LTE Networking Parameter Planning

Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 There are five LTE E-UTRAN planning stages: requirement analysis, network scale estimation, site planning, radio parameter planning, and network
simulation.
 Radio parameter design includes the TA, adjacent cell planning, frequency planning, PCI parameters, PRACH parameters, and timeslot planning.
These parameters will be adjusted during network simulation. The adjusted parameters will be eventually submitted through a plan for engineering
design and optimization.

E-UTRAN ID

PCI

Radio Adjacent Cell Relationship

Parameters
PRACH

Frequency

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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
ECGI Planning

 E-UTRAN Cell Global Identifier (ECGI): identifies a unique LTE cell globally.
 ECGI = PLMN + Cell Identity
 PLMN = MCC + MNC
 Cell Identity = eNodeB ID + Cell ID

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ECGI Planning
 Mobile Country Code (MCC): This parameter contains three digits. The value range is 0 to 999.
 Mobile Network Code (MNC): This parameter contains two or three digits. The value range is 0 to 999.
 eNodeB ID: This parameter identifies a unique eNodeB in a PLMN. The value range is 0 to 1048575. In other words, this
parameter is unique in an carrier’s network in a country. It varies from carrier to carrier (such as a small network, common
network, large network, or shared network).
 Cell ID: This parameter identifies a unique cell corresponding to an eNodeB ID. The value range is 0 to 255.

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ECGI Planning
System Information Block Type 1

Includes
UE’s cell accessibility and system scheduling
information MIB

Information Elements SIB1

 plmn-IdentityList (carrier information) SIB2
 trackingAreaCode
SIB3
 cellIdentity, csg-Identity, cellBarred
SIB4-5
 cellSelectionInfo
SIB6-8
 frequencyBandIndicator
 schedulingInfoList (other system information and SIB9
scheduling information)
SIB10-11
 tdd-Config
 valueTag SIB12
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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
TA Planning
 LTE paging policy. Based on a reasonably planned TA, the MME allocates a TA list properly to balance the paging load and the
TAU, controls various paging scopes and the number of paging attempts, increases the paging success rate, and lowers the
paging load.
 Paging scope
Page a UE in a small scope to reduce paging load.
Enlarge the scope through multiple paging attempts to increase the
paging success rate.
 Number of paging attempts
Do not set the number of paging attempts to a too high value.
Otherwise, it results in heavy paging load and long paging duration.
Too many paging attempts have little effect on the increase of the
paging success rate.

 Paging identifier
A paging identify can be a GUTI or an IMSI.
If a paging identify is an IMSI, a new attach procedure will be triggered
for the MS. Therefore, it is executable only when other paging policies
are ineffective.

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TA Planning

 TA: In the EPS, the location information of a UE is represented by a Tracking Area (TA), which consists of one or
multiple cells.
 TA list: In the EPS, the registered area consists of a TA list generated by the MME and sent to the UE during the
attach procedure.

 TA list and TAU

 If the TA (where the UE is located) receives a TA list from the

MME but this TA list contains only the periodic location
update information, the UE does not initiate any update
request.
 When the UE is detached from the EPC, the TA list in the UE
becomes invalid. Except the last TAI, other TAs are deleted.
 TA list and paging
 The accurate location information of the UE known by the
MME is the TA list. Therefore, the MME usually pages all
cells according to the TA list in which the UE is registered.

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TA Planning

 Paging procedure: To send downlink data to the UE in ECM-IDLE state (namely, UE state in the MME), the MME
sends a paging message to all the eNodeBs in the TA in which the UE is registered. Each eNodeB sends a
paging message to the UE.

 A paging message provides the following functions:

 Sends a call request to the UE in RRC_IDLE state.
 Notifies the UEs in RRC_IDLE and
RRC_CONNECTED states of the changed system
information.
 Instructs the UE to receive the TWS primary and/or
ETWS secondary notifications.
 Instructs the UE to receive the CMAS notification.

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TA Planning

 Paging procedure: The UE in idle status can use Discontinuous Reception (DRX) to monitor a paging message.
In a DRX cycle, the UE can detect whether the PDCCH contains the P-RNTI from the PF during the PO.
Furthermore, the UE can check whether the PDSCH contains a paging message.
 If the PDCCH contains the P-RNTI, the UE receives data from the PDSCH according to the PDSCH parameters.
 If the UE fails to resolve the P-RNTI from the PDCCH, the UE enters sleeping mode according to the DRX cycle.

