Coverage Enhancement

BSSPAR1: Chapter 8
Coverage Enhancement Features

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Coverage Enhancement

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Coverage Enhancement

Module Objectives
Describe Extended Cell Range for CS calls
Explain parameters controlling handovers in a Extended Cell
Explain the Long Reach Timeslot for Flexi BTS
Explain the 105km Super Extended cell and related parameters
Give a brief introduction to Smart Radio Concept (SRC) feature

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Coverage Enhancement

Extended Cell Range

One BCCH, Two TRX solution to extend cell radius to 70km
Normal and Extended area served with different TRX
BTS Type supported
Ultra CX4.1 (with EDGE capable TRX)
Flexi EP2.0
Talk Family DF7.0
Not supported by Metrosite
Activation based on TRX licence (Flexi, Ultra) or PRFILE (Talk)

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Extended Cell Range (Implementation)

Extended region (frequency f2 except timeslot 0)

E-TRX (Parameter eTrxInd (ETRX) = E)

Normal region (frequency f1)

N-TRX (Parameter eTrxInd (ETRX) = N)

Extended cell size

Parameter radiusExtension (EXT)
Value = 1..67km radius extension of extended cell
Value = 0 ordinary cell

f1

N-TRX

E-TRX
(Delayed receiver)

BCCH/
SDCCH

f1

Not
Used

f1

TCH

f1

TCH

f1

TCH

f1

f1

TCH

f1

f2

f2

f2

f2

f2

f2

f2

TCH

E-RACH SDCCH

0
5

f1

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TCH

TCH

TCH

TCH

TCH

TCH

TCH

One BCCH, Two TRX solution

Receiver timing delayed on
ETRX
Transmitter timing same on
NTRX and ETRX

BB Hopping cannot be used

RF hopping cannot be used on
E-TRXs

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Call Setup

RACH received on N-TRX

IMM ASS sent on N-TRX
SDCCH on N-TRX

RACH received on E-TRX

IMM ASS sent on N-TRX
SDCCH on E-TRX

Overlap area: RACH is recived on N-TRX and E-TRX. BSC filters the later one out
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Extended Cell
(Cell Selection, Handover)

Cell Selection
MS can camp on BCCH (NTRX) independent of the distance to the BTS
RACH from MS detected on RACH or E-RACH depending on the distance to the BTS
Failure of RACH burst

Wrong cell selected

Reselection on the basis of the path loss criterion C1

Handover to due Distance (Normal area Extended area)

maxMSDistanceHOThreshold (MAX)

0..63

TA => MAX; handover triggered to extended cell

minMSDistanceHOThreshold (MIN)

0..63

TA => MIN; handover triggered to normal cell

Adjacent Cell Parameter

hoTargetArea (HOTA)

indicates type of target cell (normal or extended) ;

indicates type of transceiver from which the BSC tries to allocate a channel (normal or
extended)

0 Normal cell
1 - Allocate from N-TRX
2 Allocate from E-TRX
3 Allocate from TRX of the same type as source BTS

Inter-BSC HO: Only values 0, 2 are allowed for HOTA.

External HO are made only towards Extended area if
Long Reach TSL (for Flexi) is NOT in use
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Extended Cell
Use of Double BA list

The Double BCCH Allocation List (Double BA List) may be needed in the extended cell
range solution because otherwise some legacy MSs do not work properly
The intra-cell handover between an N-TRX and an E-TRX is performed by using a
HANDOVER COMMAND message.
Using the Handover Command requires that the BCCH frequency of the serving cell is
included in the BCCH allocation list.
This can be achieved by using the Double BA List.

