Some Field Testing Results of Self-Organizing Network in

TD-LTE System
Xiao Ma
November 1, 2011

1. Introduction
In todays LTE networks, many network elements and parameters are manually congured.
Network optimization engineer must be able to tune these network parameters and planning,
conguration, integration, management of these parameters are essential for ecient and reliable
network operation.
However, there are three drawbacks of manual process. First, manual process costs are
signicant. Second, manual process is time-consuming and error-prone. Third, manual process
results in long delays in updating values in response to the rapidly-changing operation conditions,
resulting in sub-optimal network performance.
To avoid three drawbacks, 3GPP is motivated to standardize self-optimizing and self organizing capabilities for LTE-in release 8, release 9, and beyond. Those capabilities can automate
the conguration and optimization of wireless networks, thereby lowering costs and improving
network performance and exibility.
In this report, we present some eld testing results of self organizing network (SON) in the
aspect of automatic physical cell ID assignment. We compared the throughput of user equipment
(UE) with the application of PCI modied in various situations. Before the results section, we
cover some background information of SON which are related to our eld test.

2. Background Information
Scope of Report
The rst release of SON(release 8) includes the following aspects of the eNB self conguration
use case:
1. Automatic inventory
2. Automatic software download
3. Automatic neighbor relation
4. Automatic physical cell ID assignment
We investigated the performance of initial step of automatic physical cell ID assignment and other aspects are not included in this report.
Release 9 and following versions provide addtional SON functions which are also beyond the
scope of this report. Thus, detail information of those functions are not presented.

PCI Assignment
In order for the UEs to identify the source of a receiving signal, each eNB is given a unique
sequence referred to as physical cell ID(PCI). There are total of 504 unique PCI which are
grouped into 163 unique PCI groups. Each group contains three unique identities. The overall
PCI is constructed as follows:

a
b
+ NID
P CI = 3NID

(1)

a
a
where NID
is in the range of 0 to 167 and NID
is in the range of 0 to 2. The PCI is allocated to

each eNB at the time of installation. Based on the allocated PCI, the eNB transmit the PCI on
the downlink preamble. The UEs in its service area receive the preamble and identify the eNB,
and the corresponding signal quality.
When a eNB is established in a SON LTE network, it needs to select PCIs for the cell it
supports. This procedure often denoted as automatic physical cell ID assignment. The ideal
selected PCI should fulll the following criteria:

1. The PCI of one cell should not be the same as those of its neighbor cells.

2. The PCIs of the neighbor cells should not be the same.

As the initial step of automatic physical cell ID assignment investigation, we describe whats
the outcome if the PCI of serving cell is the same as one of its neighbor cells. In addition,
automatic PCI conguration is not a zero-failure procedure. For example, two new cells may
select the same PCI and, unfortunately, they are neighbors. This collision will be detected during
the conguration procedures and the conguration procedure will be restarted. It indicates that
PCI of serving cell might be modied during the conguration procedures. Thus, it is entail to
investigate the throughput variation of UE after cells PCI modied (Throughput is one of the
most important KPI in LTE network).

3. Field Trail Environment

Two serving cells in two separate eNBs were employed in the test. The original PCI of two
serving cells are 40 and 20. We modied them to dierent values according to some rules.
Carrier frequency has been set at 2590Mhz and our test UE was Qualcomm 103.

4. Results
We rst investigated the throughput variation in cell 40 after we modied its PCI to 43,0 and
503, respectively. One UE rst download and then parallel upload&download FTP data for 10
mins. We recorded the average throughput which is shown in Table1. From this table we can
see that the downlink and uplink throughput after PCI modied were close to the original one.
Some slightly dierence among them may be due to the time-varying change of real wireless
environment.
PCI
40
0
43
503

