Frequency Planning Guide1

Frequency Hopping Network Implementation and Planning
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Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

HISTORY
Version
Date
Author
Comments
0.0.1
0.0.2
21 Sep, 1998
24 Sep, 1998
MaSa
JRy
1.0.0
23 Oct, 1998
JRy
The first draft

Modifications: The whole document restructured, Chapter 2.3: PC and DTX gains,
Chapter 7.2: RXQual distribution, Table 9: Ho Threshold Interference.
Added: Figure 5 -32, Figure 5 -33, Figure 7 -45, Figure 7 -46, Figure 7 -50, Table
10, Table 11, Table 12.
Added: History , Chapter 2.1.6, Chapter 3.6, Chapter 3.9.1, Chapter 3.9.6, Chapter
3.9.7, Chapter 3.9.8, Chapter 5.1, Chapter 5.2, Chapter 5.6.2, Chapter 6.3, Chapter
7.1, Chapter 7.2, Chapter 7.9.
The first accepted version
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CONTENTS
1.
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................................................................................................
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
2.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF FREQUENCY HOPPING...........................................................................................................................................................

FREQUENCY HOPPING MODES...........................................................................................................................................................................................
CELL ALLOCATION..........................................................................................................................................................................................................
MOBILE ALLOCATION......................................................................................................................................................................................................
HOPPING SEQUENCE NUMBER.........................................................................................................................................................................................
MOBILE ALLOCATION INDEX OFFSET..............................................................................................................................................................................
MAIO STEP.....................................................................................................................................................................................................................
THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE OF FREQUENCY HOPPING............................................................................................................................
2.1
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.1.4
2.1.5
2.1.6
2.2
2.3
3.
FREQUENCY DIVERSITY...................................................................................................................................................................................................
Coherence Bandwidth.........................................................................................................................................................................................
Effect of Interleaving..........................................................................................................................................................................................
Cyclic vs. Random Hopping Sequences..............................................................................................................................................................
Simulated Frequency Diversity Gains................................................................................................................................................................
Effect in Cell Coverage Area..............................................................................................................................................................................
Effect of Mobile Speed........................................................................................................................................................................................
INTERFERENCE DIVERSITY..............................................................................................................................................................................................
EFFECT OF POWER CONTROL AND DTX.........................................................................................................................................................................
NOKIAS SUPPORT FOR FREQUENCY HOPPING IN GSM....................................................................................................................................
3.1
3.2
3.3
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.8.1
3.8.2
3.9
3.9.1
3.9.2
3.9.3
3.9.4
3.9.5
3.9.6
3.9.7
3.9.8
BSS LEVEL IMPLEMENTATION.........................................................................................................................................................................................

THE 2ND GENERATION BASE STATION............................................................................................................................................................................
TALK FAMILY BASE STATION..........................................................................................................................................................................................
PRIMESITE.......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
BASE STATION CONTROLLER...........................................................................................................................................................................................
NPS/X.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................
MAXIMUM CONFIGURATIONS..........................................................................................................................................................................................
RADIO NETWORK FAULT MANAGEMENT........................................................................................................................................................................
The 2nd Generation Base Station.......................................................................................................................................................................
Talk Family Base Stations and PrimeSite...........................................................................................................................................................
RESTRICTIONS ON THE USAGE OF FH.............................................................................................................................................................................
DL Power Control with BB FH..........................................................................................................................................................................
Downlink DTX....................................................................................................................................................................................................
Extended Range Cell (DE34/DF34/DG35)........................................................................................................................................................
MS Speed Detection............................................................................................................................................................................................
Half Rate.............................................................................................................................................................................................................
Frequency Sharing..............................................................................................................................................................................................
RTC Combiner....................................................................................................................................................................................................
NPS/X..................................................................................................................................................................................................................
4.
SELECTING THE RIGHT HOPPING STRATEGY.....................................................................................................................................................
5.
FREQUENCY PLANNING OF FREQUENCY HOPPING NETWORKS..................................................................................................................
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.3.1
5.3.2
5.4
5.4.1
5.4.2
5.4.3
5.5
5.6
5.6.1
5.6.2
5.6.3
5.6.4
5.6.5
6.
NETWORK PLANNING PROCEDURE..................................................................................................................................................................................

FREQUENCY PLANNING PROCEDURE WITH NPS/X.........................................................................................................................................................
FREQUENCY REUSE ON FREQUENCY HOPPING NETWORK..............................................................................................................................................
Effective Reuse....................................................................................................................................................................................................
Frequency Allocation Reuse (RF FH only)........................................................................................................................................................
LOAD ON NETWORKS UTILISING FRACTIONAL LOADING (RF FH ONLY).......................................................................................................................
Frequency Load..................................................................................................................................................................................................
Hard Blocking Load............................................................................................................................................................................................
Fractional Load..................................................................................................................................................................................................
TRUNKING EFFECT AND EFFECTIVE REUSE....................................................................................................................................................................
FREQUENCY ALLOCATION STRATEGIES...........................................................................................................................................................................
BCCH Allocation................................................................................................................................................................................................
Selecting the Effective Reuse (BB FH)...............................................................................................................................................................
Selecting the Frequency Allocation Reuse and the Frequency Load (RF FH)...................................................................................................
Frequency Sharing by Using MAIO Management (RF FH only).......................................................................................................................
Frequency Sharing in the Single MA-list Scheme (RF FH only)........................................................................................................................
RADIO NETWORK PARAMETERS..............................................................................................................................................................................
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.5.1
6.5.2
PARAMETERS FOR MA-LIST DEFINITIONS IN BSC..........................................................................................................................................................

BTS LEVEL FH RELATED PARAMETERS.........................................................................................................................................................................
POWER CONTROL............................................................................................................................................................................................................
HANDOVER......................................................................................................................................................................................................................
DTX................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Uplink DTX.........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Downlink DTX....................................................................................................................................................................................................
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7.
OPTIMISATION................................................................................................................................................................................................................
7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.6
7.7
7.7.1
7.8
7.9
8.
TOOLS FOR NETWORK MONITORING...............................................................................................................................................................................

KPIS FOR HOPPING NETWORK........................................................................................................................................................................................
RXQUAL IN FH NETWORKS..........................................................................................................................................................................................
IDLE CHANNEL INTERFERENCE MEASUREMENT.............................................................................................................................................................
CYCLIC AND RANDOM HOPPING SEQUENCES.................................................................................................................................................................
INTRACELL HANDOVER...................................................................................................................................................................................................
POWER CONTROL............................................................................................................................................................................................................
Downlink Power Control with BB Hopping.......................................................................................................................................................
HANDOVER CONTROL.....................................................................................................................................................................................................
HSN PLANNING WITH RANDOM HOPPING......................................................................................................................................................................
PLANNING CASES...........................................................................................................................................................................................................
8.1
8.1.1
8.1.2
8.2
8.2.1
8.2.2
8.3
8.3.1
8.3.2
8.3.3
PLANNING CASE 1: SINGLE MA-LIST..............................................................................................................................................................................

Frequency Planning............................................................................................................................................................................................
MAIO Planning...................................................................................................................................................................................................
PLANNING CASE 2: RF FH WITH FRACTIONAL LOADING (FAR 3 5)...........................................................................................................................
Defining the Frequency Band and the Number of Frequencies Needed in Each Cell.......................................................................................
Frequency Allocation and Analysis....................................................................................................................................................................
PLANNING CASE 3: RF FH WITH FREQUENCY SHARING................................................................................................................................................
Frequency Planning............................................................................................................................................................................................
MAIO Planning...................................................................................................................................................................................................
Analysis...............................................................................................................................................................................................................
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1.
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this document is to explain the theory behind the frequency hopping (FH), how the frequency hopping is implemented in Nokias
network elements, how to choose the right frequency hopping strategy, parameters related to FH, frequency allocation procedure, how to analyse the
quality of the network and the optimisation process. Also some practical planning examples are presented.
Frequency hopping is one of the standardised capacity enhancement features in GSM system. It offers a significant capacity gain without any costly
infrastructure requirements. It is also compatible with all the existing GSM mobile phones, since the frequency hopping support has been required by
the GSM specifications from the beginning. Frequency hopping can co-exist with most of the other capacity enhancement features and in many cases it
significantly boosts the effect of those features. All these factors make frequency hopping a very tempting capacity enhancement solution.
Half-Rate
Networks
Channel-Bandwidth
Dual-Band-/
Dual-ModeNetworks
Antennas Down
Ant. Downtilting
Micro-Cell
Pico-Cell / Indoor
Spectrum
Cell Size
PC DTX FH
Smart Antennas
IUO
IFH
Reuse-Factor (C/I)
Effective Network Planning
CAPACITY GAIN
Figure 1-1. Solutions to enhance network capacity.
1.1
General Description of Frequency Hopping
Frequency hopping can be briefly defined as a sequential change of carrier frequency on the radio link between the mobile and the base station.
In GSM, one carrier frequency is divided into eight time slots. Each time slot provides one physical channel, which can be assigned to one link between
a mobile and a base station. The communication between the mobile and the base station occurs in bursts inside
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assigned time slot. Each burst lasts about 577 s. When frequency hopping is used, the carrier frequency may be changed between each consecutive
TDMA frame. This means that for each connection the change of the frequency may happen between every burst. This is called Slow Frequency
Hopping (SFH), because more than one bit is transmitted using the same frequency. In Fast Frequency Hopping (FFH), the carrier frequency is allowed
to change more than once during a bit duration, but this is not implemented in GSM.
At first, the frequency hopping was used in military applications in order to improve the secrecy and to make the system more robust against jamming.
In cellular network, the frequency hopping also provides some additional benefits such as frequency diversity and interference diversity. The basic
principle of frequency hopping is presented in Figure 1 -2.
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Call is transmitted through several
frequencies in order to
average the interference (interference diversity)
minimise the impact of fading (frequency diversity)
Frequency
F1
F2
F3
Time
Figure 1-2. Basic functionality of frequency hopping.

1.2
Frequency Hopping Modes
The requirement that the BCCH TRX must transmit continuously in all the time slots sets strict limitations on how the frequency hopping can be
realised in a cell. The current solutions are Baseband Frequency Hopping (BB FH) and Synthesised Frequency Hopping (RF FH).
In the baseband frequency hopping the TRXs operate at fixed frequencies. Frequency hopping is generated by switching consecutive bursts in each
time slot through different TRXs according to the assigned hopping sequence. The number of frequencies to hop over is determined by the number of
TRXs. Because the first time slot of the BCCH TRX is not allowed to hop, it must be excluded from the hopping sequence. This leads to three different
hopping groups. The first group doesnt hop and it includes only the BCCH time slot. The second group consists of the first time slots of the non-BCCH
TRXs. The third group includes time slots one through seven from every TRX. This is illustrated in Figure 1 -3.
RTSL 0
TRX-1 B
7
f1
B = BCCH timeslot. It does not hop.
TRX-2
f2
Time slots 1...7 of all TRXs

hop over (f1,f2,f3,f4).
TRX-3
f3
TRX-4
f4
HSN2
HSN1
Time slot 0 of TRX-2,-3,-4 hop over f2,f3,f4.
Figure 1-3. Baseband hopping (BB FH).
In the synthesised frequency hopping all the TRXs except the BCCH TRX change their frequency for every TDMA frame according to the hopping
sequence. Thus the BCCH TRX doesnt hop. The number of frequencies to hop over is limited to 63, which is the maximum number of frequencies in
the Mobile Allocation (MA) list covered in Section 1.4. Synthesised hopping is illustrated in Figure 1 -4.
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TRX-1
B =BCCH timeslot. TRX does not hop.
f1,
f2,
f3,
fn
Non-BCCH TRXs are hopping over

the MA-list (f1,f2,f3,...,fn) attached to the cell.
f1,
f2,
f3,
fn
. .. .
HSN1
TRX-2
Figure 1-4. Synthesised hopping (RF FH).
The biggest limitation in baseband hopping is that the number of the hopping frequencies is the same as the number of TRXs. In synthesised hopping
the number of the hopping frequencies can be anything between the number of hopping TRXs and 63. However in synthesised hopping the BCCH TRX
is left completely out of the hopping sequence. The differences between BB and RF hopping are further illustrated in Figure 1 -5.
BB-FH
F1(+ BCCH)
TRX-1
F2
F3
TRX-3
Dig.
MSC
MS does not see

any difference
Frequency
F1
F2
F3
RF
BSC
TCSM
Time
RF-FH
TRX-1
F1, F2, F3
TRX-2
BCCH
Dig.
RF
BB-FH is feasible with large configurations
RF-FH is viable with smaller configurations
Figure 1-5. The difference between BB and RF FH.
1.3
Cell Allocation
The Cell Allocation (CA) is a list of all the frequencies allocated to a cell. The CA is transmitted regularly on the BCCH. Usually it is also included in
the signaling messages that command the mobile to start using a frequency hopping logical channel. The cell allocation may be different for each cell.
In GSM 900 the CA list may include all the 124 available frequencies [GSM 04.08]. However, the practical limit is 64, since the MA-list can only point
to 64 frequencies that are included in the CA list as presented in the next section. The only signaling method allowed in the GSM 900 systems to
transmit the CA list is the bit map 0 method presented in Table 1.
Table 1. The signalling method for transmitting the CA list in GSM 900 system.
CA signaling method
Lowest ARFCN
Max. ARFCN range
bit map 0
0
124
* Practical limit is 64, because the MA-list can only point to 64 frequencies.
Max. number of
frequencies in the CA list
124*
In GSM 1800 and GSM 1900 systems the frequency band is so large that the CA list cannot include all the frequencies available in a system. In these
systems the bit map 0 method is not available, but five other methods can be used [DCS 04.08] [J-STD 7]. Each of these methods has different
limitations that limit the maximum frequency range and the maximum number of frequencies. These signaling methods together with their limitations
are presented in Table 2. In Nokia implementation the variable bit map and the 512 range signaling methods are available. The CA list is always
automatically generated and it includes the BCCH frequency and the frequencies that are defined for the MA-list.
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Table 2. Different signalling methods for transmitting the CA list in GSM 1800/1900.
CA signaling method
Lowest
ARFCN
0
selectable
selectable
selectable
1024 range
512 range
256 range
128 range
Max. ARFCN range

1024
512
256
128
variable bit map

selectable
112
* Practical limit is 64, because the MA-list can only point to 64 frequencies.
1.4
Mobile Allocation
Max. number of
frequencies in the CA list
16 (17 if ARFCN 0 is included in the CA list)
18
22
29
112*
DOCUMENTTYPE
The MA is a list of hopping frequencies transmitted to a mobile every time it is assigned to a hopping physical channel. The MA-list is a subset of the
CA
list. The MA-list is automatically generated if the baseband hopping is used. If the network utilises the RF hopping, the MA-lists have to be
TypeUnitOrDepartmentHere
generated for each cell by the network planner. The MA-list is able to point to 64 of the frequencies defined in the CA list. However, the BCCH
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TypeDateHere
frequency is also included in the CA list, so the practical maximum number of frequencies in the MA-list is 63. The frequencies in the MA-list are
required to be in increasing order because of the type of signaling used to transfer the MA-list.
1.5
Hopping Sequence Number
The Hopping Sequence Number (HSN) indicates which hopping sequence of the 64 available is selected. The hopping sequence determines the order in
which the frequencies in the MA-list are to be used. The HSNs 1 - 63 are pseudo random sequences used in the random hopping while the HSN 0 is
reserved for a sequential sequence used in the cyclic hopping. The hopping sequence algorithm takes HSN and FN as an input and the output of the
hopping sequence generation is a Mobile Allocation Index (MAI) which is a number ranging from 0 to the number of frequencies in the MA-list
subtracted by one. The HSN is a cell specific parameter. For the baseband hopping two HSNs exists. The zero time slots in a BB hopping cell use the
HSN1 and the rest of the time slots follow the HSN2 as presented in Figure 1 -3. All the time slots in RF hopping cell follow the HSN1 as presented in
Figure 1 -4.
1.6
Mobile Allocation Index Offset
When there is more than one TRX in the BTS using the same MA-list the Mobile Allocation Index Offset (MAIO) is used to ensure that each TRX uses
always an unique frequency. Each hopping TRX is allocated a different MAIO. MAIO is added to MAI when the frequency to be used is determined
from the MA-list. Example of the hopping sequence generation is presented in Figure 1 -6. MAIO and HSN are transmitted to a mobile together with
the MA-list. In Nokia solution the MAIO offset is a cell specific parameter defining the MAIO TRX for the first hopping TRX in a cell. The MAIOs for the
other hopping TRXs are automatically allocated according to the MAIO step -parameter introduced in the following section.
For this TDMA frame the output from the algorithm is 1
FN & HSN GSM Hopping algorithm
MAI(0...N-1) =
MA INDEX
(MAI)
MA
1
1 + MAIOTRX
MAIOTRX
TRX-1
0
TRX-2
1
TRX-3
2
N-2
N-1
f1
f2
f3
f4
fN-1
fN
MAIOOFFSET ,
User definable
These parameters
are
set
automatically
TRX-1 TRX-2 TRX-3

Figure 1-6. Example of the hopping sequence generation.
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1.7
MAIO Step
The MAIO step is a Nokia specific parameter used in the MAIO allocation to the TRXs. The MAIO for the first hopping TRXs in each cell is defined by
the cell specific MAIO offset parameter. MAIOs for the other hopping TRXs are assigned by adding the MAIO step to the MAIO of the previous hopping
TRX as presented in Equation (1.1).
MAIOTRX ( n ) MAIOoffset MAIOstep (n 1)
(1.1)
An example of the MAIO assignment is presented in Figure 1 -7. More examples can be found in Section 5.6.4.
Sector TRX # HSN
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
1
2
3
4
MAIO stepMAIOoffsetl MAIO
Non-hopping BCCH TRX

7
2
0
0
2
4
7
2
6
6
8
10
7
2
12
12
14
16
+MAIO step
MAIO step indicates the

difference between the MAIOs of
successive TRXs in a cell.
Figure 1-7. Example of the use of the MAIO related parameters.
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2.
THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE OF FREQUENCY HOPPING
Frequency hopping is a powerful countermeasure in order to overcome the harmful effects introduced by the propagation channel and interference. The
quality gain achieved by employing frequency hopping can be traded for capacity gain by tightening the frequency reuse in the network.
2.1
Frequency Diversity
The fast fading is a significant problem especially in the downlink direction sinceDOCUMENTTYPE
the mobiles do not employ antenna diversity, which is commonly used
in base stations. Fluctuations of the received signal strength are especially harmful for the slow moving mobiles because they tend to stay in a fading
dip much longer than the faster moving mobiles. Frequency hopping causes the consecutive bursts to be transmitted on different frequencies. If the
separation
between these frequencies is sufficient, the fading characteristics of these frequencies are different.
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For the fast moving mobiles, the consecutive bursts have different fading characteristics even without frequency hopping, because the spatial
movement between the consecutive bursts is significant and the locations of the fading dips are relatively constant in most environments. Thus the
frequency diversity gain for the fast moving mobiles is not significant.
2.1.1
Coherence Bandwidth
Coherence bandwidth represents a bandwidth that is required between two frequencies in order to ensure that their fading characteristics are different
enough to provide properly uncorrelated amplitudes and phases. The coherence bandwidth depends strongly on the mean delay spread of the
environment.
Because of the multipath scattering, the transmitted impulse signal spreads in time domain before it is received. A typical signal delay envelope of a
transmitted impulse is presented in Figure 2 -8. The parameters as defined in [Lee82] are
dm
tE (t )dt
(2.1)
E (t )dt d m
(2.2)
where:
dm = mean excess delay time
t = excess delay time
E( ) = signal power density
= delay spread
Delay spread
0 dB
Power
density
E(t)
d
Mean delay time
t
Delay time
Figure 2-8. Typical delay envelope.

