1

Introduction

GSM networks today are under mounting pressure to provide users with good quality communication equivalent to wireline networks while meeting increasing traffic load as a result of subscriber growth. In fact, many users use their phones as their main instrument for communication with friends, colleagues and clients. As networks complete their macrocellular layer, and are in the process of planning or rolling out a microcellular layer, subscriber growth continues unabated. If the network is to survive and satisfy its paying users, new solutions to capacity and quality have to be implemented immediately. In addition, any new capacity or quality solution should meet the following criteria: Increases Network Quality Increases Network Capacity Ease of Feature Rollout

Utilizes Existing Network Infrastructure The best feature available today that meets the mentioned criteria is frequency hopping. Frequency hopping until recently is an underutilized feature in most GSM networks worldwide. The lack of use is mainly due to not understanding the planning rules, or not appreciating the capacity increase that frequency hopping can bring to the network. In the past, most networks were able to handle growth because additional spectrum was available, and macrocell sites could still be added to handle new subscribers. So there was not a great amount of interest to use this inherent feature of GSM to add capacity to the network. Today Motorola has extensive experience in planning, implementing, and optimizing frequency hopping in networks throughout the world. In fact, frequency hopping in the upcoming years will be the norm in networks and not the curiosity that it was in the past.

2
2.1

GSM Basics
Speech Coding in GSM

The GSM speech coder breaks up human voice into 20ms blocks that are transmitted over eight consecutive TDMA frames. Speech data is divided into three different bit classes in the following manner: Class Ia: 50 bits Class Ib: 132 bits Class II: 78 bits Block + Convolution Coded Convolution Coded Unprotected (no additional coding)
260 bits Class 1a 50 bits Parity Class 1b 132 bits Class 2 78 bits Tail Bits 50 bits 3 132 bits 4

Convolutional Code 378 bits 78 bits

456 bits Diagonal Interleaving 57 bits Odd 57 bits Even 57 bits Odd

57 bits Even

57 bits Odd

57 bits Even

57 bits Odd

57 bits Even

8 consecutive TDMA burst over the Um air interface

To protect data further so that the speech coder can correct for lost air bursts, the bits are reordered through diagonal interleaving for transmission. After coding the total number of bits is equal to 456 bits. These 456 bits are divided into eight sub-blocks. These sub-blocks are divided into even numbered bits and odd numbered bits, four even and four odd. This process divides up the bits for transmission over the air interface and enables the coder to interpolate or fill in missing or corrupted bursts when reassembling received speech frames. A non-hopping call does benefit from coding and interleaving as the designers of the air interface intended since it is quite common to expect to lose air bursts in a real world radio environment. The problem for a non-hopping call is that speech bursts lost to signal fading or interference tend to corrupt too many consecutive air bursts. Since the call is tied to a single frequency, it does not have the ability to move to a better frequency unless a handover is triggered from sufficient interference or a stronger neighbor. In the case of a hopping call, signal fading and interference is combated by switching from a deficient frequency to better one. In this manner, the chance for a series of corrupted bursts from a poor frequency can be avoided by spreading the time between bad bursts on that frequency thus utilizing the benefit of interleaving and allowing the speech to be decoded into a good speech frame.

2.2
2.2.1

Error Measurement in GSM

Bit Error Rate (BER)
buffered 260 bits Convolutional (de)coder Decode buffered 456 bits

Re-code

Compare buffered 456 bits Re-coded data

Calculate BER

BER estimation in GSM. BER in GSM is calculated as shown in the above block diagram. The received frames are convolutionally decoded and recoded again to compare with the original received input. The resultant BER is calculated based on the difference. The following scale of BER is defined in GSM as RxQual: RxQual BER Range (%) Assigned BER (%) 0 < 0.2 0.14 1 0.2 0.4 0.28 2 0.4 0.8 0.57 3 0.8 1.6 1.13 4 1.6 3.2 2.26 5 3.2 6.4 4.53 6 6.4 12.8 9.05 7 > 12.8 18.1

