2G E// Accessibility

BSS CALL FLOW

• RACH Description and analysis

• PCH Description and analysis
• SDCCH Cong and Drop Description and analysis
• TCH CONG Description and analysis
• TCH assignment Description and analysis
BSS CALL FLOW
 RACH
• Random Access Channel (RACH) is used by the MS on the “uplink” to request for allocation of an SDCCH.
• This request from the MS on the uplink could either be as a page response (MS being paged by the BSS in
response to an incoming call) or due to user trying to access the network to establish a call.
• The number of times an MS tries to access the network decided by the BSS parameter MAXRET and the
randomness in the time interval between each of these access request is defined by the parameter TX.
• KPI Formula Random Access Success Rate = (CNROCNT)/ (CNROCNT+RAACCFA) * 100
RAACCFA: Failed Random Access
CNROCNT: All accepted Random Access

Failure Type
RATRHFAEMCAL: this counter is stepped up for every rejected CHANNEL REQUIRED in TRH with
establishment cause “Emergency Call”
RATRHFAREG: this counter is stepped for every rejected CHANNEL REQUIRED in TRH with establishment
cause “Location Update”.
RATRHFAOTHER: this counter is stepped up for every rejected CHANNEL REQUIRED in TRH with all other
establishment causes.
Request type
RAANPAG: This counter gets Incremented when the MS responds to an incoming page (Mobile Terminated
Call).
RAEMCAL: This counter gets incremented when the MS sends in an emergency call request.
RACALRE: Call Re-establishment or if TCH/F needed or Originating Call.
RAOSREQ: Other Service Request.
All other cases: RAOTHER.
 RACH Analysis + Fish BackBone

Phantom RACH: In the transceiver, the timeslot handler in charge of RACH channel constantly listens for
access burst from MS. These access bursts contain a check sequence (8 bits) that is used to determine if the
message is valid. When the traffic in a cell is low, there will not be many access burst coming to the RBS. In
such cases most of the received signal will be noise and if the receiver at the RBS is sensitive, some of this
received noise will be interpreted as an access burst (cases where certain bit pattern in the noise matching
the 8 bit checks sequence). This is called as Phantom RACH.
ACCMIN and CRO: These are idle mode cell reselection parameters directly controlling the way MS does cell reselection
when in idle mode. Default value for ACCMIN is -110; ACCMIN .
C1 = RLA_C - ACCMIN- max( CCHPWR- P, 0)
C2 = C1 + CRO- TO• H(PT - T) for PT <> 31,TO=0 in our NW; C2 is the resection criteria .
or,
C2 = C1 - CRO for PT= 31.
 Paging Success Rate
Paging Success by far is the most complex KPI to deal with as the process of paging touches almost all the
nodes in GSM system and is influenced by performance of each of them.
A “paging message” consists of the mobile identity (IMSI or TMSI) of the MS being paged and its “paging
group number”.
Number of Paging Groups at cell = MFRMS*(9-AGBLK) in case we don’t have non-Combined BCCH where the
MS on its part will analyse the paging messages (and immediate assignment messages) sent on the paging
sub channel corresponding to its paging group.

PAGETOOOLD (cell): number of discarded paging messages (sent out on the PCH) due to being too old.
PAGPCHCONG (cell): number of discarded paging messages due to full paging queue.
TOTPAG (BSC): number of paging messages received at the BSC from the MSC.
PAGCSBSC (BSC): number of paging messages received from MSC (circuit switched data).
PAGPSBSC (BSC): number of paging messages received from SGSN (packet switched data).
Non combined BCCH/SDCCH cells:
(AGBLK=0): 1.25 * 51 = 63.8 Paging commands / second
(AGBLK=1): 1.25 * 46 = 57.5 Paging commands / second
 Paging Success Rate
Parameters Explanation MML

