LTE Optimization Principles

[RL60]
Module 03

Physical RF Optimization

1 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Module Objectives

• After completing this module, you will be able to:

• Describe how to detect interference by means of field mesurements
• Give an overview on interference and coverage issues via
performance measurement counters
• Explain the impact of interference on peak throughput
• Describe the relation of load and interference
• Discuss the importance of interference analysis for the overall network
performance

3 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

- Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

4 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – Indicators

• Three quantities
• SINR
• RSRQ
• RSRP
- Which one should be used for drive test analysis?

5 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – SINR

• SINR measurements can indicate interference areas, but it doesn’t necessarily see all
interference sources:
• Impacted by network load. Traffic in the neighboring cells will reduce serving cell
SINR.
• Depends on the measurement method (RS or SCH) and tool
• Depends on PCI planning (RS SINR)
• Results can be misleading!

6 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Detecting Interference – SINR

• Example: SSS-CINR + RS CINR versus top-N RSRP

7 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – RSRQ
• RSRQ depends on network load, including own cell load

8 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – RSRQ

• RSRQ depends on serving and neighbour cell load

• Fluctuates quickly
• Hence difficult to interpret results
• Similar to Ec/N0 in 3G

9 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – RSRP

• RSRP measurement with scanner is the most reliable way to detect areas with
possible interference problems and bad dominance
• Not impacted by network load
• RSRP measurement appears to be consistent between UEs/scanners
• The number of PCIs in e.g. 5 dB power window is a useful indicator
- A scanner with good dynamic range and PCI tracking capability needed

Bad dominance

10 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 SINR (worst case estimate) calculated from RSRP

• Measured with PCTel MX scanner in TD-LTE network

– RS-SINR, SCH-SINR, RSRP
• Calculated SINR is worst case estimate for SINR (i.e.100% neighbor cell load). In TD-LTE
it should be equal to SCH-SINR.

60

Calculated SINR goes very high

40
in the locations where no
neighbors are detected
20
Calculated SINR follows SCH-
SINR nicely in the most places
0
11:30:57

11:31:37

11:32:17

11:32:47

11:33:27

11:34:07

11:34:47

11:35:27

11:36:07

11:36:37

11:37:17

11:37:57

11:38:37

11:39:17

11:39:57

11:40:27
11:30:37
11:30:47

11:31:07
11:31:17
11:31:27

11:31:47
11:31:57
11:32:07

11:32:27
11:32:37

11:32:57
11:33:07
11:33:17

11:33:37
11:33:47
11:33:57

11:34:17
11:34:27
11:34:37

11:34:57
11:35:07
11:35:17

11:35:37
11:35:47
11:35:57

11:36:17
11:36:27

11:36:47
11:36:57
11:37:07

11:37:27
11:37:37
11:37:47

11:38:07
11:38:17
11:38:27

11:38:47
11:38:57
11:39:07

11:39:27
11:39:37
11:39:47

11:40:07
11:40:17

11:40:37
11:40:47
11:40:57
8:57:28
-20 Average of LTE_Scan_RS_CINR_SortedBy_RSRP_0
Average of LTE_Scan_SCH_CINR_SortedBy_RSRP_0
Average of Calc. SINR dB
Average of LTE_Scan_RSRP_SortedBy_RSRP_0
-40

Calculated SINR (worst case) =

-60 RSRP_serving/
(∑RSRP_others + Noise)
-80

[Noise figure 9dB]

-100
11 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

-120
Detecting Interference – Pilot pollution
Counting PCIs less than XdB RSRP difference

• From drive test with test terminal.

• Serving PCI vs. Top N PCIs
• Less than 5dB difference to the serving PCI can be considered a potential interferer.

• A common rule for antenna tilt optimization consideration: 3 or more PCIs inside 5dB
window.

12 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Detecting Interference – Summary

• Absolute SINR measurement values can’t be used as a reliable performance

indicator.
• Do not to blindly believe measured SINR values.
• Relative SINR changes can be used as performance indicator, if the same
measurement tool is used all the time.
• SINR measured from S-SCH and RS behaves differently depending on the
interference situation (intra/inter eNodeB).
• Detailed SINR measurement methods of the terminals and scanners are not known.
• The most robust and reliable measurement quantity seems to be RSRP

13 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

- Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

14 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Use Case

 A BTS or a group of BTSs is having bad KPIs

• Q: Is this because of bad coverage, UL/DL interference or both?

• How to analyze this from counters?

