BSS PARAMETERS

AND FUNCTIONS

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Groups of Parameters

Cell (re)selection Power Control Handover Control Radio Link Signalling timers

Areas of Improvement

Minimization of Interference Handover behaviour Improvement Traffic Distribution Increase Call Completion

Cell (Re)selection

Cell reselection is done using C1 path loss criterion. The purpose is to ensure that the MS is camped on to the cell with the best transmission quality. The MS will camp on to the cell with the highest C1 value if C1 > 0.
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The following parameters are used to calculate the C1 criterion

The received signal at the MS side. Rxlev_access_min - broadcast on the BCCH The minimum received level at the MS required for access to the network. Ms_txpwr_max_cch - the maximum power that an MS may use when initially accessing the network. The maximum power of the MS
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C1 = A - Max(B,0)

A = Received level Average Rxlev_access_min. B = MS_txpwr_max_cch - maximum output power of the MS

Cell Reselect Hysteresis

Cell reselection on the border of two location areas result in a location update. When an MS moves on the border of two location areas lots of location updates take place. To avoid these location updates, the reselect hysteresis is introduced. A location update is performed only if: The C1 value of the new location area is higher than the C1 value in the current location area and The received signal strengths have at least a difference of the reselect hysteresis.
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Location Update to LA1 Location Update to LA2

LA1

LA2

LA1

LA2

Power Control

Power control enables the MS and/or BTS to increase or decrease the transmit power. The main purpose is to reduce interference. Power control also saves MS battery power. If power control is disabled the MS/BTS will always transmit at maximum power.
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Power Control Process

The BTS measures the uplink and receives downlink measurements from MS every 480 ms (every SACCH multiframe, 104 TDMA frames). The following measurement parameters are used in the power control process
RXLEV_DL (receive signal level measured by MS) RXLEV_UL (receive signal level measured by BTS) RXQUAL_DL (receive signal quality measured by MS) RXQUAL_UL (receive signal quality measured by BTS)

The BTS reports the measurements to the BSC. The BSC calculates the foll.. averaged parameters using a sliding window to control the speed of the power control process.
AV_RXLEV_XL_PC & AV_RXQUAL_XL_PC where XL means either UL (uplink) or DL (downlink)

Averaged parameters are used to remove the effect of Rayleigh fading on measurements. The BSC evaluates whether a power control increase or decrease action should be initiated. It compares the averaged parameters to the defined thresholds.
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MS

BTS

BSC

Power Control Process

BSS Parameters
BTS measurements

Evaluate Measurements Calculate Averaged Parameters

Decide Power Control

MS measurements

Um Abis Interface Interface

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S i g n a l l e v e l

Before averaging

After averaging

Time

Signal Level Averaging

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RXLEV

RXQUAL

The signal strength is measured in dBm. There are 64 levels of signal strength that can be reported, with 0 indicating a weak signal and 63 a strong signal.

The signal quality is measured in bit error rate (BER), which represents the percentage of incorrect bits received (after decoding). The signal quality can be poor due to inter symbol, co-channel and/or adjacent-channel interference. There are 8 levels of signal quality. 0 indicates good quality and 7 indicates bad quality.

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Signal Levels
Signal level 0 1 2 62 63
Range (in dBm) RXLEV < -110
-110 < RXLEV < -109 -109 < RXLEV < -108 -49 < RXLEV < -48 RXLEV > -48

Signal Quality 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Range (in BER) BER < 0.2 0.2 < BER < 0.4 0.4 < BER < 0.8 0.8 < BER < 1.6 1.6 < BER < 3.2 3.2 < BER < 6.4 6.4 < BER < 12.8 BER > 12.8%

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W_QUAL_PC

BSS parameter defining the weighting factor used to minimize the influence of Discontinuous transmission (DTX) on the quality averaging procedure. W_QUAL_PC has a domain value of 1, 2 or 3. When DTX is not applicable to a specific measurement, W_QUAL_PC has the value 1.
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Power Control Evaluation

Increase
A power control increase is initiated when

Decrease
A power control decrease is initiated when

AV_RXQUAL_XL_PC > L_RXQUAL_XL_P or AV_RXLEV_XL_PC < L_RXLEV_XL_P

where L_RXQUAL_XL_P is the BSS parameter defining the lower receive quality for the Power control, and L_RXLEV_XL_P is the BSS parameter defining the lower receive level for the power control.

(AV_RXQUAL_XL_PC < U_RXQUAL_XL_P and AV_RXLEV_XL_PC > L_RXLEV_XL_P + POW_RED_STEP_SIZE) or AV_RXLEV_XL_PC > U_RXLEV_XL_PC

where POW_RED_STEP_SIZE defines the RF power reduce step size for power control.