2.2.2

Frame Erasure Rate (FER)

It is important to realise that the raw BER explained in the previous section is not a direct representation of perceived speech quality, although both BER and speech quality are loosely correlated. 2 calls having the same BER (RxQual) may present different speech quality to the listeners. This is quite evident considering the effect, on the speech quality, of a short but deep fading and a constant low BER. The average BER may be the same but the recovered speech will be different. Speech quality in a GSM network is directly related to the integrity of the recovered speech frames, after decoding and deinterleaving, which is measured by FER. GSM uses the speech coding algorithm as explained in section (???). Each Speech Frame is interleaved over 8 Traffic Channels (TCH) for Transmission. Resulting in an overall rate of one received speech frame over 4 consecutive Traffic Channels (TCH). TCHs are defined using a 26-frame multi-frame, which is about 120 ms. Out of the 26 frames, 24 are used

for traffic, one is used for the Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH) and one is unused. This is shown in the following figure.

120 ms
25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

unused

SACCH
TCH frame = { 0, 1,2,11, 13, 14,25 }

For a recovered speech block to be discarded or erased, either the CRC check on the convolutionally encoded Class 1 bits fail or the number of error bits in the whole block must exceed a certain level. Each TCH Multi-frame supports 6 speech frames. In each measurement report (480 ms) period there are 4 TCH multi-frames, so a total of 24 Speech frames are received during each measurement period. FER can be calculated from the recovered Speech Frames and is available for every measurement report period (480ms). FER has the range of 0 (best) to 24 (worst). Although FER is a better representation of speech quality, it is not included as part of the measurement report in GSM recommendations.

3
3.1

Frequency Hopping System

Some Basics

The MS/BTS operating in a frequency hopping system are able to Tx/Rx on different frequencies for every TDMA burst ( 577s). GSM recommendation defines the following parameters for a frequency hopping system and they are sent from the BTS to MS in the assignment messages during call setup.

Mobile Allocation (MA): This is the set of frequencies the mobile/BTS are allowed to hop over. Two time-slots on a same transceiver of a cell may be configured to operate on different MA. MA is the subset of the total allocated spectrum for the GSM operator and the maximum number of frequencies in a MA list is limited by GSM recommendation to 64. Mobile Allocation Index Offset (MAIO): This is an integer offset that determines which frequency within the MA will be the operating frequency. If there are N frequencies in the MA list, then MAIO = {0, 1, 2, N-1}. Hopping Sequence Number (HSN): This is an integer parameter that determines how the frequencies within the MA list are arranged. There are 64 HSN defined by GSM. HSN = 0 sets a cyclical hopping sequence where the frequencies within the MA list are repeated in a cyclical manner. HSN = 1 to 63 will provide pseudo random hopping sequence. The pseudo random pattern will repeat itself after every hyperframe, which is equal to 2,715,648 (26x51x2048) TDMA frames or about 3 hours 28 minutes and 54 seconds.

Motorola defines a Frequency Hopping Indicator (FHI) that is made up of the above three GSM defined parameters. Up to 4 different FHI can be defined for a cell in a Motorola BSS and every time-slot on a transceiver can be assigned one of the defined FHI, independently. The tables in Annex (B) shows the Mobile Allocation Index (MAI) of a frequency hopping system, for different HSN & MAIO settings. MAI is an integer that points to the frequency within a MA list, where MAI = 0 and MAI = N-1 being the lowest and highest frequencies in the MA list of N frequencies. MAI is a function of the TDMA frame number (FN), HSN & MAIO of a frequency Hopping System. The algorithm involved is documented in GSM 05.02 and it is included in Annex (A).

3.2

Frequency Hopping Implementation

There are 2 ways to implement frequency hopping at a BTS. Synthesiser Frequency Hopping (SFH) Baseband Frequency Hopping (BBH)

Please note that the above 2 methods only refer to the radio transmitter of a BTS. The output signals from these methods are exactly identical on the air-interface. The mobile station and the BTS radio receiver will always use the retune method, i.e. SFH.

