1 Explain Ec/Io and RSCP; on what channel are they measured on?

2 What does channelization codes do and function?

3 What does the scrambling code do and function?
4
Explain the concept of Cell Breathing. How is the accounted for in the link
Budget?
5 Explain the different Handover types in UMTS
6 What is an active set, monitor set and detected set?
7
What is the major difference in link budgets between UMTS and
GSM/TDMA?
8
In the Link Budget, what is a Shadow Fade Margin for and what factors
does it depend on?
9
What is the typical maximum active set size and what needs to be consider
when setting this?
10
What is typically the requirements (criteria) for a cell to be
added/removed/replaced to/from/in the active set?
11 What would you define as a pilot polluter?
12
How would you find such cells from a planning tool and from a drive test
tool?
13
What would the call flow be for a Mobile Originated Call (major RRC
messages)?
14 What are the general triggers for an iRAT handover?
15
What is compressed mode, what is it's function, and what impact does it
have on the network?
16
Name the 4 RRC Connected Modes (states) and describe the characteristics
of each.
17
If a UE is on a data call (CELL-DCH state) and there is in no activity for
awhile what would you expect to see occur?
18
In Release '99, how does the network manage the throughput on the
Radio Interface for a user/connection?
19 What is the typical/most common bitrate that a voice call uses?
20
Depending on the RF conditions, what can the network do to manage call
quality?
21
In HSDPA, how does the network manage the throughput on the Radio
Interface for a user/ connection?
22 Explain Inner and Outer loop power control and who controls them.
23 In what cases is Open Loop Power Control used?
24 Explain the concept of a Monte Carlo Simulation for UMTS Design
25 In pre-launch optimization, how are missing neighbors usually detected?
26 What is the CQI in HSDPA?
27 What is the HARQ?
28 What is MIMO Antenna System?
29 What are the different RABs in R99?
30 What is TTI in WCDMA How it impact?
31 How many PSC in WCDMA?
32 What is the Processing Gain?
33 What is the Power Control?
34 what should be the idle CPICH power ?
35 What is rake receiver?
36 What kind of services are available with WCDMA?
37 Which modulation schemes are used in WCDMA?
38 What is interleaving?
39 What is threshold for adding and deleting a cell from Active Set?
40 What are the types of location & routing are registration update?
41 Which timer is involved for periodic LA & RA update and in which
42 What are the idle mode tasks of UE?
43 Explain the cell selection criteria?
Ec/Io = energy of carrier over all noise. RSCP = Receive Signal Code Power. In FDD mode (what we normally
deal with) they are measured on the CPICH (pilot). Bonus if they know that Io is the sum of all interference:
thermal/bg noise + interferers + own cell and is wideband. Bonus if they understand that RSCP is actually
measured AFTER despreading (i.e. narrowband)
Channelization codes are used for spreading and despreading of the signals, they also create the "channels"
making it possible to distinguish between users/connections/channels. Bonus if they know that they have an
associated Spreading Factor and are allocated depending on the bandwidth required by the service.
Scrambling Code makes it possible for the UE to distinguish the transmissions from different cells/NodeBs.
Bonus if he knows there are 512 primary scrambling codes and that the are broken up to 64 groups of 8 codes
each.
Io or No (the interference part of Ec/Io and Eb/No) increase as the traffic on the network increases since
everyone is using the same frequency. Therefore as Io or No increases the UE or BTS needs to use more power
to maintain the same Eb/No or Ec/Io. When the power required is more than the maximum power allowed, the
connection cannot be made. Users at the cell edge are usually the first to lose service, hence the service area of
a cell shrinks. As traffic decreases the reverse happens and the service area increases. They should say that it is
accounted for in the Noise Rise Margin found in the Link Budget.
Soft(er) Handover: connected to more than one cell on the same frequency, softer occurs when 2 cells in the
active set belong to same Node-B; Intra-frequency Hard Handover: Occurs when Ue moves from one cell in one
RNC to a cell in another RNC and the RNCs do not have an Iur link between each other; Inter-Frequency Hard
Handover: when UE changes from one frequency to another frequency (usually due to traffic layer
management or Quality reasons);Inter-technology (iRAT) Hard Handover: Handover from UMTS to GSM (v.v.)
usually at the edge of UMTS service area but also due to quality reasons.
Active Set: the set of cells with which the UE is currently connected/communicating with; DriveTT usually show
them as SC or Pilots but they are actually cells; Monitored Set: Cells that the UE has detected and is monitoring
and are known to the network, they either don't meet the criteria or the active set is full; Detected Set - Cells
that the UE has detected but are not known to the network as yet (missing neighbor likely).