MFRMS Multiframes period RLDEC

AGBLK No. of reserved access grant blocks RLDEC

BCCHTYPE Type of BCCH RLDEC

T3212 [Deci hours] Time-out, MS periodic LU RLSBC

ATT Attach-detach allowed RLSBC

MAXRET Max. retransmission at access RLSBC

CRH [dB] Cell reselect hysteresis RLSSC

Paging Success Rate
 Paging Success Rate
• Incorrect Cell Parameters: T3212 determines the periodic registration time for MS, if its too large can
lead to poor paging p
• MFRMS and AGBLK; if paging discards at the cell level is too high, setting AGBLK to 0 can increase the
paging bandwidth also lower values of MFRMS (4 to 6) are ideally recommended to offload very high
paging load at a cellerformance where as if set too short can overload.
• Poor RF: Interference on the BCCH / SDCCH carrier & or poor coverage.
• SDCCH Congestion Rate: High SDCCH congestion rate at cell level can cause high page response failures
and hence low paging success rate. In these cases re-dimension the number of SDCCH.
• High CP load at the BSC and MSC
• Decrease signalling load on CCCH: Set ATT to 1, set a lower value for T3212 (recommended is 40, very
short values for this timer can increase load on SDCCH) and allocate enough SDCCH.

Counters:
• PAGETOOOLD (cell): number of discarded paging messages (sent out on the PCH) due to being too old.
• PAGPCHCONG (cell): number of discarded paging messages due to full paging queue.
• TOTPAG (BSC): number of paging messages received at the BSC from the MSC.
• PAGCSBSC (BSC): number of paging messages received from SGSN (circuit switched data).
• PAGPSBSC (BSC): number of paging messages received from SGSN (packet switched data).
 SDCCH CONG Rate
• SDCCH is a control channel and is used for system signalling (UL/DL) during Location Updating (mean hold
time of SDCCH=3.5s), IMSI Attach (3.5s), IMSI Detach (2.9s) , Mobile Originated Calls (2.7s) , Mobile
Terminated Calls (2.9s), SMS (6.2s) , MS Originated FAX Call Setup (2.7s) , MS Terminated FAX Call Setup
(2.9s) and False Access or phantom RACCH access due to radio disturbances (1.8s).
• SDCCH can either be configured with one dedicated radio timeslot or it can be combined with the BCCH
• In most networks the acceptable Grade of Service for TCH is 2% and that for SDCCH is 0.5%. If for a cell
SDCCH congestion rate is low and SDCCH Access Success Rate is low it could be hardware related issue
• Another network service that can put pressure on SDCCH performance is Cell Broadcast. If the Cell
Broadcast service is active in a cell, one signalling “sub channel” is replaced with one Cell Broadcast
Channel (CBCCH) , that is 7 SDCCH sub channel available for call set up in the case of an SDCCH/8 Cell
Broadcast service provide the transmission of SMS from a message handling centre to all the MSs in the
serving area of the BTS.

Counter Meaning Comment

S_EST S_EST = { (CMSESTAB) / [CCALLS - (CCONGS+CCONGSSUB)]} * 100 % SD Access Succ Rate
S_CONG S_CONG = (CCCONGS / CCALLS) *100 % SD Congestion Rate

CCALLS Call attempt counter (call attempt on the SDCCH)

CMSESTAB Successful MS channel establishment on SDCCH
CCONGS Congestion counter for underlaid subcell.
CCONGSSUB COngestion counter for overlaid subcell.
CCONGS Stepped each time an allocation attempt in an underlaid cellfails due to SD congestion
SD Congestion Underlaid Cell
CTCONGS SD Congestion counter for overlaid cell SD Congestion Overlaid Cell
# of released connection on SD due to TCH or Transcoder congetsion ; CNDROP both Over Laid and Under Laid cell ; use CNRELCONGSUB for
CNRELCONG is stepped at the same time. OL subcell. If TCH is not congested check for XCDR cong.
 SDCCH CONG Rate FishBone

