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A Comprehensive Study and Performance Evaluation of Operational GSM and

GPRS Systems under Varying Traffic Conditions

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A Comprehensive Study and Performance Evaluation of Operational GSM
and GPRS Systems under Varying Traffic Conditions

S. Kyriazakos, N. Papaoulakis, D. Nikitopoulos, E. Gkroustiotis,

C. Kechagias, C. Karambalis and G. Karetsos
Telecommunications Laboratory
National Technical University of Athens
Heroon Polytechniou 9, 15773 Athens, Greece
Tel: +30 10 7722558, email: skyriazakos@telecom.ntua.gr

goal of the operator is to keep satisfied the

ABSTRACT
In the light of the introduction of 3G systems, we
present a comprehensive study of the performance of
GSM and GPRS. UMTS is already in a few countries
deployed, on the other hand it is expected that it will be
limited to hot-spot areas, while voice calls will be
preferably established with existing networks. At the
early 80’s, when GSM was introduced it was considered
as an overspecified system. Nowadays it is obvious that
the whole range of services is used and in addition
performance is degreasing, due to the rapidly increased
number of mobile subscribers. We strongly believe that
GSM is not yet optimized and this is a motivation to
trigger new research topics in this area.
I. INTRODUCTION
customer/subscriber with the quality of the services they
provide. In order to achieve best performance, they have
to monitor and optimize their network continuously. A
Network Management System (NMS) with an online
database is responsible for the collection of everything
that happens on the network, in a raw data form. For
greater effectiveness, operators install systems that do a
lot more than collect and store and are easier to use and
take advantage of all the data provided by the NMS.
One of the most important tasks was the statistical
evaluation of performance data, focusing on congestion
situations. For that purpose, historical data was
extracted from the data warehouse and evaluated.
In order to be able to measure the network performance,
the patterns of a normal day should be considered, while
for performance evaluation congestion situations should
also be analyzed. The performance indicators presented
are Traffic, Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Handover
Success Rate (HOSR), SDCCH Blocking Rate (SDCCH
BR) and TCH Blocking Rate (TCH BR). [6]

In this paper we summarize measurements and trials
that we have carried out and we evaluate the
performance of GSM and GPRS. For the measurements,
an operative DCS1800 network was utilized with GPRS
segment as well. This paper is organized as follows.
Chapter 2 lists the requirements and the criteria for the
evaluation of the network’s performance. The important
measures are described as well as the source of the
reports that are evaluated. Chapter 3 is the performance
evaluation of GSM. The situations are classified into
categories and qualitative diagrams are presented. In
chapter 4, GPRS is evaluated in terms of traffic
throughput, delays and response time. In addition,
several observations are listed. Finally, in chapter 5 we
sum up the studies that are performed and we end with
the conclusions.
Traffic is chosen in order to see the augmentation of
demand for services and channels in actual numbers, it
is an estimation of the congestion that will follow. Call
Setup Success Rate and Handover Success Rate are
chosen in order to appreciate the impact of congestion
in the two most important procedures during a call
attempt, regarding the quality of service offered to the
subscribers. Finally, SDCCH and TCH Blocking Rates
are chosen in order to understand where exactly
congestion appears in terms of logical channels, as the
respective channels are the ones most affected in a
congestion situation.
III. GSM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

