Actix Spotlight Training Manual

Spotlight Training Course UMTS and GSM Actix Training Services Edition B

Comment [sf1]: If you can see this, Instructor Guide comments are visible throughout the document! To hide, from the Reviewing toolbar, select Final instead of Final Showing Markup

All contents of this document are the property of Actix and are provided for information purposes only. The information in this document is subject to change without notice. Actix will not be held liable for technical or editorial omissions made herein, and will not be held liable for incidental, consequential or other similar damages resulting from the use of its products. Copyright © Actix 2006. All Rights Reserved

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 2

Contents AIMS OF THE COURSE .............................................................................................................................................................. 5

SOLVING COMMON NETWORK PROBLEMS WITH SPOTLIGHT ........................................................ 6 ACTIX SPOTLIGHT FEATURES ................................................................................................................................................. 7 WHAT’S IN SPOTLIGHT?.......................................................................................................................................................... 8

NEW PROJECT AND TEMPLATE CREATION ................................................................................. 9 CREATING NEW PROJECT TEMPLATE ..................................................................................................................................... 10 NEW PROJECT CREATION (USING A PRE-DEFINED TEMPLATE): ................................................................................................. 11 EXERCISE: NEW TEMPLATE CONFIGURATION .......................................................................................................................... 14

UMTS SUMMARY DASHBOARD ............................................................................................... 19 UMTS SPOTLIGHT REPORTS .................................................................................................. 20 EVENT EXPLORER .................................................................................................................. 25 ADDITIONAL FEATURES ......................................................................................................................................................... 28 DETAILED EVENT DIAGNOSTICS ............................................................................................................................................. 30 DRILLDOWN .......................................................................................................................................................................... 31 EXERCISE: DROP CALL ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................................... 32

RADIO NETWORK ANALYSES .................................................................................................. 33 CELL COVERAGE ANALYSES .................................................................................................................................................. 34 RADIO NETWORK EXPLORER INTERFACE ................................................................................................................................ 35 EXERCISE: CELL COVERAGE ANALYSIS USING HANDSET DATA................................................................................................ 37 EXAMPLE: MISSING NEIGHBORS ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................................. 40 ADDITIONAL FEATURES FOR 3G NEIGHBOR ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................. 46 EXERCISE: 3G-2G MISSING NEIGHBORS ANALYSIS................................................................................................................. 51 EXAMPLE: PILOT POLLUTION ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................................. 56 ADDITIONAL FEATURES FOR PILOT POLLUTION ANALYSIS ........................................................................................................ 58 EXERCISE: PILOT POLLUTION ANALYSIS USING SCANNER DATA .............................................................................................. 59

GSM SUMMARY DASHBOARD ................................................................................................. 63 GSM SPOTLIGHT REPORTS .................................................................................................... 64 EVENT EXPLORER .................................................................................................................. 69 ADDITIONAL FEATURES ......................................................................................................................................................... 72 DETAILED EVENT DIAGNOSTICS ............................................................................................................................................. 74 DRILLDOWN .......................................................................................................................................................................... 75 EXERCISE: DROP CALL ANALYSIS .......................................................................................................................................... 76

RADIO NETWORK ANALYSES .................................................................................................. 77 CELL COVERAGE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................................... 78 RADIO NETWORK EXPLORER INTERFACE ................................................................................................................................ 79 ADDITIONAL FEATURES ......................................................................................................................................................... 81 EXERCISE: NO DOMINANCE ................................................................................................................................................... 84

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 3

EXERCISE: GSM VISUALIZATION ............................................................................................................................................ 88

APPENDIX A: UMTS THRESHOLDS.......................................................................................... 90 SPORTLIGHT THRESHOLDS .................................................................................................................................................... 90 UMTS THRESHOLDS............................................................................................................................................................. 90

APPENDIX B: DATA SETTINGS FOR NEIGHBOR ANALYSIS (UMTS) ........................................... 95 APPENDIX C: UMTS EVENT DIAGNOSES ................................................................................. 97 APPENDIX D: GSM THRESHOLDS ......................................................................................... 106 SPORTLIGHT THRESHOLDS .................................................................................................................................................. 106 GSM SPOTLIGHT THRESHOLDS ........................................................................................................................................... 106

APPENDIX E: GSM DIAGNOSIS ............................................................................................. 110 APPENDIX F: GSM VISUALIZATION........................................................................................ 117 MYACTIX AND SUPPORT ....................................................................................................... 121

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 4

Aims of the course After this course, you should be able to: •

Appreciate common network problems and how they are classified in Spotlight.