Adaptive Configuration of Logical Channel: The purpose of this feature is to make dynamic reconfiguration of idle TCH
channels to SDCCH channels when there is a high load on SD. Main cell parameters controlling this feature are SLEVEL &
STIME. SLEVEL: defines the number of remaining SDCCH sub channels when an attempt to reconfigure an idle TCH to an
SDCCH /8 will take place, default value for this parameter is 0. If the SDCCH congestion rate for a cell is seen to be too
high increase SLEVEL to 2 (range of this parameter is 0 to 2). STIME: defines the minimum time interval before an
SDCCH/8 added by the feature Adaptive Configuration of Logical Channel can be reconfigured back to TCH , default set
value for this cell parameter is 20s
SDCCH Dimension: The Grade of Service to which most operators work towards globally is: on TCH 2% and 0.5% on
SDCCH. Done after utilization study.
High volume of LAU: change the LAC border away from this cell, to a cell that possibly carries less traffic. Optimize the
periodic registration timer T3212 (higher values of T3212 can bring down the load on SDCCH for periodic location
updating by mobiles in idle mode, but can adversely impact paging performance).In addition to increase CRH parameter
on LAC border.
Immediate Assignment on TCH: This feature allows signalling to be carried out by the TCH as well as
SDCCH. But in this TCH will be considered as SUB SDCCH. This change can be done by changing the value of
CHAP parameters
RF Spillage: Unnecessary RF spillage leads to a cell picking up traffic from unwanted area (coverage area of
other cells), this can cause unwanted load on the control channels
 SDCCH Drop Rate
Formula of SD drop is SDCCH Drop Rate =[(CNDROP-CNRELCONG)/ (CMSESTAB)]*100 %

CNDROP: total number of dropped SDCCH channels in a cell (for the measurement period).
CNRELCONG: total number dropped (released) connections on SDCCH due to TCH or
Transcoder congestion.
CMSESTAB: total number of successful MS channel establishment on SDCCH.

SD DROP REASON:
Drop Reason, Low Signal Strength Uplink (%).
Drop Reason, Low Signal Strength Downlink (%).
Drop Reason, Bad Quality Uplink (%).
Drop Reason, Bad Quality Downlink (%).
Drop Reason, Excess TA (%).
Drop Reason, Other (%).
 SDCCH Drop Rate Fish Bone

Dip Status: Digital Path (DIP) or the E1 connection to the site as well as the E1 connection to
the BSC is often cause of SDCH drop due to “other reason”. High BER (Bit Error Rate) or high
Frame Loss due to unstable transmission (check for high T200 expiry from layer 3 messages of
CTR measurements or drive tests) is often seen to be the cause for high SDCCH drop due to
other reasons.
Other Reasons: Possible causes for high SDCCH drops due to other reasons could be due to
incorrect power control settings, Adaptive Configuration of Logical Channels, DIP status,
Hardware faults at the BTS, frequency interference problems (causing sudden drops) or C7 link
between the BSC and the MSC having link congestions or link stability issues.
 TCH CONG RATE
Primary cause of TCH congestion is lack of enough TCH resources to cater for the
offered traffic.