3.2.1

SFH

The transceiver unit re-tunes to a different operating frequency set (Tx & Rx) on each TDMA burst ( 577s). The re-tuning will follow the sequence explained in the previous section. In theory, there is no restriction on the number of frequencies the transceiver unit can hop on. However, GSM specifications limit the total number to 64 frequencies for a SFH transceiver unit.

3.2.2

BBH

In this method, the transceiver unit will always transmit at an assigned frequency. Frequency hopping is done by switching the information frame of one call from one transceiver to another within a cell, per TDMA burst ( 577s). The switching of transceivers will follow the sequence defined in FHI, as explained in previous section. The resultant transmitted signal on the air-interface is identical to SFH. Please note that the uplink path will not use BBH and the transceiver on which the call is established will always receive the uplink signal from the MS. All the processing (e.g. coding, interleaving etc) will be carried out by this transceiver and the processed information will be routed to different transceivers for transmission.

MOTOROLA Supported features

The following section outlines how frequency-hopping systems are configured in a Motorola BSS with software load 1510 (GSR3) and beyond. These may only applicable in a Motorola BSS and have no direct equivalence in other suppliers equipment. Motorola offers friendly and highly flexible solutions in supporting Frequency Hopping System defined in ETSI GSM recommendations. Both SFH and BBH can be enabled at different sectors within the same site. All existing BSS hardware can be configured to support frequency hopping and all changes that are needed to configure a frequency hopping system can be carried out in dbase (soft) changes. The only exception is in BTS where a Remote Tuneable Cavity Combiner (RTC) is used and this limitation will be discussed in the coming section.

Motorola defines a Frequency Hopping Indicator (FHI) that specifies a frequency hopping system. Up to 4 (0 3) different FHI can be defined for a cell in a Motorola BSS dBase and every time-slot on a transceiver can be assigned one of the defined FHI, independently. Each FHI consists of the following parameters:

Hopping Support: defines the hopping system of a GSM cell, SFH or BBH. Mobile Allocation (MA): The hopping frequency list. Valid values are 1 63 in SFH and it must equal or less than the number of hopping carriers in BBH. (see section ??)

Hopping sequence number (HSN): Defines how the frequencies in the MA are hopped through. Valid values are 1 63. (see section ??) Each defined FHI can be modified on-line from the OMCR terminal or the BSC MMI without causing a reset to the affected sites. However, depending on the type of hopping system and parameters being changed, active calls on the affected transceiver carriers may be lost. For details of this operation, please refer to the associated technical manuals. MAIO of a transceiver carrier is defined by the ARFCN assigned to it during RTF equipage. Modification to the MAIO can be carried out by the command chg_rtf_freq, which changes the ARFCN of the affected transceiver carrier. Please refer to the associated technical manuals for the effect of this action to the BSS.

4.1

BBH

When a BBH carrier or time slot is activated or de-activated, other affected carriers or time slots (hop over its frequency) must be reconfigured to include or exclude a channel in the operating frequency list. Intra-cell handover will be attempted to move all the active calls on these time slots to unaffected time slots (e.g. non-hopping or MA list without this frequency) within the cell. Unsuccessful intra-cell handover (e.g no time slots available) will cause the calls to be cleared. In a BBH system, a parameter called hopping_ins_mode is used to determine whether a previously inactive carrier would be brought into service as hopping or not, outside of site initialization time (sysgen mode). The number of channels in a MA list must be equal or smaller than the number of BBH carriers in a cell. It is worth noting that the FHI assigned to a timeslot must be in accordance to the MA list of the FHI. For example: In a cell with 3 BBH carriers (namely, A, B & C) and MA = {f1, f2, f3} is defined in FHI 2. If FHI 2 is to be assigned to time slot 2 of carrier A, then time slot 2 of carrier B & C must also be assigned FHI 2, to make the system work.

