05 Physical RF Optimization

Physical RF optimization
LTE OPT Training

Last Updated: Nov 23, 2012
Version 1.91
Soc Classification level

1 © Nokia Siemens Networks Presentation / Author / Date
Content
• Detecting interference using field measurements
• Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
• Detecting overshooting cells
• Impact of interference on peak throughput
– idle/loaded other cell interference
– PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
• Impact of interference on LTE network performance –
importance of physical RF optimization
– Impact of network load
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial
– Tokyo A-XGP trial

Detecting interference, indicators
• Three quantities
– SINR
– RSRQ
– RSRP
• Which one should be used for drive test
analysis?

Detecting interference – SINR
• SINR measurements can indicate interference areas, but it
doesn’t necessarily see all interference sources:
– Impacted by network load. Traffic in the neighboring cells will reduce
serving cell SINR.
– Depends on the measurement method (RS or SCH) and tool
– Depends on PCI planning (RS SINR)
– Results can be misleading!

Detecting interference – SINR
• Example: SSS-CINR + RS CINR versus top-N RSRP

Detecting interference – RSRQ
• RSRQ depends on network load, including own cell load

6 © Nokia Siemens Networks
Detecting interference – RSRQ
• RSRQ depends on serving and neighbour cell load

– Fluctuates quickly
– Hence difficult to interpret results
– Similar to Ec/N0 in 3G

Detecting interference – RSRP
• RSRP measurement with scanner is the most reliable way to
detect areas with possible interference problems and bad
dominance
– Not impacted by network load
– RSRP measurement appears to be consistent between UEs/scanners
– The number of PCIs in e.g. 10 dB power window is a useful indicator
 A scanner with good dynamic range and PCI tracking capability needed
Bad dominance!!

SINR calculated from RSRP
• Measured with PCTel MX scanner in TD-LTE network
•RS-SINR, SCH-SINR, RSRP
•Calcuated SINR is worst case estimate for SINR (i.e.100% neighbor cell
load). In TD-LTE it should be equal to SCH-SINR (Quiz: why?).
60
Calculated SINR goes very high

40
in the locations where no
neighbors are detected
20
Calculated SINR follows SCH-
SINR nicely in the most places
0
11:30:57
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8:57:28
-20 Average of LTE_Scan_RS_CINR_SortedBy_RSRP_0
Average of LTE_Scan_SCH_CINR_SortedBy_RSRP_0
Average of Calc. SINR dB
Average of LTE_Scan_RSRP_SortedBy_RSRP_0
-40
Calculated SINR (worst case) =

-60 RSRP_serving/
(∑RSRP_others + Noise)
-80
[Noise figure 9dB]

-100

-120
9 Dept. / Author / Date
© Nokia Siemens Networks
Detecting interference – summary
• Absolute SINR measurement values can’t be used as a

reliable performance indicator.
– Operators should be educated, not to blindly believe measured SINR
values.
– Relative SINR changes can be used as performance indicator, if the
same measurement tool is used all the time.
• SINR measured from S-SCH and RS behaves differently
depending on the interference situation (intra/inter eNodeB).
• Detailed SINR measurement methods of the terminals and
scanners are not known.
• The most robust and reliable measurement quantity seems to
be RSRP

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

Use case
• A BTS or a group of BTSs is having bad KPIs

• Q: is this because of bad coverage, UL/DL
interference or both?
– How to analyze this from counters?

Bad downlink vs good downlink, live network
example
70000000
CQI = 14
60000000
Data
Sum of M8010C036 UE Reported CQI Level 00
50000000
Good DL coverage Sum of M8010C040 UE Reported CQI Level 04
40000000 Sum of M8010C041 UE Reported CQI Level 05
30000000 Sum of M8010C045 UE Reported CQI Level 09
Fairly bad DL Sum of M8010C047 UE Reported CQI Level 11
coverage (or DL Sum of M8010C048 UE Reported CQI Level 12
20000000
interference) Sum of M8010C049 UE Reported CQI Level 13
10000000
Check CQI offset from