SNR(dB)
28
28
28
26

RSRP(dBm)
-82
-82
-82
-79

DL Throughput(Mbps)
57.4
56.2
60.1
58.5

DL/UL Throughput(Mbps)
52.7/15.6
55.9/14.5
52.6/13.1
53.6/16.1

Table 1: Throughput Comparison After PCI Modied

We then investigated the eect of PCI modied in the presence of interference. Table2 shows
the throughput variation in cell 40 after we modied the PCI to 43 with dierent interference
level. The testing point was a medium point(SNR around 10dB) in cell 40. The interference
was generated by ghost UE from neighbor cells and 50%, 70%, 95% represent the strength of
interference. The downlink and uplink throughput in modied PCI cell were still close to the
original one except the interference level was 95%. Thus, we conclude that PCI modied may
lead to throughput decreasing in the case of high level interference from neighbor cells.
Interference Level
50%
70%
95%

PCI
40
40
40

DL(Mbps)
27.9
25
22.1

DL/UL(Mbps)
25.1/10.1
24.7/10.7
23.3/9.3

Modied PCI
43
43
43

DL(Mbps)
27.7
24.6
18.2

DL/UL(Mbps)
25.5/10.9
23.2/10.4
16.2/9.5

Table 2: Throughput Comparison After PCI Modied at Medium Point With Dierent Interference Level
Table3 illustrates the throughput variation in cell 40 after we modied its PCI to 43 and
neighbor cell PCI 20 to 23. The interference was generated by two real UE which download and
upload data simultaneously from neighbor cell. There were two testing UE in serving cell whose
downlink and uplink throughput were close to the original one.
UE No
UE 1
UE 2

PCI
40
40

SNR
11
8

DL/UL(Mbps)
7.9/4.1
5.8/3.9

Modied PCI
43
43

SNR
10
6

DL/UL(Mbps)
9/5.3
6.2/4.3

Table 3: Throughput Comparison With Real UE Interference (No PCI Collision)

Table4 illustrates the throughput variation in cell 40 after we modied PCI to 41(MOD 3

4
same). There was no change of neighbor cell PCI and interference was generated by two real
UE from it. There were also no signicant dierence in the results between modied PCI and
original one.
UE No
UE 1
UE 2

PCI
40
40

SNR
11
8

DL/UL(Mbps)
7.9/4.1
5.8/3.9

Modied PCI
41
41

SNR
10
5

DL/UL(Mbps)
9.4/4.5
5.2/3.2

Table 4: Throughput Comparison With Real UE Interference (Mod 3 Same)

Table5 shows the throughput variation in cell 40 after we modied the PCI to 20 which was
the same as neighbor cell. The interference was generated by two real UE from neighbor cell 20.
Please notify that one of UE can not attach and the downlink throughput of the rest UE was
severely degraded.
UE No
UE 1
UE 2

PCI
40
40

SNR
10
5

DL/UL(Mbps)
11.1/3.6
5.4/4.3

Modied PCI
20
20

SNR
22
22

DL/UL(Mbps)
6.9/4
attach failure

Table 5: Throughput Comparison With Real UE Interference (PCI Collision)

We nally investigated the number of successful handover after we modied handover serving
and target cell PCI. From Table6 we notice that the number of successful handover after modied
is unchanged for both S1 and X2 interface.
HO Type
X2
S1

Source Cell
40
40

Target Cell
20
20

No.Success
8
8

Source Cell
43
43

Target Cell
20
23

No.Success
8
8

Table 6: Number of Successful Handover Comparison After PCI Modied

5. Conclusion
In this report, we presented the UE throughput variation and number of successful handover
after PCI modied in various situations. The results show that UE throughput only has slightly
dierence after PCI modied expect PCI collision happened or high level of interference(95%)
from neighbor cells. If there is PCI collision between test cell and neighbor cell, one of the UE can
not attach to the cell and the downlink throughput of another UE is decreased. If there is a high
level of interference(95%) from neighbor cells, the throughput of UE is reduced signicantly after
PCI modied. Furthermore, the number of successful handover after PCI modied is identical
to the number before PCI modied.