•

Configure Spotlight to work with your data and methodologies.

•

Appreciate pre-defined Spotlight Reports.

•

Appreciate different analyses methods (Event Based and Radio Network Analyses) in Spotlight.

•

Use Spotlight to analyze problems in data sets of differing sizes.

•

Appreciate the role thresholds perform in Spotlight and how to modify them.

From the Repository Analysis - Drilldown, you should be able to: •

Add extra data during the analysis.

•

Save the project file.

•

Create and save your own template for your project.

•

Start Spotlight and reload the project file.

•

Drilldown problem by File or Time to message level with or without loading the whole file.

•

Perform different analyses based on handset and scanner data.

•

Perform 3G-2G Neighbor Analysis.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 5

Solving common network problems with Spotlight With the Seek-See-Solve approach, Spotlight is designed to allow you to follow your own investigations throughout the various analysis pages and reports. However, a typical path through Spotlight is to start from the Summary Dashboard, examine the summary map and then the appropriate report for the loaded data, which might indicate the presence of one or more problems. Spotlight breaks these problems down into two groups: critical issues, where an event has occurred that discontinued a call, and important issues, where the quality of service has been reduced without necessarily ending any calls.

Cell coverage, interference problems and UMTS/GSM visualization can be investigated from the Radio Network Explorer analyses (links to these are shown as Important Issues in the Issues panel of the Summary Dashboard). These then point you at specific problem events which you can examine and diagnose using the Event Explorer (links to these are shown as Critical Issues in the Issues panel). UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 6

Actix Spotlight Features The following Actix Spotlight features are available for UMTS and GSM:

Radio Network Analyses Cell Coverage Analysis (based on Scanner/Handset data) Determines the coverage footprint of cells and identifies overshoot against coverage design boundaries. Missing Neighbors Analysis (3G-3G, 3G-2G) Pilot Pollution Analysis (based on Scanner/Handset data)

Event-based troubleshooting Automated root-cause diagnostics for the most common subscriber problems such as dropped calls and call setup failure.

Reporting Integrated, professional-quality reports including embedded maps.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 7

What’s in Spotlight? New Project and Template Creation Provides a link to the new template configuration wizard or allows a user to create a new project using an existing template. New Template Configuration Wizard Step by step wizard that guides the user to configure a new template with required devices, KPIs, reports, queries and so on. Data Configuration Step by step wizard that guides the user to configure thresholds and cellrefs and also select data to process into the repository. Summary Dashboard From the Repository Dashboard, the user can choose to further investigate and perform either Event based or Radio Network analyses. Spotlight Report(s) Identifies critical and important issues, and provides links to summary statistics of the loaded data files. Event Investigation/Analyses Provides a breakdown of the critical and important issues by filename and handset identifier. These tabular pages are reached through links on the Summary Dashboard. Radio Network Investigation/Analyses Provides a breakdown of the important issues by filename and handset identifier. These tabular pages are reached through links on the Summary Dashboard.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 8

New Project and Template Creation To create new project, click on New Project.

Comment [sf2]: Normally, if you prefer not to use Spotlight, you can always use the “legacy” Analyzer Classic link. But this is not recommended since the whole point of Spotlight , is not using Analyzer to drill down. Comment [sf3]: Upon launch of the Actix software, the ‘Choose an Engineering Process’ dialog shows all the Engineering Processes that you are licensed to use, and so a user's software may display other processes to those shown here. Comment [sf4]: To start a new project, click on “New Project”, otherwise you can either “Open” or “Delete” an existing project (if you have one). If you prefer to start with Analyzer Classic, click on “Classic mode”

To open an existing project, click on Open.

To start Analyzer Classic, click on Classic Mode.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

To delete an existing project, click on Delete.