4.2

SFH

If the BCCH frequency is included in the MA list, timeslot 1 to 7 of the BCCH carrier will not be able to carry traffic. This is an inherent limitation of SFH and it is recommended that BCCH frequencies should be excluded from the MA list whenever possible. SFH cannot be implemented at a cell that uses narrow-band Tx combiner (e.g. RTC -Remote Tunable Cavity Combiner). The reason is SFH requires the hopping carrier and associated Tx combiner to retune to a new frequency every TDMA burst ( 577s). Since RTC re-tuning involves mechanical movement, it is not possible to cope with the speed. As a result, only broadband combiner, e.g. hybrid combiner, can be used at a SFH cell.

4.3

Enhancement in Future Software Load (GSR4)

Below are the enhancements that are available in the coming software load (GSR4): Frequency Redefinition: this is a procedure defined in GSM-phase 2 that can change the properties of an active Frequency Hopping System, without affecting the active calls in a cell. Improved TCH Control: This feature provides the operator the flexibility of prioritizing the assignment of TCH in a frequency-hopping cell. A hopping or non-hopping carrier may be given different preferences in TCH assignment, depending on the operating RF environment of the cell. Explicit SDDH Control: This feature allows the operator to choose the explicit carrier for SDCCH allocation. It may be desirable to place all SDCCH on the BCCH carrier to maximize the performance of a hopping cell. Different Quality Thresholds: In a frequency hopping system, a call can withstand higher RxQual (BER) than a non-hopping system. As a result, a RxQual threshold, for imperative handovers, that is different from a non-hopping carrier will help to improve system performance.

How Frequency Hopping Improves Quality

Frequency Hopping can improve the radio air-interface quality of a cellular network in 2 ways: Frequency Diversity. Interference Averaging.

5.1

Frequency Diversity

Quality is improved in the network by using frequency hopping to alleviate the effects of frequency selective fading that is inherent in radio wave propagation in the GSM 900 band, and especially at frequencies in the GSM1800/1900 band where environmental factors have a great effect on the stability of radio signal levels. Fixed frequency carriers, non-hopping, experience natural signal fading in the radio environment. Generally, fading is not a great problem unless the mobile station is in an area of low signal strength (i.e. indoors or at cell boundaries), or is in an area of no dominant server. In this case, normal Rayleigh fading can cause disruptions to speech by inducing bit error that cannot be corrected, since the receiver is getting too many consecutive corrupted speech bursts over the air interface. In a GSM, once a speech call is allocated to a channel, voice is transmitted over 8 consecutive TDMA frames for every 20 ms of speech. If a speech call is placed on a fixed carrier, non-hopping, then the call is tied to the fading profile of that frequency. So as a call experiences a slow fade the BER becomes a problem and affects call quality. The GSM air interface is designed to handle some degree of BER to counteract a reasonable amount of air interface corruption in the mobile environment. The same call on a frequency hopping system is moving from frequency to frequency every 4.62 ms, and can take advantage of the different fading profiles of each frequency in the allocated hopping sequence. The greater the hopping frequencies are spaced, the greater the de-correlation between the fading profile of each frequency and the signal level. Field data shows that when calls are made on a hopping and on a non-hopping carrier, hopping calls have far greater signal stability. Frequency hopping averages out extremes in high signal levels and low signal levels. Field data of calls hopping over as little as four frequencies show a pyramid shaped graph of
20 30 18 25 16 14 20

P r o b

12

10

P r o b

15

(%)

(%)

10

0 0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63

0 0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63

RXLEV Range

RXLEV Range

Non Hopping System

Hopping System

receive signal level with more of the data points near the mean with a smaller standard deviation than the graph for a fixed frequency, non-hopping, call. These are shown in the figures below:

The following figures illustrate the effect of hopping over 2 frequencies.

