual 10.4% 13.0%

Table 2: RxQual in BCCH and TCH bands (data from drive-tests)

FREQUENCY HOPPING STRATEGY: RESULTS OF OPTIMIZATION

The aforementioned figures, together with the need to improve voice quality as measured by the operator with tools like Qvoice, prompt us for a review of the strategy used for hopping.

3.1

Frequency hopping strategies

As an outcome of several technical discussions, the following strategies were elaborated: 1. Reuse 3: use reuse3 instead of reuse1. For this we divide hopping band in 3 separate parts (other option would be to use some frequencies for 2 parts simultaneously). 2. Discrete hopping: a configuration like Synthesized FH but where the number of frequencies to hop is small, or equal to the number of TRX in hopping). 3. Baseband hopping Other ideas were elaborated but were not tested:
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Configure some TRX from high sites, or from cells with many TRX, to use fixed frequencies in the "BCCH band", possibly using concentric cells. Increase hopping band, reduce BCCH band. Interleave BCCH frequencies with hopping frequencies. In this way we can possible reduce adjacent-channel interference (although this is not obvious). This is more interesting if operator accepts to reduce the "BCCH band" and increase the number of frequencies for hopping (bcch plan will become easier, since there is not limitation of using 2 adjacent frequencies in two sectors). More information on QoS results using this technique can be found within the team of Alcatel Shanghai Bell (Jilin MCC Network). Split the TCH band in two sub-bands and use TRX_prefmark to give preference to TRX in the most cleaned band; only in busy hour the TRX with the not-so-cleaned band would be used (not a sufficient solution for TMN, as metrics are computed for busy-hour). Use multiband cells to reduce RFload in DCS band by using it completely for hopping (not a good solution in B6 as many new RACKs would be necessary).

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3.2
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Field-trial: Reuse3
Description

3.2.1

Reuse3 is theoretically suitable in areas where the coverage of cells is well controlled (as for Reuse1), so that spill-overs are not significant, and where there is a regular pattern. On these conditions, the TCH frequency band can be split in 3 groups. Each group will then be assigned to sectors pointing in the same direction. Starting by classifying each sector in one of 3 categories according with its direction, consider the following figure:

F E D

A C B

It is easy to understand that if the cells coverage is well controlled, cell A will perform more handovers to cell D and E, and not so many to cell F. This also means that there can be a gain if frequency groups of cells A and D and E are different, even if the frequency group of A is equal to that of F. 3.2.2 Motivation

The main motivation was that the network presents a regular pattern (although with many exceptions), and that coverage has been tuned cell-by-cell, through years of optimization. The BSC chosen for this test, QuintaConde, a rural BSC, follows this profile. An analysis was made concerning the percentage of handovers (using T180 counters) between each sector and other sectors belonging to the same category (excluding intra-site sectors, where there is no interference even in Reuse1 due to MAIO choice). In this way, this BSC presented 28.9% of handovers between sectors pointing to the same directions.
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Note that the lower this value is, the better it is to apply Reuse3. If this value would be 33.3%, theoretically, there would be no advantage in using Reuse3. Although this value was not as low as desired, the Reuse3 fieldtrial was carried out.

3.2.3

Description of operation Date 1/Abr/2003 4/Abr/03 5/Abr/03 Description BSC frozen for hardware and parameter modifications. Reuse1 Reuse3 (separate groups). See configuration details below.

Table 3: Description of operations for field-trial Reuse1 Reuse3 Applied only in GSM900 band. BCCH frequencies were not modified. Majority of cells have at most 3 TRX in hopping.

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In order to see more visibly the effect on Reuse3 compared with Reuse1, TRX_prefmark was configured before and during the trial to give priority to TRX in TCH band. Hopping groups configured as follows:
102 x x x 103 104 105 x x x 106 107 108 x x x 109 110 111 x x x 112 113 114 x x x 115 116 117 x x x 118 119

Hopping group group 1 group 2 group 3

The advantage of using intercalated groups is that, for a certain sector, we have separation of more than 2 frequencies per TRX (and not only 2, as would be the case with consecutive frequencies per group). MAIOS:
Sector 1 Sector 2 Sector 3 TRX 1 0 1 0 TRX 2 2 3 2 TRX 3 4 5 4

HSN must be the same for each site. In this way, intra-site collisions are avoided. As a rule, groups are applied as follows:
Sectors with azimuth >= 0 and < 120 Sectors with azimuth >= 120 and < 240 Sectors with azimuth >= 240 and < 360 Group 1 2 3

For sites with 4 or more TRX in hopping or sites that do not follow the orientation pattern: in these cases, a different group (possibly with more than 6 frequencies) were created. These cells were analyzed case by case.

