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Analysis Guide
August 2009
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The content of this manual is provided for information only, is subject to change without
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responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that appear in this documentation.
Copyright © Actix 2009. All rights reserved. All trademarks are hereby acknowledged.
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Contents
1 INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................4
COMBINING DATA FILES ............................................................................................ 5
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1 Introduction
This document describes methods for analyzing GSM and GPRS log file data. It assumes
that you have already installed, licensed and configured your Analyzer system as described
in the documents Actix Software Installation Guide and the Getting Started Guide.
Analyzer supports the following performance data sources for a wide variety of test
equipment vendors:
IP and Application Layer performance data are supported for IP sniffers: powerful data
collection software for recording messaging, events and statistics from IP links, as well as
for vendor-specific data sets, typically integrated with drive-test hardware solutions.
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When the process is complete, the superstream is displayed in the Workspace Explorer,
and may now be examined using the usual Analyzer data displays (for example, maps,
charts, tables, analysis reports).
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The starting point for the Quality of Service Verification and Troubleshooting tasks are the
modules:
The summary view for an analysis—called the Cell Explorer—shows a statistical summary
of the data and an appropriate set of reports. The data can be broken down by a key
dimension, such as "cell", displaying a number of pertinent statistics for each value of the
key dimension that appears in the data, allowing you to focus quickly on only those
portions of the data that are of interest (for example the cells with the highest BLER, as
shown below).
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The Cell Explorer, showing the upper filtering and data display, and the lower report selection panel
The dimension (cells) can be sorted by ascending or descending values of a parameter (for
example DL RLC throughput), by clicking on the title of the column.
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By selecting a subset of the rows in the Cell Explorer before choosing to run a report, you
can filter the data in the reports to include only data for the selected values of the key
dimension (as shown below).
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MM Attach Detach
Other MM Procedures
PDP Context
AA PDP Context
Other SM Info
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used to modify the QoS provisioned to the subscribers and negotiated between the
MS and the SGSN)
For the meaning of "loss", refer to the first report and to the notes below the tables.
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In particular, the NSAPI and SAPI (requested and negotiated, used by the SNDCP and LLC
layers to manage the QoS) and the QoS classes (requested by the MS and obtained after
negotiation with the SGSN) are shown.
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When QoS management is implemented, these statistics will be key in verifying the correct
dimensioning of the network to support the subscribed QoS profiles (the QoS modification
will be particularly interesting).
The same parameters for the radio interface (Radio Priority) are presented.
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The duration of the TCP transfers in milliseconds (the single sessions and the total)
The mean and maximum end-to-end round trip time (calculated as the time
between the transmission of an Uplink TCP packet and the time of the reception of
the acknowledge) in milliseconds.
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It is important to note that coding scheme 1 is used for signaling, while coding scheme 2 is
preferably used by the allocation algorithms to give higher throughput values, especially in
good radio conditions. Some vendors use dynamic algorithms to move from CS1 to CS2
depending on the radio conditions, while others have a fixed CS2 allocation. In this last
case, CS1 is only given by the signaling traffic.
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The distribution (vertical bars) and cumulative distribution function or total (dotted
line) of the samples of C value (signal strength)
The distribution (vertical bars) and CDF (dotted line) of the samples of the
received quality
C Value Distribution and Statistics from example Level and Quality report
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Downlink RLC and LLC Throughput from an example RLC and LLC Throughput Stats report
Uplink RLC and LLC Throughput from an example RLC and LLC Throughput Stats report
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The distributions of the throughput values—the bars indicate the number of occurrences—
are useful for studying the nature of the traffic supported. FTP traffic will have a profile
similar to that shown below with a throughput concentrated in the higher intervals, while
the profile generated by web browsing will be more scattered on the different values, given
the less regular pattern of the application level. Accordingly, the Uplink throughput values
of an FTP download will be concentrated on low intervals, given by the acknowledge
messages.
Downlink LLC and RLC Throughput Distribution from an example RLC and LLC Throughput Stats report
Uplink LLC and RLC Throughput Distribution from an example RLC and LLC Throughput Stats report
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Mean DL Throughput from an example RLC and LLC Throughput per TBF report
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DL statistics from an example RLC and LLC Throughput per TBF report
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RxLev: the level is considered sufficient if greater than or equal to –85 dBm.
Server Dominance: the serving cell is considered dominant if there are less than
three neighbors within 5 dB from the server.
Based on these criteria the report calculates the percentage where a good design is shown.
"Good design" is defined to be the condition where all three criteria are met. When at least
one criterion fails, this is classified as bad design.
After the display showing the percentage of good design, details on the sources of
problems are shown. Combining the information, a diagnosis can be performed (for
example, all points where the level is considered good and the quality is not acceptable
may be classified as points of interference).