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Power Control for uplink

Signal Quality 0 AV_RXQUAL _UL_PC (in BER)
U_RXQUAL_UL_P

+
L_RXQUAL_UL_P

Optimum

+
7
0 L_RXLEV_UL_P

+
U_RXLEV_UL_P 63
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Signal level AV_RXLEV_UL_PC

Time between power control commands.

The minimum time between two power control commands is represented by the BSS parameters P_CON_INTERVAL and P_CON_ACK. After any power control action the BSS will wait for the specified time before performing the next power control action. Acknowledge Timer - When the BSC sends a power control command the timer P_CON_ACK starts. It stops when a power update message is received from the BTS. If the timer expires, the BSC can decide to send a new power control command. Interval timer. As soon as an acknowledge message is received from the BTS the P_CON_INTERVAL timer starts. The BSC has to wait for this period of time before it can send another power control command.

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BSC

BTS

Power Control command

P_CON_ACK New BTS power

P_CON_INTERVAL

Power Control Command

MINIMUM TIME BETWEEN TWO COMMANDS

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Handover Control

The handover process allows to change the serving cell without losing the call in progress. Handover process will normally only be started if power control is not helpful anymore. The reasons to perform a handover are: Distance (or propagation delay) between MS and BTS becomes too big. Receive signal quality becomes too bad. Receive signal level becomes too bad. Path loss situation for the MS to another cell is better.
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Power Budget Handover

A power budget handover takes place as soon as a better cell with respect to power budget is available to handle the call. PBGT(i) = AV_RXLEV_NCELL(i) - AV_RXLEV_SCELL + (MS_TXPWR_MAX(i) - MS_TXPWR_MAX)*2 The list of neighbouring cells is ordered using the value of the expression PBGT(i) - HO_MRGN(0,n)

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AV_RXQUAL_XL_HO > L_RXQUAL_XL_H and AV_RXLEV_XL_HO > RXLEV_XL_IH

Intra Cell Handover

AV_RXQUAL_XL_HO > L_RXQUAL_XL_H

Select the best from neighbouring cells fulfilling the following condition

AV_RXLEV_XL_HO > L_RXLEV_XL_H PBGT(i) > HO_MARGIN(0,i)

No Handover

AV_RXLEV_NCELL (i) > RXLEV_MIN(i) + 2 x Max(0,P-MS_TXPWR_MAX(i)) & Traffic load Criteria

Inter Cell Handover
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HANDOVER CONTROL ALGORITHM

Handover Parameters

L_RXLEV_XL_H
The higher it is set, the more handover attempts are made.

Free factor_X
Classifies the traffic load to different bands depending upon no. of free traffic channels.

L_RXQUAL_XL_H
The lower it is set, the more handover attempts are made.

FREELEVEL_X
Analyzes the number of free traffic channels in a cell to adjust the cell order.

RXLEV_XL_IH
The lower it is set, the more intra-cell handover attempts are made.

Link factor
Defines the order preference of the concerned adjacent cell.

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Radio link

Access Grant Blocks

On a BCCH a number of blocks are reserved as CCCH (Common Control Channel). These common control channels can be used as Access grant channel or as paging channel. The no. of blocks reserved for access grant is specified by BS_AG_BLKS_RES. It is also possible to set the value to 0 in which case the network decides how many are used as AGCH. The rest are used as PCH.

Maximum number of retransmissions

MAX_RETRAN specifies the number of retransmissions an MS may perform on the RACH when no AGCH is available from the BTS side. The retransmission is performed after a random no. of time slots the maximum of which is specified by TX-INTEGER. After this max no of retries, the MS is required to reselect another cell.

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Radio Link ..contd..

No of spread slots trans (TX_INTEGER)

TX-INTEGER is used for random spreads of the random access bursts when the Immediate assignment is not received within a given time.

No. of Multi frames

BS_PA_MFRMS specifies no. of multiframes between paging messages to MSs of the same paging group. This parameter is also used as Downlink Signalling failure counter. (DSC). When an MS camps on to a cell, DSC is set to a value equal to the nearest integer of 90/BS_PA_MFRMS for that cell. If a message is successfully decoded DSC is increased by 1, otherwise it is decreased by 4. When DSC <= 0 cell reselection is performed. This parameter will also determine the DRX (Discontinuous reception). DRX is implemented in order to save battery power.

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Radio Link Failure

The criterion for determining Radio Link Failure in the MS is based on the success rate of decoding messages on the downlink SACCH. Radio Link Time Out
If the MS is unable to decode a SACCH message, the time out counter is decreased by one, else it is increased by two. If the counter reaches 0 a radio link failure is declared and the connection is cut off.

Radio Link Failure Warning.

This counter is set lower than the time out counter and works in a similar fashion. If the counter reaches 0, the BSC directs the BTS and MS to transmit at maximum power.

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Air Timers - Um

T3101 - Immediate assignment timers

This is used to complete the channel assignment after an IMMEDIATE ASSIGNMENT. The timer is started on receipt of the CHN_ACT_ACK message. If no Establish_Ind is received during this time, the R_CHN_REL message is sent to the BTS.

