Security Level: Internal Use

GBSS13.0 BSC6900 (V900R013C00)

RTCP Feature Description

Global Technical Support

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Copyright 2010 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

Objectives

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

Know the principles and implementation method of the RTP Control

Protocol (RTCP) feature.

Know the methods of enabling RTCP and querying the counters.

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Contents
1. Purpose of RTCP
2. Application Scenarios of RTCP
3. Networking, Hardware, and Software Planning of RTCP
4. Design and Implementation Method of RTCP
5. RTCP Operations

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Purpose

After A over IP (AoIP) is implemented, Internet Protocol (IP)

transmission is more advanced but more unstable than time division
multiplexing (TDM) transmission. The impacts of transmission on
service quality are more serious. After AoIP is adopted, monitor the
impacts of A interface transmission on circuit switched (CS) voices to
learn about the voice quality on each transmission IP path.

RTCP is an optional AoIP function defined in the protocol and

provides the method of checking the quality of service (QoS) of the
CS voices on the A interface after AoIP is adopted. RTCP is
applicable only to the A interface and independent of other interfaces.

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Application Scenarios

RTCP is applicable to the AoIP scenario where you must know the
impacts of A interface transmission quality on CS voice calls.

Currently, the base station controller (BSC) supports the measurement of

transmission counters based on the IP path. You can assess the
transmission link based on the measurement. This function does not
support packet switched (PS) counter measurement.

RTCP takes effect only if the core network supports RTCP. Currently,
most media gateways (MGWs) support RTCP. Manual confirmation is
required before RTCP is enabled. If the MGW does not support RTCP,
some counters cannot be measured, but this does not affect services.
RTCP is independent of the other network elements (NEs).

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Networking, Hardware, and Software

Planning

Involved NEs: BSC and MGW

Networking requirements

A over FE or A IP over E1/T1 networking is required.

This feature is independent of other interfaces (regardless of whether the other

interfaces are IP-based).

Hardware requirements

RTCP monitors the transmission quality of CS voices in the user plane.

Therefore, only the DPUc and DPUf support RTCP, and other boards do not
support it.

The DPUc and DPUf in the AoTDM networking do not support RTCP.

Software requirements

BSC: R13 or later versions

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Design and Implementation Method

The following is the networking diagram of the A interface.

RTP/RTCP processes and monitors the user-plane (BSC MGW) data packets.

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Design and Implementation Method

RTCP exchanges RTP service flow transmission information about the A

interface between the sender and the receiver to monitor RTP. RTP uses
ports with even port numbers, and RTCP uses ports with odd port numbers.
That is, an RTP port number plus one is an RTCP port number. RTCP ports
transmit the monitoring packets of RTP service flows.

For a global system for mobile communications (GSM) A interface,

implement only the following RTCP subsets:
SR and RR packets supporting RTCP, that is, sender reports and
receiver reports. The BSC and the MGW exchange the sending and
receiving information to determine the current transmission quality.
Performance counters can be calculated based on the local
measurement results and peer SR and RR packets.

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Design and Implementation Method

RTCP needs to exchange detection packets between the sender

and the receiver, which requires certain transmission bandwidth.
RTCP bandwidth must not be higher than 5% of RTP bandwidth.
Therefore, it is recommended that the minimum RTCP
transmission interval be five seconds. Currently, the RTCP packet
sending interval on the BSC is always five seconds.

For a GSM A interface, RTCP does not monitor users but BSCMGW IP address pairs (IP paths) to reflect the transmission
quality of CS voices on each IP path.

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Design and Implementation Method

The BSC and the MGW exchange information (including the number of
sent bytes and the number of sent packets) about locally sent packets
and information (including the number of lost packets, packet loss rate,
jitter, and delay) about locally received packets. Based on these, the
related counters can be calculated.

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Design and Implementation Method

Counters related to data receiving are used to observe the service

volume on the IP path from the MGW to the BSC.

[T7683: number of RTP bytes received on the IP path]

[T7686: number of RTP packets received on the IP path]

[T7689: RTP traffic bandwidth in the receiving direction on the IP path]

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Design and Implementation Method

Counters related to data sending are used to observe the service volume
in the IP path from the BSC to the MGW.

[T7682: number of RTP bytes sent on the IP path]

[T7681: number of RTP packets sent on the IP path]

[T7690: RTP traffic bandwidth in the sending direction on the IP path]

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Design and Implementation Method

Voice QoS counters: If a voice QoS counter is abnormal, the AoIP voice quality is
directly degraded.

[T7684: packet loss rate measured at the local end of the IP path]
If the value of this counter increases, the end user feels serious voice discontinuity,
or one-way audio occurs.