Signal Level

Good Signal level

Deep fade

Fading Profile of F1

Threshold

Good frame Bad frame

Effect of deep fading to TDMA frames

F1 fading profile

F2 fading profile

F1 on air F2 on air

Good frame Bad frame

Effect of deep fading in a hopping system to the TDMA frames As can be observed, benefit of frequency diversity gained from frequency hopping is significant. Not only the total number of bad frames is reduced, more importantly the occurance of bad frames in consecutive order is reduced as well. This will improve the speech quality as the lost bits have higher probability to be recovered by the GSM decoding mechanism and hence a lower number of erased speech frames. (refer section 2.2.2 regarding FER)

5.2

Interference Averaging

Interference protection is probably the biggest improvement that comes as a result of implementing frequency hopping. Calls made on fixed frequency systems may suffer from interference, which has a good chance of not diminishing in the lifetime of a call unless the subscriber changes position, or the interfering channel is deactivated. Either co-channel or adjacent channel interference hits fixed frequency calls normally at the cell border. This type of interference is constant to the subscriber in the downlink direction. Usually, interference found at the cell boundary cannot be escaped from unless a handover is made to a clean frequency. To avoid interference on fixed frequency systems larger separation between reuse groups is used to lessen the chance of co-channel or adjacent channel interference from degrading call quality. The cost of loose reuse schemes to the network is capacity.

f f1

Cell A

Interference Interference !! f ff 1 1 f

Co-channel interference in non-hopping cells

Cell B

Cell A Idle time of Cell B Cell B Resultant frames of cell A

Good Frames Potential bad frames if C/I < 9dB

A hopping system distributes interference throughout within the hopping cells, instead of concentrating it in any particular area or bad spots. By sharing the channels continuously but not necessarily simultaneously, hopping has the effect of eliminating or smoothing the C/I extremes at very good and very bad spots. The spreading of interference creates interference diversity, which reduces the probability of any one mobile being interfered for long duration. Call quality is improved and the consistency of a GSM call is improved.

Fixed frequency 4X3 reuse plan

Frequency hopping 1X3 reuse plan

Low Interference Good Quality Prob RXQUAL

Dropped Calls 6/7 vs C/I

High Interference Very High Interference No service

30 25 20 15

Medium Interference Noisy Calls

Sequence of 3 freqs Sequence of 4 freqs C/I plots of fixed and hopping systems

Trial data from urban cities has found that frequency hopping clearly improves received quality as Sequence of 5 freqs 10 compared to a fixed frequency system when even one of three frequencies in a hopping sequence 5 + Fixed freq is interfered. The following figure illustrates this:
0 6 8 10 12 C/I dB 14 16

1 Freq. in the sequence affected by interference

How Frequency Hopping Enhances Network Capacity

In principle, implementation of frequency hopping system will not add extra capacity to the existing network. Frequency hopping when implemented will enable more aggressive frequency reuse pattern that leads to better spectrum efficiency. This enables the network operator to add more transceivers in existing sites while maintaining the network quality. In a congested network with fixed frequency plan, adding transceivers would mean compromising the carrier interference ratio (C/I), which may lead to unacceptable quality level that may eventually crash the network if pushed to the limit. Thus, frequency hopping is effectively compressing the available spectrum to make room for extra capacity, without degrading the average C/I as in a fixed frequency system. In a cellular network, there is always a tradeoff between capacity & quality. Maintaining the current capacity, implementing frequency hopping will improve overall quality. On the other hand, extra capacity could be added by implementing frequency hopping while maintaining the current quality. However, realizing maximum gains in both quality and capacity would not be achievable.

Capacity

Quality

Capacity

Capacity

Quality

Quality

Capacity

Quality

Non Hopping

Hopping

Hopping

Hopping

6.1

Frequency Plan

Frequency Planning is considered the most fundamental and important plan for any cellular system. Limited spectrum is available and frequencies have to be re-used. An optimised frequency re-use plan is crucial to the success of a cellular network in order to obtain maximum capacity from limited bandwidth.