In UMTS you generally have a link budget for each service (voice, data, video etc), in GSM you usually only use
1 for voice. Each service has a different Eb/No target. In UMTS you have to consider the target traffic load you
will have and add a noise-rise margin, in GSM you may have a slight interference margin but not normally
related to traffic. In UMTS some services (like voice) will show up as uplink limited but other services (like
HSDPA, 384kbps service) will show as downlink limited. In UMTS you usually have to consider that all users use
the same power from the BTS therefore the more number of users the lower the maximum power available per
user (maximum power per connection) which is a starting point in the link budget.
The shadow fade margin is dependent on the target percentage area coverage, the propagation model, and the
standard deviation of the lognormal shadowing (usually the same as the model's standard deviation if the fast
fading effects are removed). The Shadow Fade Margin is a nadded margin placed in the link budget such that a
guarenteed level of service can be offered "in the worst case"
3 to 4 cells, the larger the active set size the more likely it is that Iub link efficiency is reduced (more than one
resource for a single connection due to SHO)
For addition (Event 1a), candidate cell needs to have an Ec/Io value that is within a T_ADD threshold of the
primary/reference (usually the best) cell for a specify time hysteresis. For removal (event 1b), cell needs to
have Ec/Io lower than T_DROP margin for a specific time hysteresis. For replacement (event 1c), cell needs to
have an Ec/Io better than the worst cell in the active set by the T_REPLACE and for a specific time hysteresis.
Many definitions: A cell that has a high signal strength at a location but is not part of the active set. A cell that
meets the criteria for addition into the Active Set but can not enter because the active set is full.
Ignoring low signal conditions, if the best cell RSCP is greater than say -85dBm and there are cells not in the
active set but are strong enough to be in the active set then they are candidate for pilot polluters. Looking at
cells that have a high noise rise, high amount of traffic compared to surrounding cells, may also indicate a pilot
polluter. Areas with high Signal strength for the (Active Set Size + 1) best pilot (like the 4th best pilot if AS size
is 3). In DTT, areas with poor Ec/Io but good RSCP, in the monitored set contains a cell with a good Ec/Io but
cannot enter the AS because it is full. Areas where scanner shows a strong signal for a far away cell.
RRC Connect Request -> RRC Connection Setup -> RRC Setup Complete -> (SETUP, authentication encyrption,
TMSI reallocation etc) -> CALL PROCEEDING-> Radio Bearer Setup -> Radio Bearer Setup Complete -> ALERT ->
CONNECT -> CONNECT ACK ->DISCONNECT -> RELEASE.
Ec/Io of best cell below a certain threshold (usually around -16 to -18 dB) or RSCP of best cell below a certain
threshold (usually around -100 dBm)
Compressed mode is when the mobile goes into a slotted transmit mode whereby it opens up an idle period
(transmission gap) where it can monitor another carrier or technology (GSM). The impact is that to maintain
the same bitrate, it halves the SF, and therefore increases power level causing higher interference to the
network. If the SF cannot be halved then the bitrate of the bearer decreases. If they seem knowledable, ask
them if they know what messages and events trigger and configure compressed mode on/off. 2D event for on,
2F for off. Messages would for configuration would be RADIO BEARER RECONFIGURATION, TRANSPORT
CHANNEL RECONFIGFURATION or PHYSICAL CHANNEL RECONFIGURATION.
Cell-DCH: UE has been allocated a dedicated physical channel in
uplink and downlink.
Cell-FACH: UE listens to RACH channel (DL) and is allocated a FACH channel (UL). Small amounts of UL/DL data
can be transfers in this state. The RNC tracks the UE down to the cell level and cell reselections are possible
with the CELL UPDATE message.
Cell-PCH: UE monitors (using discontinuous reception) a PCH channel (PCH) indicated by the PICH channel. The
RNC tracks the UE down to the cell level and cell reselections are possible with the CELL UPDATE message. No
data can be transfered in the UL in this state.
URA-PCH: UE monitors (using discontinuous reception) a PCH channel (PCH) indicated by the PICH channel. The
RNC tracks the UE down to the URA level.
UE should go from CELL-DCH to CELL-FACH then if still no activity to either CELL-PCH or URA-PCH (via CELL-
FACH). If they talk about inactivity timers and mention that the state goes from CELL-DCH straight to CELL-PCH
or URA-PCH, that is also possible. Bonus they say they would see RADIO BEARER RECONFIGURATION messages
when the states are changing.