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The statistical distribution of these elements allows engineers to assess the overall quality
of the radio conditions on the test route.
Peaks in the distribution of level and quality measurements may already give some
indications about particular problems or specific network settings related to power control
or interference.
Timing advance distribution helps in identifying average serving distance (the distance to
the BTS serving the test mobile) and can eventually indicate abnormally distant
connections.
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The number of neighbors that are within a 5 dB range from the serving cell receive level
(including, of course, any neighbor for which the level would be above the server) are
counted, giving indicator of the server dominance in each point of the test route.
Typically, one or two neighbors within this range may be considered a "sane" situation.
More than two from the server typically indicates that there is no clear dominant server
cell in the area; therefore this is a potentially risky area, subject to interference.
Two different reports have been designed to take into consideration the case of single-
band networks and dual-band networks. In the latter case, the general approach is very
similar to the single band but the count of neighbors within 5 dB from the server no longer
makes sense, since the 1800 layer will usually be at a level lower than the 900 layer. So
the analysis counts only those neighbors within 5 dB in the same band.
HO Quality report
When evaluating the quality of the handover procedures in a network , the classic indicator
is the handover success rate. This is based on a ratio between Handover Command and
Handover Complete signaling messages.
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To gain a better view of the efficiency and appropriateness of the handover procedures, we
need to compare the quality of the radio link before and after the handover. The time
window is five seconds before and after the handover.
A statistical comparative analysis of these average values indicates if the handovers
effectively improve the quality of the radio links. In fact, under normal conditions, the
quality after a handover should improve. This is visualized on a graph with:
HO Level report
An interesting indicator in analyzing handover settings along a drive test route is the level
difference between the source cell and the target cell. The distribution of the level is shown
in the graphic (again the time window is five seconds before and after the handover).
The resulting dominant value should correspond to the handover margin defined in the
handover-algorithm parameter settings.
HO Interval report
Measuring the time elapsed between two consecutive handovers is a good indicator of both
the quality of the handover settings and the quality of the network design. Too many
handovers at very short intervals will inevitably influence the quality of the
communications as perceived by users. There is always some loss of speech information
during a handover.
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HO Classification report
Besides the quality difference, level difference and handover intervals described above, a
fast and efficient analysis process is to classify handovers based on their type.
Unfortunately, the cause value for which the handover was triggered—which is the ideal
indicator in this type of analysis—is only available on the A interface in the network
structure.
It is, however, possible to produce similar results to those obtained from A-interface HO
analysis. The handover types can be computed from a combination of parameters, on
which a statistical analysis is then run in a second step.
Handovers can be classified according to the average value of the following parameters or
indicators, in a window corresponding to the averaging window set in the handover
algorithm parameterization:
Average level is sufficient to guarantee the stability and quality of the call (in the
report: greater than or equal to –92 dBm)
Level difference between server and target cell exceeds a reasonable handover
margin (in the report: greater than 6 dB)
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In a classical Power Control setting, power will always be at a maximum at call setup or
after a handover. Only after sufficient measurement reports have been received by the
BTS will the power be adjusted down to the adequate level. So, a normal statistical
distribution would show the highest power levels as dominant. The distribution should
decrease until the lowest level is attained, as all intermediate levels are necessary steps to
reach a stable state.
Note that some equipment manufacturers propose specific settings or algorithms to
optimize the power level during handovers. The influence of these algorithms and their
efficiency can be visualized on the MS Tx Power distribution plot, since not all intermediate
steps are used to reach a stable power level in this case. So, the distribution will not be
regularly decreasing towards lower Tx power levels, but will present gaps. These will be
more or less visible, depending on the environment—urban with low Tx levels, or rural with
higher Tx levels.
From the total power samples, it is possible to compute the average transmit power for the
entire drive-test route. This is a good indicator of the general design and behavior of the
network. It is also a perfect indicator for competitive benchmarking, as the average power
level directly influences the MS battery life.
In dual-band networks, transmit power values in the 900 band and in the 1800 band can
easily be separated. In fact, all 900-band power values are odd values, while 1800-band
power values are even values. It is therefore very easy to compare results from the tow
bands, or alternatively, to analyze them separately.
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The statistical distribution of these intervals should clearly show a peak corresponding to
the interval value defined in the parameter settings. Smaller values are usually related to
handovers, while bigger values indicate that the power has been stabilized. The latter is a
good indication of the proper tuning of the Power Control algorithm, but also gives a view
on the dynamics of the radio link. A drive test at low speed in an area of good coverage
will show the occurrence of longer intervals, while for a high-speed drive test along a
highway, the power will almost never stabilize.
