What is RTWP?

If you work with UMTS,'ve probably heard someone talk about RTWP. RTWP
stands for Received Total Wideband Power. It represents a measure of UMTS
technology: the total level of noise within the UMTS frequency band of any
cell.

RTWP is related to uplink interference, and its monitoring helps control the
call drops - mainly CS. It also has importance in the capacity management,
as it provides information for the Congestion Control regarding Uplink
Interference.

In UMTS, the uplink interference may vary due to several factors, such as the
number of users in the cell, the Service, Connection Types and Conditions of Radio,
etc..

As our goal is to always be as simple as possible, we will not delve in terms of

formulas or concepts involved. We will then know the typical values, and know what
must be done in case of problems.

Typical Values:
We know that RTWP can help us in checking the uplink interference, then we need
to know its typical values.

In a network is not loaded, normal, acceptable RTWP Average value is generally

around -104.5 and -105.5 dBm.

RTWP.JPG

Values around -95 dBm indicate that the cell has some uplink interferers.

If the value is around -85 dBm, the situation is ugly, with strong uplink interferers.

Usually we have High, Low and Medium measures of RTWP. However, the maximum
and minimum values are recommended only as auxiliary or reference, since they
may have been caused by a peak of access, or even been forced to have a
momentary value due to some algorithm i.e..
Thus, the value that helps us, and has the most accurate information is the same
Mean RTWP!

For cases in which cell has two carriers, the difference between them RTWP should
not exceed 6 dB.

RTWP2.JPG

Based on these typical values, most vendors have an alarm: RTWP "Very High. "

What to do in case of problems?

We have seen that RTWP can cause performance degradation, mainly CS Call Drops.
Note: Actually, it's not RTWP that causes performance degradation. What happens is
that when its value is 'bad', it's actually indicating the presence of interference - the
latter being responsible for degradation.

But what can we do when we find bad values?

If RTWP is not at acceptable levels, some actions should be taken.

The first thing to do is check if there is a configuration issue with the RNC or NodeB.
This is the most common case, especially in cases of new activations.
Once verified the parameter settings, the next step is the physical examination,
especially jumpers and cables, often partially reversed. It also should be checked if
there is faulty transmitters, or any other problem that could generate inter
modulation between the NodeB and the antenna.
If the parameter settings and hardware are ok, the chance is very high that we have
external interference, such as a Interferer Repeater.

In cases where there may be external interference, we must begin to act after such
a prioritization based on how much this is affecting the cell KPI's across the network,
if it carry high traffic, major subscribers, etc..

Note: There are many forms of interference in the uplink, both internal and
external. Only a few are listed above. The deepening of all possibilities is beyond
the goal of being simple to teach the concepts, but this is a suggestion for whoever
wants to deepen the study, identification and elimination of interference.

In practice

to find - and eliminate - problems of interference is one of the biggest challenges in

our area. For being such a complex problem, we recommend that be collected
enough data for each investigation. Insufficient data collected can lead to erroneous
conclusions, further worsening the problem.

The uplink interference may appear only in specific periods. Thus, it is

recommended that data be collected from at least one week (7 days) for every 24
hours. Usually this amount of data is sufficient. In the figure below, we see different
days and times - colorful - a fictional example where the interference occurred.

RTWP3.JPG

Data should be collected for the suspicious cell, but also for its adjacent cells,
allowing it to make a triangulation increasing the chances of locating the source of
interference.

Another way to locate the source of interference is to do a test in field. An antenna

guy must gradually change the azimuth of the antenna, while another professional
do RTWP measurements. That is, through the information directing the antenna and
the respective values of RTWP, you can draw conclusions very good.

It is obvious that changing the online system may not be a good practice, and tests
can be made with a Yagi antenna and a Spectrum Analyzer.

Vendors offer several ways to measure RTWP, using the OSS, performance counters
and logs.

Conclusion

In this brief tutorial, we learn what is RTWP, and that the ideal typical value is about
-104.5 dBm and -105.5 dBm.

As the RTWP is directly related to Uplink Interference - and we know that

interference is the main cause of performance degradation - have concluded that
improving RTWP, ie making is as close as possible to -105 dBm, improving the Call
Drop Rate!