The delay spread is thus defined as the standard deviation of the mean delay time. The measurements indicate that the delay spread is highly dependent
on the environment. Typical values are presented in Table 3 [Lee89].
Table 3. Mean delay spreads
Type of environment
Open area
Suburban area
Urban area
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The coherence bandwidth is often defined as the frequency separation that yields an autocorrelation coefficient value of 0.5 or less [Pen95]. If the
propagation environment is also time dependent, the time separation of signals has to be taken into account. The autocorrelation coefficient based on the
frequency and time separation can be written as follows [Lee82]
J 02 ( v )
r ( , )
1 ( ) 2 2
( 2.3 )
where
J0 ( ) = Bessel function of 0th order
= 2/ , = signal wavelength
v = velocity of the mobile
= time separation
= delay spread of the environment
= 2*f, f = frequency spacing
Adequate coherence bandwidth, where signal autocorrelation coefficient between bursts equals to 0.5, can be derived from Equation (2.3) assuming =
0 as
BWC ( 0.5)
1
.
2
( 2.4 )
Equation (2.4) can be fully applied only in an ideal case, and it is therefore only a theoretical model. However, it gives an idea about how the coherence
bandwidth differs in different types of environments. In Figure 2 -9 the autocorrelation coefficient has been plotted for several different values of delay
spread () assuming = 0. It can be seen that in the urban environment even the adjacent channel having separation of 200 kHz appears to be
adequately uncorrelated and in the suburban environment the channel separation of 400 kHz is adequate. In open environments the channel
separation should be at least 800 kHz corresponding to four GSM carriers.
1.0
0.9
0.8
autocorrelation coefficient
0.7
delay
spread (s)
0.6
0.2
0.5
1
0.5
2
3
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0.0
frequency spacing (kHz)
Figure 2-9. The autocorrelation coefficient as a function of carrier spacing.
2.1.2
Effect of Interleaving
In GSM the speech frame is transmitted over eight consecutive bursts. The fast fading causes bursty bit errors that degrade the efficiency of the
convolutional coding. The interleaving is designed to spread these errors over longer time. However, the decoding performance is not significantly
improved if consecutive bursts are exposed to the similar radio channel. If the mobile moves fast enough, the fading of successive bursts is uncorrelated
due to spatial movement. Frequency hopping causes consecutive bursts to be transmitted on different frequencies. If these frequencies have sufficient
separation the fading of successive bursts is uncorrelated as presented in Section 2.1.1. Since the interleaving depth is eight, the frequency diversity gain
of cyclic hopping doesnt significantly improve if more than eight frequencies are used in a hopping sequence.
In data calls, the interleaving length is 19. Therefore, the gain for data calls compared to speech calls might be bigger when more than 8 frequencies
are used in a hopping sequence.
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The signalling channels have an interleaving depth of four. The frequency diversity gain for the signalling channels is thus smaller.
2.1.3
Cyclic vs. Random Hopping Sequences
Both cyclic and random hopping modes are available in GSM.
In the cyclic mode the frequencies are changed sequentially from the lowest frequency to the highest as defined in the MA-list.
In random mode the frequency to be used for each burst is selected from the MA-list by a predefined pseudo random sequence. This means that
the same frequency may be used for a couple of consecutive bursts and the frequencies are not used evenly in a short time scale.
Thus, the optimum frequency diversity gain is possible to achieve only if the cyclic hopping is used. As the number of frequencies becomes larger the
difference between the cyclic and the random mode becomes small.
2.1.4
Simulated Frequency Diversity Gains
10
FLAT 3
FER = 3%
Eb/N0 (dB)
TU3
FER = 3%
FLAT3
RBER
Cl 1b = 0,3%
TU3
RBER
Cl 1b = 0,3%
0
No hop
Infinite
Number of carriers
Figure 2-10. Frequency diversity gain of frequency hopping link against thermal noise compared to a non-hopping link.
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9
C/Ic (dB)
FLAT 3
FER = 3%
FLAT3
RBER
Cl 1b = 0,2%
TU3
FER = 3%
TU3
RBER
Cl 1b = 0,2%
0
No hop
Infinite
Number of carriers
Figure 2-11. Frequency diversity gain of frequency hopping link against co-channel interference compared to a non-hopping link.
The simulations show a very significant gain for FLAT3 channel compared to the TU3 channel. This happens because the TU3 channel includes several
propagation paths having statistically independent fading conditions and it is thus providing path diversity that helps to achieve the performance targets
even in the non-hopping case. The results of this simulation represent a best possible case, because the fading on the used frequency channels is
assumed uncorrelated and the cyclic hopping mode is used. In real life, the frequencies are not necessarily uncorrelated as explained in Section 2.1.1
and the random hopping is used to maximise the interference diversity gain. Also, the presented gains are not achievable in uplink direction if a
proper diversity reception (about 4 dB gain) method is already in use at base stations.
According to the simulations, the performance of the SACCH / SDCCH and TCH for the cases of non hopping and ideal FH as a function of C/I
(according to 05.05 test conditions and TU3) are presented in the following:
Table 4. The frequency diversity gain of the SACCH / SDCCH against TCH for the cases of non hopping and ideal FH as a function of
C/I, with 2%FER.
No FH
FH
TCH/FS
15dB
8dB
SACCH
11.5dB
8dB
In the non hopping mode, the SACCH is more robust than the TCH/FS, whereas in the FH mode they perform equal. However, in a high interference
situation the SACCH channel might perform worse than TCH channel.
2.1.5
Effect in Cell Coverage Area
In coverage limited cells the frequency hopping may increase the cell coverage area because of the frequency diversity gain, but since the BCCH
time slot doesnt hop, the increased coverage area is relevant only for the ongoing calls that have been successfully established and are allocated a
hopping TCH. According to the simulations, see Table 4, the non-hopping signalling channel (BCCH / SDCCH) has a better performance than a nonhopping TCH but a worse performance than a hopping TCH channel. Therefore, the cell coverage area could be increased, but not according to the
full FH gain, but by considering the performance of the BCCH time slot.
In RF FH case, the whole BCCH carrier is non-hopping. Thus, the frequency diversity gain should be considered as a quality gain in the cell border
area rather than the gain increasing the cell service area.
2.1.6
Effect of Mobile Speed
As mentioned earlier, the frequency diversity gain for the fast moving mobiles is not significant. The movement as itself causes the same gain which is
lost from the frequency diversity gain. Therefore, the fast moving mobiles get the same gain than the slow moving ones, the gain just comes more or
less from the moving as itself.
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In GSM, the speed of Power Control (PC) is slow. When moving fast, the PC cannot follow anymore the slow fading dips so efficiently. Therefore, the
fast moving mobiles might loose in PC gain. Also the Handover (HO) performance may be degraded with high speed.
2.2
Interference Diversity
In a conventional non-hopping network, each call is transmitted on a single fixed frequency. This means that the interference situation in a network is
also quite stable. Some calls may experience very little interference and the other calls may be interfered severely. Severe interference can be avoided by
a handover, but the probability of finding an interference free channel decreases as the network load increases. In a non-hopping network, the
interference tends to be continuous, so that the same interference source affects several consecutive bursts. If this interference is strong enough it may
lead to a corruption of several consecutive bursts. The error correction measures used in GSM can not usually tolerate several corrupted bursts in a
speech frame and thus these frames are likely to be erased causing significant deterioration in speech quality.
In random hopping network, the interference sources vary from burst to burst. Thus, the interference tends to get averaged over all the calls in the
network. As a consequence, the interference affecting each call in the network has a lower standard deviation around its mean value. This effect is
illustrated in Figure 2 -12. Another advantage of random frequency hopping is that the severely interfered bursts occur randomly. Because of this, the
probability of several consecutive corrupted bursts and erased frames decreases.
No FH
30
30
f1
25
25
Average C/I (dB)
Average C/I (dB)
20
TypeYourNameHere
f
2
15
f3
10
5
0
20
FH
f2
DOCUMENTTYPE
f1
f3
TypeDateHere
f
f1
15
f3
10
f2
f1
f3
Ave
5
0
Call 1
Call 2
Call 3
Call 1
Call 2
Call 3
Figure 2-12. Interference averaging between users in a random frequency hopping network.
In order to use the available frequency spectrum efficiently, the frequencies are reused in a network. The sufficient distance between the cells using the
same frequency depends on the minimum C/I ratio tolerated by the system, the surrounding environment and the network topology. In practice the
minimum reuse for a non-hopping macro cells is about 12. This means that the same frequency may be used in every 12th cell. Because the interference
levels for each user vary considerably, a large interference margin has to be included to guarantee sufficient quality for each user in the network.
When the random frequency hopping is employed the deviation of interference level is decreased as illustrated in Figure 2 -12. This means that the
interference margin used in the frequency planning can be reduced allowing the usage of tighter frequency reuse as illustrated in Figure 2 -13.
Field strenght
Serving carrier
worst
interference
interference
margin
average
strongest
interference
average
weakest
interference
no FH
FH with
improved
quality
FH with tighter
frequency
reuse
Figure 2-13. The gain of frequency hopping.

How big is the interference diversity gain is a subject for a further study.
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2.3
Effect of Power Control and DTX
Both the power control and the DTX are standard GSM features, which are designed to minimise the interfering transmission when possible. They
are both mandatory features in the mobile terminals, but it is up to the network operator to decide whether to use them or not. DTX prevents
unnecessary transmissions when there is no need to transfer information. Power control is used to optimise the transmitted signal strength so that the
signal strength at the receiver is still adequate. The both features can be individually activated for uplink and downlink. Operators have been widely
using both features in UL direction mainly in order to maximise the battery life in mobiles.
In a non-hopping network these features provide some quality gain for some users, but this gain cannot be transferred effectively to increased
capacity, since the maximum interference experienced by each user is likely to remain the same. Also the power control mechanism doesnt function
optimally because the interference sources are stable causing chain effects where the increase of transmission power of one transmitter causes worse
quality in the interfered receiver, which in turn causes the power increase in another transmitter and so on. This means that, for example, one mobile
located in a coverage limited area may severely limit the possibility of several other transmitters to reduce their power.
In a random hopping network the quality gain provided by both features can be efficiently exploited to capacity gain because the gain is more equally
distributed among the users. Since the typical speech activity factor (also called DTX factor) is less than 0.5, DTX effectively cuts the network load in
half when it is used. In a soft blocking limited network this means that the DTX can theoretically provide up to 100% capacity increase. Also, the power
control works more efficiently because each user has many interference sources. Thus, if one interferer increases its power, the effect on the quality of
the connection is not seriously affected. In fact, it is probable that some other interferers are decreasing their powers at the same time. Thus, the system
is more stable and chaining effects mentioned earlier do not occur frequently.
The simulated gain for power control and DTX with different mobile speeds can be seen in the following Figure 2 -14.
Reuse 3/9, TU 3km/h
PC on
DTX on
PC on, DTX on
Reuse 3/9, TU 50km/h