6.2

Conventional re-use pattern

The most common conventional frequency plan of a cellular system is the 4X3 (3-sector 4-site) reuse plan. This means that the re-use pattern is repeated every four 3-sector sites or every 12 sectors, as shown in the below figure:

A A C B D B D F F G E G E IH J I H J L L K K

For example, an uniform 2-2-2 site configuration would require 4X3X2, 24 channels for the frequency plan. 4X3 re-use pattern is a good compromise between co-channel interference and capacity. The typical carrier Interference ratio (C/I) is calculated to be about 13.6dB, which is above GSM specified 9 dB.

6.3

Aggressive re-use in frequency hopping system

Re-use plan in a frequency hopping network is different and more aggressive than it is in a fixed frequency network. There are also some general differences between BBH and SFH system.

6.3.1

SFH

Most of the SFH networks employ 2 different re-use plan for the BCCH and TCH layers. Since the BCCH will not be hopping, conventional fixed frequency re-use plans such as 4X3 or 5X3 will be used. It is always a design goal to have a best BCCH layer, within the resource of the network. As for the TCH layer, the common methodology would be 1X3 (1 site 3-sector) re-use pattern. This is a much more efficient spectrum utilization, which is not possible in a fixed frequency system as the resultant C/I would be degraded badly beyond of the cell radius. An even more aggressive re-use plan 1X1 (1 site 1 sector) is feasible in networks where the operating environment permits it. 1X1 is by far the most efficient and yet practical aggressive re-use plan tested and proposed by Motorola. Nevertheless, careful planning has to be practiced to achieve good results. The guide lines are outlined in the next section.

A CB A CB

A A

A A

1X3 re-use

1X1 re-use

Loading Factor (or sometimes termed as Fractional load factor) is an important parameter in SFH systems. It is calculated a loading factor = (highest non BCCH transceiver count in a cell) (Number of hopping channels) Since the number of frequency channels is always higher than the transceiver count in a cell, some channels will be idle at one time. Thus, loading factor is equivalent to the maximum channeloccupancy to total-channel ratio in a cell at any given instant. The lower the value the lower is the channel loading, which indicates fewer collisions of frequencies and hence better quality. A theoretical maximum of 50% is permitted in 1X3 SFH. Any value higher than 50% practically results unacceptable quality. Some commonly used loading factor are 40%, 33%, 25% etc. In 1X1 SFH, a practical tested loading factor is 1/6 or 16.7%. For a rough comparison, this is about equivalent to a 33% loading in 1X3 SFH or a well-planned 4X3Xn fixed re-use network, as far as average quality is concerned. In terms of spectrum utilization or capacity, 1X1 at 16.6% loading is equivalent to 1X3 at 50% loading.

6.3.2

BBH

Different re-use patterns are employed in BBH systems. Since the number of hopping frequencies must equal or less than the number of transceivers in the cell, the quality gain of BBH is higher in the cells with higher transceiver count. As a result, a progressive re-use pattern is usually used. This is analogy to a layered cake with a loose BCCH plan at the base and progressively tighter plan for each subsequent transceiver added to the cell. For example: BCCH 4X3 plan 1st TCH 3X3 plan

2nd TCH 2X3 plan and so on Alternatively, a homogeneous re-use plan that is tighter than conventional 4X3 can be used. The widely used pattern would be homogeneous 3X3 re-use plan, which yields comparative results as in progressive re-use mentioned above.
2nd TCH (2X3) 1st TCH (3X3) BCCH (4X3) Progressive re-use 2nd TCH (3X3) 1st TCH (3X3) BCCH (3X3) Homogeneous re-use

6.3.3

Example in capacity gain

Take the case of an operator who has 7.2Mhz (or 36 GSM channels) of spectrum to use. The following table compares the network capacities for different frequency re-use plans.

