3G (UMTS/HSDPA) Initial Radio Tuning and Parameter

Planning
Todays mobile world is defined by user demand, expectation and pressure to maximise revenue.
Ensuring your network is functioning at optimum levels from the outset is essential. Attracting and
retaining valuable customers is your ultimate goal.
Perceived 3G coverage and user experience dictate proactive
actions for operators. Constant service monitoring, tuning and
optimisation is vital to gaining loyal customers. Customers expect
higher bandwidth and faster response times from mobile data
services your challenge is to deliver a faultless service.

Active Testing

Commsquare understands the delicate relationship between offering

a new service, getting it right first time and keeping customers
happy as your network grows. Our engineers have many years
experience working with operators to understand the complexities of
service delivery and can help you meet your challenge.

Observed non-conformance of planned network quality KPIs (e.g.

Ec/Io, Pilot Pollution, SHO, etc.) with best-practice values will be
alleviated by altering network/radio site configurations and
parameters and re-running the simulation cycle.

Following the roll out of your UMTS and/or HSDPA network,

Commsquare recommends that every operator complete a prelaunch optimisation project to investigate the initial radio tuning and
parameter planning. This will ensure that initial configurations and
KPIs are being met. The result is a 3G network that, once launched,
will provide adequate capacity and service quality levels when
loading the network to the maximum planned levels. The alternative
is to optimise the network once it is commercially operational and
only when problems arise. Unfortunately, given the interference
limited character of a loaded 3G network, this is a risky course of
action. The consequences are extra expenditure, effort and service
affecting faults all of which could be avoided.
The following list identifies typical benefits from pre launch
optimisation:

Increased customer experience

Customer loyalty and reduced churn

Maximised return on investment

Cost effective management of both operating and capital

expenditure

UMTS/CDMA and HSDPA require higher levels of interference

mitigation than GSM/TDMA systems, therefore poor design will
severely affect the quality of service even with moderate levels of
traffic. In a poorly designed network, once traffic increases,
interference escalate, thereby significantly reducing system capacity
and quality. Commsquare recommends early completion of initial
radio tuning.

Working with your radio planning environment, Commsquare

consultants will examine the set of planned network KPIs based on
your network configuration and traffic assumptions.

Once the simulation round has produced satisfactory results and the
corresponding changes made to configurations, our team will
perform drive tests using a test mobile and radio scanner to assess
the integrity of the live network.
Drive testing and the corresponding radio tuning is performed for a
cluster of cells because, in a UMTS/HSDPA network, it is impossible
to optimise any cells in isolation, as interference levels in all cells
depend heavily on traffic levels in surrounding cells.
Our drive tests are aimed at radio design verification by measuring
coverage (RSCP), quality (Ec/Io), dominance (Pilots in Active Set)
and soft handover and system handover performance. Service
testing is then carried out in order to establish the customer
perceived quality of service level by measuring service success and
failure rates, bandwidth/throughput and delays.
To achieve the optimum UMTS/HSDPA Radio Access Network
performance physical network parameters, such as radio site
configurations, antenna tilts and azimuths and pilot power may be
changed. In addition, extra radio sites may be required.
Further improvements will be obtained by tuning system parameters
(e.g. Neighbour lists, soft handover parameters, etc.) to ensure that
the network has optimal system performance. Also, during this
phase the parameters that govern the 3G-2G interworking will be
optimised.
As a third step in the optimisation process Commsquare will look at
optimising parameters such as system timers that are used for the
supervision of signalling procedures and for the retransmission or
repetition of messages, those for cell selection and reselection or
intersystem selection.

On completion of the project Commsquare will deliver the full results

to you, complete with a list of corrective actions and
recommendations for the proactive monitoring of network
performance.

Ongoing Support
As your technology partner, Commsquare offers you the ability to
evaluate your network, and then, continuously re-evaluate its
performance on an ongoing basis. We work with your engineers to
ensure that they have the skills and know-how to make the
necessary changes to the network for increased performance.

Knowledge Transfer
Working with your engineers, we aim to ensure that our experience
of your network is transferred to your teams and that your engineers
are given on-the-job coaching and finally that you have a clear
understanding of the process and results obtained.

Next Steps
Are you delivering on the promise of UMTS? Are your corporate
users getting the quality of service that is paid for? Do you believe
that your network is performing to within system limits?
To learn more about Commsquare or to speak with someone from
our team, please call
Belgium:
+32 155 288 74

Or, alternatively, email info@commsquare.com .