GAIN:
1.4 dB
2.3 dB
3.7 dB
PC on
DTX on
PC on, DTX on
GAIN:
1.0 dB
2.3 dB
3.5 dB
C/I improvement
Figure 2-14. The simulated gain of PC and DTX with FH.
DTX has some effect on the RXQual distribution. Normally the BER is averaged over the duration of one SACCH frame lasting 0.48 seconds and
consisting of 104 TDMA frames. However, four of these TDMA frames are used for measurements, so that only 100 bursts are actually transmitted and
received. When DTX is in use and there is no speech activity, only the bursts transmitting the silence descriptor frame (SID-frame) and the SACCH are
transmitted. When there are periods of no speech activity, the BER is estimated over just the bursts carrying the silence descriptor frame and the
SACCH. This includes only 12 bursts over which the BER is averaged (sub quality). This means that the BER gets averaged much more effectively
when DTX is not used yielding to a quality distribution where the proportion of moderate quality values is enhanced. The sub quality distribution is
wider than the full quality distribution, meaning that more good and bad quality samples are experienced.
The differences between full and sub quality distributions are largest in frequency hopping networks utilising low frequency allocation reuse, since in
that kind of networks the interference situation may be very different from burst to burst. A couple of severely interfered bursts may cause very bad
quality for the sub quality sample when they happen to occur in the set of 12 bursts over which the sub quality is determined. The full quality sample of
the same time period has probably only moderate quality deterioration because of the better averaging of BER over 100 bursts. The differences between
full and sub quality distributions can be seen in Figure 2 -15.
In a real network utilising DTX the quality distribution is a mixture of full and sub quality samples. The proportions of full and sub samples depend on
the speech activity factor also known as the DTX factor. The differences in the BER averaging processes cause significant differences in the RXQUAL
distributions. These differences should be taken into account when the RXQUAL distributions of networks utilising and not utilising DTX are
compared.
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1/1 reuse 15 freqs
40.00 %
35.00 %
30.00 %
25.00 %
RxQ full
RxQ sub
20.00 %
15.00 %
10.00 %
5.00 %
0.00 %
Q0
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7
Figure 2-15. The distribution of normal RXQual and subRXQual values in a frequency hopping network.
The limitations in the usage of DL PC and DTX can be seen in Chapters 3.9.1 and 3.9.2.
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3.
NOKIAS SUPPORT FOR FREQUENCY HOPPING IN GSM
The support for frequency hopping is a standard feature of Nokia Base Station Sub-System (BSS). In this chapter the frequency hopping support of
different base station generations and the BSC are described. Also the current and upcoming frequency hopping support of Nokias radio network
planning tool NPS/X is presented.
3.1
BSS Level Implementation
In GSM only the BSS is responsible of the implementation of frequency hopping. The Network Sub-System (NSS) including the Mobile Switching
Centre (MSC) is not involved in it. The Operation and Maintenance Centre (OMC) is involved in managing the FH related parameters, but their
management in the OMC doesnt differ from any other cell level parameter. The fault management in the OMC of a frequency hopping network is
identical to that of a non-hopping network. The primary network elements in GSM are presented in Figure 3 -16.
BSS
NSS
BSC
BTS
MS
Abis
interface
MSC
A
interface
BTS
OMC
Figure 3-16. The primary network elements in GSM.
3.2
The 2nd Generation Base Station
The second generation base station supports only baseband hopping. The main functional blocks in the second generation BTS considering frequency
hopping are the Frame Units (FU), the Frequency Hopping Unit (FQHU) and the Carrier Units (CU) [Nok96]. The frame unit performs all the control
and the baseband functions for frames of up to 8 full rate or 16 half rate logical channels. Each carrier unit contains a transmitter and two receivers. The
main function of the transmitter is to convert the digital data from the frame unit into a modulated carrier signal. The receiver is responsible for the
down conversion from the RF frequency band to baseband followed by A/D conversion and serialising I and Q signals and sending them to the
demodulation part in the corresponding frame unit [Nok95]. The number of frame units and carrier units corresponds to the number of installed TRXs in
the BTS.
The frequency hopping connects the frame units and the carrier units as illustrated in Figure 3 -17. The hopping function is realised by multiplexing
baseband digital bit streams between the frame units and the carrier units. The multiplexing is done according to the hopping sequence, which is
calculated in FQHU. The hopping unit is common for the BTS; all the sectors of a BTS use the same FQHU. The FQHU can be duplicated for
reliability or because of diversity reception. If the diversity is not used, the other FQHU acts as a hot redundancy, which means that it is automatically
taken into operation if the other FQHU fails. When diversity reception is used, the other FQHU is used for carrying the signal from the diversity
receiver.
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FU1
FU2
FU3
CU1
F
Q
H
U
FU12
CU2
CU3
CU12
Figure 3-17. Functional units for frequency hopping in 2nd generation BTS.
The FQHU is capable of supporting a maximum of 12 hopping groups at a time. This is sufficient as in three sector configuration the number of hopping
groups used is nine (including the non-hopping zero time slots on the BCCH carriers). Both random and cyclic hopping modes are supported but not
simultaneously, meaning that all the sectors under the same BTS must use either cyclic or random hopping sequences. With random hopping the
hopping sequence numbers (1-63) can be selected freely for each hopping group.
The timing of sectors is derived from a common clock unit, so the different sectors are frame- and bit-synchronised enabling the use of synchronous
handovers. Consequently, the hopping sequences are synchronised as well. The combiners used in the 2nd generation BTSs limit the minimum
channel spacing to 600 kHz!
3.3
Talk Family Base Station
The Talk family base stations are capable of both baseband hopping and RF hopping. Baseband hopping implementation is slightly different
compared to the implementation on the 2nd generation base station. Functionality inside one TRX is divided between burst level operations (EQDSP)
and block level operations (CHDSP). The burst level operations cover all the operations done for a single burst, such as ciphering/deciphering,
equalisation, bit detection, diversity combining etc. The block level operations deal with blocks of information, such as a speech block or a signaling
block. These operations include interleaving/deinterleaving, block coding/decoding etc. The baseband hopping interface resides between this logical
division.
FHDSP is a digital signal processor dedicated to controlling the frequency hopping operation. In baseband hopping the FHDSP controls the
information transfer between the EQDSP and the CHDSP realising the frequency hopping as illustrated in Figure 3 -18. The FBUS is a two-way
parallel bus dedicated for this purpose and dimensioned to support a maximum of 12 TRXs.
FHDSP
TRX1,
CHDSP
TRX2,
CHDSP
TRX3,
CHDSP
TRX1,
EQDSP
F
B
U
S
TRX12,
CHDSP
TRX2,
EQDSP
TRX3,
EQDSP
TRX12,
EQDSP
Figure 3-18. Baseband hopping implementation in the Talk family base stations.
With RF hopping the FBUS is also used, but the connections are always made one-to-one. For example, the EQDSP of TRX1 is always connected to
the CHDSP of TRX1. The FBUS is then used for sending the RF channel number from the FHDSP to be used on the next time slot. Two synthesiser
banks are used, while one is in use the other is being tuned to the frequency used in the next time slot. Delivery of channel numbers from FBUS to
synthesisers is done by hardware.
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RF hopping and BB hopping cannot be used simultaneously. This means that all the sectors under the same Base Station Control Function (BCF)
must use the same hopping method, if any. However, some sectors may be hopping while others remain non-hopping. The used combiner type
may also restrict the possibility of utilising RF hopping. If Remote Tuned Combiners (RTC) are used, the RF hopping cannot be used. This is because
the RTC is based on tuneable cavities, which cannot be retuned dynamically according to the used hopping sequence. The minimum channel spacing
when RTC is used is 600 kHz. The other combiner option for the Talk family base stations is the wide band Antenna Filter Equipment (AFE). AFE
supports both BB and RF hopping and there are no minimum channel spacing requirements.
3.4
PrimeSite
PrimeSite is a small highly integrated base station based on the Talk family technology. It contains only one TRX and the hardware is reduced, so that
the FBUS have been removed and the functions of FHDSP have been integrated to the CHDSP.
The RF hopping can be implemented by connecting two or more PrimeSites together as a multi-TRX configuration. In this case the first PrimeSite
provides the BCCH carrier and is thus in a non-hopping mode, whereas the other connected PrimeSites are hopping according to the hopping sequence.
The BB hopping is also possible to arrange with the PrimeSites by using properties of RF hopping. This pseudo-BB hopping appears outwards similar
to the pure BB-hopping. Pseudo-BB hopping is possible when two or more PrimeSites have been connected for a multi-TRX configuration. The
PrimeSite is able to transmit the first time slot (RTSL 0) by using a different frequency than the other time slots. The pseudo-BB hopping is realised by
transmitting the RTSL 0 on the BCCH TRX on one fixed frequency and the other time slots by using a frequency determined according to the hopping
sequence. The other TRXs use the HSN1 for the RTSL 0s and HSN2 for the RTSLs 1-7 as described in Section 1.2. The number of frequencies in the
pseudo-BB hopping equals the number of connected PrimeSites for RTSLs 1-7 and one less for the RTSL 0. A dummy signal is sent on the BCCH
frequency in the non-active TCH time slots.
3.5
Base Station Controller
The BSC functionality related to frequency hopping is implemented by software. There are no hardware dependencies. The frequency hopping
management in the BSC is quite simple. The main principle is that the BSC is handling logical channels on the cells under its control. The logical
channels may then be assigned on the frequency hopping physical channels, but they are provided by the base stations. The basic requirement for the
BSC is to handle the additional parameters (MA, MAIO and HSN) needed to define a hopping logical channel. The parameters are stored in the BSS
Radio Network Configuration Database (BSDATA) in the BSC, maintained by the Operation and Maintenance (O&M) software.
The radio resource management doesnt know about frequency hopping. It allocates the logical channels as usual. The hopping related parameters are
attached later by the Abis interface program block, which reads the needed hopping related parameters from the database. The parameters defining a
frequency hopping channel are then attached to Abis and Air interface signaling messages.
In Abis and Air interface radio resource management signaling the frequency hopping is affecting the CHANNEL_ACTIVATION (A bis),
IMMEDIATE_ASSIGNMENT (Air), ASSIGNMENT_COMMAND (Air) and HANDOVER_COMMAND (Air) messages.
3.6
NPS/X
NPS/X is an integrated software package for the cellular network planning developed by Nokia. See more details of the FH support and the planning
and frequency allocation process in Chapters 5.1 and 5.2.
3.7
Maximum Configurations
Maximum BTS configurations are presented in Table 5.

Table 5. Maximum BTS configurations in different BSS software releases.
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BSS 6
BTS type
2nd generation
omni
sectorised
Talk family
omni
sectorised
Prime Site
sectorised
BSS 7 2nd generation
omni
sectorised
Talk family
omni
sectorised
Prime Site
sectorised
BSS 8 2nd generation
omni
sectorised
Talk family
omni
sectorised
Prime Site
sectorised
Combiner type
RTC (BB FH)
10 TRXs
4+4+4 TRXs
RTC (BB FH)
6 TRXs
6+6+6 TRXs
Standard
(BB & RF FH)
n*y TRXs 1)
RTC (BB FH)
10 TRXs
4+4+4 TRXs
RTC (BB FH)
6 TRXs
6+6+6 TRXs
Standard
(BB & RF FH)
n*y TRXs 1)
RTC (BB FH)
10 TRXs
4+4+4 TRXs
RTC (BB FH)
12 TRXs
12+12+12 TRXs
Standard
(BB & RF FH)
n*y TRXs 1)
Antennas/cell
(polarisation
BCFs diversity used) Combiner type
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
1
1
Antennas/cell
(polarisation
BCFs diversity used)
AFE (BB & RF FH)

4 TRXs
4+4+4 TRXs
1
1
1
1
AFE (BB & RF FH)

12 TRXs
12+12+12 TRXs
1
3
3
3
AFE (BB & RF FH)

12 TRXs
12+12+12 TRXs
1
3
3
3
1) The amount of sectors is not limited; even each TRX can be a sector of its own. Max. 16 TRXs per BCF are allowed. They can be freely divided into
sectors of different sizes. Only rule is that n*y must be less than or equal to 16.
3.8
Radio Network Fault Management
The radio network configuration management in the BSC determines the recovery actions in abnormal situations in the BSS radio network, such as
faults, fault cancels and initialisations. The recovery actions are executed if errors occur in the functional blocks of the BTS, such as the carrier unit, the
frame unit, the tranceiver, functional blocks common to the whole cell or the functional blocks common to the whole BTS site. In addition to this, the
recovery options are executed if the D-channel of the Abis interface fails or if there are failures detected by the call control of the BSC in the connection
with the radio channel allocation procedure. The recovery actions are determined based on the type of the faulty functional block and they are based on
the radio facilities configured to the faulty block.
3.8.1
The 2nd Generation Base Station
A frame unit fault may be either internal or external. The internal fault could be caused, for example, by a FU hardware malfunction and the external
fault could happen, for example, because of a lost LAPD-link to the TRX. In both cases the recovery procedure is similar. The procedure is as follows:
1.
2.
3.
The BTS alarms the BSC or the BSC detects a non-functional LAPD-link.
The BSC clears all the calls that are allocated to those Abis circuits corresponding to the faulty TRX. Calls on the other TRXs proceed normally.
The BSC blocks the faulty frame unit in order not to allow new traffic for the Abis circuits corresponding to it.
The calls on the other TRXs can proceed normally and the hopping parameters can be left untouched, because all the carrier units are still functioning.
The mobiles on the cell can still hop over all the frequencies originally allocated to that cell.
In case of a carrier unit fault one tranceiver doesnt work properly. Thus, one of the frequencies in the hopping sequence cannot be transmitted and/or
received properly. In this case the procedure is as follows:
1.
2.
The BTS alarms the BSC.

The BSC blocks all the TRXs of the cell for a while. This causes clearing of all the ongoing calls on that cell.
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3.
4.
5.
The BSC calculates new hopping parameters including a new MA-list in which the frequency of the faulty CU is removed.
The BSC unblocks the TRXs that have functioning CUs and the new hopping parameters are transferred to the BTS.
The BSC allows new traffic for the functioning TRXs.
3.8.2
Talk Family Base Stations and PrimeSite
In a case of BB hopping the procedure is similar to the carrier unit fault in the 2nd generation BTS as described in the previous section.
If the BTS is RF hopping, the recovery procedure is similar to the frame unit fault in the 2nd generation BTS as described in the previous section.
3.9
Restrictions on the Usage of FH
3.9.1
DL Power Control with BB FH
In BB FH the BCCH carrier is involved in the hopping sequence. The BCCH carrier is always sent in the downlink direction with the maximum power
defined for the cell. When the PC is used in the other than BCCH carrier, there is a big difference in the sent / received power between the carriers. The
gain control of some mobiles cannot follow so big and sudden changes in the received power.
Therefore, it is recommended to restrict the PC range in DL direction to 10-15 dB with BB FH.
3.9.2
Downlink DTX
Baseband hopping combined with downlink DTX causes problems in the mobile stations, because in the silent phase the dummy frames are sent on the
BCCH frequency causing malfunction in the mobile stations. ETSI has approved a solution to solve the problem and it is implemented in Nokia BSS.
The solution is to use a special training sequence code in the dummy burst but it does not guarantee that all mobile station models of different
manufacturers are working error free.
3.9.3
Extended Range Cell (DE34/DF34/DG35)
Only RF hopping is supported, and only for the TRXs serving the normal coverage area. The TRXs serving the extended coverage area cannot hop.
3.9.4
MS Speed Detection
The speed detection algorithm in the BTS works only for non-hopping channels. In a case of frequency hopping the speed information in the
Measurement Result message from BTS to BSC is set to value 'non-valid' indicating that speed information is not available from that particular cell.
3.9.5
Half Rate
The interleaving depth of the TCH/HS is four instead of eight as it is in TCH/FS. Because the interleaving has a significant effect on the successful error
correction of the speech frame, especially on the frequency hopping networks utilising low frequency allocation reuse and fractional loading, the
performance of frequency hopping may be reduced.
The use of cyclic hopping with even number of hopping frequencies should be avoided in networks utilising half rate. Since the half rate channel is
transmitted on every other TDMA frame, the usage of cyclic hopping with even number of frequencies means that one half rate connection uses only
half of the frequencies. This problem doesnt occur if random hopping sequences are used.
3.9.6
Frequency Sharing
The basic requirement in frequency sharing (1/1 reuse, 3/3 reuse) is that the cells at one site have to be controlled by the same BCF, so that they are
frame synchronised. With the current Nokia equipment this requirement limits the maximum TRX configuration to 12 TRXs per site.
3.9.7
RTC Combiner
In the 2nd generation and Talk Family base stations, the RTC combiners have the limitation of the minimum channel spacing of 600 kHz.
3.9.8
NPS/X
NPS/X 3.2 and the older versions dont support frequency allocation for a fractional loaded network (= more frequencies than TRXs). NPS/X 3.2 can
estimate the quality of the fractional loaded frequency plan.
NPS/X 3.3 can make the channel allocation for a fractional loaded network.
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4.
SELECTING THE RIGHT HOPPING STRATEGY
The goal in the selection of the hopping strategy is to maximise the effectiveness of frequency hopping in order to achieve a maximum capacity
and/or quality gain. The basic requirement for the maximum FH gain is to make sure that each cell has a sufficient number of frequencies in the
hopping sequence. Equally important is that a good frequency plan minimising the interference can be produced.
The BTS hardware may severely restrict the possibilities. Second generation base stations are only capable of BB hopping. The Talk family (3 rd gen)
base stations support also RF hopping, but only if wide band combiners (AFE) are used.
The maximum TRX configurations which can be used with different hopping modes (combiners) and hopping schemes (maximum TRX amounts
under the same BCF) can easily become also restricting factors.
The amount of antennas and antenna feeder cables can be a limiting factor. With AFE combiner, about three times more antennas are required than
with RTC combiner.
The utilisation of RF hopping is preferable if downlink power control is used. In BB hopping the DL PC causes dramatic changes in DL field strength
as some of the bursts are transmitted by the full power BCCH TRX and the rest of the bursts by low power TRXs. The mobile receivers cannot tolerate
quick changes of field strength resulting to poor DL quality. To avoid this problem the maximum power reduction for DL PC in conjunction with BB
hopping should be limited to 10 15 dB. This limitation is likely to reduce the achievable gain from DL PC.
As in conventional network, the successful implementation of RF hopping with fractional loading requires a good frequency plan that minimises the
interference in the network. Usually the best results can be achieved with a help of a frequency allocation tool. However, the frequency allocation is not
possible for fractionally loaded networks if the frequency allocation tool doesnt support fractional loading. For NPS/X this support is available in
version 3.3.
There is, however, one special case of RF hopping with fractional loading that doesnt require any frequency planning at all. In this single MA-list
scheme all the frequencies are allocated to every cell so that the frequency allocation reuse is 1. In many cases this scheme may not provide the best
possible gains, but the gain compared to a non-hopping network is still significant as verified in a trial that was conducted in a real network. If the
frequency band is extremely limited, the application of a single MA-list may be the only sensible way to implement FH, because it always provides the
maximum number of frequencies to hop over in every cell.
Another possibility is to utilise frequency sharing arrangement. In this scheme all the cells of one site share the same MA-list in a controlled manner so
that interference between the cells of the same site can be avoided. Frequency sharing makes it possible to have enough hopping frequencies in every
cell without a need to utilise fractional loading. Thus, the frequency planning is possible with tools that dont support fractional loading.
The main factors affecting the decision of the frequency hopping strategy are presented in Figure 4 -19.
2nd gen.
BTS generation
3rd gen. only
Combiner type /
Amount of antennas
BB FH used on the cells

having more than 2 TRXs
RTC
max 6 TRX / cell with RTC

or 12 TRX with AFE
AFE
Easy planning preferred
over maximum capacity
3 TRX/cell
or more
No
Min TRX configuration
Yes
No
RF FH with frequency
allocation reuse 1
(=single MA list scheme)
max 12 TRX / site!
(under the same BCF)
2 TRX/cell
Maximum gain from