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4 Combined analysis
User applications, IP protocols and radio link
A complete set of indicators is available for the analysis of user applications (http, WAP, e-
mail, FTP, etc.) and the protocols (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc. on top of IP). These let you
investigate the user perception of the quality of the offered services.
You can build specific queries and reports to combine the performances with the radio link
status.
From the drive test files you can obtain the following attributes (the actual number of
available attributes will depend on the collection device):
Measurements Attributes
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Measurements Attributes
For TCP TCP port number (source and destination: it allows the
identification of the application)
TCP connection establishment
TCP connection closure
TCP connection establishment abort
TCP retransmissions
TCP transmissions timeout
Session Payload Length
Acknowledges
Time with no acknowledge
TCP Session duration
…and others.
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While investigating the data, users can also benefit from the complete set of
internal tools and features provided with Analyzer, such as:
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Example 1
Operators are focused on verifying the service as perceived by the subscribers. To do that,
it is necessary to identify the services used and evaluate the user perceived performance
indicators (typically throughput and delay).
It is possible to use predefined queries (provided during the training courses) that give the
overall view of the single tasks (FTP sessions in this case):
The proposed drive test shows a connection (result of the PdP Context Activation), and
then a ping is performed. The ping—although not a user application—is often used to
provide an indication of the minimum delay that the network can support.
The actual service used is an FTP download and upload of 30K and 15K. The throughput
results are generally good: around 30 kbps using 3 timeslots (see below).
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Only one task (row 6, highlighted in the previous screenshot) is not showing a
performance in line with the others, and should be investigated in more detail.
The following chart enables us to visualize the content of the complete drive test, and
shows the user-perceived metrics (application throughput and delay), combined with the
corresponding network parameters (LLC and RLC throughput):
Again, task number 6 shows a throughput discontinuity, responsible for the overall low
throughput.
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We can now investigate to see if radio events like cell reselection are responsible for the
throughput degradation. In the screenshot below, the DL TBF number (TFI) is displayed
and shows a regular pattern.
The cell reselection has an impact on the next task but not on number 6. We can focus on
the task filtering it by selecting the task in the Statistics Explorer and clicking the Filter
button:
Filtering a task
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Looking at the DT GPRS Radio link performance analysis module (see below) it is clear that
one of the two cells driven during that task (automatically everything has been filtered in
accordance to it) has a quality problem (mean Rx Quality = 3 with mean C-value of –61
dBm):
To make this more explicit, the report on the level and quality can be run on that cell. The
interference analysis graph shows what is clearly an interference problem:
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The result of the analysis is, therefore, that the application is showing a good performance,
but a specific cell is showing interference. This can be eliminated, for instance by revising
the frequency plan.
Example 2
This example focuses on studying the throughput on the different layers (application, TCP,
IP and RLC), using the information from the drive test combined with the IP sniffer data.
The first step is to display a summary with a query in the Statistics Explorer:
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The task type (i.e. application in use) is obtained using the TCP source port number (that
indicates the type of application that is generating the downlink traffic) and ICMP type
(some pings are occurring between the FTP downloads).
The focus is on the first FTP session, filtering it and using the reports of the radio link
module. The radio performance is good: level and quality, RLC and LLC throughput,
timeslot allocation is 3 TS all the time, the CS used is CS2 92% of the time. However, the
throughput is not maintained at the maximum all the time—this is unexpected since FTP is
used and 3 timeslots are constantly allocated.
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Cell Explorer filtered on the first task: level and quality are very good
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If there is no radio problem, let us raise the analysis to the higher layers, displaying the
attribute TCP_Data_Pending_AckDL (indicates the total bytes with an acknowledgement
pending indownlink), and TCP_Network_Bytes_Acknowledged (indicates the total bytes
acknowledged from every acknowledgement message):
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The red ellipse above corresponds to the red square shown below. They show that the
packets in downlink are no longer acknowledged, and the pending bytes accumulate until
they reach the size of the TCP receiving window (equal to 16072 bytes). At that point, the
receiving buffer is full and the packets would be discarded, so the transmission is stopped.
In fact, the throughput goes to zero.
The figure below shows that the packets are received on the PC COM port (the sequence
number continues to be incremented) but the corresponding acknowledgements do not
(the uplink packets maintain the same acknowledgement number): the FTP application on
the PC is probably causing this. When it is able to send the updated acknowledge, the
transmission restarts.
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Also in the rest of the session there are other events like this, but they have a smaller
effect on the throughput because the receiving window does not saturate again (the
acknowledge restart before the pending bytes reach the window size).
So, in this example, an application problem was found in that the FTP client on the PC was
not able to process all the received data.
In case we want to analyze other tasks, we would need to go back to the old query and
disable the filter on task number 1, select another task and repeat the analysis.
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