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Long Reach Timeslot

Flexi BTS (EP2.0)
Currently BSC allocates external handovers only towards extended area of
an extended cell higher HO failures
Used to determine if the MS is located in normal or extended area (of the
targeted cell) in case of incoming external HO
Transmission on first LRTCH
only
Reception on both LRTCH

Use of LRTCH
BTS measures TA by scanning both LRTCH for the handover access burst
BTS sends the ACCESS DELAY information to BSC
ACCESS DELAY < maxMSDistanceHOThreshold MAX: Normal cell area
ACCESS DELAY >= maxMSDistanceHOThreshold MAX : Extended cell area

Intra-cell HO from LRTCH to TCH of N-TRX or TCH of E-TRX to free up LRTCH

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Long Reach Timeslot

Flexi BTS (EP2.0)
TA value sent by BTS to MS cannot be greater than 63 BTS must send an
adjusted value for TA if the MS is in extended area

If TA > 1.8 * EXT

10

TA (adj) = TA (meas) 1.8*EXT

TA (adj) = TA (meas)

UL is synchronized to E-TRX

UL is synchronized to N-TRX

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Coverage Enhancement

105km Super Extended Cell

Introduction
Radius extension upto 105km for Flexi BTS (EP2.0 CD1)
BCCH serves all three cell areas
DL of E-RACH tsl not used
E-RACH of STRX overlaps with tsl 0 and 1 of BCCH (just like E-RACH of
ETRX)
SDCCH defined on S-TRX
Normal and Super Extended
areas do not overlap
TA of each area measured
separately from 063

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Coverage Enhancement

105km Super Extended Cell

Handover between areas
EXT

SEXT

MAX

MIN

SMIN

SMAX

TRX Level
E-TRX Type = S

1.
2.

BTS Level
Super Radius Extension (SEXT)
Location of inner edge of super
extended area from the BTS
Range: 0, 36-70
Handover Control
MS distance HO
threshold super ext cell min (SMIN)
Range: 063

BTS

4.

3.

MS distance HO
threshold super ext cell max (SMAX)
Range: 063
N-area: 35 km
E-area: 35 km

S-area: 35 km
Overlap area (E/S)

Overlap area (N/E)

1. Mobile is moving in Normal area (away from BTS), TA MAX => handover to Extended area triggers
2. Mobile is moving in Extended area (away from BTS), TA SMAX => handover to Super extended area triggers
3. Mobile is moving in Super extended area (towards BTS), TA SMIN => handover to Extended area triggers

External handovers
Performed thru LRTCH if it is in use
If not in use, HO to super extended
area

4. Mobile is moving in Extended area (towards BTS), TA MIN => handover to Normal area triggers

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Coverage Enhancement

SRC Concept

SRC consists of :
Downlink link enhancing feature
Intelligent Downlink Diversity (IDD)
Uplink enhancing features
4-way UL Diversity (4UD)
Interference Rejection Combining (IRC)
High gain MHA

Up and downlink features can also be implemented

separately (except for 4UD, which is used with IDD)

BTS Support: Ultrasite CX6.0, FlexiEDGE EP2.0

TRX Support: EDGE-capable TRX and EDGE
baseband units required

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Coverage Enhancement

IDD Concept
Delay Diversity (DD) with Phase Hopping
Improves the mobiles receiver performance by modifying the radio
channel
BTS downlink performance is boosted up to 3-5 dB
All timeslots are transmitted through 2 transceivers and 2 antennas
2nd TRX transmission is delayed and phase turned
Also BCCH carrier is sent through 2 transmitters
Phase hopping is used to change phasing between adjacent bursts (to
decrease correlation between a main and auxiliary transmitter)
To the BSC, the main and auxiliary TRX appear as one logical TRX
Mobile receives both signals as standard multipath

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Coverage Enhancement

4-way UL Diversity
Very efficient Interference Rejection
Combining is processed for received
signals giving ultimate gain for diversity
reception. IRC minimizes the effect of
interfering signals in the BTS receiver.

