EVALUATING AND IMPROVING THE

QUALITY OF SERVICE OF SECONDGENERATION CELLULAR SYSTEMS

Issue Date: September 2004
AbstractThis paper provides an insight into network performance management and quality of service (QoS) of matured second
generation (2G) cellular systems (after the pre-/post-launch testing and optimization phase). It identifies the components of QoS and the
available mechanisms to analyze and evaluate them. The paper also identifies important key performance indicators (KPIs) that need to be
monitored and optimized and provides a way to collect and classify data for analysis. Finally, the most common QoS shortfalls and possible
solutions are discussed.

INTRODUCTION

y 1992, many European countries had

operational second generation (2G) global
system for mobile communication (GSM)
systems, and GSM started to attract interest
worldwide. GSM proved to be a major
commercial success for system manufacturers
and network operators, many of which enjoyed
exponential growth until the end of the decade.
The most valuable and limited resource of GSM is
the available frequency spectrum, which limits
the system capacity. The successful take-up of
GSM services led to continuous development of
sophisticated algorithms to maximize the system
capacity. This caused a substantial technological
evolution of GSM, with annual (and often
biannual) releases of new functionality, which
have increased the complexity of the system. The
evolution of the Ericsson locating algorithm,
which is very capacity-efficient but quite
complex, with several operators unable to fully
exploit the benefits of this functionality, is
an example. Underutilization of available
functionality, coupled with an exponential
increase in subscriber numbers, resulted in many
operators overdimensioning their base station
subsystems (BSSs) with continuous aggressive
deployment of new base stations. Thus, constant
change and evolution of GSM networks have
necessitated the continuous optimization of the
offered quality of service (QoS).

Michael Pipikakis
dmpipika@bechtel.com

Many publications on GSM describe the system, its

architecture, and its evolution. However, limited
sources document QoS, network performance
management, and optimization. Many European
operators currently enjoy very good network

2004 Bechtel Corporation. All rights reserved.

performance, and the industry has developed GSM

optimization expertise (mainly through trial and
error), but this expertise is not fully documented.
There is usually more than one solution to a problem, which (unlike for design or site acquisition)
makes it difficult to proceduralize optimization
techniques and problem solutions. Engineers need
to be open-minded, with good analytical skills and
good understanding of the overall system and its
individual components. Performance management
and QoS optimization are subjects that cannot be
fully taught. Expertise must be gained through trial
and error, in an attempt to maintain optimum and
constant QoS offered by dynamic and ever-changing
GSM networks.
This paper focuses on 2G QoS, as well as the
advantages and disadvantages of each mechanism available to monitor, analyze, and improve
it. The paper also describes the most common
QoS shortfalls and provides improvement
recommendations, which serve as a useful
reference in performance analysis and optimization for specific projects.

WHAT IS QUALITY OF SERVICE?

verall QoS for 2G, 2.5G, and 3G systems

comprises three important components, all
of which need to be constantly monitored and
optimized as networks change in response to
increasing coverage and capacity demands:
Accessibility getting on the system
Retainability staying on the system
Connection quality having a good service
experience while using the system
1

QUALITY OF SERVICE EVALUATION

ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND TERMS

he three mechanisms available to monitor,

analyze, and evaluate QoS and take corrective
actions are customer complaints, drive tests, and
network statistics, all three of which are described
below. Each mechanism has certain advantages
and disadvantages, usually with conflicting
priorities for limited optimization resources.

second-generation

3G

third-generation

BCCH

broadcast control channel

BH

busy hour

BL

both links

BLR

block error rate

BSC

base station controller

BSIC

base station identity code

BSS

base station subsystem

BTS

base transceiver station

CCSR

call completion success rate

CFR

congestion failure rate

CI

cell identification

CRH

cell reselect hysteresis

CRO

cell reselect offset

CS

circuit switched

CTR

cell traffic recording

DCR

dropped call rate

DL

downlink

DTCHR

dropped traffic channel rate

DXC

digital cross connect

EIR

equipment identity register

GPRS

general packet radio service

Cause of failure can be identified

GSM

global system for mobile

communication

Good for benchmarking

HSN

hopping sequence number

HSR

handover success rate

KPI

key performance indicator

LAC

location area code

One terminal type

LAPD

link access protocol on the

D-channel

Only ground level and in-car service

MHT

mean holding time

MSC

mobile switching center

OFTEL

Office of Telecommunications

PS

packet switched

QoS

quality of service

RF

radio frequency

RTT

roundtrip time

SDCCH

standalone dedicated control

channel

SDCCHSR SDCCH success rate

SMS

2G

short message service

TA

timing advance

TBF

temporary block flow

TCH

traffic channel

TMA

tower-mounted amplifier

Customer Complaints
Advantages
Real problems experienced by customers
using the service
Decision-forming/influential
Disadvantages
Subjective
Often vague with little supporting data
Often received too late to react to the
situation
Require filtering by customer service before
being handled by the engineering
department
Drive Tests
Advantages
Real calls