In this section we present the results that have come up

II. EVALUATION REQUIREMETNS AND
CRITERIA
The performance of cellular networks is the most
important issue concerning their operators. The main
through the analysis of operational data together with
their evaluation that help us to comprehend the behavior
and assess the performance of the logical channels in
GSM in particular when congestion arises. The logical
channels that are primarily used in today’s, mainly,
voice traffic in cellular networks are the TCH (Traffic
Channel) and the SDCCH (Stand-alone dedicated
control channel) often referred as “signaling channel”.
Of course there exist many other channels, which are
also taken into account in our study, but these two and
especially the SDCCH are the most important resources
where the system relies in order to accommodate the
users’ needs [1]. A new call cannot be initiated if
SDCCH channels are not available and the same
happens when SDCCHs are available but all TCHs are
blocked. Thus we can say that blocking of these
channels is a main performance indicator for an
operational GSM network that may lead to severe
bottlenecks if the phenomenon insists. Other
performance indicators considered in this study are
Throughput, Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR) and
Handover Success Rate (HOSR). [1,2]
Throughput is chosen in order to see the augmentation
of the demand for services and channels in actual
numbers, it is – in other words – an estimation of the
congestion that may follow. Call Setup Success Rate
and Handover Success Rate are chosen in order to
appreciate the impact of congestion in the two most
important procedures during a call attempt, directly
affecting the quality of service offered to the
subscribers. Finally, SDCCH and TCH Blocking Rates
(SDCCH BR and TCH BR) are chosen in order to
understand when and where congestion appears, since,
as we have seen, the respective channels are the most
vulnerable.
In order to understand how the behavior of these
channels affects the network’s performance we will
analyse how TCH and SDCCH blocking are affected
when congestion in the network increases. Towards this
goal we have extensively studied real examples of
congestion problems based on data provided by a
cellular network operator, which provided insight on the
above, while they also refer to other types of blocking
that can happen (other than the two basic: TCH and
SDCCH blocking). The results of this analysis are
summarized in figure 1. It presents the behavior of the
basic performance indicators through scaling congestion
situations, thus presenting how the network reacts in
such conditions. It must be noted that the indicators
behavior is relatively designed but it is the result of
thorough analysis of data corresponding to real
congestion situations.
The diagram consists of four indicators: Throughput,
SDCCH Blocking, TCH Blocking and Handover
failures. The three vertical lines represent the thresholds
of low, medium and high congestion situations and they
are very helpful in the identification of each situation.
Note that since, for example, high congestion
corresponds to different blocking rates for different
channels we cannot give an absolute value to a certain
level of congestion when trying to compare it’s effects
on different channels. High congestion for SDCCH,
PCH, RACH, AGCH means a blocking rate over 5%
whereas for TCH this value is 10%. If we want to give a
picture of what is happening in the network during
different congestion situations we could say that low
congestion means that only few BSCs are affected and
probably is geographically limited, medium congestion
means that an important percentage of BSCs participate
in the crisis and high congestion means that almost the
entire network is affected. Of course, the above
classification of situations is also based on the results at
the network level i.e. the traffic load on the different
channels.
Let first consider the throughput of the network. As seen
in the diagram, it increases beyond the threshold of the
medium congestion situation, but reaches a limit before
the threshold of the high congestion conditions. This
limit represents exactly how much traffic the network
can handle (or the maximum throughput the network
can achieve). After this limit (which is normally slightly
different in absolute numbers from network to network)
traffic is slightly decreasing, as the resources
responsible for a service establishment (SDCCH
mostly) dramatically diminish.
As far as the SDCCH Blocking is concerned, it is
clearly marked on the diagram that it is increasing
proportionally to the augmentation of the congestion
level. This is normal, because the demand for
establishment resources increases, while resources are
fixed and limited. In that way, blocking is increasing
proportionally to the demand. TCH Blocking also
increases as traffic (or demand) increases, beyond the
low congestion threshold, and reaches a peak around the
medium congestion threshold. As we are moving
towards high congestion situations TCH Blocking
clearly reduces its figures. This happens because the
network has run out of call establishment resources
(SDCCH mostly) and thus, the real call traffic is
reduced (as users terminate calls) and TCHs are
becoming available. It must be noted that in cellular
networks, TCHs outnumber SDCCHs in every single
TRX [2]. Finally, Handover failure rate (the same
applies for Call Setup failure rate, which is 1-CSSR)
follows the curve of TCH Blocking. It reaches its peak
when TCH Blocking is at its highest point and
diminishes at high congestion conditions, because
services cannot be established.
From the above analysis it has been made clear that the
elimination of call establishment resources (SDCCH
mostly) triggers a chain effect phenomenon that affects
traffic resources and procedures, such as call setup or
handover. It should also be noted that beyond a certain
point (approaching the high congestion situation and the
maximum handling of traffic), services’ requests begin
not to be served, thus decreasing TCH Blocking and
Handover Failure rates. If conditions worsen more, even
deeper beyond the high congestion threshold, then the
user cannot even reach the network i.e. RACH Blocking
starts to appear and the user cannot send a Channel
Request message at all. The network then cannot even
‘understand’ these attempts and that is why the above
indicators are not affected beyond that point.

