What is Erlang ?

Erlang : An Erlang is a unit of telecommunications traffic measurement. Strictly speaking, an Erlang represents the continuous use of one voice path. In
practice, it is used to describe the total traffic volume of one hour. in other words " a one ckt can one hour of traffic is known as 1Erlang"
For example, if a group of user made 30 calls in one hour, and each call had an average call duration of 5 minutes, then the number of Erlangs this represents
is worked out as follows:
Minutes of traffic in the hour
Minutes of traffic in the hour
Minutes of traffic in the hour
Hours of traffic in the hour
Hours of traffic in the hour
Traffic figure

=
=
=
=
=
=

number of calls x duration

30 x 5
150
150 / 60
2.5
2.5 Erlangs

The main Erlang traffic model are listed below

Erlang BThis is the most commonly used traffic model, and is used to work out how many lines are required if the traffic figure (in Erlangs) during the
busiest hour is known. The model assumes that all blocked calls are immediately cleared.
Extended Erlang BThis model is similar to Erlang B, but takes into account that a percentage of calls are immediately represented to the system if they
encounter blocking (a busy signal). The retry percentage can be specified.
Erlang CThis model assumes that all blocked calls stay in the system until they can be handled. This model can be applied to the design of call center
staffing arrangements where, if calls cannot be immediately answered, they enter a queue.

RCA for KPI in GSM Network

KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

TCH Drop: disconnect a unwanted call is known as TCH drop [TCH Drop = (TNDROP)/TCASSAL*100]
SDCCH Drop Rate = [(CNDROP-CNRELCONG)/ (CMSESTAB)]*100 %
SDCCH Blocking = (CCONGS)\(CCALLS)*100
TASR = (TCASSAL) / (TASSALL) *100
HOSR = (SUMOHSUCC+SUMEOHSUCC)/ (SUMOHOATT+SUMEOHATT)*100
Random Access Success Rate = (CNROCNT)/ (CNROCNT+RAACCFA) * 100
RAACCFA: Failed Random Access
CNROCNT: All accepted Random Access

TCH DROP

HO FAIL

DLQ

Low Signal strength DL & UL

Less, Many or Mismatch NBR

BCCH & TCH Frequency Interference

Bad Quality DL & UL

TCH Cong at target cell

Interference or error on E1

High TA

Low SS or Bad Qual on cell border

Mismatch MAIO & HSN

Bad Parameter regulation

Mismatch HO algorithm

Hardware Issue, faulty or Alarm

High ICM, VSWR or path imbalance

Mismatch HO parameter setting

Antenna Faulty/ feeder

E1 error & Transmission fault

Sector swap

Time-slot Issue

Bad Parameter setting

CO-BCCH / BSIC

Poor Coverage and Spill

Drop call due to Handover

HO Delay

High Utilization (>150%)

Less, Many or Mismatch NBR or HO Delay

uncorrected NBR planning

Ater Issue or Ater Circuit Faulty

Suddenly drop

Interference or error on E1

wrong combing

Hardware fault ( Alarm & Swap)

Bad Antenna installation

Hardware fault ( Alarm & Swap)
Low SACCH multiframe value

TASR

SD & TCH Congetion

Low RLT value

Poor coverage, Weak UL

High utilization

Low ACCMIN Value

High utilization ( FR utilization)>150%

less Half rate

Low RACCH_access_min

Hardware alarm or Trx Faulty

HCS feature

length of timer T3103 is low

abis or A interface congestion or error

length of timer T3109 is low

length of timer T3111 is low
Length of timer T305/T308 is set to great
value.
SD DROP

