C/A Measurements In TEMS Investigation GSM

1. Introduction

1.1. Scope
This document describes the information element C/A and how it is measured in TEMS Investigation. It is applicable
to all current versions of TEMS Investigation.
1.2. C/A definition
The carrier-to-adjacent ratio is defined as the signal-strength ratio between a serving carrier and an adjacent carrier.
It is calculated according to the following formula:
C/A (dB) = Serving signal strength (dBm) Adjacent signal strength (dBm)
The adjacent carrier could be located on both sides of the serving carrier and at a different index. The index
represents the number of ARFCN offset from a carrier, which means that the index corresponds to a frequency offset
of index multiplied by 200kHz (200kHz is the carrier spacing in GSM). For example, if the serving carrier ARFCN is
20 and the adjacent ARFCN is 19, the corresponding C/A value is called C/A-1, located 200kHz below the serving
carrier.

Figure 1. The information element C/A-1 and C/A + 2 shown, serving carrier is ARFCN 20.
In
Figure 1 above:
C/A-1 = 70dBm (-90dBm) = 20dB
C/A+2 = -70dBm (-65dBm) = -5dB
GSM requirements
The GSM specification 05.05 sets the C/A performance requirement on a GSM mobile phone in terms of adjacent
channel rejection. Actually, the specification states how much stronger an adjacent carrier could be without
disturbing the serving carrier due to leakage in the receiver filter. If the power level on an adjacent carrier is to high,
the filter cannot remove all the power and it will appear as interference in the receiver disturbing the serving carrier
signal.
According to GSM specification 05.05, section 6.3:
Adjacent (200 kHz) interference: C/Ia1=- 9 dB

Adjacent (400 kHz) interference: C/Ia2=- 41 dB

Adjacent (600 kHz) interference: C/Ia3=- 49 dB
This means that an adjacent carrier with 200kHz offset could be 9dB stronger than the carrier, still fulfilling the
FER/BER performance requirement.
1.3. When should C/A measurements be used?
The typical usage of C/A measurements is for troubleshooting bad speech quality or low data throughput. The very
first step after having detected a problem with the speech quality (preferably the SQI value) is to check the C/I
values for the used frequency (or frequencies in case of frequency hopping). A low C/I value in TEMS Investigation
can be caused by several different reasons (see the document Interpreting the Information Element C/I, doc.
EPL/T/TN-00:022 (file c_i_causes.pdf)).
Measuring the C/A values on a disturbed carrier can tell whether the problem is related to a too-strong adjacent
carrier.
2. C/A measurements using a single TEMS mobile
In TEMS Investigation, it is possible to enable C/A measurements using a single mobile phone and measure during
idle mode or, if frequency hopping is not in use, during dedicated mode as well. It is possible to select up to three
adjacent carriers on both sides of the serving carrier that should be measured.
However, those measurements will, as explained below, have implications regarding the mobile phone behavior
compared to a standard GSM phone.
2.1. Measuring the adjacent sample [A]
Dedidated mode
A typical single slot GSM mobile is designed to, on each TDMA frame (i.e. eight consecutive timeslots), perform
three tasks.

Figure 2 Mobile station behavior on a TDMA frame.

In Figure 2 above, a mobile station is assigned timeslot 1. Note the 3 timeslot offset between RX and TX.
On one TDMA frame, the mobile first receives one burst and simultaneously measures the signal strength of the
serving cell, then it transmits one burst and then it measures signal strength on one neighbor cell. Note that if the
neighbor measurement is not synchronized to the TDMA frame of the measured neighboring cell, it will just tune into
the frequency of the neighbor and measure the signal strength.
This means that an intermittent adjacent interferer could be missed if it occurs at the receiving timeslot, but never at
the timeslot corresponding to the neighbor cell measurement slot.
So, for each TDMA frame, one neighbor cell can be measured. In dedicated mode during one SACCH multiframe, it
is possible to take 100 neighboring samples (there are 104 TDMA frames per SACCH multiframe but the four IDLE
frames will be used for SCH search instead of measurements). If the neighbor cell list (the BA list) contains 20
frequencies, the reported signal strength in the Measurement Report will be an average of 100/20 = 5 samples per
neighbor.
If C/A measurements are enabled, the adjacent carriers will be added to the list of neighboring cells that should be
measured (although they will of course not be reported in the Measurement Report sent up to the GSM network).
This means that if two adjacent carriers on both sides of the carrier should be measured, four frequencies will be

added to the list of frequencies that should be measured.