3.2.4

QoS results
Behaviour Stable ( 370 Erl.) Stable (41 sec) Stable (2.9 sec) Stable (6.0%) Stable (0.5%) Stable (1.1%) Stable (1.0%) Stable (ROC = 2.4%; Drop = 0.4%) Stable ( 180,000) Stable (0.76) Better-cell: 90,000 90,000 Quality: 47,500 44,000 Level: 50000 53,000 Better-cell: 47% 47% Quality: 24% 23% Level: 27% 28% Conclusion

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Indicator Traffic BH BSC Duration RTCH Duration SDCCH SDCCH Assign Fail Rate RTCH Assign Fail Call-drop SDCCH drop Handover Failure Rate Handovers HO/Call Causes HO (#) Causes HO

Transfer of Quality HO to Better-cell and Level Handovers. This effect is more visible during the period where TRXprefmark was giving priority to TRX in hopping (Quality HO = 37% 31%)

Table 4: QoS comparison between Reuse1 and Reuse3 Results from drive-tests: Drive-tests were performed before and after the operation (with traffic with priority to TRX in hopping):

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Bad RxQual - before 16.7%

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Bad RxQual - after 15.2%

Table 5: QoS from drive-tests We notice a slight reduction on the number of samples with bad quality, but not very significant. QVOICE results: Qvoice results did not show significant modifications before and after the operation. GPRS results: GPRS tests were performed for FTP throughput, Web, Wap access and menu access, and ping delays. Tests were performed in static and also mobility modes. Results show no significant difference comparing Reuse1 with Reuse3.

3.2.5

Analysis of the Reuse3 field-trial Reduction in Quality HO; increase of Better-Cell and Level HO (results more visible with priority for TRX in hopping). No significant modification of other QoS indicators or in Qvoice measurements.

Reuse3 did not show significant modifications over Reuse1, having the disadvantage that it needs extra workload to define and tune the frequency group of each cell, or after a modification of tilts or azimuths. Also, the reduction of Quality HO may not necessarily means better voice quality, since a reduction in the number of hopping frequencies may cause the number of Quality HO to reduce (OFFSET_HOPPING =1 and was not changed with this trial) without improving the quality of the voice. See details of this subject on the following section.

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3.3
3.3.1

Field-trial: Discrete Hopping

Description

Discrete hopping consists of using a fixed frequency for the BCCH TRX and using synthesized frequency hopping in n frequencies for the other TRX. n is usually a small number. On this trial, n was equal to the number of TRX in hopping. That is:
Number of TRX in the cell 1 BCCH TRX + 1 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 2 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 3 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 4 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 5 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 6 TRX 1 BCCH TRX + 7 TRX Number of frequencies to hop 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Table 6: Number of frequencies to hop per cell used in the field-trial Discrete Hopping On the OMC, this configuration is like RFH (synthesized frequency hopping) [1]. The obvious difference now is that is requires intelligence to plan frequencies for each cell. On our trial, these frequencies were chosen using the SONAR tool (see Chapter 4 for details). 3.3.2 Motivation

Individual frequencies can be chosen, allowing higher control of bad quality cases. The advantage is especially important on high sites, or in areas under strong spill-overs, which cause much degradation with reuse 1. Also, the availability of the SONAR tool, allowing producing a frequency plan based on real fielddata (and not only theoretical data from coverage estimations) and previous successful field-trials in South Africa (contact Alcatel South Africa radio team for details) prompted us for this trial.

3.3.3

Description of operation Date 12/May/2003 20/May/2003 Description BSC frozen Reuse1 Discrete Hopping. See configuration details below.

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Table 7: Description of operations for field-trial Reuse1 Discrete Hopping Applied in GSM900 and DCS1800 bands BCCH frequencies were not modified TCH frequencies chosen using SONAR (see Chapter 4 for details)

3.3.4

QoS results

Results are shown for a dense-urban BSC (Tgp1); other BSC presented similar results.

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QoS indicators SDCCH drop RTCH assign fail Call-drop Handover success rate HO causes Interference bands (% in band 1) HO/call

Behaviour 1.2% 1.2% 0.6% 0.6% 1.1% 1.1% ROC: 3.4% 3.3% Drop: 0.5% 0.5% Better-cell: 43% 42% Qual HO: 34% 29% Level HO: 19% 23% 54% 68% 0.64 0.61 Stable Stable Stable Stable

Conclusion

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Reduction of Quality HO: transference to Level HO Higher number of TS in band 1 Slight reduction of HO/call

Table 8: QoS results on the trial Discrete Hopping (results are averages computed before (avg of 1216/May/2003) and after (avg of 21-22/May/2003).