T3107 - Assignment Command Timer

This timer is used to guard the seizure of the MS on the new channel. The timer is started by the sending of an handover ASSIGNMENT COMMAND message and is normally stopped when the MS has correctly seized the new channel. If the timer expires before an ASSIGNMENT_COMPLETE or an ASSIGNMENT_FAILURE message has been received from the MS, the allocated resources on the new channel have to be released and an ASSIGNMENT_FAILURE is expected on the old channel.
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Air Timers - contd.

T3109 - CHANNEL RELEASE TIMER

This timer is used to guard the reception of the RELEASE INDICATION. It is used in the channel release procedure. Its purpose is to release channels in case of loss of communication. This is to be set higher than the Radio Link Time Out counter, to ensure that the network will not put two MSs on the same dedicated channel.

If no RELEASE INDICATION is received during this time, the message RF_CHANNEL_RELEASE is sent to the BTS.

T3111 - CHANNEL DELAY TIMER

This timer is used to delay the release of the channel resources in the BTS after the disconnection of the main signalling link. It is started on receiving a RELEASE INDICATION MESSAGE. When the timer times out the RF_CHANNEL_RELEASE is sent to the BTS.
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Other Timers

T10 - BSS MAP TIMER

Time to return Assignment complete or Assignment Failure message. The purpose of the timer is to keep the old channel sufficiently long for the MS to be able to return to the old channel. The value should be greater than T3107.

T3212 - Periodic Location Update timer.

The timer that governs the periodic location update procedure of the MS. Too low values will increase SDCCH traffic in the network. Too high values will make the timer ineffective. The timer should be less than the Implicit Detach Timer in the MSC.

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Paging Load

CCCH Load Indication Period

Used for the load indication of CCHs. This parameter specifies the periodicity of the message load indication CCH which is sent from the BTS to the BSC. The load indication is calculated with the parameters RACH_MEAS_PERIOD and RACH_BUSY_THRES. If the received signal level is greater than or equal to the value of RACH_BUSY_THRES then the RACH burst in question will be indicated as busy (one or more MSs have tried to access the network). CCCH_LOAD_IND_PERIOD >= RACH_MEAS_PERIOD

CCCH Load Indication Threshold

Paging load threshold. Defines the number of busy slots to start/stop sending messages between BTS and BCE.

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RACH slots measurement

RACH_Busy _Threshold

Determines the threshold of the RACH receive level in the BTS. The level of each RACH timeslot is evaluated. All the RACH timeslots that are above the defined level are used for the load measurements, and are forwarded to the BSC. RACH_MEAS_PERIOD This parameter specifies the period of RACH measurements. It is used to calculate the total number of RACH bursts for which a measurement is performed and compared to RACH_BUSY_THRES.

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Location Area Code - LAC

Used to define the location area of a cell within a PLMN. A number of cells will share a LAC. Small groups will mean increased location updates and hence more SDCCH traffic. Large groups will increase the paging load.

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Parameter values
Parameter
RXLEV_ACC_MIN MS_TXPWR_MAX_CCH Reselect Hysteresis MS_TXPWR_MAX HO_MRGN RACH busy threshold RACH load avg slots Load indication enabled Threshold CCCH load ind CCCH load ind. period

Escotel Value
-110 dBm 33 dBm 6 dBm 33 dBm 6 dB -110 dBm 255 SACCH frames True 63 255 SACCH frames

Recommended value
-102 dBm 33 dBm 6 dBm 33 dBm 6dB -110 dBm 255 ( 240 s) True 63 255 ( 240 s)

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Parameter values - contd.

Parameter L_RXLEV_XL_P U_RXLEV_XL_P L_RXQUAL_XL_P U_RXQUAL_XL_P L_RXQUAL_XL_H L_RXLEV_XL_H RXLEV_XL_IH Averaging Period P_CON_ACK P_CON_INTERVAL Escotel Value - 90 dBm - 86 dBm 3 1 4 - 102 dBm - 74 dBm 5 SACCH frames 6 SACCH frames 4 SACCH frames Recommended - 90 - 80 3 1 4 - 102 dBm - 74 dBm 5 (2.4 s) 6 (2.88 s) 4 (1.92 s)

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Parameter values - contd.

Parameter MAX_RETRANS TX-INTEGER BS_AG_BLKS_RES BS_PA_MFRMS T3212 Radio Link Time out Radio Link Fail Warning T 3101 T 3107 T 3109 T 3111 Escotel value 4 20 TDMA frames 0 7 4 hours 24 SACCH frames 16 SACCH frames 2s 23 s 12 s 1s Recommended value 4 10 TDMA frames 0 4 12 hours 24 (11.52 s) 16 (7.68 s) 2s 23 s 12 s 1s

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