Release Notes

Unify3G for UMTS 1.0

September 2005
Contents

1 ABOUT UNIFY3G ..............................................................3

Why Unify3G? .................................................................................3
Making the Network Perform..........................................................3
Why is End-to-End Service Troubleshooting Important? ..............3

2 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ...................................................5

3 UNIFY3G FEATURES .........................................................6
UMTS Multiple Interface Analysis ..................................................6
Improvements in Unify3G...............................................................8
Performance Improvements .................................................................................. 8
Improved call tracking ........................................................................................... 8
New event detection ............................................................................................. 8

4 KNOWN ISSUES ................................................................9

UMTS Iub Call Tracking ..................................................................9
No handset tracking on the Iub.......................................................9
Multiple Interface Analysis Automation..........................................9

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1 About Unify3G

Why Unify3G?
Wireless Operators and Vendors are working together to rollout
new, more complicated technologies and devices, while at the
same time, aggressively expanding the coverage of existing
networks. The addition of new, often immature infrastructure and
handsets can lead to issues that, if left unresolved, can result in
poor user experience, and ultimately, lost revenue.

Making the Network Perform

Actix Unify3G product provides operator and infrastructure vendor
engineering teams with the ability to isolate and troubleshoot
technology and signaling issues resulting in call processing failures
and poor call performance. By automatically correlating
measurements taken across the radio and core network, engineers
can trace key network processes such as call setup and handover
from the originating device through to the core network and
ultimately determine the root cause for procedural breakdowns and
performance issues.

Our experience with expert radio teams is that the combination of

radio and network information is essential to truly understanding
network performance, but that the manual combined analysis of
this information is an extremely labour- intensive process. Unify3G
enables your engineering team to deliver a network that will
support premium revenue generating services.

Why is End-to-End Service Troubleshooting

Important?
Wireless communications networks routinely generate huge
amounts of signaling data while setting up calls, managing handset
mobility, sending text messages and establishing data service
connections between clients and servers. This data comes from
protocol exchanges between the various elements in the network,

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 such as between handsets, base stations, data switches and web
servers, during the execution of a service. These protocol
exchanges happen at many different levels from establishing basic
network connectivity to star ting a video clip download with a
content server.

This entire stack of signaling data has to be correlated and

analyzed in order to be able to understand exactly where problems
are being encountered. Protocol probes 'listen' to these data
streams, collecting and storing the information in real time as
required. Similarly drive test systems are also used to collect data
from the viewpoint of the subscriber e.g. making repeated calls and
requesting other services either while stationary or fo llowing a pre-
determined route.

Actix end-to-end service troubleshooting applications take raw

protocol signaling data and analyze it to provide the key decision
support information required for particular engineering tasks such
as performance enhancement, troubleshooting and system rollout.
Specialist applications provide the performance engineering
functionality required to support key network planning,
optimization and service management tasks.

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2 System Requirements
The following section defines the recommended and minimum
If you install Unify3G on a system requirements for successfully running Unify3G.
system that does not meet the
recommended configuration
requirements, you may suffer
Hardware requirements
from:
All Actix Solutions are 32-bit applications that run on the
Inability to process large following Microsoft operating systems (Windows XP or 2000 is
amounts of data strongly recommended) and their latest service packs :
Delays when trying to Recommended: MS Windows XP
perform certain tasks
Alternative: Microsoft Windows 2000
Failure of some mapping
capabilities
Because Unify3G uses system memory in a much more efficient
Low performance of way on later operating systems (especially Windows 2000), we
advanced correlation and strongly recommend that you upgrade to one of these systems.
analysis capabilities

Hardwa re Recommended Specification

Processor: P4 2.6 GHz
Memory (RAM): 1 GB
Disk space: 60+ GB available
CD-ROM drive: To install the application
One Parallel Port or USB Port: For single-user hardware key
Monitor: 1600 x 1200 pixels
64K color resolution
Other equipment: Mouse and keyboard

Unify3G performs best when the Windows Virtual Memory

Paging size is set to between 1000 and 1500 MB. The method for
setting this parameter varies by operating system. Please consult
your OS help for specific instructions regarding this parameter.

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3 Unify3G Features

UMTS Multiple Interface Analysis

The UMTS Multiple Interface Analysis engineering process
(available from the engineering process selection menu on
application startup) steers you through the analysis of Uu, Iu and
Iub data.

First, select the

handset data files
you want to load:

Now you can filter by call failure type:

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 Select the Iu/Iub
files to include in
the analysis:

Now you can examine the data using a combination of summarized

call data information on the left and a series of Protocol Stack
Browser windows on the right, filtered to display Uu, Iu and Iub
messaging:

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Improvements in Unify3G
The following improvements have been made to the core platform,
thereby benefiting Unify3G:

Performance Improvements
Significant improvements have been made in how much and how
quickly protocol data from Iu and Iub can be loaded.

Load Old
Time loading
method
Unify3G
loading
method

File Size

Improved call tracking

Iub and Iu call tracking have been significantly improved.

New event detection

For details, see the associated documents:
Iu Events definition in UMTS-Unify3G v1.0
Iub Events definition in UMTS-Unify3G v1.0
These documents are available in the Documentation folder of the
installation CD, or as downloads from MyActix.

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4 Known Issues

UMTS Iub Call Tracking

The Iub call-tracking algorithm currently does not track
calls which move from RRC state Cell DCH to Cell
FACH (and later back to Cell DCH).
The Iub call-tracking algorithm currently does not track
RRC Connection Reject messages.

No handset tracking on the Iub

There is no handset tracking available on the Iub.
Statistics related to handset can be achieved on the Iu
interface, and can be related to the Iub interface if Iub and
Iu are logged in the same file.

If you have an Iub-only file, then due to the way TMSIs

are used, you will not be able to do handset-specific
analysis unless the information is present in the data.

Multiple Interface Analysis Automation

The Stream Selectors for each Protocol Stack Browser for
the Iub and Iu interfaces (used during the drill down
phase of call analysis) are empty. This does not affect
visualisation of the call. To sync this view with others
such as the chart or table, select the correct Stream using
the drop-down Stream Selector.
When a network protocol trace file containing Iub and Iu
(in the same file) is loaded, the Iub+Iu Protocol Stack
Browser contains the signaling for each problem call
from both the Iub and Iu interfaces.

However, the Iu Protocol Stack Browser is displayed in

error, and this window also contains the signaling from
the Iu interface, and so Iu calls can be seen in both PSBs.

Note that this is only for log files which contain both Iub

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 and Iu in the same trace file; this problem does NOT
occur when the Iu and Iub data are in separate files. In
this case, the Iub+Iu PSB will only contain Iub data and
the Iu PSB will only contain Iu data.

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