PSR

RACH

Low SS, Bad Qual, and High TA

Parameter of PSR is MFRMS and timer is

T3113

Poor BSIC Plan

LAC Boundary

incorrect cell parameter

Poor BCCH Plan

SW congestion

excess paging discard

Poor Coverage and Spill

Due to TCH Congestion

incorrect MSC parameter

Phantom RACCH

Hardware or TS faulty

poor paging streagady

Faulty antenna and cable

Interference or error on E1

SD congestion

Poor ACCMIN and CRO

combined BCCH

Mismatch MAXRET & TX

drop call due to TCH congestion

uncorrected LAC dimension

abis or A interface congestion or error

decreasing signaling load on CCCH

GSM channel concept

Channel concepts:
There are two types of channel in GSM Network - Control channel and Traffic channel:
The traffic Channels: are used to transport encoded speech and data information. Full rate traffic channels TCH/F are defined using a group of 26 TDMA
frames called a 26 frame multi-frame. The 26 frame multi-frame lasts 120ms and the traffic channels for the downlink and uplink are separated by three
bursts. The TCH/F consists of one time slot in each TDMA frame i.e., one slot every 4.615ms.
The control Channels: are used for network management messages (call set up, control signaling etc.) and some channel maintenance tasks. These can be
subdivided into BCH (Broadcast Channel), CCCH (Common Control Channel), and DCH (Dedicated Channel)
BCH: BCCH, FCCH, SCH / CCCH: RACH, AGCH, PCH / DCH: SDCCH, SACCH, FACCH, CBCH
BCCH (Broadcast channel): Its downlink channel is used for transmitting of system information unique BCCH define for entire cell and it is transmitted on
Timeslot zero of BCCH carrier and Read only by idle mobile at least once every 30 secs
SCH (Synchronization Channel): Its a Downlink channel and Carries information for frame synchronization and Contains TDMA frame number and BSIC.
FCCH (Frequency Correction Channel) it is a Downlink only and Enables MS to synchronize to the frequency and also helps mobiles of the ncells to locate TS 0
of BCCH carrier
RACH (Random Access Channel) It is Uplink only and Used by the MS to access the Network.
AGCH (Access Grant Channel) It is Downlink only and Used by the network to assign a signaling channel upon successful decoding of access bursts.
PCH (Paging Channel): Downlink only and Used by the Network to contact the MS.

SDCCH (Standalone Dedicated Control Channel): Its Uplink and Downlink and Used for call setup, location update and SMS.
SACCH (Slow Associated Control Channel): Used on Uplink and Downlink only in dedicated mode and Uplink SACCH messages - Measurement reports. Downlink
SACCH messages - control info.
FACCH (Fast Associated Control Channel): Uplink and Downlink and Associated with TCH only and it are used to send fast messages like handover messages.
Works by stealing traffic bursts
CBCH (Cell broadcast channel): It is used transmitting of broadcasting msg
TCH/f and TCH/H : gross rate 22.8kbps, speech 13kbps, data 9.6kbps

(gross rate = 57*2*24/120ms = 22.8KBPS)

Ericsson KPI Formula

KPI

Target

FORMULAE - ERICSSON

5.0
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5

Network Wide KPI's (NBH)

Random Access Success Rate %
SDCCH Blocking %
SDCCH Time Congestion/Cell
SDCCH Drop %
TCH Blocking %

>=98
<=0.5
<=12 sec
<=1.2
<=1

100
100
100
100
100

5.6

TCH Time Congestion/Cell

<=50 sec

Cells with Full Rate only: 100 * TFTCONGS / (PERLEN*60) Cells with Half Rate: 100 * THTCONGS /
(PERLEN*60)

5.7
5.8
5.9
6.0
6.1

TCH Assignment Success Rate %

TCH Drop %
Handover Success Rate %
Network Wide KPI's (24 hrs)
Avg SDCCH Congestion/cell

>=97
<=2
>=95

100 * TCASSALL / TASSALL

100 * TNDROP / TCASSALL
100 * HOVERSUC / HOVERCNT

<=50 sec

100 * CTCONGS / (PERLEN*60)

6.2

Avg TCH Congestion/cell

<=200 sec

Cells with Full Rate only: 100 * TFTCONGS / (PERLEN*60) Cells with Half Rate: 100 * THTCONGS /
(PERLEN*60)

6.3

Network Availability (Radio)%

>=99.90

100 * (No of days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Cells Summation of Downtime in minutes of Cells) / (No of
days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Cells)

7.0

Cell Wise KPI % (Cell Busy Hour)

*
*
*
*
*

CNROCNT / (CNROCNT + RAACCFA)

CCONGS / CCALLS
CTCONGS / (PERLEN*60)
(CNDROP - CNRELCONG) / CMESTAB
(CNRELCONG + TFNRELCONG + THNRELCONG) / TASSALL

7.1
7.2
7.3
7.4
7.5

Random Access Success Rate >95%

SDCCH Blocking <=1%
SDCCH Congestion <=30 sec
SDCCH Drop <=2.5%
TCH Blocking <=3%

>90
>90
>90
>90
>90

100
100
100
100
100

*
*
*
*
*

CNROCNT / (CNROCNT + RAACCFA)

CCONGS / CCALLS
CTCONGS / (PERLEN*60)
(CNDROP - CNRELCONG) / CMESTAB
(CNRELCONG + TFNRELCONG + THNRELCONG) / TASSALL

7.6

TCH Congestion <=100 sec

>90

Cells with Full Rate only: 100 * TFTCONGS / (PERLEN*60) Cells with Half Rate: 100 * THTCONGS /
(PERLEN*60)

7.7

TCH Assignment Success Rate >=95%

>90

100 * TCASSALL / TASSALL

7.8

TCH Drop <=3%

>90

100 * TNDROP / ((TCASSALL + (SUMIHOSUCC - SUMIABSUCC - SUMIAWSUCC) - (SUMOHOSUCC SUMOABSUCC - SUMOAWSUCC) + (SUMEIHOSUCC - SUMEIABSUCC - SUMEIAWSUCC) - (SUMEOHOSUCC SUMEOABSUCC - SUMEOAWSUCC))