DL PC required
Yes
<=12 TRXs/site
configurations
Yes
No
Planning tool supports

FH and fractional loading
Yes
sharing (no fractional
loading)
max 12 TRX / site!
(under the same BCF)
No
Yes
allocation reuse 3 ~ 5
max 12 TRX / cell
Figure 4-19. Flow chart for hopping strategy decision.
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5.
FREQUENCY PLANNING OF FREQUENCY HOPPING NETWORKS
Frequency hopping requires some new considerations in the frequency planning process. This is especially important if the RF hopping with fractional
loading is used. The frequency planning of fractionally loaded networks requires special attention to the load control. On the other hand, the RF hopping
allows some new planning concepts like frequency sharing and the control over frequency allocation reuse while the effective reuse in the network
remains the same.
Large TRX configurations make baseband hopping feasible. In order to achieve a proper frequency hopping gain, a minimum of three TRXs in a
cell should be used with the baseband hopping [Tun97]. The benefit of the baseband hopping is that the TCHs located on the BCCH TRX are included
in the frequency hopping sequence. The BCCH frequencies have a high frequency reuse in order to guarantee a successful signaling and a fast decoding
of the base station identification code. It is beneficial to have this interference free BCCH frequency included in the hopping sequence, because it is
likely to improve the quality of reception on the hopping logical channels.
In frequency planning point of view, the planning of a baseband hopping network differs less than the planning of a RF hopping network from the
planning of a conventional non-hopping network. The main difference is that the fractional loading is not possible when the baseband hopping is used.
Because of this, it is possible to use the conventional frequency planning tools when planning the baseband hopping network. However, because of the
interference and frequency diversity gains, lower C/I ratios and therefore smaller frequency reuse distances can be allowed in the baseband hopping
network compared to a non-hopping network.
5.1
Network Planning Procedure
The network planning and monitoring process for a baseband frequency hopping network is basically the same than for a non-hopping network.
The planning of an RF hopping network can be a little more complex, if the maximum capacity is wanted to get out from the network. The suitable
frequency allocation scheme have to be selected and the frequency load must be equalized to guarantee an equal quality distribution.
If a tight frequency allocation scheme has been chosen then the estimation of the subjective speech quality can become a more challenging task
compared to a non-hopping network. When FH is used the RXQual distribution is not anymore comparable to the non-hopping network.
NPS/X is an integrated software package for the cellular network planning developed by Nokia. It provides the basic tools for coverage prediction,
frequency allocation and interference analysis. The propagation modeling is based on digital maps presenting both the terrain type information and the
height data of the target area. Available propagation models include Okumura-Hata, Juul-Nyholm, Walfish-Ikegami and a ray-tracing model. The raytracing model is specifically for microcell planning and it is available in NPS/X version 3.2.
NPS/X versions before version 3.2 dont include any frequency hopping specific support . New versions called NPS/X 3.2 and 3.3 have some new
functionalities to make the frequency planning and the quality analysis an easier task, see Chapter 5.2.
Figure 5-20. Network planning and monitoring process.
Capacity
CapacityPlanning
Planning
NPSX
NPSX
Netdim
Netdim
NDW
NDW
Monitoring
Monitoring
NDW
NDW
NMS/2000
NMS/2000
PlanEdit
PlanEdit
CDW
CDW
NPS/X
NPS/X3.3
3.3
Frequency
FrequencyPlanning
Planning
5.2
Parameter
ParameterPlanning
Planning
Frequency Planning Procedure with NPS/X
NPS/X versions before version 3.2 dont include any frequency hopping specific support. However, since the frequency hopping doesnt affect the
propagation, the coverage planning phase is not different when planning frequency hopping networks compared to non-hopping networks. In
coverage limited cells the frequency hopping increases the cell coverage area because of the frequency diversity gain. Since the BCCH time slot doesnt
hop, the increased coverage area must be dimensioned according to the performance of BCCH time slot instead of hopping TCHs, see Chapter
2.1.5. For this reason, the frequency diversity gain should be considered as a quality gain in the cell border area rather than a gain increasing the cell
service area.
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For the planning of baseband hopping networks the traditional frequency allocation and interference analysis tools are also sufficient. Due to
the frequency diversity and interference diversity gains the hopping allows somewhat worse C/I ratios compared to a non-hopping network. This can be
taken into account when setting parameters for the frequency allocation tool leading to a tighter frequency plan. When analysing the resulting plan,
higher interference levels can be tolerated.
Frequency hopping specific planning tool support is needed when RF hopping with fractional loading is used. Fractional loading means that a cell
is allocated with more frequencies than there are TRXs.
The quality prediction tool in NPS/X 3.2 estimates the downlink RXQUAL for every pixel in the work area. These values can be displayed in the
digital map using different colours for particular RXQUAL levels. From the map overlay the areas potentially suffering from interference can be easily
identified. To make the comparison between different plans easier, a statistics window is also implemented. This window presents the distribution of
predicted RXQUAL values in the work area.
The prediction is based on the C/I ratio that is calculated by using the field strengths of the serving carrier and the interfering carriers. The
corresponding Bit Error Ratio (BER) is determined from the calculated C/I ratio. The calculations take the DTX factor and the load factor into account
where appropriate. When the BER for the pixel is calculated it is converted to RXQUAL value according to the mapping specified in GSM
specifications [GSM 05.08]. The input parameters needed for the calculation are the frequencies allocated for the cells, the DTX factor and the blocking
probability for each cell. Both base band and RF hopping modes are supported. Note, that the frequency allocation for a fractional loaded network is
not supported in NPS/X 3.2.
Figure 5-21. Example output from the RXQUAL prediction tool.
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Figure 5-22. RXQUAL statistics window.

NPS/X 3.3 will include a new frequency allocation tool, which is capable of allocating frequencies utilising low frequency reuse and fractional loading.
Also the MAIO Management can be taken into a use. The MA list lengths can be defined manually in cell basis, or NPS/X can define them
automatically by a certain criteria. After the MA list length has been chosen the allocation algorithm tries to produce an optimal allocation. In high
interfered areas longer MA list lengths can be tried to average the interference.
Also the network simulator of NPS/X 3.3 includes a support for FH.
Capacity
Capacity
estimation,
estimation,
cell
cellbasis
basis
Frequency
Frequency
requirements
requirements
Spectrum
Spectrum
and
andHW
HW
constraints
constraints
Planning
Planning
concept
concept
decision
decision
NetDim /
NPS/X
Estimation
Estimationof
of
needed
needednumber
number
of
offrequencies
frequencies
OMC / CDW
/ NDW
Quality
QualityAnalysis
Analysis
Automatic
Automatic
Parameter
Parametertuning
tuning
NPS/X 3.3
Automatic
Automaticinterferer
interferer
generation
generationfor
forIUO
IUO
Coverage
Coveragedata
data
Interference
Interference
Calibration
CalibrationTool
Tool
Neighbour
Neighbourcell
cell
measurements
measurementswith
with
GPA
GPAtool
tool
Interference
Interferencematrix
matrix
generation
generation
Planning
Planningof
ofother
other
parameters
parameters
Frequency
Frequency
Allocation
Allocation
Figure 5-23. Frequency allocation procedure.
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5.3
Frequency Reuse on Frequency Hopping Network
Since the frequency band is always limited, the frequencies have to be reused in the network. As the reuse distance becomes smaller, there are more
frequencies available for each cell. Because each TRX in a cell requires a unique frequency, the capacity potential of a cell is increased, as there are
more frequencies available for each cell. However, when the reuse distance becomes small enough, all the frequencies available for the cell cannot be
utilised because of too severe interference in the cell border areas. For a conventional non-hopping network this is the practical frequency reuse limit.
The BB hopping network has this same limit, but because of frequency hopping gain, somewhat lower reuse distances are allowed before the quality
reaches the minimum acceptable limit.
The advantage of RF hopping is that the frequency reuse distance can be set as low as wanted. This can be done, because a RF hopping cell can use
more frequencies than there are TRXs installed. This means that the used frequencies are only fractionally loaded as presented in Section 5.4.3. For a
fractionally loaded RF hopping network, two reuse figures have to be defined. These are effective reuse and frequency allocation reuse. They are
presented in the following sections.
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5.3.1
Effective Reuse
The effective reuse is essentially the same as the conventional frequency reuse distance. It is calculated as
Reff
N freqsTOT
N TRXave
( 5.1 )
where:
Reff = effective reuse
NfreqsTOT = total number of used frequencies
NTRXave = average number of TRXs in a cell
Since the effective reuse takes the actual number of frequencies together with the number of TRXs into account, it can be also used as a capacity index,
provided that the TRXs can be loaded at least to the hard blocking limit as presented in Section 5.4.2. The smaller the effective reuse, the higher the
capacity in terms of the number of TCHs provided by one frequency in the network.
5.3.2
Frequency Allocation Reuse (RF FH only)
Frequency allocation reuse indicates how closely the frequencies are actually reused in a network. Thus, it indicates the severity of a worst case C/I in
the cell border. It is calculated as
FAR
N freqsTOT
N freqs / MA
( 5.2 )
where:
FAR = frequency allocation reuse

NfreqsTOT = total number of used frequencies
Nfreqs/MA = average number of frequencies in MA-lists
If the network doesnt utilise fractional loading, the frequency allocation reuse is the same as the effective reuse. Example of the reuse calculations for
the fractionally loaded RF hopping network is presented in Figure 5 -24.
Frequency Allocation Reuse Effective Reuse
Example:
3
1
1/3
Total # of freqs = 30
2
3
1
10 frequencies / cell
4 TRXs / cell
FAR = 30/10 = 3
Eff.reuse = 30/4 =7.5
Effective Reuse = Total # of frequencies/

Number of TRXs per cell
Frequency Allocation Reuse = Total # of

frequencies / # of frequencies in MAL
Figure 5-24. Example of reuse calculations.
5.4
Load on Networks Utilising Fractional Loading (RF FH only)
One of the most essential parameters of the fractionally loaded RF hopping network is the load. The load on the frequencies is the most important one
since it determines the probability of collisions. Collision means that the serving cell and an interfering cell are transmitting at the same frequency at the
same time so that the potential interference becomes reality.
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5.4.1
Frequency Load
When designing a network with low frequency allocation reuse, the interference sources are very close. Even a neighboring cell may be an interferer by
sharing at least some of the frequencies. In that kind of situations the C/I is very low when the collisions occur. In order to guarantee an adequate
quality, the collision probability has to be made low. The closer the interferers, the more infrequent the collisions must be in order to maintain a proper
quality. The collision probability depends on the load of the hopping frequencies called a frequency load. The frequency load describes the probability
that a frequency channel is used for transmission at one cell at one time.
The frequency load is a product of two other loads: the average busy hour TCH occupancy, which should in most cases be equal to the hard blocking
load that is presented in Section 5.4.2, and the fractional load that is presented in Section 5.4.3. The frequency load can be written as
L freq LHW L frac ,
( 5.3 )
where:
Lfreq = frequency load
LHW = the busy hour average hard blocking load
Lfrac = fractional load
Each frequency allocation reuse corresponds to a different C/I at the cell border, thus requiring a different maximum allowed frequency load in order to
keep the collision probability low enough.
5.4.2
Hard Blocking Load
Hard blocking means that all the available traffic channels in the cell are in use and all the new call attempts fail because of the lack of available traffic
channels. If it is assumed that the call attempts occur randomly, then the number of call attempts in a time interval is Poisson distributed. If the call
attempts are Poisson distributed and the length of the calls is exponentially distributed, then the hard blocking probability (that is also known as the
grade of service) can be calculated by using the Erlang B formula
T N TCH
N
!
B N TCHTCH n
T
n 0 n!
( 5.4 )
where:
B = hard blocking probability
T = offered traffic (Erl)
NTCH = number of TCHs in the cell
In order not to exceed the predefined hard blocking probability, the average busy hour TCH occupancy may not exceed the threshold defined by the
offered traffic at the desired blocking probability and the number of TCHs. When determining the hard blocking load, only the non-BCCH TRXs should
be considered as illustrated in Figure 5 -25. Thats because the BCCH TRX is non-hopping in RF hopping cell and the calculation of the loads is only
relevant in soft blocking limited network. Currently soft blocking limited BB hopping networks should not be designed because of the lack of the
gatekeeper algorithm, which prohibits the initialisation of new calls if the load in the network is about to exceed the load threshold at the soft blocking
limit. The hard blocking load is calculated as
L HW
ThopTCH
N hopTCH
( 5.5 )
where:
LHW = hard blocking load
ThopTCH = average number of used TCHs in the busy hour
NhopTCH = total number of TCHs in the hopping TRXs
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75 %
TRX-1
BCCH
TRX-2
TCH
TCH
TRX-3
TCH
TRX-4
TCH
25 %
Load on the BCCH TRX

not considered, since
the BCCH frequencies
are planned separately
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
f1
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
f2,f3,f4
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
f3,f4,f2
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
TCH
f4,f2,f3
SDCCH SDCCH
Active slots
Empty slots
DOCUMENTTYPE
Figure 5-25. Hard blocking load of 75% on RF hopping TRXs.
TypeYourNameHere
TypeDateHere
The
average busy hour TCH load, as defined in Equation (5.5), can be used as the
maximum TCH occupancy. In reality, there are times when the TCH
occupancy is over the busy hour average LHW. However this happens randomly and since the LHW limit is an average there is about an equal time in
which the load is less than the LHW. If the offered traffic is Poisson distributed, the frequency allocation can be quite safely dimensioned by using the
LHW as the maximum TCH occupancy. In an environment where the offered traffic is known not to be randomly generated, a higher figure should be
used.
5.4.3
Fractional Load
Fractional loading means that the cell has been allocated more frequencies than there are TRXs as illustrated in Figure 5 -26. This is only possible for
RF hopping TRXs. The fractional loading is very useful when the number of TRXs is low. By utilising fractional loading, it is possible to provide
enough frequencies to hop over (to get FH gain) to even a cell with just one hopping TRX. Fractional load can be calculated as
L frac
N TRX
N freqs / cell
( 5.6 )
where:
Lfrac = fractional load

NTRX = number of TRXs in a cell
Nfreqs/cell = number of frequencies allocated to a cell (MA-list length)
TRX-1
BCCH
f1
TRX-2
f2, f3, f4, f5, f6
TRX-3
f2, f3, f4, f5, f6
TRX-4
f2, f3, f4, f5, f6
Active slots
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Figure 5-26. Fractional load of 0.6.
In a soft blocking limited network the fractional load is used to tune the frequency load down to a desired level, which is determined by the used
frequency allocation reuse.
5.5
Trunking Effect and Effective Reuse
For Poisson distributed call attempts, it is characteristic that the hard blocking load providing the same blocking probability increases as the number of
traffic channels increases as presented in Figure 5 -27. This is called trunking effect. For a hard blocking limited network this is a real gain since the
network is able to serve more traffic with the same grade of service and the same effective reuse. However, for a soft blocking limited network utilising
fractional loading the trunking effect doesnt provide any gain. As the hard blocking load increases, the fractional load must be decreased in order to
keep the frequency load and thus the collision probability acceptable. Decreasing the fractional load is done by adding more frequencies than TRXs to
the cells. This has a direct effect on the effective reuse. The effective reuse can be rewritten as
Reff
N freqsTOT
N TRX
N freqsTOT
N freqs/ MA
N freqs / MA
N TRX
FAR
.
L frac
( 5.7 )
Equation (5.7) shows the fixed relation between the effective and frequency allocation reuses and the fractional load. The required increase in the
effective reuse in a soft blocking limited network as the trunking efficiency increases is presented in Figure 5 -28. It should be noted that although the
effective reuse increases, the number of frequencies required to handle a certain amount of traffic stays constant. The effective reuse doesnt take the
trunking efficiency into account.
100.0 %
90.0 %
TCH occupancy at the hard blocking limit
80.0 %
70.0 %
60.0 %
Hard blocking prob. 5%
50.0 %

40.0 %
30.0 %
20.0 %
10.0 %
97
100
94
91
88
85
82
79
76
73
70
67
64
61
58
55
52
49
46
43
40
37
34
31
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
0.0 %
Number of TCH's
Figure 5-27. Average busy hour TCH occupancy at the hard blocking limit.
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12
11
effective reuse
10
7
FAR 1 (2% Blocking, Freq.load 7,5% (trialed))
FAR 1 (1% Blocking, Freq.load 7,5% (trialed))
FAR 3.65 (2% Blocking, Freq.load 30% (trialed))
FAR 3.65 (1% Blocking, Freq.load 30% (trialed))
FAR 3 (2% Blocking, Freq.load 30% (simulated))
FAR 3 (1% Blocking, Freq.load 30% (simulated))
5
2
10
11
12
TRX's/cell
Figure 5-28. Increase of required effective reuse on a soft blocking limited network due to the better trunking efficiency on bigger cell
configurations.
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5.6
Frequency Allocation Strategies
When preparing for a frequency allocation, some decisions have to be made concerning the wanted frequency allocation reuse and the corresponding
frequency load. Also, it must be decided whether to use a separate frequency band for the BCCH carriers or use a common band for both the BCCH
and the normal TCH TRXs.
5.6.1
BCCH Allocation
The BCCH carriers are special in a sense that the transmission to the downlink direction is constant and always active on them. There are two basic
approaches in the BCCH allocation. The BCCH frequencies may be allocated from a separate dedicated frequency band or the frequencies for the
BCCH TRXs and the TCH TRXs (TRXs not carrying the BCCH) may be allocated from one common band.
Both approaches have been simulated for frequency hopping network in [Kro97]. In this simulation, the used frequency band was 27 frequencies
corresponding to 5.4 MHz. For the dedicated band strategy 12 frequencies were dedicated to the BCCH TRXs and the remaining 15 frequencies were
used as TCH frequencies, which were allocated by using a slow Adaptive Channel Allocation (ACA) algorithm presented in [Alm96]. In the common
band case, the BCCH frequencies were first allocated by using a reuse of 27. The ACA algorithm was then used to select the TCH frequencies for each
cell. The BCCH frequencies were not changed during this procedure. In both cases three different TRX configurations were simulated. The cells had 3,
4 or 5 TCH TRXs depending on the case. In every case, the average reuse is the same in both strategies, so the results are easily comparable.
In the simulation, the signal powers were averaged over a period of 0.48 seconds. During this period, all the frequencies in the hopping sequence have
been used several times. Thus, the fast fading can be assumed to have been removed by averaging. The slow fading was assumed to be constant over the
averaging period. Both, the co-channel and the adjacent channel interference were considered. The simulated hopping mode was random BB hopping.
Frequency diversity effect was not considered. The used interference limited network consisted of 108 cells in three sectorised configuration having a
radius of 1 km. The mobiles were randomly generated and static. Power control and DTX were used in the both directions.
The system performance was measured by determining the 10 percent Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) value of the C/I ratio. The load measure
was defined as the number of served users per cell using the time slot one.
The uplink performance as a function of served traffic is presented in Figure 5 -29. It can be seen that the common band strategy performs better. The
improvement is 1-2 dB. The more uniform reuse provided by the common band strategy is more effective, because the continuous transmission on the
BCCH TRXs is only employed in downlink direction. The BCCH reuse of 12 forces the reuse on the TCH TRXs to be very tight. This is unnecessary in
uplink direction since the load is about the same on the BCCH and TCH TRXs. The common band strategy is better when the uplink is considered.
However, the uplink is not usually the limiting link in interference limited networks, since antenna diversity is normally utilised at base stations.
The downlink performance on the TCH TRXs as a function of served traffic is presented in Figure 5 -30. For a downlink direction the dedicated
bands strategy is superior. The improvement is on the order of 1-5 dB depending on the traffic load. The degradation of the C/I ratio is quite slow as
the traffic load increases in common bands case. This indicates that the BCCH transmitters are the main interference source. It was also shown in
additional simulations that the performance gain from the power control and the DTX in the common band systems were smaller than in
corresponding dedicated band systems. This happens, because the BCCH frequencies, which are the dominating interference source, cannot utilise the
PC or the DTX.
The downlink performance on the BCCH TRXs as a function of served traffic is presented in Figure 5 -31. The downlink performance on the BCCH
TRXs is important, because the call initialisation always starts on the BCCH frequency and the BCCH frequencies have to be clean enough to guarantee
successful decoding of the cell identification for handover purposes. The common band strategy performs clearly better when the load is small. As the
load increases on the interfering TCH TRXs, the performance degrades rapidly. The dedicated bands strategy provides a very stable behavior as the
traffic load doesnt have any effect on the performance. In the dedicated band case the C/I of the BCCH frequencies in the downlink direction is
exclusively determined by the used frequency reuse on the BCCH TRXs. Because of the stable and easily predictable behavior on the BCCH
frequencies in the downlink direction, the dedicated bands strategy is preferable.
Figure 5-29. UL C/I at the 10 % level.
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Figure 5-30. DL C/I at the 10 % level.
Figure 5-31. DL C/I at the 10 % level on the BCCH frequency.

