Request: The information about 2G/3G co-LAC Hi all, I'm collecting the information about 2G/3G co-LAC for

our local operator. Your responses are very appreciated if you can provide the following information . 1. 2. 3. is 4. Country or Region Operator name Does the 2G/3G system which cover the same area deploy the same LAC? If Not, it possible that lots of Location Updates generated? Does the 2G/3G use the common core system?

Thanks and Best Regards, Wang Kui

Posted: 2008-11-27 14:14 by Zaher Zeitouneh View Properties

Reply

Hi Wang I've heard once that vodaphon in Portugal has such a strategy (Commomn LAC 2G-3G ) As for your 3rd question I think that the main advantage of this strategy is to reduce the number of LAU Rgds Zaher Show Quoted Messages

Edited: 2008-11-27 17:03 by Christian Mathis View Properties Hi Wang,

Reply

I do not have direct answers to your questions, but the following might also be useful: In 2007, I was on a project in Egypt (Etisalat) where the customer wanted to imp lement such a strategy. The main issue was that they considered a change of the strategy in a commercially operating network. In cooperation with GSDC Italy, we made a brief impact study with the conclusion and recommendation to NOT impleme nt such a strategy, see high-level statement to customer's NW Senior Management below: The recommendation is to use different Location Area Identity (LAI) and Routing Area Identity (RAI) for the GSM and WCDMA networks. If the same LAI / RAI are us ed for overlapping 2G/3G networks, a consequence is that the GSM subscribers are paged in the WCDMA network and vice versa. Since most GSM networks have a large number of subscribers this could generate a heavy paging load in the WCDMA netw ork. Using different LAI / RAI for GSM and WCDMA implies that a LA/RA update will tak e place each time the UE makes Inter Radio Access Technology (IRAT) cell reselec tion. If WCDMA for example covers only a city area there will be a distinct LA/R

A border in both systems where the WCDMA coverage is discontinued. Different requirements of GSM and WCDMA in terms of coverage and capacity as wel l as differences given by the nature of the two technologies (e.g. constant cell borders in GSM vs. cell breathing effect in WCDMA) lead to a varying overlap of the service areas. This means that intersections of LA/RA are a consequence tha t cannot be completely avoided. Thus, same LA and RA can theoretically be used, and might give benefits (e.g. mi nimal or no LA/RA updates while doing IRAT cell reselection). However, this bene fits might fluctuate, e.g. because of varying traffic levels in WCDMA cells and the resulting variation of the WCDMA service area. Moreover, such a configuratio n requires more initial conditions than simply having the same MSC. Some are rel ated to MGw and, in general, the entire Core Network structure, so it is not a s traightforward implementation. Furthermore, there is a lot of effort required fr om a Data Transcript point of view which is estimated in the range of several we eks since it has to be coordinated and aligned with other activities. The servic e availability might be as well impacted for certain periods. Another disadvantage is, as indicated above, that there is unnecessary paging lo ad generated in either the GSM cells or the WCDMA cells of the same LA/RA. This also means that the paging capacity for GSM and WCDMA could not be optimized ind ividually; a dimensioning compromise is required. Statistics from [Etisalat] 2G and 3G paging traffic reflect that there is much more 2G paging activity and loa d than for 3G. A survey on numerous other Ericsson markets has shown that there is only one ref erence market where 2G/3G is implemented with the same LAC [Vodafone Portugal] . Best Regards, Christian Mathis