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TA Planning

 Paging capabilities
nB 4T 2T T 1/2T 1/4T 1/8T 1/16T 1/32T
Number of UEs
400*16 200* 16 100*16 50*16 25*16 12.5*16 6.25*16 3.125*16
to be paged/s
 nB: represents the number of broadcasted or paged groups (namely, number of paging attempts initiated by a radio
frame).
 T: represents the DRX cycle when the UE monitors data during the PO. The value range is {32, 64, 128, 256 radio frames}.
 maxPageRec: In the protocol, a paging message can contain up to 16 UE records.

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TA Planning

 To configure the TA, you need to consider the following factors:

 Paging capability and network capacity: Determine the TA according to the paging
requirements and capabilities.
 Frequent IRAT cell reselection avoidance and LAU/TAU for multi-mode UEs
 Geographical location:
 Keep the TA boundaries away from heavily-loaded traffic areas (for example, urban area), but close
to lightly-loaded traffic areas or low-end UE areas (for example, suburb or factory).
 Keep the TA boundary vertical or diagonal to a road, but keep the TA or overlay area away from a
high-mobility area to avoid inter-TA ping-pong TA update and handover.
 Keep the border of multiple TAs away from a small area to avoid continuous TA update and
handover in these TAs.
 To determine a TA, you need to consider traffic growth trends. To design the paging and traffic
capacities for a TA, you need to reserve some redundancy to avoid frequency TA division and split.
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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
PCI Planning

 The purpose of PCI planning (physical cell ID planning) is to allocate a PCI to each eNodeB, to ensure that the
downlink signals of intra-frequency and intra-PCI cells do not interfere with each other, and to avoid affecting
UE synchronization and pilot channel decoding for normal serving cells.
 In an LTE network, you need to consider the frequency, location of the RS, and cell relationship for PCI
planning.
 A physical cell ID identifies a physical cell. An LTE system has 504 physical cell IDs. The value range of a PCI is 0
to 503, which is divided into 168 groups. Each group contains three cell IDs.

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PCI Planning

 Planning Principles
 For port 1, PCI module 6 of the serving cell must be different from that of any adjacent cell.
 For ports 2 and 4, PCI module 3 of the serving cell must be different from that of any adjacent cell. This can avoid RS signal overlay in the
frequency domain, thus eliminating inter-cell RS signal interference.
 RS interference affects the accuracy of channel estimation. In case of severe RS interference, cell search or handover may fail, thus affecting
service performance.

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PCI Planning

 Planning Principles
 The PCI of an adjacent cell must be different from that of an adjacent cell’s adjacent cell.
 Module 3 of collocating adjacent cells must be different. Meanwhile, they must be different from those of adjacent cells.
 The PCI secondary synchronous signals within a certain distance must meet the related performance threshold. The PCI multiplexing distance
must be maximized.
 The inter-cell multiplexing distance for the same module 30 must be far enough, in order to avoid interfering with uplink reference signals.
Actually, there must be at least one eNodeB separated between sector groups (eNodeBs) with the same module 30.
 When planning the PCI for a cell, you need to consider the location of the PCFICH in the first OFDM symbol. The location of the PCIFCH has a
great impact on the cell-edge throughput.

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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
PRACH Overview

 The PRACH is mainly used to send a random access preamble during the random access procedure.
 In an LTE system, random access functions include:
 Random access is mainly used for uplink synchronization (for example, initial access and handover).
 Allocate a unique C-RNTI to each UE in a cell.
 Random access triggering condition:
 During initial access, a radio connection is established: The UE is transitioned from RRC_IDLE state to
RRC_CONNECTED state.
 RRC connection reestablishment procedure:
 In case of a radio link failure, the UE can reestablish a radio connection.
 Handover: In this case, the UE needs to perform uplink synchronization with a new cell.
 When the UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state, the uplink is in asynchronous state if downlink data arrives.
 When the UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state, the uplink is in asynchronous state if uplink data arrives.
 When the UE enters RRC_CONNECTED state, timing advance is required to locate the UE.

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PRACH Overview

 Each cell has 64 preambles, which can be divided into two parts:
 One part is used for contention random access.
 The other part is used for contention-free random access. The preambles used for contention random access can be further divided into two
groups: group A and group B (probably nonexistent).

The preambles of group A are almost the same as those of group B. This division of preambles is
meaningful, in order to notify the eNodeB of subsequent resource requirements.

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PRACH Format

 A preamble is made up of three parts:

 Cyclic Prefix (CP)
 Preamble sequence
 GP
 Preamble format:
 Preamble formats 0 to 3: 1250 Hz
 Preamble format 4: 7500 Hz
 A preamble is generated by using the Zadoff-
Chu.
 Sequence length:
 Preamble formats 0 to 3: 839 (838 root
sequences)
 Preamble format 4: 139 (138 root sequences)

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RACH Planning
 The PRACH is planned according to the number of contention/contention-free random access attempts per second, expected
random access collision probability, average UE movement speed, and cell radius. Output a reasonable root sequence
(specified preamble) for a cell, and transmit the time and frequency resources of the PRACH in the preamble.