Still one, not common used method is to use separate but not continuous band for the BCCH frequencies. For example, every 4 th frequency is allocated
for BCCH. Thus, adjacent channel interference is avoided between BCCH frequencies. On the other hand, TCH band causes adjacent channel
interference for the BCCH frequencies and vice versa, but the interference might not be too significant.
BCCH
Dedicated band
TCH
Common band
BCCH + TCH
Dedicated mixed band

BCCH
TCH
Figure 5-32. Different BCCH allocation strategies.
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5.6.2
Selecting the Effective Reuse (BB FH)
With BB hopping, the fractional loading cannot be utilised and the number of hopping frequencies is always the same as the number of TRXs in a
cell, except for TCHs on the zero time slots, which always have one hopping frequency less than the other TCHs. Thus, in a BB hopping network the
frequency allocation reuse always equals the effective reuse in the network.
Since frequency and interference diversity gains significantly depend on the number of hopping frequencies, it is recommended to have at least three
hopping frequencies as a minimum configuration. If the cell TRX configurations are smaller than that, BB FH is not recommended to be used. In that
case, RF FH or IUO might offer a better solution to increase the capacity.
Before making the actual frequency plan by using the frequency allocation tool like NPS/X, an estimation of the minimum effective reuse might be
needed, for example in tendering phase. The following Figure 5 -33 gives an estimation of an applicable reuse compared to the situation before
implementing BB FH. For example, if we have in the non-hopping network reuse 15, after implementing BB FH with 4 TRX average configuration per
cell, we end up to reuse 9. The bigger is the TRX configuration, the smaller reuse we can use, since the reuse is dependent on the number of hopping
frequencies (=TRXs with BB FH).
New reuse
MIN Effective Reuses with different TRX configurations in BB

FH case
20
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
No FH
3 TRX
4 TRX
5 TRX
6 TRX
3
12
15
18
Original reuse
Figure 5-33. Effective reuse after implementing BB FH.
5.6.3
Selecting the Frequency Allocation Reuse and the Frequency Load (RF FH)
If the RF hopping is used, the frequency allocation reuse has a great impact on the required fractional load and thus, on the number of frequencies
allocated to each cell. With BB hopping, the fractional loading cannot be utilised and the number of hopping frequencies is always the same as the
number of TRXs in a cell, except for TCHs on the zero time slots, which always have one hopping frequency less than the other TCHs. Thus, in a BB
hopping network the frequency allocation reuse always equals the effective reuse in the network.
Since frequency and interference diversity gains significantly depend on the number of hopping frequencies, it is important to ensure that each cell has
enough hopping frequencies. If the cell TRX configurations are small, RF hopping with fractional loading makes it possible to still provide sufficient
number of hopping frequencies to the cells even with small TRX configurations. Fractional loading reduces the average channel utilisation in the
network, thus reducing the probability that interference will occur, making it possible to significantly decrease the frequency reuse distance. The
average channel utilisation is also known as frequency load as explained in Section 5.4.1. The relationship between the frequency allocation reuse
distance and the corresponding maximum frequency load is illustrated in Figure 5 -34.
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1
1
1
FAR
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
3
1
1
2
1
2
3
1
4
2
4
2
1
3
1
2
4
2
4
1
3
2
4
3
1
5
7
Worsening C/I at the cell border
Increasing collision probability
Max.
frequency load
8%
30%
40?%
70?%
Figure 5-34. Relationship between frequency allocation reuse and maximum allowed frequency load in the network.
A good approach is first to determine the number of frequencies to hop over in each cell. To maximise the frequency and interference diversity
gains, it is recommended to use at least four frequencies in MA-lists. This is likely to require fractional loading, especially if the TRX configurations
in the cells are small. Fractional loading means that the frequencies are not continuously used, which allows the reuse of the same frequency closer.
Thus, as the fractional load decreases, the frequency allocation reuse must be tightened to maintain the same effective reuse. The relation between the
effective reuse, fractional load and the frequency allocation reuse is presented in Equation (5.3). However, it is beneficial to avoid big differences in the
frequency loads caused by each cell. If the frequency load across the network is kept relatively constant then the interference will be distributed
more evenly in the network.
In practice, the network layout and the surrounding environment have a significant effect on the highest possible frequency load. Highly irregular
network layout makes it very difficult to find a good frequency allocation that minimises interference in all parts of the network. In that case, it might be
necessary to restrict the maximum frequency load in order to keep interference acceptable. Generally, in dense propagation environments such as
microcells, the path loss slope is steeper. This naturally reduces interference as the distant interferers are attenuated more. Thus, in these cases somewhat
higher frequency load may be possible. This doesnt necessarily apply to frequency allocation reuse of 1, since in that case the worst interferers are the
closest neighbors. On the cell border the interference coming from the neighboring cell attenuates just as much as the signal from the serving cell
regardless of the path loss slope. Because of this, it is not possible to obtain significant gain from increased path loss slope and it might not be possible
to increase the frequency load. The recommended approach is to start with a low frequency load and then increase it gradually until the quality
threshold is reached.
Important is also to ensure that the effective reuse is not too low to ensure a good quality. The following Table contains an example of choosing the right
F.A. reuse scheme to give the best capacity gain. As can be seen, the best capacity is got with the F.A. reuses 2-5. The minimum effective reuse and
maximum frequency load values are still under further consideration. They might be too optimistic for some environments!
Table 6. Limits for the effective reuse and the frequency load values with different frequency allocation reuses.
Example: 21 frequencies
F.A. reuse MA list length Min. Eff. reuse
1
21.0
8.5
2
10.5
7.5
3
7.0
7
4
5.3
6.5
5
4.2
7.5
6
3.5
8.5
7
3.0
10.5
8
2.6
12
9
2.3
13
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Max. Freq. load

8%
20%
30%
40%
50%
55%
60%
65%
70%
Date
Oct 23, 1998
Traffic (Erl)
13.4
16.8
16.8
16.8
16.8
15.4
14.4
13.7
13.1
TCHs
21
25
25
25
25
23
22
21
20
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5.6.4
Frequency Sharing by Using MAIO Management (RF FH only)
The MAIO management makes it possible to share the same MA-list between the cells of the same RF hopping site without co- or adjacent channel
collisions. This can be done by utilising the user definable MAIO offset and MAIO step parameters presented in Sections 1.6 and 1.7. MAIOOFFSET helps to
avoid the interference between the cells inside the site, whereas, MAIO STEP avoids the interference inside the cell. The cell level MAIOoffset
parameter defines the MAIOs for the first TRXs in each cell. The remaining TRXs are given MAIOs according to the Equation (3.1). In Nokia
implementation the default MAIOstep is 1, but it will be adjustable after the BSC software release S7.
The frequency sharing makes it possible for a cell to hop over all the frequencies allocated to that site as presented in Figure 5 -35. All the cells on a site
share the same MA-list. Thus, in a case of a three sectorised site, the site can be allocated three times less frequencies and still the number of
frequencies to hop over in a cell remains the same. Since less frequencies are needed per site, the frequency allocation reuse distance can be bigger. The
bigger reuse distance leads to less interference, so the fractional loading is not necessarily needed.
MA-list: 3
9
3
2
3
3
TDMA frame n-1
TDMA frame n
TDMA frame n+1
Figure 5-35. The principle of frequency sharing.

However, there are some requirements that have to be fulfilled. First of all, the basic requirement is that the cells at one site have to be controlled by
the same BCF, so that they are frame synchronised. With the current Nokia equipment this requirement limits the maximum TRX configuration to 12
TRXs per site.
The number of frequencies (MA-list length) have to be at least equal (equal if fractional loading is not to be used) to the total number of TRXs in
the site. If the MAIOstep parameter is more than one, even more frequencies are needed. The requirement can be formulated as follows
min N freqs / site N TRX / site MAIOstep ,
(5.8)
where:
min Nfreqs/site = minimum number of frequencies needed for a site

NTRX/site = total number of TRXs on a site
MAIOstep = the value of the MAIO step parameter
In Equation (5.8) it is assumed that the MAIO separation between the cells is equal to the used MAIO step. In that case, the MAIO offset parameters are
allocated as follows
n 1
MAIOcelln MAIOstep N TRX / celli
(5.9)
i 1
where:
MAIOoffset n = MAIOoffset for the n th cell in a site
NTRX/cell i = number of TRXs in i th cell
If the number of frequencies is less than min. Nfreqs, then co- or adjacent channel interference might occur. Example of this is presented in Figure 5 -37.
In a normal frequency sharing arrangement, the goal is to minimise the number of frequencies needed per site, so that the frequency allocation reuse
distance can be kept high. For this reason, the MAIO step should be normally 1. This should be taken into account in the frequency planning process,
because an intracell adjacent channel interference should not be allowed. Since the frequencies have to be in the increasing order in the MA-list, the list
may not contain adjacent channels if the MAIOstep is 1.
The cells at one site have to use the same HSN. Otherwise, co-channel interference between the cells will occur. However, the HSNs
should be different in interfering sites in order to ensure the interference diversity. An example of a correct parameter assignment for
frequency sharing is illustrated in Figure 5 -36.
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INDEX NO:
MA_LIST1:
0
1
TDMA
MAI
SECTOR MA-LIST HSN MAIO

1
1
3
0
1
2
1
3
2
3
1
3
3
4
5
1
4
0
1
2
8
1
5
3
10
2
1
4
15
3
1
4
2
TDMA-FRAMES ->
0
1
2
3
bcch frequency 1...
4
20
4
4
8
1
8
8
bcch frequency 2 ...
10
4
10
10
15
8
15
15
20
10
20
20
1
15
1
1
TRX
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
4
5
20
5
3
6
1
7
2
10
8
0
9
2
11
10
3
12
11
4
13
12
5
14
13
1
15
14
5
16
15
2
16
4
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
8
10
10
15
4
8
8
10
1
4
8
10
10
15
15
20
20
1
4
8
20
1
8
10
15
20
15
20
10
15
15
20
10
15
20
1
4
1
4
8
15
20
1
20
1
4
10
15
20
20
1
4
1
4
8
4
8
10
8
10
15
15
20
1
8
10
15
20
1
4
4
8
10
Figure 5-36. Example of frequency sharing when MAIOstep is 1.

INDEX NO:
MA_LIST1:
TDMA
MAI

1
1
3
0
1
2
1
3
2
3
1
3
3
4
5
TRX
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
4
0
1
1
4
0
1
2
8
1
1
3
10
2
1
4
15
3
1
TDMA-FRAMES ->
0
1
2
3
bcch frequency 1...
4
4
4
4
8
8
8
8
10
10
10
10
15
15
15
15
1
1
1
1
4
4
4
4
4
2
5
3
6
3
7
4
8
0
10
9
2
10
3
11
11
0
12
12
1
13
13
1
14
14
1
15
15
4
16
16
4
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
8
10
10
15
10
15
15
1
1
4
8
10
10
15
1
4
4
8
4
8
4
8
15
1
15
1
15
15
10
10
10
1
4
8
4
8
10
4
8
10
8
10
15
10
15
1
1
4
8
4
8
10
10
15
1
15
1
4
15
1
4
15
1
4
8
10
15
8
10
15
Figure 5-37. Example of frequency sharing when the site is allocated with too few frequencies and co-channel interference between sectors
exists.
Since the cells on the same site share the same frequencies, all the hopping frequencies are transmitted in every cell on the same site. This has to be
taken into account when the frequency planning is done. This can be modeled in NPS/X 3.2 or older by utilising power dividers so that the site has only
one cell having as many TRXs as there are non-BCCH TRXs in all the sectors of the actual site. The cell is distributed to multiple antennas forming
multiple sectors by using power dividers. Special care has to be taken to compensate the losses of power divider. In frequency allocation phase one
common interference probability is determined for the entire site and the site is then allocated one common set of frequencies that form the MA-list. To
avoid interference, the minimum channel separation has to be at least 1. Since each cell has its own BCCH, the BCCH allocation has to be done
separately without the power divider arrangement.
Simulation results of the performance of a network utilising frequency sharing have been presented in [Nie98]. In this simulation, the network utilising
frequency sharing at a nominal reuse of 3/9 was compared to the RF hopping network using 1/3 frequency allocation reuse at 33 % frequency load. The
reuse on the BCCH carriers was 4/12 in both cases. The served traffic was also the same in both cases. The simulated network consisted of 48 3sectorised sites. Power control was utilised in DL direction, but the DTX was not activated. Downlink FER statistics reported by each mobile every 0.48
seconds from the non-BCCH carriers were collected for analysis. Mobile speeds of 3 km/h and 50 km/h were simulated.
The resulting cumulative density functions of DL FER have been presented in Figure 5 -38 and Figure 5 -39. In both mobile speeds, the performance
of the two simulated arrangements is very similar until the FER gets close to 10 %. For the mobile speed of 3 km/h the percentage of FER samples
indicating FER above 15 % is 2 % for the frequency sharing case and 3 % for the 1/3 reuse case. For the mobile speed of 50 km/h, the corresponding
values are about 1.1 % and 1.5%. The difference in favor of frequency sharing is clear, although not dramatic. However, as higher FER percentages
are studied, the difference gets bigger.
The effect of the mobile speed on the FER distribution can be clearly seen. As the speed increases to 50 km/h, the share of both the low FER
percentages and the high FER percentages increases. The higher mobile speed provides better performance against fast fading. This increases the
proportion of low FER. The higher speed also means that the changes caused by slow fading are faster and the ability of power control to compensate
the fluctuations of signal strength is reduced. This along with the relatively slow handover algorithm causes the proportion of high FER to increase at
the higher mobile speeds. However, the mobile speed doesnt have significant effect on the relative performance of the network utilising frequency
sharing.
It may be concluded according to this simulation that the frequency sharing provides better quality compared to the 1/3 reuse case.
Version
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1
BCCH reuse 4/12, TCH reuse 1/3
BCCH reuse = 4/12, TCH reuse = 3/9 by using MAIO-management
CDF
0.1
0.01
0.001
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
FER
Figure 5-38. CDF of DL FER for a mobile speed of 3 km/h.
1
BCCH reuse 4/12, TCH reuse 1/3
BCCH reuse = 4/12, TCH reuse = 3/9 by using MAIO-management
CDF
0.1
0.01
0.001
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
FER
Figure 5-39. CDF of DL FER for a mobile speed of 50 km/h.
5.6.5
Frequency Sharing in the Single MA-list Scheme (RF FH only)
Frequency sharing can also be used to realise the usage of only one MA-list in the networks utilising sectorised base station configurations. In the
single MA-list scheme all the cells use the same set of frequencies. If the cells in one site use the same MA-lists without the frequency sharing
functionality, occasional co-channel collisions will happen between the cells of one site. When frequency sharing is used, it can be ensured that no
unnecessary co- or adjacent channel collisions will occur provided that the cells on the same site use the same HSN.
When the single MA-list scheme is employed, a continuous frequency band is usually allocated to the cells. In order to avoid intracell adjacent
channel interference, the MAIOstep should be set to at least 2. Preferably, even bigger step should be used, especially if uplink power control is not in
use. Because interference between the cells of the same site is much less likely to occur than intracell interference, a smaller channel separation can
be used between the cells of the same site. Consequently, the number of needed frequencies is reduced. When this possibility is taken into account, the
Equation (5.8) can be rewritten in more general form as follows
min N freqs / site N TRX / site N cell / site MAIOstep N cell / site S ,
(5.10)
where:
min Nfreqs/site = minimum number of frequencies needed for a site
NTRX/site = total number of TRXs on a site
Ncell/site = total number of cells in the site
S = MAIO separation between cells
A good approach is to set the MAIO step as high as possible. However, it should be checked that the requirement presented in Equation (5.10) is still
fulfilled. An example of a good MAIO plan is presented in Figure 5 -40. In this example, the MAIO separation between cells is 2 and the MAIO step is
set to its maximum value, which is 3 in this case. If a MAIO step of 4 would have been used instead, constant adjacent channel interference would have
occurred between the second TRX of sector one and the fourth TRX of sector three as shown in Figure 5 -41.
Version
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INDEX NO:
MA_LIST1:
0
1
TDMA
MAI

