Inter-system Inter-working

Cegetel consultancy
Main results
Benoist Guillard
Jose Marcos

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Context
Cegetel (VF CBT) has set a high priority on inter-system inter-working
A must for commercial opening (Q3/03)
In a multi-vendor context
But is concerned about any impact on live GSM/GPRS network
performance
A 5 months consultancy
Define the strategy
Evaluate the architecture
Explain the mechanisms
Propose parameters
Identify the risk areas for the mechanisms
Prepare testing
Decode the roadmaps
Identify impacts on GSM
Suggest solutions to alleviate the risks on GSM
Discussion on our conclusions has only happened little with Cegetel,
so comments and critics are welcome now ! (and later :-)
2

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Agenda
Define the strategy
Propose parameters
Identify impacts on GSM
Suggest solutions to alleviate the risks on GSM

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Strategy
Objectives
Ensure service continuity
Obtain maximum use of WCDMA
Better quality (AMR, PS bit rates)
Investment efficiency
Avoid ping-pongs
Analysis
WCDMA coverage does not just end at the edge of roll-out, it
also stops indoor before GSM

GSM
WCDMA

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Strategy

What gain brings 2G->3G Voice ISHO ?

At what Dual-Mode UE penetration level P can we see a visible
gain on GSM capacity ?
Arbitrary threshold : A gain of 1 Erlang in GSM load
At high load levels, Erlang B can be approximated by
ErlB ( , blocking ) C
is the traffic in Erlang
blocking the blocking target
C is a constant
We estimate a mobility factor M, ratio of calls setup in GSM-only
coverage and ending in WCDMA coverage (good guess 3% ?)
A gain in GSM load is visibleif M P 1
Therefore no gain is visible if the penetration is below
1
Pthreshold
M
5

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Agenda
Define the strategy
Propose parameters
Identify impacts on GSM
Suggest solutions to alleviate the risks on GSM

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Parameters

Should we use HCS for 3G2G reselection?

HCS with the same priority on WCDMA and GSM
Allows to introduce a temporary offset on R-criterion
Introduces latency, risk to set-up a call in a bad cell
Allows to discriminate neighbor selection depending on server
quality
If Qsearch_RAT > 0 dB:
Very poor server Take any neighbor
GSM on the neighbor quality
Poor server WCDMA
Be more demanding
Ec/No
AV_RXLEVNCELL(
n)

Qsearch_RAT(s)=4
dB

-16 dB
Qhcs(n)=-85
dBm

QHCS(s)=-18
dB

AdjgQrxLevMin(n)=102 dBm

QqualMin(s)=-20
dB
7

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Parameters

Should we use 3G2G HCS ?

HCS with different priorities on WCDMA and GSM
Then GSM must have a lower priority than WCDMA
Otherwise, reselection will occur preferentially to GSM, which is
not the objective
Allows to introduce a mobility evaluation criterion, but
Mobility is not a suitable trigger for reselection (coverage is)
It introduces ping-pong, as mobility is not evaluated in
GSMWCDMA reselection
Reselection to WCDMA shall not occur within 5secs after UE
Priority (HCS_PRIO)=3
GSM

GSM

has reselected
a GSM cell from a WCDMA cell
if a suitable GSM cell can be found [05.08]
GSM
GSM
GSM
GSM

Priority (HCS_PRIO)=4
WCDMA

WCDMA

WCDMA

Reselection
Ncr=2
Ncr=1
Ncr=3
Fast Moving state detected
start GSM measurements for
reselection
8

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

WCDMA

WCDMA

WCDMA

Reselect WCDMA
Reselect GSM with
different priorities

Company Confidential

Parameters

Use of GSM thresholds

Operators have worked on thresholds for access to the cell, and
they have proved successful, therefore they must be re-used
Reselection
AdjgQrxLevMin (n) = RxLevAccessMin (n)
Handover
3G2G ISHO is an emergency handover (coverage)
Therefore the minimum threshold could be applied
AdjgRxLevMinHO (n) = rxLevMinCell (n)
However this threshold is in general very low and not sufficient
to hold the call drop in GSM
Besides at these levels a subsequent handover should occur
immediately
Therefore handover thresholds are good references to use
AdjgRxLevMinHO (n) = hoThresholdsLevDL (n)
This increases call drop in WCDMA but reduces it in GSM