Figure 1: Behavior of performance indicators in
congestion situations
Based on the above facts we will now examine what
happens to SDCCH and TCH utilization as congestion
in the network increases. The results of the analysis are
depicted in figure 2. When monitoring a channel, one
will firstly perceive a change in utilization, followed by
a change in blocking/success rates. This is very
important and it shows that in order to assess the
network’s condition effectively we have to look first at
the utilisation of the respective channels and then at the
blocking rates.
Figure 2: Utilization of SDCCH, TCH in congestion
situations
As shown in figure 2, the utilization of TCH and
SDCCH is similar in both low and medium congestion
situations. When SDCCH gets highly congested, TCH
utilization degrades since TCH channels become
available from terminated calls but cannot be reused
because the system lacks call setup resources. If the
traffic load becomes even bigger, the situation worsens,
RACH and PCH overcome the highest level of
utilization and SDCCH utilization starts to degrade also,
as the network does now not perceive attempts for call
set-up.
Figure 3: Utilization of RACH, PCH, AGCH in
congestion situations
In Figure 3, the utilization of RACH, PCH and AGCH
in relation to congestion is depicted. These channels
follow a smoother increase of their utilization, as there
are usually enough resources to handle the requests
made. Especially, AGCH rarely encounters problems in
terms of blocking. The most common phenomenon,
though, as far as RACH/PCH are concerned, is that
problems are encountered in the Abis interface (air
interface’s resources are usually adequate to handle
most situations) [2,3], leading to congestion situations.
Normally, all three channels (PCH, RACH, AGCH)
remain in medium or low utilization.
Utilization is the key indicator that will characterize a
congestive scenario, as it is more representative of what
is really happening and more independent from the
situation itself than blocking. On the other side,
blocking will provide additional information and, thus,
extra help in the identification and characterization of a
congestion scenario. Blocking rate depends on certain
network parameters, such as radio coverage of the
selected area, overlapping of the cells and the use of
directed retry [4,5]. Directed retry is a procedure used
when there is congestion in the network: in the call set-
up phase, the mobile station is assigned to a traffic
channel in a cell other than the serving cell.
Furthermore, a significant point that has resulted from
our analysis is that most of the congestion events are
scaling events, meaning that the increase will pass
through all the congestion levels, on the way to the
highest peak and that must be taken into account on the
selection of the appropriate scenario.
IV. GPRS MEASUREMENTS
New technologies emerging in the scene of mobile
cellular networks, and especially GPRS, elevate the
transmission speeds into a higher level and seem to
offer to the subscribers new potentials and services,
based on these speeds. Alongside to the advantages of
GPRS also come certain constraints about the extra load
on network and resources that will be required and its
behavior in congestion situations. The analysis of GSM
congestion showed that the problem is located mostly in
certain channels (SDCCH and TCH) of the air interface,
and on RACH and PCH messages, but in the Abis part
of the network. By introducing GPRS, congestion in the
respective protocol must be defined. Three different
situations in GPRS’ procedures can be defined as
congestive. It should be noted that all situations occur
after the initiation of the service, meaning that GPRS
attach and PDP context establishment have successfully
taken place.
The first one refers to the availability of logical
channels that GPRS introduces to the GSM air interface
and it is similar to the congestion that is described for
typical GSM networks. The lack of resources on
PRACH (Packet RACH), PPCH (Packet PCH), PAGCH
(Packet AGCH), PACCH (Packet Associated CCH) Concluding, it should be noted that only the analysis of
and, of course, on PDTCH (Packet Data TCH) ends up real operator’s data of GPRS application could provide
to congestion and service unavailability, exactly like in the means of overcoming the problems described above.
normal GSM. The difference between normal GSM and In that way, assumptions will become certainties,
GPRS is that GPRS can also use some normal GSM definition of congestion more accurate and the
channels for the messages, in a case of GPRS’ resources performance of GPRS over GSM will be measured and
unavailability. The normal RACH can be used instead depicted.
of PRACH, the normal PCH can be used instead of
PPCH and the normal AGCH can be used instead of Continuing the measurements, close to the cell where
PAGCH, in order to transmit the respective messages of the RX level was –40 dBm (too close to the microcell)
each channel, in case of congestion in the GPRS the data throughput was 32 kbps, hence 32kbps/ 3TSLs
channels. = 10.7kbps/TSL, and that means that CS-2 was used.
Running away from the microcell, and just before the
It is very important to remark that Circuit Switched reselection would take place with an umbrella cell,
(CS) traffic has priority over Packet Switched (PS) about 20 seconds before, the coding scheme changed