Good for network pre-launch tuning

(startups and new deployment projects)
Disadvantages
Low volumes/statistically insignificant

Predetermined routes, calling patterns only

Labor-intensive analysis
Network Statistics
Advantages
All calls can be monitored
Trends can be measured, by specific
geographical areas of interest or for the
entire network
Trends are stable
Disadvantages
Indicate problems but not their causes or
solutions
Do not differentiate customer value

Bechtel Telecommunications Technical Journal

Established GSM operators use clearly defined

network QoS key performance indicators (KPIs)
with target thresholds to be achieved. The KPI
thresholds are usually revised once a year, and
new goals are set as the business priorities
change. Network performance management and
optimization activities ensure that QoS targets
are met.
For underperforming areas (sections of the
network failing the KPI thresholds), optimization
projects are initiated. Using all available methods,
these projects fully analyze the performance of
the area to understand the problems and take
corrective actions. In such optimization projects, a
combination of customer complaints, drive tests,
and network statistics is used. Usually, statistical
analysis and customer complaints are used to
identify problems, while drive tests are used to
verify them and/or the solution(s). However,
drive tests alone cannot be relied on to provide
insight into the offered service. Drive tests can
only provide an indicator of QoS for traffic that is
highly mobile and at ground level. A large
proportion of traffic offered via mature networks
is static and often originates at higher-thanground levels. In several mature European
networks there is, on average, only one handover
per call, which indicates the static nature of
traffic. This makes statistics the most useful
mechanism for identifying QoS shortfalls.
However, experience is required in recognizing
problem trends, identifying the causes, and
taking corrective actions. This, in turn, requires
good knowledge of the system, analytical skills,
and experience in network performance
management and optimization. Nevertheless,
using statistical analysis properly and to the fullest
extent possible can significantly improve QoS.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE MONITORED AND OPTIMIZED?

he trends of several KPIs must be closely

monitored. A summary of the most important
KPIs that can have an impact on the offered QoS
follows.
Circuit Switched (CS) Voice
DCR: The dropped call rate (DCR) provides
the customer-perceived dropout performance. It is calculated over an area of the
entire network or a geographical area and
not on a per-cell basis, because a call cannot
be statistically related to just one cell, due to
handovers.

September 2004 Volume 2, Number 2

Minute-Erlang/Drop: This KPI indicates the

average time between dropped calls. It is a
division of traffic expressed in minuteErlangs divided by the total drops and is
inversely proportional to DCR. It is a good
way to evaluate the effectiveness of
optimization activities because it takes into
account the carried traffic and is more
sensitive to changes than DCR.
CFR: The congestion failure rate (CFR)
indicates the failure rate of assignments due
to congestion and can be used on a cell basis
for engineering, planning, and troubleshooting purposes and on an area basis to
provide a measure of the customer-perceived
traffic congestion. GSM operators have
developed sophisticated CFR formulas to
account for the effects of features such as
directed retry and cell load-sharing
when measuring customer-experienced
congestion.
CCSR: The call completion success rate
(CCSR) can be derived either from network
statistics or from drive test statistics. It takes
into account the fact that all failures are
either drops or unsuccessful call set-ups. The
total number of failures is divided by the
total number of call attempts. It is a good
method to use to evaluate the network
accessibility and retainability as perceived by
the customers. In the United Kingdom, the
Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL), a
governing body, uses CCSR from drive tests
to declare the best network for QoS. Every
6 months, all network operators make
approximately 22,000 calls while driving
305 pre-defined routes with clearly defined
call patterns. At the end of the cycle, the
operators submit a summary of the results
and all drive-test files to OFTEL [1].

Performance
management and
QoS optimization
cannot be fully
taught. Expertise
must be gained
through trial
and error.