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Parameters

3G2G ISHO triggers

Activating all five triggers may cause unwished handover
Principle to activate triggers one by one upon requirements
AMR
Normally the uplink direction should limit
UL Quality trigger activates only when the Outer Loop PC is
already out due to UE Tx Power limitation
Because of UL DTX a downlink direction trigger can also be
checked
Either CPICH Ec/No or CPICH RSCP
PS
Power triggers are not very useful due to rate adaptation
MAC layer Transport Format selection in the UL
Dynamic DL bitrate Adaptation in the DL
PS Coverage is therefore best measured with CPICH coverage
Either CPICH Ec/No or CPICH RSCP
CPICH Ec/No or CPICH RSCP ?
CPICH Ec/No is a better measure of coverage
But the CPICH Ec/No trigger may cause unexpected ISHO in the
polluted middle of a good WCDMA coverage: Is that good ?
Trials are required to decide on the proper trigger
10

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Inter-system neighbor definition (1/7)

Environment

Problems:
Manage the different site densities : more sites in GSM than in
WCDMA macro-layer
Therefore more than 32 neighbors could be required
Take into account the different site configuration
GSM and WCDMA collocated/not collocated
M900 and M1800 collocated/not collocated
Define simple and deployable processes
Make use of the existing neighbouring definition rather
than simulating
Avoid handovers to bad quality cells
Rather drop the call in WCDMA than increase counters in
GSM
Assumptions
WCDMA and M1800 coverage are equivalent
M900 coverage wider and deeper than WCDMA and M1800
Traffic is higher on GSM1800 (due to Cegetels strategies)
11

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Inter-system neighbor definition (2/7)

Principles

When WCDMA and M900 are collocated

Use the underlying M900 cell as the basis for neighbor definition
Ignore the underlying M1800 cell if it exists
When WCDMA and M1800 are collocated
Use the underlying M1800 cell as the basis for neighbor definitions
If the WCDMA site is standalone
Simulate a virtual collocated M1800 cell and use existing
processes for neighbor definitions (2G simulation)
Use
all M900 neighbors of the underlying neighbor
M900 provides a continuous coverage
Use M1800 neighbors of the underlying neighbor only when standalone
If they are cosited with WCDMA SHO should occur
If they are cosited with M900 it covers further than M1800
12

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

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Inter-system neighbouring definition

(3/7)

3G2G
Tri-band collocated site (WCDMA site collocated with dual band
site M900/M1800)
Neighbo
ur

M900

M900
Neighbo
ur

Neighbo
ur

900
M1800

M1800

WCDMA
Isolated
13

M1800
site

NOKIA

Collocated
tri-band site
Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Inter-system neighbouring definition

(4/7)

3G2G
WCDMA site collocated with M900 site only

Neighbo
r

M900

M900
Neighbor

Neighbor

900
M1800

WCDMA
Isolated
M1800
site
14

NOKIA

Collocated
tri-band
site

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Inter-system neighbouring definition

(5/7)

3G2G
WCDMA site collocated with M1800 site only

M900

Neighbor
Neighbor
Neighbor

900
M1800

M1800

WCDMA
Isolated
M1800
site
15

NOKIA

Collocated
tri-band
site Company Confidential

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Inter-system neighbouring definition

(6/7)
Isolated WCDMA site

3G2G

M900
Virtual
Neighbo
r

M1800

Virtual
Neighbor

Virtual
collocatedM
1800

WCDMA
Isolated
M1800
site
16

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Standalo
ne
WCDMA
site Company Confidential

Virtual
Neighbor

900

Inter-system neighbouring definition

(7/7)
2G3G

Collocated 2G/3G site

The WCDMA cell must be declared as neighbour cell of
The GSM collocated M900/M1800
All the GSM neighbours of all the collocated GSM cells
This does not raise the same issues as 3G2G as the site
density is higher in GSM
Isolated 3G site
Use M1800 virtual
colocated site

Follow existing
neighbouring
definition
process

Virtual Neighbor

M900
Virtual Neighbor
Virtual Neighbor

900
Virtual collocatedM1800

WCDMA

Standalone
WCDMA site
17

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

M1800

Agenda
Define the strategy
Propose parameters
Identify impacts on GSM
Suggest solutions to alleviate the risks on GSM