traffic. If congestion occurs for CS traffic, then only from CS-2 to CS-1 and the throughput dropped at 18
dedicated GPRS traffic channels can carry PS traffic. kbps. In addition, close to the antenna, the C/I ratio is
The default GPRS capacity determines a number of higher comparing to the borders of the cell, therefore is
traffic channels that are always switched to the PCU (in normal that the Coding Scheme changed to CS-1 in the
the BSC), when allowed by the CS traffic load. Using margins of the microcell.
these TCHs, the operator can provide fast GPRS
Concluded, after the measurements over GPRS that
channel reservations for the first data packets. During
there are two “categories” of data throughput. The first
peak GPRS traffic periods, additional channels are
one is between 30-32 kbps and the second one 20-22
switched to GPRS use, but only if the CS traffic load
kbps. Consequently, this observation is function of the
permits that to occur.
different C/I ratios from area to area, resulting the
triggering of the Coding Scheme 1 when the C/I ratio is
A second situation that can be defined as congestion has
not sufficient.
to do with the data speed that is provided by the
network to the subscribers. If the usual speeds of 40 –
Even if handover is not a procedure in GPRS the results
50 kbps (that operators claim as reachable) fall to 10
are: The goal was to download a file and at the same
kbps or even below the normal GSM data speed, then
time moving into different cells. Whenever these cells
this is congestion. The problem is mostly in the
were part of the same BTS, the time to regain the
unavailability of the number of PDTCHs that are
download was about 8 seconds. On the other hand,
required to reach these speeds. An interesting optional
whenever two cells were parts of different BTSs but
feature of GPRS, called two phase access, can be
also in different BSC and MSC, the time was increased
applied in this situation for the improvement of the
to 33 seconds. In addition, when two cells were in
uplink resources’ allocation, but the cost in the overall
different BTS but in the same BSC, the time to regain
performance is to be discussed. The two-phase access is
was about 5 minutes, and the only way to continue the
initiated by the MS, when it is not satisfied with the
download was to de-attach and then attach again to the
uplink resources allocated to it. It sends a Packet
GPRS network
Resource Request message that is used to carry the
complete description of the requested resources for the
Nevertheless, in the case of the reselection was occuring
uplink transfer. The network’s response is a Packet
when the GPRS Mobile was in standby condition and
Resource Assignment message, indicating the resources
bandwidth was requested after the reselection then the
reserved for uplink transfer. Power Control and Timing
connection would be successful; e.g. when download a
Advance information are included in this message. Both
web page, only a part is readable and by then scrolling
messages are realized on a PAACH.
down the other parts is requested.
The third situation is related to the fact that the IP based
As far as the Circuit Switch Data (CSD) the trials
service presents remarkable delays, from the
showed that the network does not support CSD even
subscriber’s point of view. The interpretation of delay
when cells were in the same BTS (intra-BTS handover).
as congestion in the respective protocol is acceptable, as
The WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) was used
GPRS concerns high-speed data transmission for
with GPRS and CSD. The conclusions are that the
applications dependable on that speed. If the delay is
GRPS supports faster access to the pages than the CSD.
perceivable by the subscriber, then it is classified as
Time connection using GPRS was limited to 5 seconds
congestion. Technically, the problem is initiated either
comparing to the 25 seconds that were needed to restore
by the transmission of the Ack./Nack. messages after a
the circuit (CSD). Moreover, the idle time e.g. the
certain number of data blocks that hold up the speed of
waiting time to read wml pages, the CSD charges that
the whole procedure, or/and by the limitations of the air
time, where in GPRS the charge corresponds to the
interface itself that cuts the IP packets into the
download demanded capacity.
admissible GSM bursts, thus delaying the procedure.
 V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have presented the results of an
extensive study of the GSM system. It is important that
the studies have shown the limitations of the GSM
system to accommodate extreme offered traffic. The
system cannot predict the rapidly increased traffic in
many cases and it can definitely not adapt by
reconfiguring system parameters. Finally, GPRS is still
immature and several issues need to be considered.
Indirectly GPRS performance can be increased in the
cellular system is working more efficiently. In addition,
management techniques should also be developed for
GPRS.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work has been performed in the framework of the
project IST CAUTION, which is partly funded by the
European Community. The Authors would like to
acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues from
National Technical University of Athens, VTT
Information Technology, Cosmote Mobile
Telecommunications S. A., Telia Mobile and Motorola
S.p.A.
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