This question is a little harder to ask, so you may need to work it differently a few times. Perhaps leading
questions could be: What parameter/configuration does the network change on the air interface What you are
trying to hear from the candidate is that the network assigns a radio bearer with a channelization code with a
spreading factor that matches the requested service maximum bit rate.
They should say 12.2kbps but may be different if they start talking about AMR and the different rates then the
know more. Prod them to see if they know the Spreading Factor (SF) used for the radio bearer, should be 128.
AMR - for good conditions use codec will low redundancy/overhead; for poor conditions use codec with lower
bit rate requirement but higher overhead, stronger coding and more redundancy.
Modulation (16QAM, QPSK etc), Coding (convolution coding, fire codes etc), number of codes allocated and
scheduling (it's a shared resource)
If they start talking about Open and Closed Loop PC, tell them you want Inner/Outer Closed Loop PC. Inner loop
power control is performed by the NodeB to set the transmit power of the UE and BTS to compensate for signal
variations due to fading or pathloss to maintain the set SIR (occurs up to 1500 times per sec). Outer loop power
control is performed by the RNC to set the target SIR based on the required BER/BLER for the requested
services (occurs up to 100 times per sec).
1) Idle to Cell-DCH state, when a connection is setup. When UE goes into soft handover, ACTIVE SET UPDATE
where the new Radio Link initial power settings use open loop PC.
This is a simulator that randomly distributes terminals/users geographically onto the network and then checks
the link budget for each terminal/connection to see if they can successfully connect or not. The simulator
modifies parameters such has UE Tx Power, BTS Tx Power, requested bearer (in the case that multiple bearers
could support the same service) when checking if a connection can be made. In every snapshot the simulator
runs through the list of terminals/connections and attempts to make them all connect successfully, it starts a
new snapshot when the number of successful connections converges. The process then starts on a new
snapshot.
Usually you use a scanner and compare the best pilots in Ec/Io from the scanner against that of the active set
and monitored set from an active UE. If there is a stonger pilot from a nearby cell that appears on the scanner
but not on the UE, there is a possible missing neighbor. One would then verify that the neighbor appears in
defined neighbor list from the OSS.
CQI is the channel Quality Indicator, Which is calculated on the Basis of RF invoirment, and the and code
allocation is done on the basis of CQI.
This is the Hybrid Automatic repeat request Technique for the retransmission of the lost frame which is used by
the HSDPA. Which help to recover the lost frame by two partially lost frame.
this is the multiple input multiple output antenna technique system which improves the n/w throughput over
the air interface
cs-12.2 for speech,cs-64 for video calls ,ps-16 ps-64 ps 128 ps-384 for data services
it is the transmission time interval for sending one frame for WCDMA it is 10ms
0-511, Total 512
ratio of chip rate to bit rate , lower bit rate services will offer higher processing gain
power control is the mechanism of maintaining minimal power level with acceptable QOS for each service
10% of the Total Power
A rake receiver is a radio receiver designed to counter the effects of multipath fading. It does this by using
several "sub-receivers" called fingers, that is, several correlators each assigned to a different multipath
component. Each finger independently decodes a single multipath component; at a later stage the contribution
of all fingers are combined in order to make the most use of the different transmission characteristics of each
transmission path
conversational, background, streaming, interactive
QPSK. HPSK, BPSK, 16QAM, 64QAM
Interleaving is the technique used to distribute the data so as to make the error correction accurate at the
reciever end.
For addition 3 dB and for deletion 6dB
1. IMSI attach / detatch 2. Normal LA & RA updating 3. Periodic LA & RA updating
Timer t3212 is involved and is contained in SIB1
1. PLMN selection & reselection
2.Cell selection & reselection
3. LA & RA registration
4. Paging procedure
5. Reading System information
Squal = Qqualmeas - qQualMin > 0
Srxlev = Qrxlevmeas - qRxLevMin - Pcompensation > 0
where ,Pcompensation = max (maxTXpowerUL - P ;0 )
qQualMin - Minimum required quality value and is sent in SIB3 for serving cell and SIB 11 for adjacent cell
qRxLevMin - Minimum required signal strength and is sent in SIB3 for serving cell and SIB 11 for adjacent cell
maxTXpowerUL - Maximum transmission power during random access on the RACH and is sent in SIB3
P - UE maximum output power according to its class