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4G National RF Engineering
Organization Name
Network Engineering Greg O’Connor
Network Engineering (Dir) Hui-Lin Chang
Network Engineering (Mgr) Rashmi Kumar
Table of Contents
1 General.........................................................................................................................
1.1 Purpose.......................................................................................................................................4
1.2 Responsibility...........................................................................................................................4
1.3 Revision History......................................................................................................................4
2 LTE Optimization Process Flows...........................................................................
2.1 Site Level Optimization........................................................................................................5
2.2 Cluster Level Optimization..................................................................................................6
2.3 Market level Optimization...................................................................................................7
3 RF Conditions.............................................................................................................
3.1 RSRP.............................................................................................................................................8
3.2 SINR..............................................................................................................................................8
4 Cell Selection..............................................................................................................
4.1 Cell Selection Process...................................................................................................................9
4.2 Cell Selection Criteria...................................................................................................................9
4.3 Cell Reselection..........................................................................................................................10
5 Interference Control...............................................................................................12
6 LTE Handoff Optimization....................................................................................13
6.1 Active mode handover................................................................................................................13
6.2 Idle mode handover.....................................................................................................................16
7 EUTRAN and CDMA2000 Handover..................................................................16
8 RAN Parameters......................................................................................................20
8.1 Physical Cell Identity..................................................................................................................20
8.2 Root Sequence Index (RSI).........................................................................................................20
1 General
1.1 Purpose
The purpose of this document is to provide national and local RF
guidelines to troubleshoot and optimize Sprint’s 4G Network. This
document will be used by Sprint RF Engineering to understand high
level network performance metrics.
1.2 Responsibility
At the very start, eNBs are the foundation of all LTE Networks. Contiguous
groups of eNBs form clusters and groups of clusters make up the markets.
http://sprintcommunities.corp.sprint.com/sites/cops/4GRFPerformance/Parameter
%20Management/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2Fsites%2Fcops%2F4GRFPerformance
%2FParameter%20Management%2FGolden%20Parameters%2FGolden%20Params
Figure 2: Mapinfo file created by local RF showing areas for future optimization
A cluster drive route must be carefully designed to cover each sector of all
sites so that all major highways, roads, Sprint stores and major customer
locations are covered. Analysis of the drive data will show areas for potential
optimization changes to improve the overall user experience. All changes
made during the optimization phase should be documented for future
reference and possibly shared with other markets as a means of best
practice.
A major challenge that the engineer will face is the fact that the 4G and 3G
networks are using the same antenna. At this time, voice is still the number
one revenue source for Sprint; therefore, optimization efforts on the 4G sites
should not negatively impact the underlying 3G network.
As in Site level optimization at the very minimum the engineer should verify
the following KPIs during Cluster Optimization
3 RF Conditions
3.1 RSRP
If receiver diversity is in use by the UE, the reported value shall not be lower
than the corresponding RSRP of any of the individual diversity branches
The RSRPs near a cell, in the middle of a cell, and at the edge of a cell are
determined based on the distribution of signals on the entire network.
Generally, the RSRP near a cell is -85 dBm, the RSRP in the middle of a cell is
-95 dBm, and the RSRP at the edge of a cell is -105 dBm.
3.2 SINR
S: indicates the power of measured usable signals. Reference signals (RS) and
physical downlink shared channels (PDSCHs) are mainly involved.
4 Cell Selection
The cell selection process and cell selection criteria as per 3GPP standard 36.304
are:
The UE shall use one of the following two cell selection procedures:
Cell reselection parameters are broadcast in system information and are read from
the serving cell as follows:
5 Interference Control
Downlink (DL) inter cell interference which reduces the signal quality is a major
factor contributing to degraded service. It usually impacts cell-edge users which
lack good quality RF signal due to the presence of multiple serving sectors of
similar signal strength. DL inter-cell interference scenario can also be observed in
dense urban areas where multipath factor can results in strong signals from
various sectors in one geographic region. DL interference if not corrected can lead
to poor throughput performance on both downlink and uplink. Therefore an
improved DL coverage in terms of both signal strength and quality provides better
user experience.
Indicators such as low Signal to noise ratio (SINR), low scale Channel quality
indicator (CQI), Transmission mode (transmit diversity), low Reference Signal
Received Quality (RSRQ) and high Block error rate (BLER) are common indicators of
DL interference. Low SINR and low CQI reports result in lower and more robust
modulation scheme for data transmission. The first step in optimization efforts is to
improve the coverage and quality of existing serving cells resulting in good quality
of service (QoS).
E-UTRA Carrier Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), comprises the linear
average of the total received power (in [W]) observed only in OFDM symbols
containing reference symbols for antenna port 0, in the measurement bandwidth,
over N number of resource blocks by the UE from all sources, including co-channel
serving and non-serving cells, adjacent channel interference, thermal noise etc.
The reference point for the RSRQ shall be the antenna connector of the UE.
If receiver diversity is in use by the UE, the reported value shall not be lower than
the corresponding RSRQ of any of the individual diversity branches.
Other than general optimization practices to control interference, LTE also offers
features such as ‘Inter cell Interference Coordination (ICIC)’ technique which
dynamically controls interference based on UE’s CQI reports.
Average CQI Threshold metric is used to differentiate cell edge and cell center
users. DL power control mechanism uses the channel estimation to adjust the Pa
parameter which leads to:
If the user is estimated to be in cell center condition, UE specific DL power
related parameter Pa is lowered, which results in power reduction of data
subcarriers for that UE and further decreases interference to neighboring
cells
Event A1
Event A2
Event A3
Event A4
In active mode measurements are performed only when Serving Cell RSRP falls
below a configurable threshold (Smeasure)
• The A3 event parameters for Active mode measurement are transmitted via RRC
Connection Reconfiguration Message
• Additionally, there is a cell individual offset that can be configured per neighbor
(Ind_offset).
• This criterion must be satisfied over a configurable period of time for the
measurement report to be done (TimeToTrigger).
Idle mode handover or cell reselection is the process used by UE and network to
monitor UE’s location without it requiring radio resources. In Idle mode, UE remains
attached at MME level but remains RRC idle unless it requires RRC resources (for
e.g. To perform TAU or Paging procedures)
Maintaining most current and updated neighbor list on the eNBs is critical to
facilitate successful handover. Neighbor list must be updated frequently to
accommodate addition of new sites and sectors in the network.
Condition where multiple handovers are recorded within a very short period
between same two cells in stationary or mobile scenario is known as Ping-Pong.
Ping-Pong condition affects the end user as more processing time results in poor
user experience. This situation arises when both source and target sectors meet
the handover thresholds and are equivalent in signal strength. Ping-Pong can occur
in both strong and weak conditions. A3 offset, S-measure, Hysteresis and Cell
individual offset are some parameters which can be tweaked to reduce Ping-Pong
rate.
Below table explains Parameters and Events used on EUTRAN to CDMA2000 interworking:
The Preambles used in RACH procedure are derived from Root Sequence.
Preambles are obtained by cyclic shifts of root sequence which are based on
Zadoff-Chu sequence. There are 838 Root Sequences available. There are 64
preambles available per cell and UE randomly selects one preamble to perform
random access procedure. If number of preambles per root sequence is less than
64 Preambles, continue deriving Preambles with next Root Sequence unit 64
preambles are obtained.
Thus, unique assignment of Root sequence is recommended between neighboring
cells. The Below tables describes Ncs to Zero Correlation zone configuration
mapping and LSM parameter for configuring RSI and Zero correlation zone
configuration parameter.
9 References
https://Systems.samsungwireless.com
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