DTCHR: The dropped traffic channel rate

(DTCHR) indicates the drops at the cell level.
It is used for engineering purposes only (and
not for reporting), to identify cells with high
drops. Optimizing these cells improves DCR
and CCSR.
SDCCHSR: The standalone dedicated control
channel success rate (SDCCHSR) indicates the
rate of successful air interface signaling
channel assignments and is used for
engineering purposes only, to optimize cells
with high failure rate. Optimizing such cells
improves CCSR.
HSR: Handover success rate (HSR) indicates
the success of handovers. Minimizing
handover failures improves DCR.

Packet Switched (PS) Data (GPRS)

Cell Throughput: Cell throughput is an
end-to-end KPI used at the cell and network
levels to indicate data throughput.
RTT: Decreasing roundtrip time (RTT)
delay increases throughput.
TBF Multiplexing: Temporary block flow
(TBF) multiplexing indicates the number of
users per time slot usage of general packet
radio service (GPRS) resources. A high
number of users per time slot decreases the
data throughput.

ORGANIZING STATISTICAL DATA PRIOR TO

ANALYSIS

s shown in Figure 1, performance and

configuration data are collected in the
switching nodes and usually aggregated into a
statistics database and a configuration database,
respectively. The statistics database is divided
into object types, which correspond to different
equipment or system function blocks. Each object
type contains several event counters. The basic
time unit for data collection is 15 minutes, i.e., the
base station controller (BSC) uploads the entire
object counter data to the statistics database every
15 minutes. Proposed methods for organizing
and classifying the available data follow.
Observation Time Intervals
When manipulating statistical data, it is
important to define appropriate time frames
within which the data will be gathered and
processed. The following observation time
intervals are suggested for statistical evaluation:
Hour: Hourly statistics give a detailed
picture of network performance. They are
useful to help spot temporary problems and
identify trends.
Performance Evaluation
Performance Configuration
Database
Database

Voicemail

Peak Hour: Peak hour statistics are of great

significance, because they correspond to the
time of heavy utilization of network
resources. In a way, they provide the worstcase scenario.
Day: Daily statistics are introduced to
provide a way of averaging temporary
fluctuations of hourly data. Problems can be
identified and corrective actions triggered
with more confidence. Trends with daily
values are also used for reporting and
benchmarking.
Online: Online statistics provide almost
real-time monitoring of the network, if this is
necessary. Statistics can be obtained directly
from the switching node, where outputs are
available every 15 minutes.
Classification by Network Level
As shown in Table 1, the monitoring process and
statistical analysis take place at different levels:
Network-wide: The entire network (to
provide a global overview)
Geographical Area or Region: All cells
belonging to specified geographical regions
(to obtain and compare results for
performance in different areas)
City: All cells belonging to specified major
cities (to obtain and compare results for
performance in different cities)
BSC: All cells belonging to certain switching
nodes (to obtain switching node-related
statistics and compare performance of
different nodes)
Cell: Individual cells as well as neighboring
cell relationships
Classification by Resource Type or Event
Statistics can be classified by resource type or the
events they refer to. Both user-defined formulas
and raw counters are grouped into one of the
following categories:
Random access channel measurements

DXC
Crossconnect

MSC

X.25 Network

SMS

MSC

EIR

MSC

BSC
BSC

BSC

Standalone dedicated control channel

(SDCCH) measurements
TCH measurements
Idle channel measurements
Handover measurements
Subscriber disconnection measurements
Link access protocol on the D-channel
(LAPD) signaling measurements

Figure 1. Collection of Performance and Configuration Data

BSC measurements

Bechtel Telecommunications Technical Journal

Table 1. Examples of QoS KPIs and Target Thresholds

Performance
Target Range

QoS Attributes

CCSR from Drive Tests

9799.5%

Accessibility/Retainability

CCSR Calculated

9899.5%

Accessibility/Retainability

Minute-Erlang/Drop

100250 min.

Retainability

DCR

0.52%

Retainability

Half-Rate Traffic

030%

Speech Quality

Silence/One-Way Transmission

01%

Speech Quality

SDCCHSR

9899.9%

Accessibility

CCSR from Drive Tests

9799.5%

Accessibility/Retainability

Level

KPI

Entire Network

Area or Region

All Cells

0.51.8%

Retainability

100250 min.