1
1
2
0
3
2
1
2
5
3
1
2
7
10
13
TRX
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
4
1
2
0
0
2
3
1
2
3
4
2
6
4
5
3
2
TDMA-FRAMES ->
0
1
2
3
bcch frequency 1...
1
3
7
3
4
6
10
6
6
8
12
8
8
10
14
10
11
13
2
13
14
1
5
1
5
6
4
2
6
7
5
11
7
8
6
4
8
9
7
0
9
10
8
8
10
11
9
9
10
3
11
12
11
12
12
13
12
8
13
14
13
8
14
15
14
10
15
15
6
16
16
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
3
6
12
15
5
8
1
4
9
12
10
13
4
7
13
1
9
12
9
12
11
14
7
10
9
12
10
14
15
14
14
12
14
10
13
1
4
7
10
12
15
3
8
11
14
1
4
7
2
5
8
11
14
2
5
8
11
1
4
7
1
4
7
3
6
9
14
2
5
1
4
7
15
16
Figure 5-40. Example of frequency sharing when MA-list consists of consecutive frequencies and MAIO step is set to 3.
INDEX NO:
MA_LIST1:
0
1
TDMA
MAI

1
1
2
0
4
2
1
2
6
3
1
2
8
12
16
TRX
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
4
1
2
0
0
2
3
1
2
3
4
2
6
4
5
3
2
TDMA-FRAMES ->
0
1
2
3
bcch frequency 1...
1
3
7
3
5
7
11
7
7
9
13
9
9
11
15
11
13
15
4
15
2
4
8
4
5
6
4
2
6
7
5
11
7
8
6
4
8
9
7
0
9
10
8
8
10
11
9
9
10
3
11
12
11
12
12
13
12
8
13
14
13
8
14
15
14
10
15
6
16
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
3
7
12
1
5
9
1
5
9
13
10
14
4
8
13
2
9
13
9
13
11
15
7
11
9
13
11
15
10
15
15
13
15
11
15
4
5
9
13
13
2
6
9
13
2
2
6
10
3
7
11
12
1
5
6
10
14
2
6
10
2
6
10
4
8
12
15
4
8
2
6
10
Figure 5-41. Example of too few frequencies compared to the size of the MAIO step.
Often, it is possible to achieve higher intracell frequency separations, by using bigger MAIO step and by not defining the MAIO offset parameters in
increasing order. If this approach is used, the Equations (7.8) - (7.10) are not valid anymore. Instead, each configuration should be evaluated case by
case. An example of this approach is presented in Figure 5 -42. In this example, the used MAIO step is 6 and the required MAIO separation between cells
is 2. Compared to the example in Figure 5 -40, a bigger MAIOstep can now be used while the number of required frequencies is still the same.
INDEX NO:
MA_LIST1:
TDMA
MAI

1
1
2
2
8
2
1
2
4
3
1
2
0
6
12
TRX
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
4
0
1
1
2
0
0
2
3
1
2
3
4
2
6
4
5
3
2
TDMA-FRAMES ->
0
1
2
3
bcch frequency 1...
3
5
9
5
9
11
15
11
5
7
11
7
1
3
7
3
7
9
13
9
13
15
4
15
5
6
4
2
6
7
5
11
7
8
6
4
8
9
7
0
9
10
8
8
10
11
9
9
10
3
11
12
11
12
12
13
12
8
13
14
13
8
14
15
14
10
15
15
6
16
16
8
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
5
11
14
5
7
13
3
9
11
2
12
3
6
12
15
6
11
2
11
2
13
4
9
15
11
2
13
14
13
13
15
11
13
3
9
15
12
3
9
5
11
2
1
7
13
9
15
6
10
1
7
4
10
1
13
4
10
9
15
6
9
15
6
11
2
8
7
13
4
9
15
6
Figure 5-42. Example of customised MAIO allocation.
Version
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Date
Oct 23, 1998
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6.
RADIO NETWORK PARAMETERS
The BSS radio network parameters related to frequency hopping are presented in Table 7.
Table 7. FH related BSS radio network parameters.
Object
MA
Parameter
Frequency
MA
MA
BTS
BTS
Identification of MA-list
Type of MA-list
BTS is hopping (HOP)
Hopping sequence number 1
(HSN1)
BTS
BTS

(HSN2)
MAIO offset
BTS
MAIO step
BTS
Identification of MA-list
TRX
Frequency (FREQ)
Description
MA-list. Used with RF FH BTS, max. 63 frequencies per list. BCCH frequency
must not be included in the list.
MA-list identification number in a BSC (1 - 128).
Frequency band of the MA-list (GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900).
The hopping mode of the BTS (BB, RF or N).
Hopping sequence number of the hopping group 1. In BB FH for the 0 time slots
except the BCCH time slot and in RF FH all the time slots of hopping TRXs (0 63).
Hopping sequence number of the hopping group 2. For the time slots 1-7. BB FH
only (0 - 63).
Defines the MAIO for the first TRX in the cell (0 - 62). Allows the sharing of the
same MA-list between multiple sectors of one BTS without intrasite collisions.
Sectors must be under the same BCF. Relevant in RF FH only.
Defines the step size that is used when the MAIO is calculated for the TRXs in the
cell. Relevant in RF FH only. (Available in BSS7)
MA-list id number identifying the MA-list that is allocated to that BTS. Relevant in
RF FH only.
Assign a frequency to a TRX (GSM900 1 - 124, 975 - 1023; GSM1800 512 - 885;
GSM1900 313 - 810)
To define a BB-hopping cell the following parameters have to be set:
BTS hopping mode (HOP) = BB
Hopping sequence number 1 (HSN1) = 0..63 (0 for cyclic hopping and 1..63 for random sequences)
Hopping sequence number 2 (HSN2) = 0..63 (0 for cyclic hopping and 1..63 for random sequences) (in most cases HSN1 may equal HSN2)
Fixed frequencies for each TRX (FREQ)

To define a RF-hopping cell the following parameters have to be set:
MA-list, MA-list ID and MA-list type must be defined in BSC (max. 63 frequencies)
BTS hopping mode (HOP) = RF
Hopping sequence number 1 (HSN1) = 0..63 (0 for cyclic hopping and 1..63 for random sequences)
MAIO offset = 0..62
MAIO step = 0..62 (available in BSS7)
MA-list ID used by the BTS = 0..128

Examples of MAIO offset and MAIO step definitions are presented in Chapter 8.
6.1
Parameters for MA-list Definitions in BSC
MA-list
Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS GUI dialog name:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
Mobile Allocation Frequency List, used with RF hopping BTS,

max. 63 frequencies.
Mobile Allocation Frequency List (MA)
GSM 04.08 10.5.2.12,GSM 05.02 6.2.2
before S4
When BTS is locked, if used in a RF hopping BTS
BCCH frequency must not be included in the list.
frequency
1..124 and 975..1023 (GSM)
512..885
(DCS)
512..810
(DCS19)
EBE,EBT,EBI
Frequencies
1..124 and 975..1023 (GSM)
512..885
(DCS)
512..810
(DCS19)
MAL Parameter Window
frequency
0..1023
1:1
MA-list ID
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Date
Oct 23, 1998
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41/64

Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
Type of MA-list
Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
6.2
Identification of a Mobile Allocation Frequency List in a BSC.

GSM 04.08 10.5.2.12,GSM 05.02 6.2.2
before S4
Read only
Identification of mobile allocation frequency list
1..128
EBE,EBR,EBT,EBI,EQA
MAL ID
1..128
object_instance
String up to 10 characters
1:1
Frequency band of the list. The band is either GSM, DCS or
DCS19 band.
GSM 04.08 10.5.2.12,GSM 05.02 6.2.2
before S4
Read only
type of the mobile allocation frequency list
GSM, DCS, DCS19
EBE,EBI
Frequency Band in Use
GSM, DCS 1800, PCS 1900
freq_band_in_use
0..3
GSM (0), DCS 1800 (1), PCS 1900 (2)
BTS Level FH Related Parameters
BTS hopping mode

Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Version
1.0.0
The hopping mode of the BTS. RF and BB hopping cannot be

active simultaneously at the same site (BCF).
BTS
GSM 04.08 10.5.2.5
before S4
BTS site types DE21/DF12 and DE45/DF45:
when BTS is locked
BTS site type DE34/DF34:
when BCF and BTS are locked
BTS site type DE21/DF12 does not support RF hopping.
BTS hopping mode (HOP)
BB
baseband hopping is used
RF
radio frequency hopping is used
N
hopping is not used
EQC,EQE,EQO
Hopping Mode
Non-hopping, Baseband, RF
BTS Parameter Window
hopping_mode
0..2
Non-hopping (0), Baseband (1), RF (2)
HSN1 is used in the frequency hopping sequence generation
algorithm and it is located in the Frequency Hopping System
1 (time slots 0 except BCCH time slot).
BTS
GSM 04.08 10.5.2.5,GSM 05.02 6.2.2
before S4
When BTS is locked
Date
Oct 23, 1998
Page
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Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
MAIO offset
Description:
Check that either cyclic or random hopping is used in the

whole site (2nd gen BTS). Parameter is only used with BB and RF hopping.
See parameter BTS hopping mode.
hopping sequence number 1 (HSN1)
0
cyclic hopping
1..63 random hopping
0
EQC,EQE,EQO
HSN-1
0..63
hsn
0..63
1:1
HSN2 is used in the frequency hopping sequence generation
algorithm and it is located in the Frequency Hopping System
2 (time slots 1-7).
BTS
GSM 04.08 10.5.2.5,GSM 05.02 6.2.2
before S4
When BTS is locked
Check that either cyclic or random hopping is used in the
whole site (2nd gen BTS). Parameter is used only with BB hopping. See
parameter BTS hopping mode.
hopping sequence number 2 (HSN2)
0
cyclic hopping
1..63 random hopping
0
EQC,EQE,EQO
HSN-2
0..63
hsn
0..63
1:1
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
The parameter sets the MAIO offset which is the lowest MAIO
in the cell. With MAIO offset it is possible to use the same
MA frequency list for two or more sectors of the site
without collisions.
BTS
No ref.
S6
The parameter can be modified only when the BTS is
locked or not RF hopping.
MAIO offset (MO)
0..62
0
EQA,EQO,EFO
MAIO Offset
0..62
maio_offset
0..62
1:1
MAIO step
Description:
Object class:
GSM Reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
The parameter sets the MAIO step.

BTS
No ref.
S7
On-Line
MAIO step (MS)
1..62
1
EQA,EQO,EFO
MAIO Step
1..62
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Version
1.0.0
Date
Oct 23, 1998
Page
43/64

NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
Note:
MA-list used by BTS
Description:
Object class:
GSM reference:
Option:
Release:
Modification:
Restriction:
MML name:
MML range:
MML default:
MML command:
NMS GUI name:
NMS GUI range:
NMS DB name:
NMS DB range:
NMS DB mapping:
6.3

maio_step
0..62
1:1
OPTIONAL (Flexible MAIO management)
The parameter defines the mobile allocation frequency list
to which the BTS will be attached. Relevant when RF hopping
is used. See chapter Mobile Allocation Frequency List.
BTS
No ref.
before S4
If BTS is RF hopping, then BTS must be locked
mobile allocation frequency list (MAL)
0..128 (the value 0 detaches the BTS from any
mobile allocation frequency list)
No MA-list attached
EQA,EQO
Used Mobile Allocation
Not Assigned; Assigned ID(1..128)
used_mobile_alloc_list_id
0..128
Assigned ID (1..128), Not Assigned (0)
Power Control
Table 8. Example PC parameters for RF FH network.
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1.0.0
Date
Oct 23, 1998
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GROUP
EXPLANATION
Q3 NAME
General
Enable BTS pow er control
pow erCtrlEnabled
Min time interval betw een PC's
pow erControlInterval
Pow er increase step size
pow erIncrStepsize
Pow er decrease step size
pow erRedStepsize
BS tx max pw r preattenuation
rfMaxPow erReduction
...
12
dB
ave UL signal quality (BER)< 0.2 %
pw rDecrLimitBand0
...
38
dB
38
ave UL signal quality (BER) 0.2 % - 0.4 % pw rDecrLimitBand1
...
38
dB
20
ave UL signal quality (BER) > 0.4 %
pw rDecrLimitBand2
...
38
dB
pw rDecrQualFactor
-110
...
-47/ N
dBm
-79
optional
RANGE
UNIT
Yes
No
...
31
Setting
Yes
sec
2,4 or 6
dB
2 or 4
dB
optional
MS Pow er optimisation after HO
msPw rOptLev
BTS pow er range
Max attenuation
bsTxPw rMin
...
30
dB
30
Min attenuation
bsTxPw rMax
...
30
dB
pcAveragingLevDL
...
32
SACCH
w eighting
...
pcAveragingLevUL
...
32
w eighting
...
pcAveragingQualDL
...
32
w eighting
...
pcAveragingQualUL
...
32
w eighting
...
-110
...
-47
px
...
32
nx
...
32
Averaging w indow s
Thresholds
pcLow erThresholdsLevDL
pcLow erThresholdsLevUL
SACCH
1
1
SACCH
1
1
SACCH
dBm
-101
-110
...
-47
px
...
32
nx
...
32
pcLow erThresholdsQualDL
...
px
...
32
nx
...
32
pcLow erThresholdsQualUL
...
px
...
32
nx
...
32
-110
...
-47
...
32
pcUpperThresholdsLevDL
px
nx
dBm
-101
1
dBm
-47
1
...
32
-110
...
-47
px
...
32
nx
...
32
pcUpperThresholdsQualDL
...
px
...
32
nx
...
32
pcUpperThresholdsQualUL
...
px
...
32
nx
...
32
pcUpperThresholdsLevUL
Version
1.0.0
Date
Oct 23, 1998
1
dBm
Page
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-47
6.4
Handover
Table 9. Example HO parameters for FH network utilising aggressive power control.

GROUP
EXPLANATION
Q3 NAME
Averaging adjacent
cells
RANGE
Setting
Averaging window size for adj cells

Number of zero results allowed
averagingWindowSizeAdjCell
numberOfZeroResults
Adj cells averaging: 6 best or 32
allAdjacentCellsAveraged
Yes
No
No
enaFastAveCallSetup
enaFastAveHo
Yes
Yes
/
/
No
No
No
No
enaFastAvePC
Yes
No
Yes
Averaging Method
1
0
UNIT
... 32 SACCH
... 7
8
7
Minimum Intervals
minIntBetweenUnsuccHoAttempt
minIntBetweenHoReq
0
0
... 30
... 30
Periodic Handovers
hoPeriodPBGT
HoPeriodUmbrella
0
0
... 63 SACCH
... 63 SACCH
HO types allowed
enableIntraHoInterfUL
enableIntraHoInterfDL
Yes
Yes
/
/
No
No
Yes
Yes
enablePwrBudgetHandover
Yes
No
Yes
enableUmbrellaHandover
Yes
No
No
enableMSDistanceProcess
Yes
No
No
enableSDCCHHandover
Yes
No
Yes
enableHoMarginLevQual
hoMarginPBGT
Yes
-24
/ No
... 63
dB
Yes
4
hoMarginLev
-24
... 24
dB
hoMarginQual
-24
... 24
dB
Margins
Averaging windows
and weighting values
Thresholds
Enable HO margin for Lev and Qual
3
5
6
6
hoAveragingLevDL
weighting
1
1
... 32 SACCH
... 3
6
1
hoAveragingLevUL
... 32 SACCH
weighting
...
hoAveragingQualDL
... 32 SACCH
weighting
...
hoAveragingQualUL
... 32 SACCH
weighting
...
msDistanceAveragingParam
... 32 SACCH
10
msSpeedAveraging
... 32 SACCH
hoThresholdsLevDL
px
nx
hoThresholdsLevUL
3
3
-110 ... -47

1
... 32
1
dBm
-95
1
dBm
-95
... 32
-110 ... -47
px
... 32
nx
... 32
hoThresholdsQualDL
...
px
... 32
nx
... 32
hoThresholdsQualUL
...
px
... 32
nx
... 32
hoThresholdsInterferenceDL
-110 ... -47
px
... 32
nx
... 32
hoThresholdsInterferenceUL
Version
1.0.0
sec
sec
-110 ... -47
4
dBm
-85
1
1
dBm
-85
px
... 32
nx
... 32
msDistanceHoThresholdParam
... 63
px
... 32
Date
Oct 23, 1998
TA
63
1
Page
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nx
6.5
DTX
6.5.1
Uplink DTX
... 32
The status of the uplink DTX can be defined in miscellaneous BTS parameters in BSC. The mode of the MS for using the discontinuous transmission
(DTX) can be selected in DTX parameter as following:
0
1
2
- MS may use DTX

- MS shall use DTX
- MS shall not use DTX.
The default for the parameter is 1, meaning that the mobile have to use DTX. Only a few operators in the world use the value 0, where the default
setting of the mobile chooses the uplink DTX mode.
6.5.2
Downlink DTX
The status of the downlink DTX can be defined in BTS parameters of MSC. This DTX parameter can receive one of the following values:
ON
Downlink DTX enabled by MSC
OFF
Downlink DTX disabled by MSC.
The current default value for the parameter is OFF. If the activation of the downlink DTX doesnt cause any special harm for the functioning of the
network, the usage of the DTX function is recommendable.
Here is one example of BTS parameters in MSC including DTX function:
DX 220
DX2x0-LAB
1990-11-1 10:28:56
BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION BTS3
NUMBER 00456 IS CREATED
BSC NAME : LA NAME :LAREA3