TCH COUNTERS
Counter Meaning Comment
TFTRALACC Traffic level accumulator for full rate TCH use these counters to check half rate
THTRALACC Traffic level accumulator for half rate TCH utilization in a cell
TFNSCAN Total number of accumulation of the counter for full rate TCH (use THNSCAN for Half rate)
TF_TRAFFIC TF_TRAFFIC = (TFTRALACC/TFNSCAN) Erlangs (use H instead F for half rate)
TAVASCAN Counter value for number of available Basic Physical Channel for traffic channel
TF_MEANH (TF_TRAFFIC*PERLEN*60)/TFMSESTB seconds TCH Mean Hold time
PERLEN Measurement period length used in STS (min)
TFMSESTB Succesful MS establishment on TCH full rate.
T_AVAIL T_AVAIL = {(TAVAACC) / (TAVASCAN*TNUCHCNT)}*100 TCH Availability %
TNUCHCNT number of defined TCH
T_DWN T_DWN = (TDWNACC/TDWNSCAN)*100 TCH downtime %
TDWNACC this counter is incrimented every 10th sec. if there are no TCHs in IDLE or BUSY mode with cell state ACTIVE
TDWNSCAN this counter is stepped every 10th second when cell state is active
TFCASSALL Total number of assignment complete messages for all MSs in underlaid subcell (FR) similar counters for HR too
TFCASSALLSUB Total number of assignment complete messages for all MSs in overlaid subcell (FR) similar counters for HR too
TASSATT Number of "first assignment" attempts on TCH (successful + unsuccessful) both counted in the TARGET cell
TASSALL Number of "first assignment" attempts on TCH. Successful attempts are counted in
the serving cell (servign cell being the cell where the MS was tuned in to aSD or TCH
for signalling)
T_AS_SUC T_AS_SUC = (TFCASSALL+TFCASSALLSUB+THCASSALL+THCASSALLSUB)/(TASSALL) *100 %
TCH Assignment Succ Rate. i.e. succ.
change from SD to TCH
TFCONGSAS #of congestion at assignment or immediate assignment in UL subcell (use TH for HR)
TFCONGSHO #of congestion at incomming handover in UL subcell (use TH for HR)
TFTCONGS Soft congestion "time" counter for UL ; counter statrs when a channel request is made
and no idle channels are available. (use H for half rate)
TFTHARDCONGS Hard congestion time counter for UL subcell. Counter starts to incriment only when it
has not been possible to allocate a channel without any type of pre emption.
T_CONG T_CONG = [(CNRELCONG+TF_REL_C+TH_REL_C)/(TASSALL)]*100 TCH Congestion Rate
TCH CONG RATE Fish Bone
 TCH CONG RATE Fish Bone
• Half Rate: GSM half rate is a feature that provides capacity solution for congestion with the existing radio
resource. Speech and data rates for half rate are 6.5 Kbps and 4.8 Kbps respectively. This is achieved by
making two mobiles share the same TDMA timeslot, Problem with excessive usage of Half Rate in a
network speech quality, HR has an inferior speech quality as compared to FR and it is strongly
recommended to keep the HR usage in a network below 20%.
• Cell Load Share (CLS): CLS offers a possibility for offloading of “highly loaded” cell before congestion. This
is done by triggering congestion based handovers to neighbouring cells (if the neighbouring cell allows
incoming CLS handovers) when the channel utilization (TCH) within the cell reaches a certain definable
percentage.
• Assignment to Worse cell: This feature operates at the “call-setup” immediately after SDCCH is assigned
and takes the call from SDCCH of the source cell to TCH of a target cell and thus bypassing TCH congestion
at the source. This process is called as assignment to “worse cell.
• Assignment to Better cell :(not dealing with TCH congestion) is assignment to “better cell”; locating
algorithm kicks in at the real early stage, even before the MS has landed on TCH. At times a MS gets
camped on to incorrect cell (especially the mobiles from weak cell boundaries) either due to slow idle
mode reselection due to incorrect set parameters or due to physical fast movement and if it makes a
random access under these given situations, it can land on an inappropriate cell. With the feature
assignment to another cell, such an MS will be handed out direct to the better cell (this part of this feature
has no much impact on TCH congestion, though it can bring down the TCH drop rate at the source cell).
• Multiband Operation: The feature “Multiband cell” creates a “cost efficient high capacity network”, often
consisting of a 900 band coverage layer and an 1800 band capacity layer. Traffic can be balanced in using
LOL
• RF optimization
 Half rate parameters
Parameter Name Default Value Recommended Value Range Comment
Turns dynamic half rate feature ON or OFF at the
DHA OFF ON ON/OFF cell level.
Switch ON or OFF quality based switching from
HR to FR (move an existing HR call to FR is
DMQB OFF ON ON/OFF quality reported is bleow the threshold.
Switching threshold for triggering a qulaity based
45 (rx qual of handover from HR to FR for non AMR MS (based
DMQBNAMR 4.5) 45 0 to 100 on Ul and DL reported RxQual).
Switching threshold for triggering a qulaity based
handover from HR to FR for an AMR capable MS
DMQBAMR 50 50 0 to 100 (based on Ul and DL reported RxQual).
Switch ON or OFF quality based switching from
FR to HR (move an existing FR call to HR is
DMQG OFF ON quality reported is bleow the threshold.
Switching threshold for triggering a qulaity based
handover from FR to HR for non AMR MS (based
DMQGNAMR 30 30 0 to 100 on Ul and DL reported RxQual) shld
Switching threshold for triggering a qulaity based
handover from FR to HR for an AMR capable MS
DMQGAMR 35 35 0 to 100 (based on Ul and DL reported RxQual).<dmqbamr
threshond (%) for AMR HR capable MS at channel
allocation below which an AMR MS will be
DTHAMR 30 30 0 to 100 allocated on HR channel.
threshond (%) for non AMR HR capable MS at
channel allocation below which an AMR MS will be
DTHNAMR 15 15 0 to 100 allocated on HR channel.
 CLS parameters
Parameter Name Default Value Recommended Value Value Range Comment