Retainability

BH CFR

14%

Accessibility

SDCCHSR

9899%

Accessibility

CCSR from Drive Tests

9799.5%

Accessibility/Retainability

Half-Rate Traffic

020%

Speech Quality

Silence/One-Way Transmission

01%

Speech Quality

Minute-Erlang/Drop

100250 min.

Retainability

SDCCHSR

9899.9%

Accessibility

DCR

0.51.5%

Retainability

BH CFR

0.52%

Accessibility

DCR

01.5%

Retainability

Major City

All BSCs

DCR
Minute-Erlang/Drop

BH CFR

0.51.5%

Accessibility/Retainability

Silence/One-Way Transmission

01%

Speech Quality

SDCCHSR

98.599.9%

Accessibility

% of Cells with Dropped TCH >2%

510%

Retainability

% of Cells with BH CFR >10%

515%

Accessibility

% of Cells with HSR <95%

210%

Accessibility/Retainability

% of Cells with SDCCHSR <95%

15%

Accessibility

CAUSES OF CERTAIN QoS SHORTFALLS AND

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

lthough the most common QoS shortfalls

and suggested possible higher level
solutions are discussed, a detailed description of
the functionality to be fine-tuned and parameter
settings is beyond the scope of this paper.
Because coverage, spectrum utilization, and
traffic load differ from one area to another and
from one network to another, engineers must
determine optimized parameter values for a
specific area of a network.
Accessibility Optimization
SDCCH Congestion
Causes
SDCCH availability, high number of location
updates, high level of short message service
(SMS) traffic, high number of call set-up bids
Action
Check historical statistics of SDCCH
availability. In some systems, time slots
may go into sleep mode. Historical data
can show if certain time slots are constantly
idle. If this occurs over a long period of
time and especially during the busy hour

September 2004 Volume 2, Number 2

(BH), a base transceiver station (BTS)

restart and retest validation may be
required.
Check for high number of location updates,
call set-ups, and SMS traffic. Increasing the
cell reselect hysteresis (CRH) will delay
GPRS reselection. It might be wise to
expand SDCCH resources, if possible. This
can be done at the expense of one TCH,
which can be converted to eight SDCCHs.
It is advisable to aim for no SDCCH
congestion at all times.
TCH Congestion
Causes
TCH availability, missing neighbors,
missing assignments in neighbor list, traffic
distribution
Action
Check TCH availability. TCH time slots
may go into sleep mode. Real-time data
can show if certain time slots are
constantly idle. If this occurs over a long
period of time and especially during the
BH, a BTS restart and retest validation
may be required.

 Check for cell mean holding time (MHT)

and compare it with that of the
surrounding cells in the area. Greater
MHT may be due to missing or incorrect
neighbor cell definitions. Check the radio
plan
for
missing
neighbor
cell
assignments.

Statistical
analysis and
customer
complaints are
used to identify
problems, while
drive tests are
used to verify
them and/or the
solution(s).

Use traffic management (load shedding)

techniques that force traffic originating
near the cell border to the surrounding
cells. This can be achieved with optimum
use of capacity-efficient features such as
directed retry, cell load-sharing (traffic
reason handover or changing the handover
hysteresis parameters), and handover
offset between two neighbor cells.
In a hierarchical cell structure, distribute
traffic to lower or higher cell levels as
required, using layer threshold and layer
threshold hysteresis.
Redistribute traffic among cells within the
same layer, using early handover from a
congested cell to another cell. This can
be accomplished by adjusting handover
hysteresis and handover offset.
Note: The traffic distribution actions mentioned
above will improve GPRS performance. They will
reduce TBF multiplexing and the number of PS
immediate assignment rejections and will also
increase GPRS throughput.
Retainability and Quality Optimization
Deterioration of Performance with Sudden
Increase in the Number of TCH Drops
Causes
Hardware problem, handover problem
Action
Check historical statistics of TCH
availability. Check if there are any alarms
on the cell or the transceiver or any of the
TCH time slots.
Check historical handover performance
for the cell. If some external neighbor cells
(belonging to a different BSC or mobile
switching center MSC) show no successful
hand-overs, but only attempts, missing or
incorrect handover definitions on the
parent BSC or MSC could be the reason.
Check whether any neighbor cells have
been deleted or whether any are not on the
air. If any neighbor cells are not on the air,
the serving cell may suffer TCH

congestion and show increased MHT.