7.9
8.0

Handover Success Rate >94%

Voice Quality

>90

100 * (SUMOHSUCC + SUMEOHSUCC) / (SUMOHOATT + SUMEOHATT)

8.1

% of cells having SQI samples between

16-30 >90% or RxQual sub between(05)>95%

>90

90% of cells having percentage of Good samples>90%

9.0
9.1

Switch KPI's
Peak Processor Load (MSCs/BSCs) %

<=80

ACCLOAD/NSCAN (These counters are available in object type LOAS)

9.2

Switch BHCA Utilization (during Switch

NBH)

<=80

100*( BHCA/SwitchBHCA Capacity)

9.3

Paging Success Rate (24 hrs) %

>=90

100 * (NLAPAG1RESUCC + NLAPAG2RESUCC) / NLAPAG1TOT

9.4

Location Update Success Rate (24 hrs) % >=95

100 * NLALOCSUCC / NLALOCTOT

9.5

Successful Call Rate (24 Hrs) %

>=95

(NBANS + NABEFA1 + NABEFA2 + NCAWNOA + NTOBEFA + NBOUT + NBBUSY) / NCALLS

9.6

Network Availability (Switch/IN)%

>99.99

100 * (No of days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Nodes Summation of Downtime in minutes of Nodes) / (No of
days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Nodes) Where: Nodes are GMSCs, MSCs, SCPs, SDPs

10.0

Data KPI's

10.1

Core Network Availability %

>99.99

100 * (No of days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Nodes Summation of Downtime in minutes of Nodes) / (No of
days * 24 * 60 * Total No of Nodes) Where: Nodes are GGSNs, SGSNs

10.2

Attach Success Rate excluding

Unregistered Subs. %

>=99

100 * [1 - ((gprsMmSgsnUnsuccAttReq - gprsMmSgsnUnsuccAttReqCC7/8/14) / gprsMmSgsnAttReq)]

10.3

PDP context activation success rate

(Only NW Cause codes) %

>=99

100 * gprsSmSgsnSuccActivations / (gprsSmSgsnSuccActivations + gprsSmSgsnUnsuccActivations)

11.0
11.1
11.2
11.3
12.0

GPRS KPIs
Round trip time
Average UL throughput per TBF
Average DL throughput per TBF
EDGE KPIs

<=700 ms Ping either a DNS server or an external Internet server by the MS PING SIZE - 32BYTE
>=12 kbps ULBGGTHR / ULBGGDATA
>=25 kbps DLBGGTHR / DLBGGDATA

12.1

Round trip time

<=300 ms

12.2
12.3

Average UL throughput per TBF

Average DL throughput per TBF

>=20 kbps ULBGEGTHR / ULBGEGDATA

>=45 kbps DLBGEGTHR / DLBGEGDATA

Ping either a DNS server or an external Internet server by the MS PING SIZE - 32BYTE using Release 4
EDGE handset or Release 4 Data Card

AMR (Adaptive Multi Rate)

Adaptive Multi Rate (AMR) is a new speech and channel codec for both half rate and full rate channels. By adapting the codec rate to the radio conditions the
speech quality is enhanced. At low C/I, a large amount of channel coding is applied and less speech coding. When the C/I increase the speech coding is
increased and the channel coding is decreased.
Both the BTS (uplink) and the MS (downlink) continuously measures the radio quality (C/I) and based on these measurements the codec rate is changed. AMR
requires support in all network nodes, i.e. MSC, BSC, BTS and MS and AMR is only supported in cells where all TRUs are AMR capable.
AMR makes it possible to change codec rate during a call. There are 8 different codec rates available in the AMR transcoder: 12.2kbps, 10.2kbps, 7.95kbps,
7.40kbps, 6.70kbps, 5.90kbps, 5.15kbps, and 4.75kbps
According to the standard, 12.2 kbps and 10.2 kbps can only be used in FR channels and the other six can be used in both FR and HR channels, on the air
interface.

Timer Parameter

TIMER PARAMETER
T3103 -

Handover command

T100

RLT is the timer for holding of call if SACCH multiframe is not decoded than RLT

timer is start and if RLT is reach is zero than call will disconnected.
Default value of this timer is 28.
T3105 -

Time between repetitions of physical information to MS. Will be repeated NY1 times.
Recommend Value 8

(1 = 10MiliSecond)

T3124 -

Handover access

T3212 -

Location Update parameter

T3107 -

Assignment command

T3113 -

This timer is start after PAGING REQUEST and stop before paging response.

T3260 -

The timer is started when AUTHENTICATION REQUEST is sent from MSC.

The timer is stopped when AUTHENTICATION RESPONSE is received in MSC.