MHA

MHA

DDU
RX + TX
Masthead Amplifier compensates
feeder loss and matches front end of
the BTS receiver optimizing sensitivity

RX div.
RX div.
RX div.+ TX aux

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EDGE
Transceiver
EDGE
Transceiver

Baseband
Units
Downlink
signal

Combined
Uplink
signal

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Coverage Enhancement

2-Way/4-Way UL Receiver Diversity

(IRC/MRC)
The noise between two branches are somewhat correlated, so the
best way of combining is Interference Rejection Combining (IRC). This
takes into account the correlation between interference branches and
removes ultimately the interference from the received signal.
Uplink receiver diversity can be either 2- or 4-way diversity.
In 2-way diversity the receiver combines signals from two antennas
by using Interference Rejection Combining (IRC).
4-way diversity is based on MRC combination of two 2-way IRC
diversity branches.
The signals from four antennas are fed into two separate TRX. Two
pair-wise signals are combined by IRC in respective TRX and then the
signal from the auxiliary TRX is fed into the main TRX where signals
are combined using Maximum Ratio Combining

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4-way uplink diversity using IRC

followed by MRC.

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Coverage Enhancement

SRC with Mast Head Amplifier (MHA)

Balanced link defines the cell range, not only BTS TX power

SRC+MHA
SRC+MHA

DL

SRC,SRC,
no MHA
no MHA

UL

combiner
by-pass
combiner
by-pass
+ MHA

DL
UL

combinercombiner
by-pass, by-pass
no MHA

UL

Effective cell range:

Bypass,
No MHA

UL

DL

DL

Bypass
+MHA
SRC
+ MHA
SRC,
no MHA

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Coverage Enhancement

Configuring IDD in the BSC

Main and auxiliary TRXs connected to different antenna
TRX is created/added to IDD configuration during TRX commissioning
Usage of IDD and mode of IDD TRX (main/auxiliary)
4UD is defined in the BSC with the diversityUsed (RDIV) parameter:
RDIV=Y (4-way RX diversity is used).

If IDD is used only for boosting the BCCH carrier, the IDD TRX has to be
defined in the BSC as preferred BCCH TRX

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Coverage Enhancement

Space Time Interference Rejection

Combining (STIRC)
STIRC is an enhancement to Interference Rejection Combining (IRC) that is implemented in
NSN Flexi EDGE, EDGE UltraSite, and EDGE MetroSite BTSs

STIRC is compatible with Smart Radio Concept for EDGE (SRC). All antenna configurations
are supported. However, 4-way uplink diversity configurations provide the best performance.

Link level simulations show interference rejection performance of GMSK channel under typical
urban (TU) conditions improving on average 4 - 10 dB gain compared to IRC (for 2-way uplink
diversity (2UD)) - The actual gain is network and configuration dependent

STIRC can be enabled per sector (BTS object)

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Coverage Enhancement

STIRC & IRC

In a multiple-antenna receiver, there is a strong correlation in the interference between

different branches (normal and diversity) and samples for each symbol period. Usually, the
interference correlation is different from the correlation of the desired signal.

IRC is a set of diversity combining, digital signal processing methods that removes
interference by taking these cross correlations into account.

These methods can be considered as whitening the interference (there is no correlation)

between the individual branches and samples of each symbol which, if done perfectly, optimizes
the performance of the receiver, in particular the bit (0/1) detection process.

STIRC works best when there is a single dominant interferer and it is best suited for urban
areas

Whitening,

Whitening

jointly
estimated

Whitening

Interference Rejection
Combining (IRC)

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Space Time Interference

Combining STIRC

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Coverage Enhancement

STIRC feature control

Licence based feature: Capacity licence based on number of

STIRC enabled TRXs in the BSC
STIRC activation on BTS level

MO
Class

BTS

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Abbreviated
Name

stircEnabled

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Range And Step

STIRC is disabled
(N) (0), STIRC is
enabled (Y) (1)

Description

Defines whether the STIRC feature is used

in the BTS.
Valid only for Nokia UltraSite, Nokia
MetroSite and Nokia Flexi EDGE Site types.

Default
value

STIRC is
disabled
(N) (0)

BSC - MML
Name

STIRC

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