CELL IDENTITY
BTS ADMINISTRATIVE STATE
NUMBER
LAC
(CI)
::00004
:00003
:LOCKED
ROUTING ZONE
TARIFF AREA
DOWNLINK DTX DISABLED BY MSC
(RZ)
(TA)
::000
, etc
Version
1.0.0
(DTX)
:OFF
Date
Oct 23, 1998
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7.
OPTIMISATION
7.1
Tools for Network Monitoring
The following tools for example can be used for monitoring the quality and the traffic of the network:
7.2
Cell Doctor version 1.18.41 or later in NMS/2000. The tool extracts data in text format from the database.
NDW can be used for Quality / traffic monitoring. It uses the database of NMS/2000.
TIM / TOM monitoring SW can be used for indoor / outdoor drive tests
A special DL FER monitoring tool can be used internally, consisting of a Nokia 8110i with SW, a laptop with FMON and postprocessing SW
Ericsson TEMS monitoring tool can be used for the normal drive tests and DL FER monitoring
KPIs for Hopping Network
The KPIs to analyse the performance and the quality of the network are basically the same than in the non-hopping network. Only the RXQUAL and
Drop Call Rate measures differ from the non-hopping case. Worse RXQUAL can be tolerated when FH is used. Drop call rate doesnt neither correlate
directly to the quality, since with FH the drop call rate tends to stay low eventhough the subjective speech quality were not anymore acceptable.
New quality measures are under development and in testing phase to measure the subjective speech quality more accurately. In the following Table, the
normal BSS and NSS level KPIs are presented. These KPIs are more informational than Nokias official values!
With FH, the criteria for the cumulative uplink and downlink quality distribution could be the following:
Table 10. KPIs for the uplink and the downlink RXQUAL distribution.
BSS related indicators
Uplink quality distribution
Downlink quality distribution
Short term criteria

05, 95%
05, 95%
Long term criteria

05, 98%
05, 98%
Table 11. BSS and NSS related KPIs.
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BSS Related
Indicators
Short
criteria
term
Long
criteria
term
TCH Availability [%], 24h

95
99*
SDCCH Success Ratio [%],
95
97
24h Success Ratio [%],
TCH
95
97
24h Setup Success Rate [%],
Call
90
95
24h
SDCCH
Blocking [%], cell
0.5
0.2
BH Call Blocking [%], cell
TCH
5
2
BH HO Blocking [%], cell
TCH
TBD
TBD
BH
Access
Grant Blocking [%], cell
0
0
BH Drop Ratio [%],
TCH
5
3
24h
Cumulative
UL Quality distribution,
0 4, 95
0 4, 98
24h
% 4, 95
% 4, 98
Cumulative
DL Quality distribution,
0
0
24h
% TBD
% TBD
Average Interference Band,
24h Controlled Outgoing HO Success [%],
BSC
93
97
24h Controlled Outgoing HO Success [%] ,
MSC
90
95
24h Cell HO Success [%],
Intra
96
99
24h of BTSs Exceeding 5% Blocking in BH [%],
Ratio
24h Success Rate,
SMS
95
98
*Note,
24h objects which are Locked by User are counted as non available and will reduce the availability value.
NSS Related
Indicators
Intra MSC HO Success Ratio

[%] MSC HO Success Ratio
Inter
[%]
Paging
Success Ratio
[%]
Technically
Successful Calls
[%] CGR Availability [%]
MSC
PSTN CGR Availability
[%] CGR Availability [%]
A-if
VMS CGR Availability [%]
MSC CGR Blocking [%],
BH
PSTN
CGR Blocking [%],
BH CGR Blocking [%], BH
A-if
VMS CGR Blocking [%],
BH VLR LU Success Ratio for Home Subscriber
Intra
[%] VLR LU Success Ratio for Roaming Subscriber
Intra
[%] VLR LU Success Ratio for Home Subscriber
Inter
[%] VLR LU Success Ratio for Roaming Subscriber
Inter
[%]
Periodic
LU Success Ratio
[%]
Home
Subscriber LU Success ratio when visiting
PLMN
different
Home Subscriber LU Success ratio when coming
from different PLMN
Home
General
Number of alarmsStatistics
per Network Element, exc.
transmission
Number
of transmission alarms per
node
Customer
complaints of NW
problems
Customer complaints of
billing
7.3
Short
criteria
term
Long
criteria
term
TBD
TBD
91
85
TBD
TBD
100
100
100
100
1
1
1
1
97
97
96
90
97
TBD
96
94
TBD
TBD
100
100
100
100
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
99
99
98
95
99
TBD
Criteria
Eki
Eki
< 1/1000
subscriber/day
< 1/1000
subscriber/year
RXQUAL in FH Networks
Frequency hopping causes some changes in the RXQUAL distribution. Also, there are some differences in a way the RXQUAL distribution should
be interpreted.
The Frame Erasure Ratio (FER) is a ratio of discarded speech frames compared to all the received speech frames. A speech frame is generally
discarded if after the decoding and error correction process any of the category 1a bits is found to be changed based on the three parity bits following
them in a speech frame.
he FER is a measure of how successfully the speech frame was received after the error correction process and it is thus a better indication of the
subjective speech quality compared to the RXQUAL which gives an estimate of the link quality in terms of BER. The RXQUAL doesnt indicate how
the bit errors were distributed in a speech frame. The bit error distribution affects the ability of the channel decoding to correct the errors.
The following table gives an idea of the correlation between RXQUAL and FER and between subjective speech quality and different FER classes.
Table 12. RXQUAL vs. FER comparison according to the laboratory tests.
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Subjective quality, laboratory tests

Steady quality/FER value (fast mobile or frequency hopping)
RXqual
0-4
5
6
7
FER
0 - 4%
4 - 15%
15 - 35%
>35%
good
slightly degraded
degraded
useless
good
slightly degraded
degraded
useless
The relation of downlink FER and RXQUAL was measured during a FH trial. The relation is clearly different in the hopping case compared to the
non-hopping case. The distributions of FER in each RXQUAL class are presented in Figure 7 -43 and Figure 7 -44. One clear observation can be
made; in the non-hopping case there are significant amount of samples indicating deteriorated quality (FER>10%) in RXQUAL class 5 while in the
hopping case the significant quality deterioration (FER>10%) happens in RXQUAL class 6. Thus, it may be concluded that in the frequency hopping
networks significant quality deterioration starts at RXQUAL class 6 while in non-hopping network this happens at RXQUAL class 5.
This difference is a consequence of interference and frequency diversities that affect the frequency hopping network. Because of these effects, the
interference or low signal strength tend to occur randomly, while in a non-hopping network it is probable that interference or low field strength will
affect several consecutive bursts making it harder for the error correction to actually correct errors. The successful error correction leads to less erased
frames and thus improves the FER.
DL FER / RXQUAL (No hopping)
100.00 %
90.00 %
80.00 %
70.00 %
Q7
60.00 %
Q6
50.00 %
Q5
40.00 %
Q4
30.00 %
Q3
20.00 %
RXQUAL
Q2
10.00 %
Q1
0.00 %
"0-1"
Q0
"1-5"
FER %
"5-10"
"1015"
"15100"
Figure 7-43. Measured relation of FER and RXQUAL in a non-hopping case.
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DL FER / RXQUAL (ave 3.6 hopping carriers / cell)
100.00 %
90.00 %
80.00 %
70.00 %
Q7
60.00 %
Q6
50.00 %
Q5
40.00 %
Q4
30.00 %
Q3
20.00 %
RXQUAL
Q2
10.00 %
Q1
0.00 %
"0-1"
Q0
"1-5"
FER %
"5-10"
"1015"
"15100"
Figure 7-44. Measured relation of FER and RXQUAL in frequency hopping case.
This improvement of FER means that the higher RXQUAL values may be allowed in a frequency hopping network. RXQUAL thresholds are used in
the handover and power control decisions. Because of the improvement in the relative reception performance on the RXQUAL classes 4-6, the
RXQUAL thresholds affecting handover and power control decisions should be set higher in a network using frequency hopping network. In a
frequency hopping network RXQUAL classes 0-5 are indicating good quality.
Typically, the share of the RXQUAL classes 6 and 7 may increase after FH is switched on, even if no other changes have been made. This may seem
to be surprising since it is expected that frequency hopping improves the network quality. However, in most cases the quality is actually improved, but
the improvement is more visible in the call success ratio. The improved tolerance against interference and low field strength in FH network means that it
is less likely that the decoding of SACCH frames fails causing increment in the radio link timeout counter. Thus, it is less likely that a call is dropped
because of the radio link timeout. Instead, the calls generating high RXQUAL samples tend to stay on. This may lead to increase in the share of
RXQUAL 6-7. However, at the same time the call success rate is significantly improved.
In the Figure 7 -45, there are presented some trial results of a DL RXQUAL distribution with different frequency allocation reuse patterns. As can be
seen from the figures, the tighter the reuse becomes, the less samples fall in quality class 0 and more samples fall in quality classes 1-6. Theres bigger
difference in downlink than in uplink direction.
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DL RXQUAL Distribution
100.00
90.00
80.00
Percentage (%)
70.00
No FH
60.00
1/3 pure
50.00
1/3 heuristic
40.00
1/1
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
q0
q1
q2
q3
q4
q5
q6
q7
Quality Classes
Figure 7-45. DL RXQUAL distribution of a trial with different frequency allocation reuse patterns (no FH, 1/1, 1/3 fixed, 1/3 heuristic
allocation)
UL RXQUAL Distribution
100.00
90.00
80.00
Percentage (%)
70.00
60.00
No FH
1/3 pure
50.00
1/3 heuristic
1/1
40.00
30.00
20.00
10.00
0.00
q0
q1
q2
q3
q4
q5
q6
q7
Quality Classes
Figure 7-46. UL RXQUAL distribution of a trial with different frequency allocation reuse patterns (no FH, 1/1, 1/3 fixed, 1/3 heuristic
allocation)
Frequency hopping forces each call to use all the frequencies in the hopping sequence. If some of those frequencies are more interfered than others, it
may happen that after FH is switched on the quality of the calls suffers. When FH is not used, the calls tend to be allocated to the TRXs using
interference free carriers (the TRX and the time slot are selected based on the UL idle channel interference measurement). Especially outside the busy
hours, it is probable that time slots are always available on the TRXs having interference free carriers. Frequency hopping forces all the calls to use
all the frequencies in the hopping sequence. This means that the interfered frequencies are always used as much as the interference free frequencies.
This is likely to lead to worse quality outside the busy hours. During the busy hours in a non-hopping case, some of the calls have to be allocated to a
TRX using interfered frequency, because interference free TRXs may be full. These calls are likely to experience significantly worse quality. The
frequency hopping tends to average the quality, so in the frequency hopping case all the calls experience average quality instead of some very high
quality calls and some very low quality calls. It is thus important to compare only busy hour statistics and to keep in mind that the interference problems
may not show up outside the busy hours in the non-hopping case, while in the FH case the effect of interference is always present.
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Note! In BB FH and RF FH case the frequency specific RXQUAL cannot be measured anymore. The quality is averaged over the hopping sequence.
7.4
Idle Channel Interference Measurement
When a new call is established or a handover is performed, the BSC selects the TRX and the time slot for the traffic channel based on the idle channel
interference measurements. The frequency hopping has a significant effect on the idle channel interference measurement results.
When the frequency hopping is used, the frequency of a hopping logical channel is changed about 217 times in a second. The frequency of the idle time
slots changes according to the same sequence.
In a case of the random hopping, this means that the measured idle channel interference is likely to be the same for all the TRXs that use the
same MA-list. If the interference is averaged over more than one SACCH frame, the averaging effect is even stronger. However, normally the
interferers are mobiles located in interfering cells. In this case, there are probably differences in the measured idle channel interferences between
different time slots in the cell. This happens, because the interfering mobiles are only transmitting during the time slot that has been allocated to them.
This is illustrated in Figure 7 -47.
If the cyclic hopping sequence is used, there might occur differences on the measured idle channel interference levels between the TRXs on the
same time slot as explained in the following section.
Idle channel
interference level
RTSL
Low
TRX 1
TRX 2
f1, f2, f3
High
TRX 3
Interfering
mobiles using
the same
frequencies:
Path loss to the

interfered BTS
f1, f2, f3
Timeslot #
Figure 7-47. Idle channel interference in a case of the random RF hopping.
7.5
Cyclic and Random Hopping Sequences
If the cyclic hopping mode is used, the interference caused by a mobile is not necessarily spread evenly on all the hopping TRXs as can be seen in
Figure 7 -48. If the random hopping sequences are used, interference is always evenly spread on all the TRXs using the same MA-list as presented in
Figure 7 -49. The distribution of interference presented in this section is the same for both uplink and downlink directions.
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Base station
6 frequencies
TDMA frames
TRX 1
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
TRX 2
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
TRX 3
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
TRX 4
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
TRX 5
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
TRX 6
18
11
15
18
11
15
18
11
15
interference
Mobile
1
15
15
15
3 frequencies
1
15
15
15
Figure 7-48. Example of interference distribution in one cyclic hopping case.
Base station
TDMA frames
TRX 1
TRX 2
TRX 3
TRX 4
TRX 5
TRX 6
interference
Mobile
3
6 frequencies
6 frequencies
Figure 7-49. Interference distribution when random hopping sequences are used.
The drawback of the cyclic hopping is that the interference coming from one interferer may affect only some of the TRXs as seen in Figure 7 -48. This
limits the number of interferers and compromises the interference diversity. For this reason, it is recommended that cyclic hopping sequences are not
used in the areas where the network is interference limited.
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Cyclic:
In the areas where the interference is NOT a problem (low traffic areas)
Random:
In the areas where the interference is a problem (high traffic areas)
Figure 7-50. Guide to choose between cyclic and random hopping sequences.
Frequency hopping makes it possible to change the interference sources for each TDMA frame. The result of this is a beneficial effect called
interference diversity, which was presented in Section 2.1.6. The more different interferers the link has, the better interference is averaged and the better
the interference diversity gain. Time division used in the GSM systems limits the interference diversity. Because of the TDMA principle, the
interference diversity is only possible among the mobiles that share the same time instant for transmission. However, the base stations that are located
on different sites, are not usually synchronised. This means that the time slots may be partially overlapping each other as presented in Figure 7 -51.
Thus, the interference from one interfering cell may consist two interference sources (mobiles) in uplink direction or two different power levels in
downlink direction if downlink power control is used. This enhances interference diversity. The degree of overlapping in non-synchronised network is
random but constant between any non-synchronised cell pair and it may be anything between 50 % and 100 % as presented in Figure 7 -52.
RTSL
Serving cell
Interfering cell
0
RTSL
Figure 7-51. Interference from non-synchronised cell.
Serving cell
50%
50%
100%
Interfering cell
Figure 7-52. The two extreme cases: 50 % and 100 % overlapping of bursts.
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7.6
Intracell Handover
The lack of synchronisation has a positive effect on the interference diversity. However, interference is still averaged only between the mobiles sharing
the same time instant for transmission. Because of this, the intracell handover to another time slot changes the interference sources and is feasible if the
overall interference situation in the target time slot is better. During busy hours when the traffic in the network is at the maximum, it is likely that there
are no significantly better time slots available. Thus, significant gain can not be accomplished by intracell handover to another time slot. Normally the
intracell handover is triggered by poor RXQUAL. In order to avoid unnecessary intracell handovers, the RXQUAL threshold for intracell handover
should be set so high that the handover is not attempted before the quality of the call is seriously threatened. Example HO parameters are presented in
Table 9.
7.7
Power Control
Power control has been found to improve the quality in FH networks and thus, it is recommended to be used in both UL and DL directions. Power
control is the most effective when the used TX power level is kept as low as possible while still maintaining an acceptable link quality. To achieve this, a
fast and mainly RXQUAL driven power control is recommended.
In order to make the PC as fast as possible, the measurement averaging in BTS should be disabled and aggressive power control parameters should be
used. Example PC parameters are presented in Table 8.
7.7.1
Downlink Power Control with BB Hopping
In the baseband hopping the BCCH TRX is included in the hopping sequence. This means that occasionally some bursts are transmitted by the BCCH
TRX using the time slots from 1 to 7. The GSM specifications require that the BCCH TRX must transmit continuously and always at the full power.
This is required, because the BCCH frequencies are used in the downlink level measurements of the neighboring cells by the mobiles. Consequently, if
the downlink power control is used, the downlink signal level may fluctuate dramatically since the BCCH TRX is not using the power control. This may
cause serious problems in the mobile receiver if the mobile is located close to the cell site. To avoid such problems, the maximum base station power
decrease (bsTxPowerMin) should be limited to 10 - 15 dB when downlink power control is used together with baseband hopping.
7.8
Handover Control
Since FH and an aggressive power control cause significant changes in the RXQUAL distribution, the RXQUAL thresholds triggering handovers have
to be adjusted accordingly. Normally, the RXQUAL thresholds have to be increased by 1 or 2 classes (RXQUAL 4 -> RXQUAL 5). Also the HO
speed should be fast enough but still slower than the PC speed, to ensure that the PC will become triggered before HO. An example of HO
parameters for FH networks utilising aggressive power control are presented in Table 9.
7.9
HSN Planning with Random Hopping
The HSN defines the used FH sequence. The HSN value 0 means cyclic hopping and the values from 1 to 63 mean different random hopping sequences.
In random hopping case, the same HSNs should be used in different cells inside the site. Thus, if a common MA list is shared inside the site, the
frequency collisions can be avoided.
Neighboring sites should use different HSNs, especially those sites, which use common frequencies. It ensures the collisions to happen randomly
between the sites.
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8.
PLANNING CASES
8.1
Planning Case 1: Single MA-list
In this example a single MA-list implementation is planned for a small network consisting of 7 sites and 16 sectorised cells. The benefit in single MAlist implementation is that no frequency planning is required, because each cell has the same MA-list containing all the allocated frequencies. Since
fractional loading is required, only RF hopping can be used. In order to avoid interference between the cells of the same site, a MAIO plan is made
for each site. The number of TRXs can be maximum 12 TRXs per site.
8.1.1
Frequency Planning
Although actual frequency plan is not needed, it must be checked that the used frequency band is sufficient to provide acceptable quality. Also in some
cases the differences in cell level traffic distributions may require that some frequencies are reserved to be used only in the highly loaded cells.
Site
A
B
C
E
F
Ce ll
1
2
1
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
1
2
TRX count
2
3
4
4
4
3
3
4
2
3
4
4
3
4
4
3
Figure 8-53. Network layout and TRX configurations.