T3101 The BSS allocates a SDCCH, if available, and sends a IMMEDIATE ASSIGNMENT message on the downlink. This message contains the details of
allocated SDCCH, TSC, and TA etc. As soon as the BSS allocates and sends message on the AGCH, it starts a timer T3101. This timer is set in millisecs.
T3110 -

On the receipt of the channel release, the MS starts internal timer T3110 and disconnects the main signalling link.

T3111 -

When T3111 has expired all RF links are terminated.

Frequency Hopping
Frequency Hopping:
Frequency Hopping is mechanism in which the system changes the frequency (uplink and downlink) during transmission at regular
intervals. It allows the RF channel used for signaling channel (SDCCH) timeslot or traffic channel (TCH) timeslots, to change frequency every TDMA frame
(4.615 ms). The frequency is changed on a per burst basis, which means that all the bits in a burst are transmitted in the same frequency. In 1Sec= 217Hopes
Advantages of Frequency Hopping: Frequency Diversity, Interference Averaging, Increase capacity
There are two types of hopping 1 Base Band FH (BBH) 2 Synthesizer FH (SFH).
1. Base Band Frequency Hopping: In baseband hopping, each transmitter is assigned with a fixed frequency. At transmission, all bursts, irrespective of which
connection, are routed to the appropriate transmitter of the proper frequency. The advantage with this mode is that narrow-band tunable filter combiners can
be used.

2. Synthesizer Frequency Hopping (SFH). Synthesizer hopping means that one transmitter handles all bursts that belong to a specific connection. The bursts
are sent "straight on forward" and not routed by the bus. In contrast to baseband hopping, the transmitter tunes to the correct frequency at the transmission
of each burst the advantage of this mode is that the number of frequencies that can be used for hopping is not dependent on the number of transmitters. It is
possible to hop over a lot of frequencies even if only a few transceivers are installed. A disadvantage with synthesizer hopping is that wide-band hybrid
combiners have to be used. This type of combiner has approximately 3 dB loss making more than two combiners in cascade impractical.
Frequency Hopping Parameters
Mobile Allocation (MA): Set of frequencies the mobile is allowed to hop over. Maximum of 63 frequencies can be defined in the MA list.
Hopping Sequence Number (HSN): Determines the hopping order used in the cell. It is possible to assign 64 different HSNs. Setting HSN = 0 provides cyclic
hopping sequence and HSN = 1 to 63 provide various pseudo-random hopping sequences.
Mobile Allocation Index Offset (MAIO): Determines inside the hopping sequence, which frequency the mobile starts do transmit on. The value of MAIO ranges
between 0 to (N-1) where N is the number of frequencies defined in the MA list. Presently MAIO is set on per carrier basis.

2G GSM Network Quality Index ( NQI )

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16

Network_Quality_Index_(NQI)
Radio_NBH_KPI
SDCCH_Completion_Rate_(NBH)_NQI
TCH_Completion_Rate_(NBH)_NQI
Handover_Success_Rate_NQI
SDCCH_Assignment_Success_NQI
TCH_Assignment_Success_NQI
TCH_Congestion_NQI
RX_Quality_DL(0-5)_NQI
Radio_Network_Availability_(24_hours)_NQI
ErlangMinutesperDrop(NBH)@NQI
Cell_BBH_KPI
SDCCH_Completion_Rate_(BBH)>=98%_NQI
TCH_Completion_Rate_(BBH)>=98%_NQI
Handover_Success_Rate_(BBH)>=95%_NQI
SDCCH_Assignment_Success_(BBH)>=99%_NQI
TCH_Assignment_Success_(BBH)>=97%_NQI
TCH_Congestion_(BBH)<2%_NQI
RX_Quality_DL(0-5)_(BBH)>=96%_NQI

Max:100,Min:99,Wtg:5
Max:100,Min:98.5,Wtg:5
Max:100,Min:97,Wtg:4
Max:100,Min:99.5,Wtg:4.5
Max:100,Min:98,Wtg:4.5
Max:0,Min:2,Wtg:3
Max:100,Min:97,Wtg:3
Max:100,Min:99.95,Wtg:5
Max:360,Min:120,Wtg:3
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:8
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:8
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:3
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:5.5
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:5.5
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:3
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:3

17
22
23
24
25

Random_Access_rate>=95%_NQI
Data_KPI
EDGE_DL_Average_Thruput_per_TBF_(DBH)_NQI
GPRS_DL_Average_Thruput_per_TBF_(DBH)_NQI
TBF_Success_Rate_(DBH)_NQI
DL_Multislot_Assignment_Success_(DBH)_NQI
Total NQI

Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:3
Max:110,Min:100,Wtg:2
Max:36,Min:27,Wtg:2
Max:100,Min:93,Wtg:2
Max:100,Min:95,Wtg:2