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RACH Planning
 According to the average UE movement speed and cell radius, determine the RA Ncs Type (cyclic offset type for random
access) and the number of root sequences (u). In the table, find the physical root sequence number (u) according to the
logical root sequence Low/
number.
Mediu Num High- Logical root sequence Physical root sequence number u
Numbe
Ncs m- Pream ber of Speed Pream number (Ascending order of the
Cell Cell r of
Speed ble root Scenari ble
Config Radius
seque
Radius root corresponding logical sequence
uration Scenari (km) (Ncs) o Ncs (km) (Ncs) sequen number)
o Ncs nces
(≥) ces (u)
(u)
(<) 0–23 129, 710, 140, 699, 120, 719, 210, 629,
0 0 118.93 1 64 15 1.08 55 2 168, 671, 84, 755, 105, 734, 93, 746,
70, 769, 60, 779
1 13 0.79 64 1 18 1.51 46 2 2, 837, 1, 838
2 15 1.08 55 2 22 2.08 38 2
… …
3 18 1.51 46 2 26 2.65 32 2
384–455 3, 836, 19, 820, 22, 817, 41, 798, 38, 801,
4 22 2.08 38 2 32 3.51 26 3 44, 795, 52, 787, 45, 794, 63, 776, 67, 772,
5 26 2.65 32 2 38 4.37 22 3 72, 767, 76, 763, 94, 745, 102, 737, 90,
749, 109, 730, 165, 674, 111, 728, 209,
6 32 3.51 26 3 46 5.51 18 4 630, 204, 635, 117, 722, 188, 651, 159,
680, 198, 641, 113, 726, 183, 656, 180,
7 38 4.37 22 3 55 6.80 15 5 659, 177, 662, 196, 643, 155, 684, 214,
625, 126, 713, 131, 708, 219, 620, 222,
8 46 5.51 18 4 68 8.66 12 6 617, 226, 613
9 59 7.37 14 5 82 10.66 10 7
… …
10 76 9.80 11 6 100 13.23 8 8
820-837 336, 503, 305, 534, 373, 466, 280, 559,
11 93 12.23 9 8 128 17.23 6 11
279, 560, 419, 420, 240, 599, 258, 581,
12 119 15.95 7 10 158 21.52 5 13 229, 610

13 167 22.82 5 13 202 27.81 4 16

14 279 38.84 3 22 237 32.82 3 22
15 419 58.86 2 32 - -
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PRACH Allocation Principles

 PRACH Allocation Principles

 According to the PRACH resource utilization, cellular coverage, and cellular features, the cell radius is usually set to 4
km. During initial network parameter configuration, it is best to set the format to 0.
 The prachConfigurationIndex parameter must be configured according to the handover rate and the uplink PUSCH
capacity. For an LTE FDD system, it is recommended that you set it to 6. For an LTE system, it is recommended that you
set it to 6. For both of them, it is recommended that you set the access speed to 200 per second.
 If the bandwidth is 20 M, set the prachFrequencyOffset parameter to 6 (default value).
 The value range of the rootSequenceIndex parameter is 0 to 837. If the code domain planning method is used, the NCS
must be set to 38. Low logical root sequences (0 to 455) of the CM are reserved for macro base stations to improve
coverage. Distributed base stations provides good signals due to natural separation, and therefore you can use high
logical root sequences for the CM.
 PRACH Allocation Principles for High-Speed Railways
 To meet capacity and performance requirements, it is recommended that you set the cell radius of a high-speed railway
to 5 km.
 Set the HighSpeedFlag parameter to True and set the zeroCorrelationZoneConfig parameter to 6 (Ncs is 46).
 Set the PreambleFormat, numberOfRAPreambles, and prachFrequencyOffset parameters as an ordinary cell.