[T7687: delay and jitter measured at the local end of the IP path]
If the value of this counter increases, the end user feels serious voice discontinuity.
[T7688: loopback delay measured at the local end of the IP path]
If the value of this counter increases, the end user waits a long period for the
response of the other party.

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Design and Implementation Method

[T7692: weighted ratio of the excess duration (delay jitter - threshold) to

the total service duration in the IP path]

If the value of this counter increases, the A interface transmission jitter

becomes worse generally, and most end users feel serious voice
discontinuity.

[T7694: weighted ratio of the excess duration (loopback delay - threshold)

to the total service duration in the IP path]

If the value of this counter increases, the A interface transmission delay

increases generally, and most end users wait a long period for the
response of the other party.

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Design and Implementation Method

If there are complaints about voice quality after AoIP is implemented, you can check the
RTCP-related measurement.

If the values of T7682, T7681, and T7690 on an IP path are abnormally small, it indicates that
the valid uplink bandwidth on the IP path is decreased. In this case, rectify transmission faults.

If the values of T7683, T7686, and T7689 on an IP path are abnormally small, it indicates that
the valid downlink bandwidth on the IP path is decreased. In this case, rectify transmission
faults.

If the value of T7684 on an IP path is abnormally large, it indicates that the voice quality is
decreased by AoIP transmission packet loss.

If the values of T7687 and T7692 on an IP path are abnormally large, it indicates that the
transmission jitter is serious, and packet loss occurs due to low jitter cancellation capability. In
this case, it is recommended that you increase the jitter buffer on the BSS side to improve the
jitter cancellation capability.

If the values of T7688 and T7694 on an IP path are abnormally large, it indicates that the
transmission path is too long or the intermediate devices cause long delay. In this case, rectify
transmission faults.

Copyright 2010 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Operation and Maintenance of the

Feature

1. How to enable RTCP

2. How to subscribe to and query the related performance

measurement

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How to Enable RTCP

On the Web LMT client, run the man-machine language (MML) command
MOD GCNNODE to set Enable RTCP to ON to enable RTCP.

After the command is executed successfully, you can run LST GCNNODE
to check whether the configuration is successful.

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Enabling the RTCP on the CME

On the CME client, set RTCP Enable to Open in the GSM CN Node table.
The procedure for navigating to the GSM CN Node table is as follows: On the Main
View tab, right-click CMECfgSyncView, and choose Global Configuration Express
from the shortcut menu. On the Properties tab, click GSM CN Node. The
GSM CN Node table is displayed in the right pane.

After the setting has taken effect, run the LST GCNNODE command on the Web LMT
to check whether the RTCP is enabled.

Copyright 2010 Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. All rights reserved.

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related Performance Measurement
To subscribe to the performance

To query the performance

measurement, do as follows:

measurement, do as follows:

1. Access the measurement

1. Access the measurement

management view of the M2000.

2. Select the measurement object
to be queried.
3. Select the NE, counter, and
parameters.
4. Subscription succeeds.

management view of the

M2000.
2. Select performance
measurement result query.
3. Select the NE, counter, and
parameters to be queried.
4. Check the result.

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related
Performance
Measurement
Log in to the M2000
server, and choose Performance
> Measurement
Management to access the performance measurement subscription page.
See the following figure:

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related
Performance
Measurement
The RTCP-related
performance measurement
object is Measurement related to
RTP flux in IPPATH. Select this object, as shown in the following figure.

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related Performance Measurement
From the NE list, select the NE to be queried. On the Measurement
Settings tab page, you can select and set the IP path object and performance
counters. You can select the 15 Minutes, 60 Minutes, or 24 Hours
measurement type, and then select the counters to subscribe to. On the lower
part of the window, you can specify an IP path object, and then click Apply to
complete the subscription.

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related
Performance
Measurement
Choose Performance
> Result Query. On
the displayed page, right-click and
choose Conditions. Then, the following dialog box is displayed.

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How to Subscribe to and Query the

Related Performance Measurement
See the following figure. Select the measurement object Measurement related to
RTP flux in IPPATH. On the Object Settings tab page, select the IP path of the NE
to be queried. On the Counter Settings tab page, select the counters to be queried.
On the Other Settings tab page, set the query parameters. Then, click Query to
query the performance counters that meet the conditions.

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References

RFC3550 RTP: A Transport Protocol for Real-Time

Applications

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

Acronym or Abbreviation

Full Spelling

RTP

Real-Time Transport Protocol

RTCP

Real-Time Transport Control Protocol

SR

Sender Report

RR

Receiver Report

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Thank you
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