In this instance we will have 24 frequencies instead of 20. This means that each sample in the Measurement Report
will be based on 100/24 = 4 samples instead of 5 as in the example above. Although it would hardly be noticeable,
this in turn might lead to incorrect handover decisions and thus degrade handover performance. The worst case is
when the BA list contains 32 neighbors and then three adjacent carriers on both sides should be measured. This will
end up as 100/(32+6) = 2 samples per carrier. The GSM specification requires that one neighbor in the BA list is
measured on each TDMA frame (except for the idle frame) resulting in, for a full-rate traffic channel, an average of at
least three samples.
Each adjacent value will be based on the same number of samples as the neighbors reported in MEASUREMENT
REPORT (as calculated above).
Number of samples per value = 100 / (BA list length + number of adjacent frequencies).
Where number of adjacent frequencies could be 0 (C/A disabled), 2, 4, or 6).
A multi-slot mobile will increase the number of timeslots used for receiving and transmitting, however, the
neighboring measurements will still be limited to one neighbor per TDMA frame.
Idle mode
In idle mode, the adjacent carriers to be measured will, as in the dedicated mode case above, be added to the list of
the neighboring cells. The difference is that the normal neighboring cell measurements will not be affected by any
means of the extra measurements.
Each adjacent [A] value will be an average of 5 samples spread equally over the measurement period.
2.2. Measuring the carrier sample [C]
Dedicated mode
In order to calculate the C/A ratio, both the adjacent sample and the serving-carrier sample are needed. The signal
strength sample of the serving carrier will be the signal-strength sub value (RXLEV SUB), which means that it will be
measured during the reception of data (i.e. timeslot 1 in Figure 2). This means that the [C] sample will be an average
of 12 samples (see the document FER, RXQUAL, and DTX DL rate measurements in TEMS GSM. doc. No.
EPL/N/TB-01:019 for a detailed description of the subset of bursts used for the SUB values.
Idle mode
In idle mode, the signal strength used for the [C] value is the same value as the serving-cell signal strength (RXLEV)
used for cell reselection. Each [C] value will be an average of 5 samples spread equally over the measurement
period.
2.3. Calculating the C/A ratio
For each measured adjacent frequency, a corresponding C/A value is calculated by using the formula stated in
chapter 1. The C/A will be calculated once for each SACCH multiframe (i.e. 480 ms) in dedicated mode and in idle
mode, C/A will be calculated once every 10:th second.
3. C/A measurements using two synchronized TEMS mobiles
In order to be able to measure C/A during frequency hopping, two TEMS mobiles must be used. This is also the
case when the serving carrier [C] and the adjacent [A] should be measured synchronously (at the same timeslot (but
at different TDMA frames)). One of the mobiles (referred to as the master) will be used as a regular GSM phone in
idle or dedicated mode but the other one (referred to as adjacent scanning) will enter frequency scanning mode and
will be synchronized to the master mobile. This function is completely independent of the C/A measurement function
described in chapter 2. The adjacent scanning mobile will be controlled from the frequency-scanning tool.
The adjacent scanning mobile requires an R520, R320, or T28 World mobile phone, and the master mobile must be

a R520, R320, SH888, CF688, T28 World, or T28s.

See the TEMS Investigation manual for how to set up and synchronize the adjacent scanning mobile.
3.1. Measuring the adjacent sample [A]
The adjacent scanning function uses the adjacent scanning mobile to track the behavior of the master mobile in both
idle and dedicated mode. In dedicated mode, both frequency-hopping and non-frequency-hopping configurations
can be monitored and, in frequency-hopping mode, both cyclic and pseudo-random hopping is supported.
At any given moment, the adjacent scanning mobile measures the two closest adjacent carriers on both sides of the
master mobile's serving cell carrier, as well as the serving carrier itself. The reason for the latter is that picking this
data from the master mobile may be misleading if the receiving conditions differ between the two devices.
If frequency hopping is used in the network, a number of such five-carrier sets will be measured alternately, and all
of these are presented in parallel.
The averaging procedure takes place in the mobile and will be performed in the dB domain (i.e. no watts
translation). Each value presented in TEMS Investigation will be an average based on the number of samples
according to the formula below:
Number of samples per averaged value = 30/(length of MA list)
In idle mode and non-frequency-hopping dedicated mode, the MA list length is 1. In frequency-hopping mode, the
MA list length is the number of frequencies in the hopping set.
3.2. Measuring the carrier sample [C]
The carrier sample [C] used in the C/A calculation will be taken in exactly the same way as the adjacent [A] sample
as described in chapter Error! Reference source not found.. Note that the signal strength of the master mobile will
not be used as the [C] sample.
3.3. Synchronization
The adjacent scanning mobile and the master mobile are synchronized in such a way that each serving-cell carrier
and its associated adjacent carrier are sampled throughout the precise time intervals during which the master mobile
is on this serving carrier. When frequency hopping is used, this is crucial for the measurements to represent exactly
the radio environment experienced by the master mobile. If you measure the same set of carrier manually (i.e. not
using this synchronization), very often while the master mobile is on one carrier in the hopping list, the scanner will
be busy measuring some other carrier which is not even adjacent to it. In other words, the timing of most measured
samples will be slightly off, meaning that the fast fading patterns will differ considerably from those actually
encountered by the master mobile.
4. Summary
In TEMS Investigation, there are two different ways to measure the C/A ratio, using a single mobile or using two
mobiles where one mobile is synchronized to the other. C/A can be measured in both idle and dedicated mode.
Using two synchronized mobiles has not only the advantage of handling frequency hopping but also measures the
C/A ratio exactly as experienced by the master mobile.