IRAT HO

Inter Radio Access Technology

Handover

Node B RBS
(UMTS) (GSM)
Sonny Rafiq
 Types of Handovers in UMTS

1. Soft Handover
2. Softer Handover
3. Hard Handover
 Inter-Frequency Handover
 Inter-Radio Access Technology (Inter-RAT) Handover
 IRAT HO

 IRAT HO is a type of hard handover where the

UE is ordered by the network to tune to
another RAT, establish contact with it and then
continue the traffic using resources from the
new contacted system.
 This means that there will be small
interruptions in the data flow to and from the
UE.
 IRAT HO Case
 IRAT HO is handover that occurs between cells on different
Radio Access Technologies.

Another Cases:
UMTS Coverage Hole
Missing 3G Site
Non UMTS In Building
For example, handover from UMTS to GSM in the
edge of UMTS coverage is considered an IRAT
handover.
 Purpose
 IRAT HO prevents dropped calls and thus allow service continuation on
dedicated channels for circuit-switched services when the UE is moving
out from WCDMA RAN coverage to an area where only GSM/GPRS
network coverage exists.
 IRAT Cell Change prevents dropped calls and thus allow service
continuation on dedicated channels for Packet-Switched-services when the
UE is moving out from WCDMA RAN coverage to a GSM/GPRS network
coverage area.

The major difference between Inter-RAT Handover and Inter-RAT Cell

Change is that in the Inter-RAT Cell Change case there are no resources
reserved in the target cell before the Inter-RAT Cell Change is executed.
 Feature activation
 C_GsmHoAllowed: IRAT handover is only attempted if this
parameter is set to Allowed for the current UeRc state. This is
a constant hard coded value and is currently set to Allowed by
Ericsson.
 FddGsmHoSupp: This parameter at the RNC level should be
set to TRUE to enable IRAT functionality.
 hoType: This cell parameter controls if IRAT Handover or
Inter-Frequency HO or None shall be evaluated in case both
Inter RAT and Inter-Frequency neighboring cells have been
configured.
 defaultHoType: This parameter set per DRNC indicates the
hoType for cells in the neighboring RNC.
 Neighbor definition
 Max number of 32 GSM neighbors.
 Minimize/Optimize GSM neighbor definition.
 Need more time to measure higher number of GSM neighbor
 Consume more power on the UE while in CM
 Slightly higher interference may produce
 Measurement accuracy may also decrease

 Most important GSM neighbor that need to be defined:

 Edge of UMTS coverage
 Non UMTS In-building site
 Missing UMTS site due to deployment issue
 Coverage Hole due to unplanned site
 IRAT HO Evaluation
 IRAT HO evaluation is based on connection quality
monitored in downlink and uplink.

Downlink: Uplink:

• CPICH Ec/No • UE Transmit Power

• CPICH RSCP
 IRAT HO Evaluation
 Ec/No : usedFreqThresh2dEcno
 RSCP : usedFreqThresh2dRscp
 UE TxPwr : ueTxpowerThreashold6b
 No hyst for UE Tx Pwr
 3G to 2G Handover procedure
1. Connection quality monitoring based on
event triggers.
2. Event based GSM measurements reporting.
3. Identification of target GSM cell for
Handover/Cell Change.
4. 3G to 2G IRAT Handover/Cell Change
execution.
Connection quality monitoring based on event triggers

Hyst and T2T

To avoid event triggering
for unsignificant
measurement fluctuations
 Start measuring on GSM cells (start CM) - event 2d : the quality (CPICH EC/No) on the UTRAN side below threshold for
the specified Time to trigger.
 Stop measuring on GSM cells (stop CM)- event 2f : the quality (CPICH EC/No) on the UTRAN side above threshold for the
specified Time to trigger.
 Compressed Mode

 Physical layer function that allows UE

temporarily tune to another
frequency/technology while maintaining
an existing dedicated channel.
Compressed Mode
 How does Compressed Mode work?
• Transmission and reception are halted for a short time to create a
gap.

• The gap is created by compressing the information in a radio

frame in time.

• Methods for reducing the transmission time are spreading factor

reduction (SF/2), and higher layer scheduling (HLS).