Split of standard HO Causes

50 40 30 20 10 0
% Qual DL % Qual UL % Lev DL % Lev UL %DL interf %UL Interf %BC

Figure 2: Evolution of HO causes in field-trial Discrete Hopping (BSC Tgp1). QVOICE results: Qvoice results (1 full day measurements before and after operation) showed improvements:
Hopping VQ good VQ sufficient VQ bad
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Reuse 1 88.9% 6.7% 4.4%

Discrete Hopping 90.9% 6.1% 3.1%

Table 9: Qvoice measurements for Discrete Hopping trial These results were based on extensive measurements made in the area, on a pre-defined route and on a predefined time period. Even though they were taken into consideration, they are particular and may not reflect the behavior of all the area. The ideal would be to have QoS indicators related with voice quality, but that is not available in the B6 release. 3.3.5 Analysis of the Discrete Hopping field-trial Reduction in HO Quality (see note below). Slight reduction of HO/call, although not very significant. Higher percentage of TS in interference band 1; Qvoice measurements (1 day measurements before and after) showed improvement.

Another trial was made considering at least 4 frequencies to hop on each cell, even if the number of TRX per cell was 2 or 3. However, improvements were less noticed than with this trial. This seems to show that the

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better controlled the frequencies are per cell, the better the results are. All in all, the results are not excellent, and a trial of BBH was tested, as described in the next section.
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Note about the reduction of HO quality with reduction of hopping frequencies: With these tests (Reuse3, Discrete Hopping with a minimum of 4 frequencies to hop per cell, Discrete Hopping with a number of hopping frequencies equal to the number of TRX in hopping) we note that the percentage of Quality HO is reduced when we reduce the number of frequencies to hop. However, in some tests, the Qvoice results do not show visible improvement even with a significant reduction of Quality HO. This can be explained considering that the higher the number of frequencies we use to hop, the higher is the possibility to suffer from short term interference (collisions). These collisions deliver a high BER for a short period of time. RXQUAL decreases based on increased BER average. The probability of collisions is also increasing with higher traffic. On the other hand, the degraded BER should be more than compensated by the fact that GSM benefits higher from de-interleaving and de-channel coding (benefit against fading especially for slow mobiles). This effect is not visible in RXQUAL. So, on frequency hopping, a certain threshold of voice quality is achieved with worse RxQual (comparing with fixed frequencies). This is why the hopping algorithm uses the parameter OFFSET_HOPPING for power-control and quality handovers. The ideal Offset should lead to the HO Trigger at the same Voice Quality as without hopping and no Offset, and shall be a function of number of hopping frequencies and traffic. We use OFFSET_HOPPING equal to 1, based on defaults/historical reasons in Alcatel, and we did not perform (due to lack of time) tests on this parameter (which should be synchronized with Qvoice campaigns). Concluding, the bare fact of reduction of Quality HO may not necessarily mean an improvement in Voice Quality in the network.

3.4
3.4.1

Field-trial: Baseband Hopping

Description

Classical Baseband Hopping, where there are as much frequencies per cell as number of TRX [1]. 3.4.2 Motivation

It makes sense to use BCCH frequencies to hop, since in TMN network RxQual is presently worse in TCH TRX, while the number of BCCH frequencies is greater than the number of hopping frequencies. So we try to use the BCCH band to reduce the RFload in the network. On the other hand, severe interference cases on the calls presently handled by the beacon TRX, causing sometimes call-drop, could be reduced by using hopping.
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In summary, BBH combines the benefits of intelligent frequency planning and the benefits of frequency hopping. The frequencies for each cell are, for this trial, the same as those used for the Discrete Hopping trial. 3.4.3 Description of operation

This trial was done after the trial of Discrete Hopping. In this way, we can make better comparisons. Date 12/May/2003 20/May/2003 23/May/2003 Description BSC frozen Reuse1 Discrete Hopping. See previous section for details. Discrete Hopping Baseband hopping. See configuration details below.