Re-use plan Fixed frequency BBH SFH (37.5% loading) SFH (50% loading) SFH (16.7% loading)

Configuratio n 3-3-3 4-4-4

Capacity per site (Erlang) 44.7 65.7 65.7 87.6 87.6

Capacity gain over fixed plan 47% 47% 97% 97%

4X3 3X3 4X3 1X3 4X3 1X3 4X3 1X1 (BCCH) (TCH) (BCCH) (TCH) (BCCH) (TCH)

4-4-4 5-5-5 5-5-5

The above calculations are based on: Erlang B table at 2.0% blocking rate. 2 time-slots are used for control channels in each sector, for all re-use plans.

It is worth noting that above are theoretical figures that may be different in an actual network and the operating environment may restrict direct implementation of the mentioned re-use plan. Nevertheless, it serves as a good example in demonstrating the capacity gain with efficient spectrum usage.

Planning Guide

The ultimate goal of frequency planning in a GSM network is attaining and maintaining a highest possible C/I ratio every where within the network coverage area. A general requirement is at least 12dB C/I, allowing tolerance in signal fading above the 9dB specification of GSM. The actual plan of a real network is a function of its operating environment (geography, RF etc) and there is no universal textbook plan that suits every network. Nevertheless, some practical guide lines gathered from experience can help to reduce the planning cycle time.

7.1

Rules for SFH

As the BCCH carrier is not hopping, it is strongly recommended to separate bands for BCCH and TCH. This has the benefits of: Making planning simpler, Better control of interference.
n channels BCCH m channels TCH

Guard band

If micro cells are included in the frequency plan, the below band usage is suggested.

Macro BCCH Micro TCH

Micro BCCH

Macro TCH (SFH)

Practical rules for 1X3

BCCH re-use plan: 4X3 or 5X3, depending on the bandwidth available and operating environment. Divide the dedicated band for TCH into 3 groups with equal number of frequencies (N). These frequencies will be the ARFCN equipped in the MA list of a Hopping system (FHI). Use equal number of frequencies in all cells within the hopping area. The allocation of frequencies to each sector is recommended to be in a regular or continuous sequence. (see planning example) Number of frequencies (N) in each group is determined by the design loading factor (or carrier-to-frequency ratio). A theoretical maximum of 50% is permitted in 1X3 SFH. Any value higher than 50% would practically result unacceptable quality. Loading factor (sometimes termed as fractional load factor) represents the Some commonly used loading factor are 40%, 33%, 25% etc. As a general guide-line, N = (highest non BCCH transceiver count in a cell) (loading factor)

For example: mixture of 4-4-4 and 5-5-5 site configurations and loading factor of 33%. Then N = 5/(0.33) = 15 frequencies in the MA list. As loading factor has direct effect on the overall network quality and its setting is highly dependent on the RF environment, a smaller scale trial is recommended to obtain the necessary data and experience before larger scale deployment. As a general rule, SFH with 33% loading is equivalent to a well-planned 4X3 fixed frequency system.

Use same HSN for sectors within the same site. Use different HSN for different sites. This will help to randomize the co channel interference level between the sites. Use different MAIO to control adjacent channel interference between the sectors within a site.

The following example illustrates the above planning guide.

Bandwidth : 10 Mhz Site configuration : mixture of 2-2-2, 3-3-3 & 4-4-4. Loading factor : 33% Multi layer environment (micro & macro co-exist)

The spectrum is split as shown:

8 channels

Macro BCCH Micro TCH

Micro BCCH

Macro TCH (SFH)