0
LTE_5432b E-UTRAN
100589 100953 Average CQI Offset
BTS

Bad uplink coverage vs good uplink coverage, live
network example Data
500000 UE Power Headroom: Sum of M8005C054 UE Power Headroom for
-15dB <= PHR < -13dB. PUSCH Level 1
450000
UE Power Headroom: -- Sum of M8005C055 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 2
1dB <= PHR < +1dB.
Sum of M8005C056 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 3
400000 Open-loop UL
PC used PUSCH Level 4
350000
PUSCH Level 5
PUSCH Level 6
300000
PUSCH Level 7
250000 Sum of M8005C061 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 8
200000
Fairly good UL Fairly bad UL PUSCH Level 9
coverage coverage Sum of M8005C063 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 10
PUSCH Level 11
100000 PUSCH Level 12
PUSCH Level 13
PUSCH Level 14
0 PUSCH Level 15
100589 100953 Sum of M8005C069 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 16
BTS Sum of M8005C070 UE Power Headroom for
14 © Nokia Siemens Networks Presentation / Author / Date PUSCH Level 17
PUSCH SINR, PUSCH RSSI measurement
• PUSCH RSSI and PUSCH SINR measurement can be used
to detect UL coverage and UL interference problems
– Interpretation of counter values depends on UL PC settings
– Measurements are not correlated
SINR
UL CL PC upper SINR thrshld

Ideally all
samples are in
this box
UL CL PC lower SINR thrshld
bad UL UL
coverage interference

RSSI
• Noise rise impacts SINR versus RSSI
Interference drives
counter samples to
this region

• Impact of power control settings on PUSCH SINR
UL tx pwr too high, generates interference
UL tx pwr too high, generates interference

• Impact of power control settings on PUSCH RSSI
UL bad coverage UL interference

Detecting interference from counters, problems
• No uplink noise rise measurement

• No TA counters (only cell tracing)
• Downlink interference not possible to analyze
from counters
– Would need e.g. correlated CQI-RSRP counters
• Not possible to tell RF drop causes from
counters
– R&D counters have more info… but no analysis
tools available?

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

Overshooting cells
•Cells with too large or largely distributed dominance area.

•Will cause increased interference to other cells
•Can collect excessive amount of traffic.
How to detect overshooting cells?

(just ideas not tested in practice)
• Drive tests
• Analyzing HO performance and neighbor cell measurements
•Counters
• Cell pair HO analysis with inter site distance information. Indicating HOs
to cells with long inter site distance.
•TA trace
• Cell Timing Advance trace analyzes to find long distance users.
Cell pair specific HO KPIs-
RSLTE031-Neigbor HO analysis Report
Example report
Select Reporting level -> ECI

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

RF peak throughput under neighbour cell interference
• Measuring peak MIMO dual-stream throughput in the field can be tricky
because of interference
• An idle cell produces common channel + RS interference to impact peak
throughput  need to find good interference-free measurement spot.
Inter-site cell border,

non-frame
synchronized cells
Intra-site cell
border, frame-
synchronized
cells

Impact on peak tput from idle neighbour cell interference
• Measurement example #1, Samsung terminal, 20MHz
• inter-site and intra-site neighbour are unloaded (no PDSCH traffic)
All neighbour cells
PHY tput, CINR, RSRP
attenuated 50dB
120 -50
-60
Inter-site interference, Intra-site interference,
100 adjacent site cell about adjacent cell about 5
5 dB weaker RSRP than dB weaker RSRP
serving cell than serving cell -70
PHY tput Megabits/sec, CINR dB
80
-80
Data
RSRP dBm
Average of Phy DL TP(Mbps)
60 -90
Average of SCell-CINR
Average of SCell-RSRP
-100
40
-110
20
Intra-site neighbour
-120
frame-synced, no
RS interference
0 -130
06/11/2010 09:53:02.801 06/11/2010 09:54:45.317 06/11/2010 09:56:29.840 06/11/2010 09:58:14.347
Time All neighbour cells

attenuated 50dB
Impact on peak tput from 100% loaded neighbour cell
• Measurement example #2, Samsung terminal, 20MHz
• Unloaded and 100% loaded inter-site neighbour Neighbour site cell
attenuated 50dB
PHY tput, CINR, RSRP
120 -50
neighbouring site cell in idle mode UDP download