a BSC Parameter, determines the

CLSTIMEINTERVAL 100ms 100 100 to 1000 "cycle time" for "load monitoring".
% of idle TCHs at or below which
calculations for congestion relief
CLSLEVEL 20% 0 to 99 handover takes place.
%of idle TCHs at or below which no
handover due to CLS is accepted
CLSACC 40% 1 to 100 by a target cell.
time interval during which
"handover hysterisis to the target
CLSRAMP 5s 8 0 to 30 cell is reduced" when the cell is hit

Enables or disables incomming

HOCLSACC OFF ON ON,OFF handover due to load sharing.
Handover Hysterisis(dB margin
between src and trgt cell) reduction
RHYST 75 100 0 to 100 paramter(final reduction of hyst as
EBANDSINCLUDED OFF ON,OFF BSC;include or exclude E-GSM cells
 Assign to other Cell Parameter
Parameters Default Value Recommended Value Value Range Comment
Turns the feature "Assignment to another
ASSOC OFF ON ON,OFF cell" ON or OFF
Enables/Disables Assignment to Worse
AW OFF ON ON,OFF Cell (if ASSOC=ON)
BCC parameter , determines if ASSOC
IBHOASS OFF ON ON,OFF to another BSC can be done
determines if inter MSC and inter BSC
HNDSDCCHTCH 1 1 0,1 SDCCH to TCH handovers is permited
congestio relief handover margin from
AWOFFSET 3 10(dB) 0 TO 63 the src cell to trget cell
per neighbour(permission) setting:
AWN=nbr possible candidate for better
AWN,NHN,BOT or worse & not for normal HO,
CAND BOTH BOTH H NHN=better and normal (no worse) ,
 MBC and UL/OL
Rec omm
Default Value
Parameter name ended
value range
value Description
SCLD OFF ON, OFF Subcell Load Distribution status
Percentage level of idle full rate capable TCHs in the underlaid
subcell, at or below which Subcell Load Distribution from underlaid
to overlaid subcell will be attempted. No attempt to distribute
SCLDLUL 20 0 to 99 traffic connections will be made if the percentage of idle TCHs in the
overlaid subcell already is or would become equal to or less than
the limit defined by SCLDLOL.

Percentage level of idle full rate capable TCHs in the overlaid

subcell, at or below which Subcell Load Distribution from overlaid to
underlaid subcell will be attempted. No attempt to distribute traffic
SCLDLOL 20 0 to 99 connections will be made if the percentage of idle TCHs in the
underlaid subcell already is or would become equal to or less than
the limit defined by SCLDLUL.

Subcell Load Distribution Subcell priority. Specifies which subcell

SCLDSC UL that is preferred at channel allocation.

Intra ce ll Ha ndove r from UL to OL

L = BSTXPW R – RXLev_dl
L <= LOL – LOLHYST
BSTXPW R – RXLev_dl <= LOL – LOLHYST

Intra ce ll Ha ndove r from OL to UL

L = BSTXPW R – (RXLev_dl + FBOFFP)
L > LOL + LOLHYST
BSTXPW R – (RXLev_dl + FBOFFP) > LOL + LOLHYST