15 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Bad Downlink vs Good Downlink

• Example from Live Network

70000000

CQI = 14
60000000
Data
Sum of M8010C036 UE Reported CQI Level 00
Sum of M8010C037 UE Reported CQI Level 01
50000000
Sum of M8010C038 UE Reported CQI Level 02
Sum of M8010C039 UE Reported CQI Level 03
Good DL coverage Sum of M8010C040 UE Reported CQI Level 04
40000000 Sum of M8010C041 UE Reported CQI Level 05
Sum of M8010C042 UE Reported CQI Level 06
Sum of M8010C043 UE Reported CQI Level 07
Sum of M8010C044 UE Reported CQI Level 08
30000000 Sum of M8010C045 UE Reported CQI Level 09
Sum of M8010C046 UE Reported CQI Level 10
Fairly bad DL Sum of M8010C047 UE Reported CQI Level 11
coverage (or DL Sum of M8010C048 UE Reported CQI Level 12
20000000
interference) Sum of M8010C049 UE Reported CQI Level 13
Sum of M8010C050 UE Reported CQI Level 14
Sum of M8010C051 UE Reported CQI Level 15
10000000

Check CQI offset from

0
LTE_5432b E-UTRAN
100589 100953 Average CQI Offset
16 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0 BTS
Bad uplink vs good uplink
Data
500000 UE Power Headroom: Sum of M8005C054 UE Power Headroom for
-15dB <= PHR < -13dB. PUSCH Level 1

450000
UE Power Headroom: -- Sum of M8005C055 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 2
1dB <= PHR < +1dB.
Sum of M8005C056 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 3
400000 Open-loop UL
Sum of M8005C057 UE Power Headroom for
PC used PUSCH Level 4
Sum of M8005C058 UE Power Headroom for
350000
PUSCH Level 5
Sum of M8005C059 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 6
300000
Sum of M8005C060 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 7
250000 Sum of M8005C061 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 8
Sum of M8005C062 UE Power Headroom for
200000
Fairly good UL Fairly bad UL PUSCH Level 9
coverage coverage Sum of M8005C063 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 10
150000 Sum of M8005C064 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 11
Sum of M8005C065 UE Power Headroom for
100000 PUSCH Level 12
Sum of M8005C066 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 13
50000 Sum of M8005C067 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 14
Sum of M8005C068 UE Power Headroom for
0 PUSCH Level 15
100589 100953 Sum of M8005C069 UE Power Headroom for
17 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0 PUSCH Level 16
BTS Sum of M8005C070 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH Level 17
Presentation / Author / Date Sum of M8005C071 UE Power Headroom for
PUSCH SINR, PUSCH RSSI Measurement

• PUSCH RSSI and PUSCH SINR measurement can be used to detect UL coverage and UL
interference problems
• Interpretation of counter values depends on UL PC settings
• Measurements are not correlated

SINR

UL CL PC upper SINR thrshld

Ideally all
samples are in
this box
UL CL PC lower SINR thrshld

bad UL UL
coverage interference

RSSI

18 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

PUSCH SINR, PUSCH RSSI Measurement

• Noise rise impacts SINR versus RSSI

Interference drives
counter samples to
this region
19 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0
 PUSCH SINR, PUSCH RSSI measurement

• Impact of power control settings on PUSCH SINR

UL tx pwr too high, generates interference

UL tx pwr too high, generates interference

20 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 UL interference and noise rise

•PUSCH RSSI and SINR are measured only when there is UL traffic
•There are no dedicated counters for UL noise rise measurements.

Methods for UL noise rise detection:

Calculating UL noise rise from PUSCH RSSI and SINR counters.

- Definition, NR = (I+N)/N, N is thermal noise, I is interference
- Assumption: PUSCH signal power = PUSCH RSSI
- Calculation in linear: PUSCH_RSSI/PUSCH_SINR/N = PUSCH_RSSI/[PUSCH_RSSI / (I + N) ]/N =
(I+N)/N = NR

Measuring UL noise rise with TTI trace

- Interference power for PUSCH

21 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

UL external interference analysis with TTI trace

• TTI trace analysis can

be used to verify
impact of external
interference.

• TTI trace results are

matching to spectrum Fairly clean portion
Second dirty portion
Lower half-band has low of spectrum
analyser SINR and lot of HARQ of spectrum
NACK and DTX
measurements.