12 channels

27 channels

A total of 49 channels are available and the 1st and last one are reserved as guard band. Thus, there are 47 usable channels. 12 channels are used in the BCCH layer with 4X3 re-use pattern. Based on 33% loading and 4-4-4 configuration, N is calculated as N = 3 / 0.33 = 9 hopping frequencies per cell. Thus, a total of 27 channels are required for the hopping TCH layer. The remaining 8 channels are used in the micro layer as BCCH. One of the possible frequency plan and parameter settings are outlined in the below table: ARFCN Sector A Sector B Sector C 21,24,27,30,33,36,39,42,45 22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46 23,26,29,32,35,38,41,44,47 HSN Any from {1,2,63} Same as above Same as above MAIO 0, 2, 4 1, 3, 5 0, 2, 4

The above MAIO setting will avoid all possible adjacent channel interference among sectors within the same site. The interference (co or adjacent channel) between sites will still exist but they are reduced by the randomization effect of the different HSN. (Annex B)
Practical rules for 1X1

1X1 is usually practical in rural area of low traffic density, where the average occupancy of the hopping frequencies is low. With careful planning, it can be used in high traffic area as well. BCCH re-use plan: 4X3 or 5X3, depending on the bandwidth available and operating environment. The allocation of TCH frequencies to each sector is recommended to be in a regular or continuos sequence. Use different HSN to reduce interference (co and adjacent channel) between the sites. Use same HSN for all carriers within a site and use MAIO to avoid adjacent and co-channel interference between the carriers. Repeated or adjacent MAIO are not to be used within the same site to avoid co-channel and adjacent channel interference respectively. Maximum loading factor of 1/6 or 16.7% is inherent in a continuous sequence of frequency allocation. Since adjacent MAIO is restricted, the maximum number of MAIO permitted would be:

Max MAIO = x (Total allocated channel)

In a 3-cell site configuration, the logical maximum loading factor would be 1/6 or 16.7%.
Different MAIO to avoid co-channel HSN = 1

HSN = 1

HSN = 1

Non adjacent MAIO to avoid adjacent-channel

7.2

Rules for BBH

All the rules outlined for SFH are generally applicable in BBH. As the BCCH is in the hopping frequency list, a dedicated band separated from TCH may not be essential. An example of spectrum allocation is shown below:
Micro BCCH

BBH channels & micro TCH

Optimisation

Any major modifications made in a cellular network are initially accompanied by performance change. Implementing frequency hopping in a planned and optimized network would certainly shift its overall performance, usually away from the better side. This is why post implementation optimization is always crucial and important. There are several means of measuring the network performance and comparing them before and after implementation: OMCR statistics include key, cell level and carrier/time-slot statistics.

Drive test drive around the test area and monitor the RF environment with a test phone. Call tracing trace every nth call in a cell or BSS and process the result with analyzing software tools. Speech quality assess the received speech quality with subjective scores.

8.1
8.1.1

Performance Monitoring
OMCR statistics

The following table summarizes the important statistics for general performance measurements. Statistics that are not listed may be used to calculate other performance parameters.

Statistics Group Key

Cell Carrier/Time-slot

Statistics name RF_LOSS_RATE TCH_RF_LOSS_RATE SDCCH_RF_LOSS_RATE HANDOVER_SUCCESS_RAT E HANDOVER_FAILURE_RATE TCH_ASSIGN_SUCCESS_RA TE OUT_HO_CAUSE_ATMPT INTF_ON_IDLE BER

To monitor RF Losses RF Losses RF Losses Handover Handover TCH assignment Handover cause Interference Interference

8.1.2

Drive Test

Drive test the test area before and after frequency hopping implementation to compare the results. The routes have to be defined and followed in both cases for consistency. A test phone with file logging capability is essential. Ericsoft TEMS is the most accepted industrial standard and is strongly recommended. Using GPS for location logging is an added advantage and further analysis with propagation tools (e.g. NetPlan) is possible. Downlink RF characteristics (e.g. RxLev, RxQual, FER, MS_Tx_pwr etc) and call related parameters (e.g. Handover, call-setup etc) along the drive-test routes are logged to files and available for post drive analysis. Obvious observations such as poor voice quality, high BER, dropped calls, handover failures etc should be noted during the drive and file marks should be inserted accordingly.