100Mbps
-60
100
Neighbour site cell

about 6 dB weaker -70
PHY tput Megabits/sec, CINR dB
80
-80
60 Data
RSRP dBm
Average of Phy DL TP(Mbps)
-90
Average of SCell-CINR
40 Average of SCell-RSRP
-100
20
-110
Typical SINR= 15-17

0
-120
dB at inter-site cell
10:02:00.821
10:02:52.385
10:03:42.892
10:04:33.398
10:05:23.905
10:06:14.411
10:07:04.918
10:07:54.924
10:08:45.430
10:09:36.436
10:10:27.444
border, unloaded
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
06/11/2010
Neighbour site cell neighbour.
about 1 dB weaker
-20 -130

Time
TD-LTE, impact of idle mode interference on tput
• UE FTP downloading in the middle of two sectors of the same site, RSRP from both
cells ~ -70dBm
• First the second cell is off (rebooting), then comes on-air but no traffic carried (only
common channels transmitted)
Serv RSRP
34Mbps
tput
vs
Neighbour cell
15Mbps switched on
SINR

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

Impact of PCImod3 collision on tput, TD-LTE
• Case: UE at the border of two cells who have the same PCImod3, RSRP
from both cells = -67dBm in both measurement cases (only PCI changed)
• NSN 7210 TD dongle, 2.6GHz, 10MHz bandwidth
16
14
12
10
tput, Mbps
no PCImod3 collision
8 PCImod3 collision
6
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53
seconds

PCImod3 collision impact, 2.3GHz@20MHz,
Qualcomm TD-LTE dongle example
PCI= 88/90 PCI= 87/90 (mod3 collision)
RSRP = -97dBm RSRP=-101dBm
SINR = 12dB SINR=2dB
Tput = ~21Mbps Tput = ~15Mbps

Tools for parameter planning
• NetAct Optimizer
– PCI planning
– PRACH planning
– UL DM RS sequence planning is a future feature candidate
• Atoll
– Automatic PCI planning supported
• Asset 7
– PCI planning
• Alpha (NSN-internal tool)
– PCI planning
– UL DM RS planning
– https://sharenet-ims.inside.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/Open/434150579
• Daisy (NSN-internal tool)
– PCI planning
– ??
Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

RF optimization
Basic physical RF optimization is very important (of course..)

– Clear cell dominance areas, minimize cell overlapping
– Avoid sites shooting over large areas with other cells
– “Can’t fix bad RF by tuning parameters”
Antenna tilting and antenna placement has big impact on other

cell interference!!
What is the impact on network performance?
Examples to follow..

Impact of DL load, idle versus 100% load
Example results (RL10, 10MHz bw, 3HK trial)
FT_01.6.1-2 Single user throughput, mobility 0%, 100% load, DL TCP
50
45
40
Ave Phy DL Tput (Mbps), SINR (dB)
35
30
Round
25
20
15
10
0
Max of Tput Max of SINR Max of Tput Max of SINR
FT_01.6.1 mobility 0% DL FT_01.6.2 mobility 100% DL
Test Case Data

Impact of DL load, 0% vs 70% using RL20 LTE819
The same dt route driven twice, with the same UE setup
• LTE819: DL Inter-cell Interference Generation to generate load
• 0% load versus 70% DL load
• Compare distribution of throughput and SINR, the same drive test route twice with and without load
• 20MHz OL-MIMO, FTP download, 1UE inside the car, Samsung BT-3710, UE-internal antennas
• average throughput is 58% better without interference
• Selection of drive test route strongly affects result, here only results for one dt route
Empirical CDF Empirical CDF

1 1
0.9 0.9 70% OCNG

70% OCNG 0% OCNG
0.8 0.8
0% OCNG
0.7 0.7
0.6 0.6
CDF
CDF
0.5 Mean = 36Mbps 0.5
0.4 0.4
0.3 0.3
Mean = 57Mbps
0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
throughput [Mbps] SINR [dB]

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

MIMO x-feeder
Assuming that
• ANTL-1 and ANTL-7 are
defined active for sector 1
• ANTL-3 and ANTL-9 are
defined active for sector 2
• Then the configuration in
the upper picture is correct
• The configuration in the
lower picture is incorrect
and results in sectors
overlapping with each
other  bad throughput
due to interference

MIMO x-feeder, example
VDF-IT trial, scanner
measurement
242 Sectors 241 and

242 equally strong
in area where 242
241
should dominate

MIMO x-feeder, example NTN, scanner
measurement
22
21
Site (PCIs=21,22)
PCIs

MIMO x-feeder, example from NTN, scanner
measurement, corrected feeders
21 22
PCIs Site (PCIs=21,22)
In this example, no sync channel (PSS/SSS) scanning was done.