10MHz
constant power
narrow-band Bursty
interference interference over
lower half-band -86dBm
interference
power

22 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Bad coverage analysis from HO counters
M8015 - Neighbour cell HO measurements

• Visualize HO cell pairs with poor HO performance

• In the case of poor performance to all neighbors in one directions
 Coverage problems or unsuitable HO parameters (A3 offset)

Example: Cell pairs

with HO SR<80% &
HO Att>10 shown

23 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Content

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of physical RF
optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

24 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Overshooting cells

• Cells with too large or largely distributed dominance area.

• Will cause increased interference to other cells
• Can collect excessive amount of traffic.

• How to detect overshooting cells?

• Drive tests
• Analyzing HO performance and neighbor cell measurements from drive test logs.
• Counters
• Cell pair HO analysis with inter site distance information. Indicating HOs to cells with
long inter site distance.
• Timing Advance trace
• Cell Timing Advance trace analyzes to find long distance users.

25 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Overshooting cells analysis from HO counters
Optimizer - Visualize adjacencies and HO KPIs
• To find long distance cells pairs with HO attemps ->
overshooting cell detection.

26 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Overshooting cells analysis from HO counters
Other tools to analyse Neighbour cell HO counters

• M8015 - Neighbour cell HO measurements

• Visualize long distance HO cell pairs (e.g. >10km)

27 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

28 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

RF Peak Throughput under Neighbour Cell Interference

• Measuring peak MIMO dual-stream throughput in the field can be tricky because of
interference
• An idle cell produces common channel + RS interference to impact peak throughput
 need to find good interference-free measurement spot.

Inter-site cell border,

non-frame
synchronized cells

Intra-site cell
border,
frame-
synchronized
cells

29 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Impact on Peak Tput from Idle Neighbour Cell Interference

• Measurement example #1, Samsung terminal, 20MHz. Inter-site and intra-site

neighbour are unloaded (no PDSCH traffic)
PHY tput, CINR, RSRP
All neighbour cells
attenuated 50dB 120 -50

-60
100
Inter-site interference, Intra-site interference,
adjacent site cell about adjacent cell about 5
5 dB weaker RSRP than dB weaker RSRP -70
PHY tput Megabits/sec, CINR dB

serving cell than serving cell

80
-80
Data

RSRP dBm
Average of Phy DL TP(Mbps)
60 -90
Average of SCell-CINR
Average of SCell-RSRP
-100
40

-110

20
-120
Intra-site neighbour
frame-synced, no
0 -130
RS interference
06/11/2010 09:53:02.801 06/11/2010 09:54:45.317 06/11/2010 09:56:29.840 06/11/2010 09:58:14.347

30 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0 Time

All neighbour cells
attenuated 50dB
 Impact on Peak Tput from 100% Loaded Neighbour cell

• Measurement example #2, Samsung terminal, 20MHz. Unloaded and 100% loaded
inter-site neighbour PHY tput, CINR, RSRP
Neighbour site cell
120 attenuated
-50 50dB

neighbouring site cell in idle mode UDP download

100Mbps -60
100

Neighbour site cell -70

about 6 dB weaker
PHY tput Megabits/sec, CINR dB

80

-80
60 Data

RSRP dBm
Average of Phy DL TP(Mbps)
-90
Average of SCell-CINR
40 Average of SCell-RSRP
-100

20
-110

0
Typical SINR= 15-17
-120 dB at inter-site cell
10:02:00.821

10:02:52.385

10:03:42.892

10:04:33.398

10:05:23.905

10:06:14.411

10:07:04.918

10:07:54.924

10:08:45.430

10:09:36.436

10:10:27.444
06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010

06/11/2010
border, unloaded
Neighbour site cell neighbour.
-20 about 1 dB weaker -130

31 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Time
 TD-LTE: Impact of Idle Mode Interference on Tput
• UE FTP downloading in the middle of two sectors of the same site, RSRP from both cells ~ -70dBm
• First the second cell is off (rebooting), then comes on-air but no traffic carried (only common channels
transmitted)
Serv RSRP

34Mbps
tput

vs
Neighbour cell
15Mbps switched on
SINR

32 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

33 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Impact of PCImod3 Collision on Tput, TD-LTE

• Case: UE at the border of two cells who have the same PCImod3, RSRP from both cells =
-67dBm in both measurement cases (only PCI changed)
• NSN 7210 TD dongle, 2.6GHz, 10MHz bandwidth

16

14

12

10
tput, Mbps

no PCImod3 collision
8 PCImod3 collision
6

0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53
seconds

34 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

PCImod3 Collision Impact, 2.3GHz@20MHz, Qualcomm TD-LTE Dongle
Example

PCI= 88/90 PCI= 87/90 (mod3 collision)