Table 10: Description of operations for field-trial Reuse1 Discrete Hopping Baseband Hopping Applied in GSM900 and DCS1800 bands BCCH frequencies were not modified
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3.4.4

1000
01-Mai-2003 03-Mai-2003 05-Mai-2003 07-Mai-2003 09-Mai-2003 11-Mai-2003 13-Mai-2003 15-Mai-2003 17-Mai-2003 19-Mai-2003 21-Mai-2003 23-Mai-2003 25-Mai-2003 27-Mai-2003 29-Mai-2003 31-Mai-2003 02-Jun-2003 04-Jun-2003 06-Jun-2003 08-Jun-2003 10-Jun-2003 12-Jun-2003 14-Jun-2003 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 21-Mai-2003 23-Mai-2003 25-Mai-2003 27-Mai-2003 29-Mai-2003 31-Mai-2003 02-Jun-2003 04-Jun-2003 06-Jun-2003 08-Jun-2003 10-Jun-2003 12-Jun-2003 14-Jun-2003 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 19-Mai-2003 17-Mai-2003 15-Mai-2003 13-Mai-2003 11-Mai-2003 09-Mai-2003 07-Mai-2003 05-Mai-2003 03-Mai-2003 01-Mai-2003

2000

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5000

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14000 12000 10000 8000 6000 4000 2000 0

350000 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0

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QoS results and analysis

Results are shown for a dense-urban BSC (Tgp1); other BSC presented similar results.

Figure 3: Evolution of SDCCH drop in field-trial Baseband Hopping (BSC Tgp1).

Figure 4: Evolution of RTCH assign fail in field-trial Baseband Hopping (BSC Tgp1).

Figure 5: Evolution of CDR in field-trial Baseband Hopping (BSC Tgp1).

Frequencies per cell are the same as those used in the field-trial for Discrete Hopping (chosen using SONAR. This means that only the type of hopping was modified in the OMC.

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The following table allows comparison between Reuse1, Discrete Hopping trial and Baseband hopping trial:
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QoS indicators SDCCH drop RTCH assign fail Call-drop Handover success rate HO causes

Reuse 1 1.2% 0.6% 1.1% 96.2% Better-cell: 43% Qual HO: 34% Level HO: 19% 54% 0.64

Discrete hopping 1.2% 0.6% 1.1% 96.2% Better-cell: 42% Qual HO: 29% Level HO: 23% 68% 0.61

Baseband hopping 0.8% 0.4% 0.9% 96.4% Better-cell: 41% Qual HO: 32% Level HO: 22% 61% 0.58

Obs Significant improvement Significant improvement, showing clearly a reduction of interference Significant improvement Improvement more visible in some other BSCs Still reduction of Qual HO with BBH, but less noticed than with Discrete Improvement is visible with BBH but less noticed than in Discrete Reduction with BBH even more visible in other BSCs: shows improvement in Voice Quality

Interference bands (% in band 1) HO/call

QVOICE results:
Hopping VQ good VQ sufficient VQ bad Reuse 1 88.9% 6.7% 4.4% Discrete Hopping 90.9% 6.1% 3.1% Baseband Hopping 90.8% 6.8% 2.6%

Table 11: Qvoice measurements for Discrete Hopping trial Drive-tests made in the same conditions as those for previous tests. An improvement is seen in Baseband comparable with that of the Discrete trial. From these results we conclude:
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Clear reduction of general interference in the network: indicators show a clear reduction of SDCCH drop, RTCH assign fail, and Call-drop. Reduction of HO/call. QVoice results were good but in other BSCs did now show a clear improvement over Discrete hopping. We concluded that the method intrinsic to QVoice method (drive-tests in 1 day, in a predefined route) was insufficient to make conclusive comparisons, when the improvements are so small in percentage.

These results were considered very good and this hopping strategy was generalized to all network (19 BSC). The SONAR tool and the method we followed to use it, proved also to be efficient and to produce good results. Applied to all the network, the following improvements were obtained: SDCCH drop: 1.1% 0.8% (improvement of 27%) RTCH assign fail: 0.5% 0.3% (improvement of 40%) Call-drop: 1.2% 1.0% (improvement of 17%) Handover Success Rate (execution): 96.8% 97.5% (improvement of 22%) Call Success Rate: 97.2% 97.9%, which means that the revenue lost in the network due to radio interferences was reduced by 25%.

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Analyzing these results, we may also suspect that the improvement also came from the calls previously handled by BCCH TRX, as explained before. We may then predict that a global new BCCH plan using SONAR would produce even better QoS results. This was not done in this trial.

USING THE SONAR TOOL

The frequency plans used in the field-trials Discrete Hopping and Baseband Hopping described in this report were obtained with a new tool called SONAR originally developed by Alcatel South-Africa. This tool allows the choice of frequencies for each cell based on T180 counters. This section presents a brief description of this tool and of the method we followed to use the tool.