• UTRAN commands the UE to configure and activate compressed

mode.
 SF/2

When compressed mode is activated, the spreading factor of the compressed radio frames is
divided by two, allowing the same number of bits to be sent in a smaller amount of time.
This allows a transmission gap of up to seven slots (of the fifteen slots per frame) to be
available for measurements on other frequency. However this 50% reduction in the spreading
factor has many side effects. To maintain the appropriate Bit Error Rate (BER) the power of
the compressed frame will have to be increased by approximately 3 dB. . In addition to
downlink power utilization, compressed mode will also affect capacity by consuming more
codes in the downlink, increasing channel element usage, and increasing uplink noise rise due
to increased UE transmit power.
 High Layer Scheduling
 In the case of HLS, the transmission gap is generated by
simply reducing the user throughput in the higher layers. This
is achieved in Layer 2 where the MAC utilizes a subset of the
available transport format combinations (TFC) within the
transport format combination set (TFCS). For example, the
transport block set size for a PS 64 kbps transport channel may
contain 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 transport blocks of 336 bits within every
20 msec transport time interval (TTI). By only utilizing 0, 1,
or 2 transport blocks every TTI, a transmission gap of up to 7
slots can be generated, while maintaining a maximum
throughput of 50% of the original transport channel. Unlike
the SF/2 method, HLS does not require additional power, code
usage, channel element usage, or UE transmit power to
achieve compressed mode operation.
 Event based GSM measurements reporting.

Handover trigger condition - event 3a : the quality of the 3G cell

drops below threshold and the signal strength (RSSI) of GSM
cell is above threshold.
 Event 3a
 Measurement Quantity used for the UMTS event 3a
threshold trigger is dependant on the original event 2d
or event 6d trigger. If event 2d was triggered based
on Ec/No, then the event 3a threshold trigger will be
based on Ec/No. If event 2d was triggered based on
RSCP, or an event 6d was the trigger, then the event
3a threshold trigger will be based on RSCP.
 In the case of UE Tx power, the event 3a is always
evaluated only on CPICH RSCP and not on CPICH
Ec/No.
 Parameter Example

WCDMA Parameters Abbr. Value Description

utranThresh3aEcno 3a -13 U2G HO trigger
utranThresh3aRSCP
Trigger start of GSM measurements and
usedFreqThresh2dEcno 2d -11 Compressed Mode CPM
usedFreqThresh2dRscp
Trigger stop of GSM measurements and exit of
usedFreqThresh2fEcno 2f -9 compressed mode
usedFreqThresh2fRscp

gsmThresh3a -95 U2G HO condition

 Identification of target GSM cell for
Handover/Cell Change
 The RNC uses the measurement report from event 3a
and orders the GSM cells according to their GSM
quality measure.
 While doing this, RNC discards all GSM cells that are
not BSIC verified and cells whose GSM carrier RSSI
is less than gsmThresh3a.
 RNC then chooses the target GSM cell as the cell
which has the best carrier RSSI and starts an IRAT
handover attempt towards this cell.
 IRAT HO Execution
 If handover the UE connection to a
GSM/GPRS cell succeed, the UE is finally
connected to the GSM/GPRS cell and
WCDMA RAN resources related to the UE
connection are released.
 The UE connection remains on the WCDMA
RAN if a handover to GSM/GPRS failed.
IRAT HO Execution
IRAT Cell Change Execution
 IRAT Measurements and Reporting

UTRAN sends Measurement Control message that contains information about inter-
RAT measurements. Much of the information is the same as for intra-frequency
measurements.

The differences are:

• Cell Info List – Similar information as for intra-frequency cells, but also includes GSM
specific
information, such as frequency, band indicator, and BSIC.
• Measurement Quantity – Defines quantity that the UE should measure for the GSM cells
and for the UTRAN cells. Indicates whether BSIC identification is required on the GSM cells.
• Reporting Quantity – Defines reporting quantities in addition to those quantities that are
mandatory for the event, including observed time difference and GSM Carrier RSSI.
• Inter-RAT Reporting Criteria – Defines a reporting event 3a to 3d and the
corresponding parameters for inter-RAT measurements, such as thresholds, hysteresis, and
time to trigger.
Measurement Control DL
Measurement Report UL
Event 2d

Event 2d: When estimated quality

of currently used freq is below a
certain threshold, UE sends a
event 2d to SRNC, which on
receiving this message asks the
UE to set up event 3a
IRAT Events Contd..
RNC send a Physical
channel reconfiguration
message to UE which tells
the UE to enter
compressed mode to
measure GSM neighbor
cells.

The method to
induce
compressed mode
is SF/2
Contd…
Measurement Control and Report
HO Complete
HO Complete
3a
 Summary
 Purpose of IRAT HO: Avoid Drop Calls due to lack of UMTS coverage
(example: edge coverage, coverage hole, non UMTS in building sites)
 Optimize neighbor definition to minimize CM delay time
 Measurement quantities for IRAT HO evaluation
 CPICH Ec/No and CPICH RSCP on Downlink
 UE TX Power on Uplink

 Compressed Mode
 Sf/2
 HLS
 Event 2d, 2f, 3a
THANK YOU