There will be an increase of immediate PS
assignment rejections, TBF multiplexing,
and reduction of GPRS throughput.
TCH Drops due to Downlink Signal Quality
Causes
Downlink interference, coverage
Action
Identify cell pairs that have a high number of
handover attempts with reasonable
downlink (DL) quality. This will help to
identify the approximate area where mobiles
experience DL interference. Check how and
where the serving cell frequencies are reused
to identify the interfering frequencies and
plan a frequency change. This is valid for
base-band frequency hopping systems. For
synthesizer hopping systems, change the
hopping sequence number (HSN). If the
GPRS user is in a high interference area,
there will be high value for block error rate
(BLR) and poor throughput.
When statistics show that drops are due to
downlink quality, the drops may be due to
poor coverage. This is more common in
hierarchical cell structures where traffic is
forced down to lower layers using
aggressive layer thresholds of 90 dBm or
lower. Change the layer threshold to
initiate earlier handovers to higher layers.
Also modify the imperative (urgent)
handover parameters to initiate earlier
urgent handovers to higher layers due to
bad quality. For cells on the same layer, use
hysteresis and hysteresis offset to initiate
early handover and modify the imperative
handover parameters to also initiate earlier
handover due to bad quality.
TCH Drops due to Uplink Signal Quality
Causes
Uplink interference, antenna feeder system,
coverage
Action
Use cell traffic recording (CTR) and check
the uplink quality for certain timing
advance (TA) values. Check the frequency
plan to see what frequencies are used in
these areas and schedule a frequency
retune.
If the cell serves with a high TA value,
make the cell less attractive in idle mode,
using cell reselect offset (CRO).

Bechtel Telecommunications Technical Journal

 There could be a problem in the antenna or

feeder systems. Investigate for any alarms
on the site. Initiate damage assessment on
coaxial and antenna systems.
Consider increasing antenna downtilt to
reduce the service area of the cell. This can
be done if there is coverage overlap so that
a coverage hole is not created.
TCH Drops due to Both Links (BL) Signal Strength
and due to Sudden Loss
Causes
Coverage, hardware faults
Action
This type of problem occurs in areas
where a cell serves a tube or tunnel. To
confirm this, run CTR for this cell. Check
the CTR file for both uplink and downlink
signal strength. If any cell is a better server
than this cell, then initiate early handover
using hysteresis and hysteresis offset.
In hierarchical cell structures, if the
affected cell is in a lower layer and if a cell
from a higher layer is stronger in CTR,
make early handover to the higher layer
using layer threshold.
In a duplexed transmit/receive situation, a
problem could exist in the antenna or feeder
systems. Investigate for any alarms on the
site. Check the antenna feeder system.
TCH Drops due to Uplink Signal Strength
Causes
Coverage, hardware faults
Action
Check for any missing neighbor cell
relations or to see if any defined neighbors
are out of service. Mobiles traveling in
certain directions will run out of coverage
and drop out.
Run CTR for the affected cell and check TA
values. If TA values are high, restrict the
coverage by making the cell less attractive in
dedicated mode with CRO and in idle mode
by initiating early handover with hysteresis
and hysteresis offset.
Consider installing a tower-mounted
amplifier (TMA) to boost the uplink and
see if there is room for a TMA installation in
the tower.
Check downtilt and calculate if the existing
downtilt is correct for the intended coverage
area. Increase downtilt if necessary.

September 2004 Volume 2, Number 2

There could be a problem in the antenna or

feeder systems. Investigate for any alarms
on the site. Check the feeder and antenna
systems for proper operation.
Handover Performance Optimization
Handover due to Degraded Signal Quality
Causes
Downlink interference, uplink interference,
coverage, antenna feeder system
Action
Identify cell pairs that have a high number
of handover attempts due to degraded
signal quality. Check to see how and where
the serving cell frequencies are reused to
identify the interfering frequencies and plan
a frequency change. This is valid for baseband frequency hopping systems. For
synthesizer hopping systems, change the
HSN.
When statistics show that drops are due to
downlink quality, the drops may be due to
poor coverage. In such cases, check the layer
and layer threshold for the cell. Changing
layer threshold will help when the cells are
on different hierarchical layers. If the cells
are on the same layer, change the value of
hysteresis and hysteresis offset to initiate
earlier handover.