18

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

Signalling Transfer Traffic (LU)

Impact:
Each inter-system reselection will cause a Location Update to
occur
Increases greatly the SDCCH load
Possible solutions:
Redimension SDCCH
Redesign LA borders to reduce 2G-2G LAU
Introduce Gs interface to have combined LAU/RAU over GPRS
If not yet done due to PBCCH
Introduce BSS8 Dynamic SDCCH
Use a common LAC in a common 2G/3G-MSC

19

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

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Mobile distribution & GSM QoS

Impact

All Dual Mode terminals will go to WCDMA in the centre of a

GSM/WCDMA collocated cell
But they will return or remain in GSM at the borders
Modified C/I distribution
Mean speech quality may be degraded
Mean rxLev/rxQual may be degraded
GPRS CS1/CS2 use proportion may be degraded : lower bitrate
100 %

Without 2G/3G interworking

90 %

With 2G/3G interworking

80 %

Density

M900

70 %
60 %

WCDMA

50 %

DM UE
Penetration

40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %

Distance
20

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0%
0

10

15

20

25

30

35

Mobile distribution & GSM QoS

Possible solutions

Develop a weak C/I designmethodology

Work on site configurations ro reduce overlapping
Introduce this mobile distributions in the frequency plan
production tools
Introduce interference management features
RF Hopping
DL Power Control
Change parameters to manage this interference

21

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

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GSM Indicators
Impacts:
Here the focus is on existing GSM KPIs, and
whether they are affected by interworking
New HO table (004000) counters are created,
and the existing ones are not incremented
Therefore ISHO has not impact on HO KPIs
However new formulas or new KPIs are
required
Existing TCH table (001000) counters are
implement by ISHO
Therefore the HO Failure KPIs will be
degraded (except if ISHO performance is
better than 2G-2G HO performance )
Possible solutions:
Tune the 3G2G capture level
AdjgQrxLevMinHO to keep unevitable drop
calls in WCDMA while ensuring executable
ISHOs are performed
22

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Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential

adjQrxLevMinHO
adjgQrxLevMinHO

MA900
M1800
WCDMA

Measurement Performance
Impact
Idle Mode
It can be expected that the time taken to measure WCDMA is
taken away from GSM measurements, and that reselection
delays occur
Dedicated mode
Report 6 best measurements
3G measurement reports steal intra-band and
inter-band
in Meas
urement Report
Me
as
ure
31
GS
M
n
e
ighb
ou
rs
No WCDMA cell found
measurement reports
6
and 32 WCDMA neighbours/FDD
No multi-band cell found
WCDMA
1800
900
MA
900WCD
900

Strongest
No WCDMA cell found
Multi-band cells found

Possible solutions
900 1800
Measure the phenomenon
WCDMA cells found
13 2
Multi-band cells found
Reduce the number of WCDMA neighbors
900 1800 WCDMA
Set fddMultiRatRep=1
Reduces the number WCDMA measurement reports, affecting
ISHO
Set qSearchC in [8 14]
WCDMA is measured only when GSM quality is good
1800
1800
WCDMA
900

900

1800

900
1800 1800

23

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

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3 3

GPRS service degradation: SGSN

queuing system
Impact
Data transfer after a PS 3G2G cell reselection risks to overflow
the 2G-SGSN buffers
Possible solutions
Increase 2G-SGSN capacity
Provide 2G-only subscribers a higher QoS priority than 3G
subscribers
A paradoxal solution to safeguard the lowest bitrates
(source)

RNC

Dual mode MS

Forward unsent data

(source)

3GSGSN
moves

Dual mode MS

Forward

(target)

BSC

24

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GGSN

(target)

2GSGSN
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Actual GSM neighbour cells amount

On Nokia system, when ISHO feature is activated, the amount of
neighbouring GSM cells is reduced by 1
The maximum number of neighbouring cells for a BTS/SEG object
is:

32 without any ISHO or CBCCH feature activated

31 if ISHO or CBCCH is activated
30 if ISHO and CBCCH are activated

In dense urban environment this does represent a heavy

constraint for Cegetel, because no satisfying neighbouring
cleaning solution.

25

NOKIA

Centra.PPT / 04-03-2003 / BGu, JMa

Company Confidential