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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
Adjacent Cell Planning

 Adjacent cells are planned for the following purposes:

 Ensure that the UE at a cell edge can be handed over to an adjacent cell with strong signals.
 Guarantee voice quality and network performance.
 Allocation principles:
 Adjacency: The cells under the same eNodeB must be configured as adjacent cells for each other. If some cells are
geographically adjacent, they must be configured as adjacent cells because it is highly probable that handover may occur
between the source cell and an adjacent cell.
 Signal strength: On the premise of network optimization, you need to configure it as an adjacent cell if signal strength
reaches the defined threshold.
 One-way adjacent cell configuration: An overshooting cell must be configured as a one-way adjacent cell in special scenarios
(such as high-speed coverage cell, high-layer distributed cell, and outdoor macro cell).
 Appropriateness: Too many adjacent cells may increase the measurement load of an UE. Too few adjacent cells may cause an
unnecessary call drop or a handover failure. Therefore, it is recommended that you configure up to 16 adjacent cells at the
initial stage.
 Adjacent cells must be determined according to the drive test results and radio environment. Especially when a cell is
geographically adjacent for an eNodeB located in a suburb or county, you need to configure it as an adjacent cell to ensure
smooth handover, even if its spacing is large.

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Adjacent Cell Planning

Add an adjacent cell. Configure the information of an adjacent cell.

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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
Frequency Planning

 An LTE network is usually an intra-frequency network. For example, if an LTE network supports a bandwidth of
20 M, you need to allocate different frequency bands to different cells for the purpose of Inter-Cell Interference
Coordination (ICIC). In principle, do not allocate the same frequency for two coherent cells.
 Currently, frequency bands can be allocated as follows:
 Same-Frequency
 SFR (Non-Exclusive IC)
 SFR (Exclusive IC)
 Differ-Frequency

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Frequency Planning
Soft Frequency Reuse
Fractional Frequency Reuse
 On some frequency sub-bands, their power is lowered, not
eliminated. Therefore, you need to adjust their power for the
 On some frequency sub-bands,
the frequency reuse factor is 1. purpose of the SFR.
On other frequency sub-bands, Cell 1 Cell 2 Cell 3
the frequency reuse factor is
greater than 1.

Power

Power

Power
Frequency Frequency Frequency

Full Frequency Reuse

 The PRB is the unit for time-frequency

resources and transmit power. In case
of full frequency reuse, RF is 1 or 3,
the frequency reuse coefficient is 1/3,
no spectrum resources need to be
allocated, and all frequency resources
are used by all cells.
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Contents
 E-UTRAN Parameter Planning Overview
 ECGI Planning
 TA Planning
 PCI Planning
 PRACH Planning
 Adjacent Cell Planning
 Frequency Planning
 CCIA Planning
CCIA Planning

 Control Channel Interference Avoiding (CCIA): To minimize the interference from a control
channel, edge UEs in different cells are separated through time domains, edge and center
UEs are scheduled, and the HARQ mechanism is used for power control, thus meeting the
demodulation requirements of a control channel in special scenarios.
 Time domain separation: Edge UEs in different cells are completely separated through the
time domains of the control channel. In this way, no edge UEs are mapped to edge UEs. In
other words, when a cell is scheduling its edge UEs (sub-frame locations), its adjacent cells
can schedule its center UEs only.
 Power control: The transmit power is fixed for RS signals. The center UEs can transmit
relatively small RS power while the edge UEs can transmit relatively large RS power. This can
ensure the demodulation performance of the center UEs, reduce interference to edge UEs,
improve the demodulation performance of edge UEs, and consequently improve overall
demodulation performance.
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Schematic Diagram of the CCIA
DL:UL=3:2
 CCIA 5ms 5ms

#0 #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9

DL DW UL UL DL DL DW UL UL DL

Cell 1 UL
Cell 2 UL
Cell 3 UL
Cell 4 UL
Cell Layout

300
15

16 200
200
11 13 7 150

12 14 8
100
100
9 3 5
50
10 4 6
0 0
Y

19 1 27

20 2 28
-50
-100
17 23 25 -100

18 24 26 -150
-200
21
-200
22
-300
-300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300
-400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400
X
Fourfold multiplexing topology Threefold multiplexing topology
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CCIA Planning

 Planning Principles
 For each cell, the PDCCH/PCFICH, PHICH, and other control channels are used for the scheduling
of edge UEs. Therefore, signals are transmitted for edge UEs through the allocated edge sub-
frames by using large power, whereas signals are transmitted for center UEs by using small power.
 Edge sub-frames are separated from adjacent cells through time domains. In other words, the
edge sub-frames of the serving cell are mapped to the center sub-frames of adjacent cells.
 The SINR threshold of a control channel for the scheduling of edge UEs is controlled through the
transmit power of edge and center sub-frames.
 We need to divide UEs into different types for each cell, so that edge UEs can be scheduled
through edge sub-frames while center UEs can be scheduled through all sub-frames.
 To enable the CCIA, set the CEU power to the same value as the CCIA is disabled, set the CCU
power to the CEU power subtracting the CEU2CCU offset, and set the RS power to the CEU power
subtracting the CEU2RS offset.

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Thank you!