2/13/2018 LTE Throughput Optimization.

How to Optimization User KPIs in LTE

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If you are going to ask this question from an academic or researcher.

How to Categorize Cellular ‘G’

generations on a Calendar
Timeline?

You would receive one of the two responses below.

Handover Delay and Voice

Interruption in VoLTE

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2/13/2018 LTE Throughput Optimization. How to Optimization User KPIs in LTE

1. Maximize SINR available

What are the Emerging Killer
Applications of 5G Wireless?
2. Reduce Network Load

How do You Compare 1G, 2G,

3G…. with Proposed 5G?
Those are rationally and scientifically proven facts.

9 Reasons for Long Call Setup

Time in VoLTE

However, if you are performance engineer when you see Throughput Key Performance
What are the work areas for 5G
Indicators (KPIs) are getting degraded ?
Experiments and Trials?

What do you do ?
What Work Areas Need Some
More Work For 5G
In a live network. Do you always have a choice to perform either of the above two steps ? If yes, Deployment?
you can start from scratch.

Otherwise, below are the quick steps you can take note of and start investigating when it comes
to improving LTE Throughput

LTE in 10
Optimization.
Minutes

25 Most Frequently Asked

Fundamental Questions

Throughput Optimization
GIMME MY BOOK
In LTE, end user quality of service is impacted by the cumulative effect of various nodes and
interfaces. There is not one factor, but a number

of contributing factors which affect the end user throughput.

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LTE Power Control (Case

of Uplink Channel :
PREREQUISTE : General PUSCH)

Guidelines Before diving into What are Access Classes

? How Access Barring(Cell
Barring) Takes Place ?
Throughput Investigation:
How do you find Starbucks
Location ? The same way
how a UE finds out about
LTE ?
1. One of the first things to do is: confirm parameter settings, system configuration and RF
environment.
What is the difference in

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2/13/2018 LTE Throughput Optimization. How to Optimization User KPIs in LTE

2. KPIs co-relate and depend on each other. Therefore knowledge of other KPIs such as Absolute and Relative
Timing Advance in LTE?
Accessibility, Retainability , Mobility etc. is helpful to know , how they are performing . For
example if Accessibility and Retainiabilty KPIs are bad, this will directly influence the
throughput and end user QoS.

3. Do a site hardware audit (including jumpers, cables, connectors, antennas etc.)

4. Investigation of RF environment is a good idea to perform such as SINR, antenna types

and planning.

Cumulative Effect on
Throughput

The main factors which have a cumulative effect on throughput are shown in the figure below.

Throughput is a cumulative of Whole Network health

The above diagram shows us, how various nodes and factors can affect the user throughput.

As an RF Performance engineer, you need to have knowledge of what counters do you need to
take a look at in order to improve throughput?

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2/13/2018 LTE Throughput Optimization. How to Optimization User KPIs in LTE

Different vendors can have different names for the same counters.

Question:

What counters to look for when looking for Throughput improvement in LTE ?

Answer: It is better to understand the behavior of a certain part of the network. After that you can
always figure out, where to go and look for counters. (Find the exact counter name in the
documentation of the specific vendor)

What Sections and their

Counters to Look for w.r.t
Throughput?
As from the diagram above, you can look at the 7 sections to start with in order to improve
throughput at RAN side.

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2/13/2018 LTE Throughput Optimization. How to Optimization User KPIs in LTE
Consider checking corresponding counters

In order to check the throughput being effected due to each of the section. One recommendation
is to check the counters for each of the

section. The counters value, will tell you, how throughput is performing with respect to that
specific section of the network. Based on the

value , you can take respective action to mitigate the negative influence (if that’s the case)

Channel Quality Indicator CQI :

Look for CQI counters. I am not going to list counters here specifically. For Samsung, it will have
different counters compared to what Ericsson will have and same goes on for other vendors.

Throughput:
Look for Throughput counters for a specific vendor in Downlink and Uplink.

Counters such as which show , how much data is there in PDCP , or how much data
volume was accumulated in the last Transmission Time Interval (TTI) .

Also the counter which keeps track of how throughput is being estimated for the UE is
important to know.

Interference :
In Downlink (DL) ,

There are no counters at the UE side.

But the way we measure DL RF conditions is based on the following which measure interference
on the UE side.

For example, CQI distribution counters.

UE Rank Reporting distribution counters and Transmission rank distribution counters, will give
you RF information,

which will translate to interference condition at the DL UE side. .

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For Uplink (UL)

In this case check for Interference counters for Interference on :

PUCCH

PUSCH

SINR Distribution on PUCCH

SINR Distribution on PUSCH

For Block Error Rate (BLER)

In Downlink (DL):

For Downlink measure, you need to look for Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request (HARQ)
Acknowledgements and Negative acknowledgements counters for each modulation type such
as:

QPSK

16-QAM

64-QAM

Having information of these counters, can help identify BLER.

In Uplink (UL) :

For Uplink. Measure HARQ UL success and Failure for each modulation type in uplink such as:

16- QAM

QPSK

Using the above counters, you can identify BLER for UL case

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Scheduling:

For Downlink

In this case, look for counter which keeps track of UEs in Active mode at cell level. Also counters,
which keep track of UEs which are being scheduled in the DL.

For Uplink :

In this case, look for counter which keeps track of UEs in Active mode at cell level in Uplink. Also
counters, which keep track of UEs which are being scheduled in the UL.

Conclusion:
The above list is not exhaustive. However it gives the starting pointers in order to investigate
whenever you are faced with Throughput Optimization in LTE from Access Network perspective.

Still have Questions ? Speak Up your mind below in the comments.

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