RSRP = -97dBm RSRP=-101dBm
SINR = 12dB SINR=2dB

Tput = ~21Mbps Tput = ~15Mbps

35 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Tools for Parameter Planning

- NetAct Optimizer
• PCI planning
• PRACH planning
• UL DM RS sequence planning is a future feature candidate
- Atoll
• Automatic PCI planning supported
- Asset 7
• PCI planning
- Alpha (NSN-internal tool)
• PCI planning
• UL DM RS planning
- MUSA (NSN internal) - post processing
- Daisy (NSN-internal tool)
• PCI planning

36 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

37 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Optimizer- detecting PCI collisions

Confusion: cell’s neighbors or Collision: direct neighbors have the

neighbors’ neighbors have the same same PCI
PCI

38 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Visualizing the Collisions on Map

39 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Optimizer- detecting PCI violations

Violation types:
PCI reuse distance is too small
Group-wise allocation rule is violated
Forbidden PCIs were allocated
Frequency rule violated: the frequencies don’t use identical PCIs

40 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Minimum Reuse Distance settings

41 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Allocating New PCI Codes

New allocation: allocate totally new PCIs

according to the settings.
Fix collisions and violations: fix collisions
taking the settings into account. The collisions
are corrected only within the selected scope.

42 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Allocation Results
The new PCI values will be highlighted with blue color.

43 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

PCI reuse visualization

44 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

PCI code distribution histogram

45 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

46 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

RF Optimization

• Basic physical RF optimization is very important (of course..)

• Clear cell dominance areas, minimize cell overlapping
• Avoid sites shooting over large areas with other cells
• “Can’t fix bad RF by tuning parameters”

• Antenna tilting and antenna placement has big impact on other cell interference!!
• What is the impact on network performance?

47 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Impact of DL load, 0% vs. 70% DL load

•The same drive test route driven twice, with the same UE setup
- LTE819: DL Inter-cell Interference Generation to generate load
- 0% load versus 70% DL load
- Compare distribution of throughput and SINR, the same drive test route twice with and without load
- 20MHz OL-MIMO, FTP download, 1UE inside the car, Samsung BT-3710, UE-internal antennas
- average throughput is 58% better without interference
- Selection of drive test route strongly affects result, here only results for one drive test route
Empirical CDF Empirical CDF
1 1

0.9 0.9 70% OCNG

70% OCNG 0% OCNG
0.8 0.8
0% OCNG

0.7 0.7

0.6 0.6
CDF

CDF
0.5 Mean = 36Mbps 0.5

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3
Mean = 57Mbps
0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
48 © Nokia 2014 -throughput [Mbps]
RA47043EN60GLA0 SINR [dB]
Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

49 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 MIMO X-Feeder

Assuming:
• ANTL-1 and ANTL-7 are defined
active for sector 1
• ANTL-3 and ANTL-9 are defined
active for sector 2
• Then the configuration in the upper
picture is correct
• The configuration in the lower
picture is incorrect and results in
sectors overlapping with each other
 bad throughput due to
interference

50 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

MIMO x-feeder,
Example 1
Scanner Measurement

242 Sectors 241 and

242 equally strong
in area where 242
241
should dominate

51 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

MIMO X-Feeder
Example 2
Scanner Measurement

22
21
Site (PCIs=21,22)

PCIs

52 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

MIMO X-Feeder
Example 2, Scanner measurement
Corrected Feeders

21 22

PCIs Site (PCIs=21,22)

53 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Index

• Detecting interference using field measurements

- Detecting interference and bad coverage from counters
- Detecting overshooting cells
- Impact of interference on peak throughput
• idle/loaded other cell interference
• PCI collision impact in TD-LTE
- PCI optimization with Optimizer
- Impact of interference on LTE network performance – importance of
physical RF optimization
• Impact of network load
• MIMO X-feeders
• A trial example

54 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Antenna tilt tuning example (1/3)
A reference cluster in Korea

• Drive test measurements

• SINR before and after tilt tuning.

55 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Antenna tilt tuning example (2/3)
A reference cluster in Korea

• Drive test measurements

• CQI before and after tilt tuning.

56 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

 Antenna tilt tuning example (3/3)
A reference cluster in Korea

• Drive test measurements

• HO attempts before and after tilt tuning.

57 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

Summary

• Building good dominance is essential for network performance – also in LTE !!!
• “Can’t fix bad RF with parameters…”
• …except by fixing missing neighbours

58 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0

59 © Nokia 2014 - RA47043EN60GLA0