Optionally, if scanner is capable of PSS/SSS scanning, sync signal TxDiv
can be switched off to check to which port0 of each sector is pointing to.
Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

Example from 3HK trial – reusing 3G sites
Improving performance by blocking excess cells
FT_04.1 Mobility DT DL - SINR comparison
100%
90%
80% Ave SINR improved

70%
from 15.2dB to 17.4dB
60%
CDF %
All cells
50%
Blocked cells
40%
30%
20%
10%
All cells, before optimization 0%

-11 -9 -7 -5 -3 -1 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27
SINR (dB)
• Overall SINR is improved due to

reduction of inter-cell interference
• Locations with improved SINR are
visible on the map
• Improvement in throughput is even
more significant (see next slide)
Blocked cells, after optimization

Example from 3HK trial – reusing 3G sites
Improving performance by blocking excess cells
FT_04.1 Mobility DT DL - Throughput comparison
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
CDF %
All cells
50%
Blocked cells
40%
30%
Ave throughput improved
20%
from 23.34Mbps to
10% 26.78Mbps, i.e. 14.7%
All cells, before optimization 0%
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50 52 54 56 58 60 62 64
Phy DL tput (Mbps)
Key message:
• The number of LTE cells when converted
from all existing 3G sites seem to be more
than sufficient, and cell overlapping and
hence inter-cell interference seems to be
excessive in outdoor environment.
• Careful planning and cell/antenna
selection process, and initial RF tuning is
important to the LTE field performance
Blocked cells, after optimization

Content
– MIMO X-feeders
– HK3 trial

Example from Tokyo A-XGP TD-LTE trial
Test area, 6 sites (=cells in this case)

Before RF optimization, scanning result

After RF optimization, some sites switched off

Optimization result

RSRP before and after average RSRP is 5 dB worse!

SINR before and after average DL SINR is 7 dB better!

L1 DL tput improves drastically!!
Peak tput also

improved due to
less PDCCH
symbols

Example from Korea – Performance Improvement
• NEVER underestimate the basic

L1 optimization – even 4G (LTE)
relies on the fact that L1 must be
optimized properly
• Massive improvement in the
performance by basic L1
optimization in a cluster
Cluster
level
drive test
results
Drive Test Diff.

Result
Unit
(Antenna Experienced
Tilting) improvement
DL
(Mbps) 5 Mbps ↑
Throughput
Handover
(#) 33 % ↓
Attempts
Average
(dB) 2.3 dB ↑
SINR
Average CQI 0.5 ↑

Summary
• Building good dominance is essential for

network performance – also in LTE !!!
• “Can’t fix bad RF with parameters…”
– …except by fixing missing neighbours


05 Physical RF Optimization

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Physical RF optimization

LTE OPT Training

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

• RSRQ depends on serving and neighbour cell load

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

Calculated SINR goes very high

Calculated SINR (worst case) =

[Noise figure 9dB]

Soc Classification level

• Absolute SINR measurement values can’t be used as a

Soc Classification level

Soc Classification level

• A BTS or a group of BTSs is having bad KPIs

Soc Classification level

Check CQI offset from

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UL CL PC upper SINR thrshld

Soc Classification level

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UL tx pwr too high, generates interference

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UL bad coverage UL interference

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• No uplink noise rise measurement

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•Cells with too large or largely distributed dominance area.

How to detect overshooting cells?

Select Reporting level -> ECI

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Inter-site cell border,

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Time All neighbour cells

neighbouring site cell in idle mode UDP download

Neighbour site cell

Typical SINR= 15-17

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Tput = ~21Mbps Tput = ~15Mbps

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Basic physical RF optimization is very important (of course..)

Antenna tilting and antenna placement has big impact on other

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Test Case Data

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Empirical CDF Empirical CDF

0.9 0.9 70% OCNG

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242 Sectors 241 and

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