Although drive
tests can only
provide an
indicator of QoS
for traffic that is
highly mobile and
at ground level,
they are good for
benchmarking
and ideal for
verifying applied
optimization
solutions.

Run CTR for the affected cell and check TA

values. If TA values are high, restrict the
coverage by making the cell less attractive in
dedicated mode with CRO and in idle mode
by initiating early handover with hysteresis
and hysteresis offset.
There could be a problem in the antenna or
feeder systems. Investigate for any alarms
on the site. Check the feeder system.
Handover Attempts but no Successful Handover
Assignments
Causes
Co-base station identity code/broadcast
control channel (co-BSIC/BCCH) planning
error, missing neighbor definition on the BSC
and/or MSC
Action
Co-BSIC/BCCH planning errors occur
when a cell has two neighbors with the
same BSIC and the same BCCH. Mobiles
report measurements of the surrounding
cells with their BSICs and BCCHs; the BSC
uses this combination to identify the cell

identification (CI) of these cells and might

direct the handover to the wrong cell. This
can result in many dropped calls in the area.
This can be identified from many handover
attempts with no successful assignments.
Change the BSIC of one of the neighbor
cells.
Check handover performance if there are
attempts but no successful assignments
for some external neighbor definitions
(neighbors on a different BSC and/or MSC).
This is due to incorrectly defined external
cells, i.e., the external neighbor cell has been
incorrectly defined as a neighbor to the
serving cells BSC with either wrong
location area code (LAC) or BSIC or BCCH.

CONCLUSIONS

A generic
approach can be
developed to
monitor and
optimize the QoS
as networks
continuously
change.

perator
competency
in
managing
performance and optimizing QoS is not
easily taught; it is developed, rather, mainly
through trial and error. There are three main
mechanisms for evaluating and optimizing
QoScustomer complaints, drive test analysis,
and statistical analysis. These mechanisms have
advantages and disadvantages and can be
utilized in parallel in large optimization projects.
Customer complaints can be objective but are also
misleading, and this mechanism is reactive.
Drive tests are good for benchmarking and more
ideal for verifying applied optimization
solutions. Statistical analysis can identify trends
but does not provide solutions. However, it can
be a powerful tool for an experienced engineer
with good analytical skills to use to identify
problems and apply optimization solutions. The
plethora of statistics generated in the network
switches data must be organized before analysis.
For effective network performance and
evaluation, the monitoring process and statistical
analysis must take place at different levels:
network-wide, by geographical area or region, by
city, at the BSC level, and at the cell level.
Optimization solutions vary in different areas
and networks but, as discussed in this paper, a
generic approach can be developed to monitor
and optimize the QoS as networks continuously
change in response to changes in offered traffic
and business priorities.

TRADEMARK
Ericsson is a trademark or registered trademark
of Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson.

REFERENCES
[1] Office of Telecommunications (OFTEL), Mobile
Network Operators Call Success Rate Surveys
May 2003
(http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/
oftel/publications/research/2003/call_survey/).

ADDITIONAL READING

Radio Network Parameters and Cell Design

Data Ericsson CME20 Documentation.

Counters in the Measurement Database for Traffic

and Event Measurements in Radio Network
Ericsson Function Specification.

Nokia BSS S9.

BSC STS User Formulas Ericsson CME201 R9.

BIOGRAPHY
Michael Pipikakis is a network
planning and wireless technology manager for Bechtels
Europe, Africa, Middle East,
and Southwest Asia Region. He
supports ongoing and new
projects and new business
development; writes guidelines
and procedures for mobile
network design, planning, and
optimization; and participates in technology forums.
Michael is a mobile networks specialist with 17 years
of experience in the telecommunications industry,
including more than 11 years in RF planning, design,
optimization, and management of the end-to-end
performance of cellular networks.
Before joining Bechtel, Michael held various
management positions in the Vodafone Groups radio
system design and optimization department and
development department over a 10-year period;
worked for Cellnet UK and GEC Marconi UK; and was
a telecommunications operator in the Greek Navy.
From 1999 to 2003, he was a member of the Vodafone
Global Forum for UMTS design harmonization.
Michael has a BEng Honors in Electronics Engineering
with Computing and Business from Kingston
University in Surrey, England, and an HND in Radio
Communications Systems Design from the Polytechnic
School of Athens, Greece. He is a member of the
Institution of Electrical Engineers.

Bechtel Telecommunications Technical Journal