The BCCH frequency plan is made separately and it is not considered here. On the average there are 2.4 hopping TRXs per cell in the example network.
21 frequencies are to be allocated to the hopping TRXs. The effective reuse on the frequency hopping TRXs can be calculated by using Equation (5.1)
as follows:
Reff
21
8.8
2.4
Effective reuse of 8.8 is reasonable for frequency hopping network and it can be expected that the network will have good quality, see Table 6.
In order to keep the collision probability low enough, it is recommended that the average frequency load caused by each cell in the network doesnt
exceed 8 %. The load distribution in the network is calculated by using Equations (5.3), (5.4) and (5.5). Here, also the BCCH TRX is included in the
traffic estimations.
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Traffic at
Number of
Fractional Frequency
2% blocking time slots HW load load
load
9.8
16
61.4 %
4.8 %
2.9 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
9.8
16
61.4 %
4.8 %
2.9 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
23.7
32
74.1 %
14.3 %
10.6 %
16.6
24
69.3 %
9.5 %
6.6 %
Figure 8-54. Load calculations.
The average frequency load in the network is 8.1 %. This is acceptable, because it is only very slightly above the 8 % recommendation. The maximum
frequency load is 10.6 %. This doesnt exceed the average frequency load significantly. If the maximum frequency load exceeded 13 % -14 %, it might
make sense to reserve some extra frequencies that would be used only on the highly loaded cells. By doing this, the frequency load distribution in the
network can be kept more even. Cells causing high frequency loads tend to deteriorate the quality in the neighboring cells.
8.1.2
MAIO Planning
Since all the cells of a sectorised site are usually controlled by the same BCF, they are frame synchronised. This means that the TDMA frame number is
always the same in the sectors of one site. Since the hopping sequence is derived from the HSN and the TDMA frame number, the synchronisation
makes it possible avoid interference between the sectors of one site.
To prevent intra site and intra cell interference the following requirements have to be fulfilled:
All the sectors of one site have to controlled by the same BCF
All the sectors of one site have to use the same HSN
MAIO planning have to be properly made
In order to guarantee interference diversity, a different HSN should be used in the different sites located in the same area.
MAIO planning should be done for each site. The HSN parameter has to be defined for each site and MAIO offset and MAIO step for each cell. These
parameters and their functionality are presented in Section 1. MAIOstep defines the channel separation between the TRXs of the same cell. It is thus
used to guarantee that intra cell interference doesnt occur. MAIO offset is used to control the channel separations between the sectors of the same
site. However, MAIOoffseet doesnt directly define the channel separation between the cells. Instead it defines the MAIO of the first hopping TRX of the
cell.
At first it should be checked that proper channel separations are possible with allocated frequency band. The minimum requirement for channel
separation between sectors is 1. However, in order to avoid constant adjacent channel interference between the sectors of the same site, a separation of
2 is highly recommended. In order to avoid intra cell interference, the channel separation between the TRXs of the same cell should be at least 2 .
Preferably the separation should be 3 or more, especially if UL power control is not used. In this case the goal is to have a minimum channel separation
of 2 between the sectors and 3 between the TRXs of the same cell. To check if that is possible with the current frequency band of 21 carriers, Equation
(5.10) is used. The site to be investigated is the site with biggest TRX configurations that is in this case site C having 3 sectors and 8 hopping TRXs.
min N freqs / site N TRX / site N cell / site MAIOstep N cell / site S
(8 3) 3 3 2 21
As a result, it can be seen that the frequency band of 21 carriers is just enough to allow the implementation of wanted channel separations even in the
site with the biggest TRX configurations.
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The MAIO plan is now made for the Site C by using MAIO step 3 and by selecting the MAIO offset parameters for the sectors so that the channel (=MAIO)
separation of 2 is realised between the sectors. Example MAIO plans are presented in the following pictures.
MAIO Offset determines the

MAIO of the first hopping
TRX in each sector
MAI value for each TDMA frame is calculated by BTS

and MS by using HSN and TDMA frame number
Site C
The sectors share

the same HSN
Transmitted frequencies for each TRX

during each TDMA frame
MAIOs for the rest of the hopping TRXs

are determined by adding MAIO Step to
the MAIO of the previous hopping TRX
No co- or adjacent channel

interference between sectors
Figure 8-55. Example of MAIO planning.
Site D
Site F
Site G
Figure 8-56. Example MAIO plans.
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Table 13. Parameters for each cell in the example network.
Site
Cell
TRX count
HSN
MAIOoffset
MAIOstep
1
2
2
3
2
2
0
8
3
3
1
2
4
4
6
6
0
8
3
3
16
1
2
3
4
7
7
0
8
3
3
16
1
2
3
4
4
4
0
8
3
3
1
2
4
3
3
3
0
8
3
3
13
1
2
4
3
1
1
0
8
3
3
If more TRXs are later added, it should me made sure that the MAIO plan for that site is still valid. Failure to do so may lead to continuous co- or
adjacent channel interference between the TRXs of the site.
8.2
Planning Case 2: RF FH with Fractional Loading (FAR 3 5)
The network in this case is the same as in the first planning case. The goal is to achieve the highest capacity by employing very tight frequency reuse.
Low effective frequency reuse is possible because each cell has enough frequencies in the hopping sequence to provide good frequency hopping gain
and the usage of frequencies can be planned so that the worst potential interferers do not use the same frequency. Also power control is to be used both
in uplink and in downlink.
The target frequency allocation reuse is between 3 and 5, meaning that the frequencies are repeated in every 3 to 5 cells. This makes it possible to
avoid interference between the strongest interferers. The frequency allocation can be done by utilising a frequency allocation tool that supports RF
hopping with fractional loading, such as NPS/X 3.3.
8.2.1
Defining the Frequency Band and the Number of Frequencies Needed in Each Cell
The BCCH frequency plan is made separately and it is not considered here. On the average there are 2.4 hopping TRXs per cell in the example network.
In order to end up with an effective reuse of 8, 19 frequencies are to be allocated to the hopping TRXs. The effective reuse on the frequency hopping
TRXs can be calculated by using Equation (5.1) as follows:
Reff
19
7.9
2.4
Effective reuse of 7.9 is quite low, but it can be expected that with implementation of frequency allocation reuse of 3 to 5 the network will have
acceptable quality provided that the network model in the frequency allocation tool is accurate. However, the minimum achievable reuse also depends
very much on the environment and the network layout. For example, if the antennas in the urban environment are located too high so that the isolation
between the interfering cells provided by the surrounding environment is not exploited, a higher effective reuse may have to be used in order to maintain
good quality.
As a rule of thumb, the frequency load caused by each cell should range from 30 % to 50 % as the frequency allocation reuse ranges from 3 to
5, see Table 6. This is used as a basis when the number of frequencies to be allocated in each cell is defined. In the following figure, MA-list length
definitions are made for the example network. Also the BCCH TRX is included in the traffic calculation.
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Si te
A
B
C
E
F
Ce l l
1
2
1
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
1
2
TRX
Effective reuse = 19 frequencies / 2.4 hopping TRXs per cell = 7.9
OK
Frequency allocation reuse = 19 frequencies / 4.9 FH freqs per cell = 3.9
OK
count
2
3
4
4
4
3
3
4
2
3
4
4
3
4
4
3
Average frequency load 34.1 %

(max. 37.1 %)
OK
Figure 8-57. Load and reuse calculations.

In this example, the MA-list lengths were selected so that the frequency load caused by each cell falls between 30 % and 40 %. However, the
minimum length was 3 in order to guarantee sufficient FH gains. The resulting average MA-list length is 4.9 carriers per cell. The frequency allocation
reuse can now be calculated by using Equation (5.2) as follows:
FAR
19
3.9
4.9
The average frequency load is 34.1 %. In most cases this should provide low enough collision probability for a network having a frequency allocation
reuse 3.9. Actually, it might even be possible to reduce the frequency band a little bit. With 17 carriers the frequency allocation reuse would reduce to
3.47. This would match the rule of thumb perfectly, as we would now have a frequency load of 34.1 % and frequency allocation reuse 3.47. The
effective reuse with 17 carriers would be 7.1. Whether the quality will still be acceptable depends on the quality of the frequency plan as well as the
network layout and surrounding environment.
8.2.2
Frequency Allocation and Analysis
Now, once the number of frequencies to be allocated for each cell is defined, the allocation should be performed with help of an frequency allocation
tool that supports fractional loading and is able to minimise the interference in the network such as NPS/X 3.3.
The allocation parameters can be similar as in the normal non-hopping case. The minimum channel separation between the frequencies in the MAlist should be at least one carrier in order to avoid intracell adjacent channel interference. Preferably the separation of two should be used unless that
requirement significantly degrades the allocation result (=increases the resulting value of the cost function). However, if the fractional load on a cell is
50 % or less, then it is advantageous to allow consecutive frequencies in the MA-list and set the MAIO step parameter to 2 in that cell. The MAIO step
of 2 ensures that adjacent carriers are not used at the same time. Thus, adjacent channel interference is prevented. The removal of the intra cell channel
separation requirement makes it possible for the allocation tool to find a better allocation that minimises the interference more effectively. The
difference can be so significant, that it might make sense to deliberately force the fractional load to 50 % or less so that the intracell separation
requirement can be removed. An example of how intra cell adjacent channel interference is avoided is presented in the following figure.
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Consecutive carriers
allowed in the MA lists
Fractional load in every sector is 50% or less

(fractional load = MAL_length / Nb_TRX)
MAIOstep is set to 2
No intra cell adjacent

channel interference!

Adjacent channels may be allowed between the sectors of the same site especially if all of them are not adjacent to each other. The interference diversity
and fractional loading ensures that even if adjacent channel interference occurs, it wont be continuous and thus its effect on the quality is reduced.
Since frequency sharing is not used in this case, all the cells in one area using the same frequency band should have a different HSN in order to
maximise interference diversity.
Since fractional loading is used, it is very difficult to analyze the frequency plan with conventional C/I analysis. Instead, more advanced analysis tool
such as the RXQUAL analysis tool available in NPS/X 3.2 and 3.3 should be used. The RXQUAL tool estimates the typical RXQUAL for every pixel
on the digital map. It supports frequency hopping and fractional loading. The RXQUAL analysis tool is suitable for comparing different frequency
allocations and for finding the locations of possible interference spots where the quality is likely to be the worst. However, the RXQUAL analysis
tool is sensitive to the fractional loading! The lower the fractional load, the better quality seem to be predicted even when it is likely that the quality in
reality should be worse. Because of this, the tool is only suitable to analysing different frequency plans while the fractional loading (=MA-list lengths)
remain the same. It should also be noted that the indicated RXQUAL doesnt necessarily correspond to the actual measured RXQUAL but is still gives
an indication of the overall quality of the frequency plan and the locations of the probable interference areas.
8.3
Planning Case 3: RF FH with Frequency Sharing
The network in this case is the same as in the first planning case. The frequency sharing arrangement makes it possible to use FH with sufficient number
frequencies in the hopping sequence even with small TRX configurations without need to utilise fractional loading that requires special planning tool
support. Since this is RF hopping, downlink power control can also be fully utilised.
8.3.1
Frequency Planning
In this scheme all the sectors of the same site use a common MA-list. Fractional loading is not utilised, since it is usually possible to get a sufficient
number of frequencies in the hopping sequence even without it. The benefit is that the frequency planning can be accomplished by using conventional
frequency planning tools that dont support fractional loading. Since fractional loading is not used, each MA-list will have as many frequencies as
there are hopping TRXs in all the sectors of each site. The BCCH frequencies are planned normally.
From the interference point of view the frequency sharing effectively combines all the sectors into one virtual cell that covers the combined coverage
area of all the sectors in that site. This can be modeled in the planning tool (NPS/X 3.2 or older) by creating one virtual cell for each site and by
transmitting this cell through multiple directional antennas for example by using power divider feature in the planning tool. It should be made sure that
no power dividing losses are included since in the reality there are no power splitters. Each of these virtual cells should have as many TRXs as there are
hopping TRXs in all the sectors of that site. As a result, it is now possible to create an interference matrix that describes how much the sites interfere
each other. In order to avoid intracell interference, the channel separation should be set to at least 2. The frequency allocation can be now performed
normally, resulting in one common MA-list for each site.
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Si te
A
B
C
E
F
Ce l l
1
2
1
1
2
3
1
2
3
1
2
1
2
3
1
2
TRX
count
2
3
4
4
4
3
3
4
2
3
4
4
3
4
4
3
Figure 8-59. Network layout and the calculation of the needed MA-list lengths.
8.3.2
MAIO Planning
MAIO planning is needed in order to avoid mutual interference between the sectors of the same site. Since the sectors of the same site use the same
MA-list, there will be co-channel interference between those sectors unless MAIO planning is properly done.
To prevent intra site and intra cell interference the following requirements have to be fulfilled:
All the sectors of one site have to controlled by the same BCF
All the sectors of one site have to use the same HSN
MAIO planning have to be properly made
In order to guarantee interference diversity, a different HSN should be used in the different sites located in the same area.
MAIO planning is simple in this case. MAIO Step should be set to 1 in every sector and MAIO Offset must be selected for each sector so that the MAIOs of
the hopping TRXs in one site will be in consecutive order.
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Frequencies for the MA list are planned with help of
frequency planning tool. Minimum separation is 2.
MAIOStep is 1
The sectors share

the same HSN
MAIOoffset for each sector is set so that the

MAIOs for TRXs are in consecutive order
8.3.3
Analysis
Since fractional loading is not used, conventional C/I analysis is possible. However, the same virtual cell with power dividers setup that was used in
the frequency allocation phase must be used in the analysis.
Alternative option is to use the RXQUAL analysis tool of NPS/X 3.2. Since it is not possible to take the benefits of MAIO management into account
(=no interference between the cells of the same site), similar setup as in the C/I analysis has to be used.
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Frequency Planning Guide1

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Frequency Hopping Network Implementation and Planning

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

The first draft

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF FREQUENCY HOPPING...........................................................................................................................................................

NOKIAS SUPPORT FOR FREQUENCY HOPPING IN GSM....................................................................................................................................

BSS LEVEL IMPLEMENTATION.........................................................................................................................................................................................

SELECTING THE RIGHT HOPPING STRATEGY.....................................................................................................................................................

FREQUENCY PLANNING OF FREQUENCY HOPPING NETWORKS..................................................................................................................

NETWORK PLANNING PROCEDURE..................................................................................................................................................................................

RADIO NETWORK PARAMETERS..............................................................................................................................................................................

PARAMETERS FOR MA-LIST DEFINITIONS IN BSC..........................................................................................................................................................

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

TOOLS FOR NETWORK MONITORING...............................................................................................................................................................................

PLANNING CASE 1: SINGLE MA-LIST..............................................................................................................................................................................

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Effective Network Planning

General Description of Frequency Hopping

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Figure 1-2. Basic functionality of frequency hopping.

Frequency Hopping Modes

B = BCCH timeslot. It does not hop.

Time slots 1...7 of all TRXs

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

B =BCCH timeslot. TRX does not hop.

Non-BCCH TRXs are hopping over

MS does not see

Figure 1-5. The difference between BB and RF FH.

Max. ARFCN range

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Max. ARFCN range

variable bit map

Hopping Sequence Number

Mobile Allocation Index Offset

For this TDMA frame the output from the algorithm is 1

FN & HSN GSM Hopping algorithm

TRX-1 TRX-2 TRX-3

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

MAIOTRX ( n ) MAIOoffset MAIOstep (n 1)

Sector TRX # HSN

MAIO stepMAIOoffsetl MAIO

Non-hopping BCCH TRX

MAIO step indicates the

Figure 1-7. Example of the use of the MAIO related parameters.

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

THEORETICAL PERFORMANCE OF FREQUENCY HOPPING

Figure 2-8. Typical delay envelope.

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

frequency spacing (kHz)

Figure 2-9. The autocorrelation coefficient as a function of carrier spacing.

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Cyclic vs. Random Hopping Sequences

Both cyclic and random hopping modes are available in GSM.

Simulated Frequency Diversity Gains

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Effect in Cell Coverage Area

Effect of Mobile Speed

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Average C/I (dB)

Average C/I (dB)

Figure 2-13. The gain of frequency hopping.

Frequency Hopping Network Planning Guide

Effect of Power Control and DTX