4.1

Outline of the SONAR tool

The basic ideia behind SONAR is that the more handovers with a target cell, the larger overlap zone and the higher the possibility of suffering interferences. As input, the SONAR tool uses the number of HO attempts between cells (BSS counters type 180) to compute the best frequencies for each cell. To quantify the interference for each ARFCN, SONAR uses a penalty value weighted by a value. Considering all penalties and some specific planning restrictions (like maintaining a separations of 2 or 3 in the frequencies in a same cell, for example), an equivalent to an interference matrix is build, from where the best frequencies for each cell are chosen. SONAR is available in Perl language having a HTML interface. It works with GSM900 and DCS1800 bands. Inputs have to have a specific format to be read by the program. The output is a list of frequencies per cell. It is planned, however, this algorithm to be incorporated in the A955 tool in the short term.

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Figure 6: Input to SONAR tool It is important also to refer EasyRNP: another tool whose core algorithm is based on SONARs. EasyRNP was developed by Alcatel Shanghai Bell and adds an interesting user-friendly interface, allowing frequency optimization cell-by-cell (but not new frequency plans from scratch like SONAR).

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4.2

Workflow with SONAR

The following workflow was used: Step1: Check HO relation in the network As SONAR uses T180 as the input for its calculations, it is important to verify that the network is not suffering from many missing HO relations. Therefore, this verification shall be done, and an operation of adding HO relations shall be performed if necessary. Step 2: Data capturing T180 counters shall be retrieved from the OMC (either by the use of a script in the OMC, or using a TSL script in NPA) correspondent to a period of 2 or 3 weeks. During this period, the network shall be stable, in the sense that no major modifications are performed (like new sites, planning modification, etc.). Note that it is not necessary the network to be completely frozen, so frequency modifications are allowed, as well as some parameter optimization. What it is important is the flow of HO in the network. Note that this is a major advantage over other methods used by competitors, where a complete freeze is necessary over long periods.

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For the data retrieval, it is also important to verify that there are no periods with missing data for a certain BSC (or else, cells on these BSC would be treated by the tool has having less HO than the reality, creating abnormal results). Also, note that T180 are counters based on incoming HO, so cells in the frontiers have to be subjected to a more careful procedure (see below). Other inputs to SONAR are: updated cell.csv file (from the daily RNL export from the OMC); file with a list of frequencies to computed per cell.

Step 3: Run SONAR SONAR was firstly developed for the Vodafone network in South Africa by Alcatel South Africa. At the time this project was carried out, SONAR had some particularities for this specific network, so some data adaptation was needed to use it (for example, create fake CI for all cells, as the algorithm was prepared to identify cells belonging to the same site through CI). Not all details are describe here, as new versions of SONAR shall appear. For more details, the Alcatel South Africa team is the best source. SONAR uses an iterative method trying to find a combination of frequencies for the network so that the total of penalties be minimized. The penalty is a measure of the interference that a certain frequency will create on the network. On our trial we did not modify in general the default options and constants used in the program. However, the option Co-Site Adj Channel was modified from avoid to allow producing a better result. Step 4: Verification A cell-by-cell verification of the final frequency plan was performed. A special attention was given to cells in the frontier, as the result may be less accurate due to lack of information of HO flow of the cells outside Alcatel area. For this verification, the tool EasyRNP was used, as it has a good interface and allows computing the new total penalty after a modification. A small number of modifications were made for very specific situations but in general the SONAR result proved itself, after implementation, very trustable. Note that due to the intrinsic form of the SONAR algorithm, the cells with more handovers will be preferred to apply a cleaner frequency (which is interesting from to the customers point of view) and that it may be necessary to carefully check and optimize, if necessary, specific situations like an important street or highway or delicate points (special clients, etc). Step 5: Implementation The new plan was implemented in the network by MLU. QoS monitoring followed. The description of these operations is out of the scope of this report.

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4.3

Advantages of SONAR

Data input: Based on real field data, and not theoretical coverage predictions. The format of SONAR allows, in theory, to optimize networks not necessary using Alcatel BSS, providing the HO counters are available. Network state: Although the network shall not suffer many important modifications during the period of extraction of the T180 counters, it is not necessary to freeze the network in terms of frequencies and some BSS parameter optimization. This is an important advantage over other concurrent existing tools. Duration: A complete frequency plan (around 2900 TCH frequencies) for the complete network (19 BSC) took around 2 week to produce with SONAR. This period includes the data preparation and the cell-by-cell verification prior to implementation. The executable time of SONAR is negligible. Results: An important improvement in QoS was obtained, using a network plan produced by SONAR, on a network subjected to constant optimization operations and where QoS indicators presented already very acceptable figures. END OF DOCUMENT

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