Spotlight Training Course • 9

Creating New Project Template Spotlight project templates define KPIs, reports and attributes, which are available within a Spotlight project, and how the data is to be stored in the repository. It is important to configure a project template correctly because it controls not only what analysis is available, but also how the data is organized, and this can affect the validity of the analysis. In addition, the way you configure the project template can affect the performance of the projects that are based on it. For example, if you include KPIs and reports that are not relevant, performance may be slower than necessary, particularly when creating the project and loading data into it, but also when subsequently closing and reloading it. Although Spotlight is based on the Repository technology, project templates are not the same as repository templates. When you create a project template using Spotlight's New Template option, Spotlight also generates a repository template based on the KPIs and other options that are selected. During this process Spotlight uses a default repository template that is supplied with Spotlight.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 10

New Project Creation (using a pre-defined template): You can use the default repository template or an existing custom-defined template by starting a new Spotlight project on the Creating a New ProjectÆ Step 1: Name and Template page, click on New Template. Follow the instructions and configure your template by following the three simple steps as below: Step 1: Name and Template Step 2: Preferences and Thresholds Step 3: Choose Data

Step 1: Name and Template 1. Key in a meaningful project name.

2. Select a suitable pre-defined template.

If you prefer to create your own template, click on New Template.

3. Click Next to continue to configure your settings.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 11

Step 2: Preferences and Thresholds Preferences settings provide a link to the Actix Software preferences dialog. Spotlight is a map-centric product. So, it is necessary to have a valid cellrefs file corresponding to the drive test data. Thresholds (See Appendix A for all UMTS Spotlight thresholds information) are user-definable values that can be used as constants in event detection and queries. Choose the correct cellrefs file for Actix Spotlight to refer to.

This opens the Preferences dialog. Select a cellrefs file if you have not already done so.

Click Next when you are done with your configuration.

3. This opens the Thresholds dialog. You do not need to make any changes here yet, but click the button to have a quick look at the dialog.

If you have selected a new cellrefs file, you will need to restart the Spotlight application and return to this point.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

See Appendix A for all thresholds details.

Spotlight Training Course • 12

Comment [sf5]: All thresholds used in UMTS Spotlight are provided in an Appendix to this document.

Step 3: Choose Data Choose the data file(s) you would like to load by clicking on Add File.

You can also add the entire folder by clicking on Add Folder and/or Add all subfolders.

Click on Done to load your data files.

All file information is displayed. You can either add more files, more folders or remove files. Comment [sf6]: The project will be saved to this folder: \Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Actix\Analyzer\Projects (depending on your current Windows user settings). For best use, aim for at least 1GB free disk space per project. Spotlight support max populated data volume: 3Gb

Click on Done to begin your troubleshooting. Actix Software will first save the Settings and Thresholds as part of the project. The progress bar for data processing will appear and this will give you an idea of how long it will take.

Note: The entire process of loading data is dependent on the volume of data to be loaded into the project. However, once the data has been loaded into the Repository, it can be reattached very quickly.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 13

Exercise: New Template Configuration Start a new Spotlight project and on the Creating a New Project Æ Step 1: Name and Tempalte page, click on New Template. You then need to fill out options on four pages as follows: Step 1: Choose Name and Starting Template Step 2: Choose Devices Step 3: Choose KPIs and Reports Step 4: Choose Attributes

In this exercise, you will be creating your own UMTS Template and define all the related devices (handset and/or scanner if you have them), KPIs, Reports, Queries and Attributes. Let’s start by creating a template as shown below:

Step 1: Choose Name and Starting Template

1. Key in a meaningful Project Name.

2. Click on New Template to create your template.

3. Key in a meaningful Template Name for easy access in the future.

4. Choose a template you would like to base the project on by clicking on Based on Template. 5. Click Next to start to create your template. UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 14

Step 2: Choose Devices By default, all devices are aggregated into one device (ALL). In this page, you can define your devices. Click on Add Device. Enter the Device Name and the related Filter that identifies the stream of interest within the logfile.

1. Add a Device if you would like to define your own devices

Choose a meaningful Device Name. Actix software determines whether data from a stream should be loaded into the Device based on whether the Filter text matches any text in the data stream name. For example, if you have TemExp (1) and TemExp (2) in your logfile, Filter 1) uniquely identifies the handset stream in the file, while using an identifier that is common to many types of logfiles. If the Filter field is left empty, data from all streams will be loaded into the device. 2. Key in the Device Name. 3. Key in the Filter to uniquely identifies different devices. 4. If have a different format or device, click on Import From File to add your device filter(s).

5. Click Add when you have finished adding the device.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 15

Step 3: Choose KPIs and Reports You can choose the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and Reports needed from these three columns (select whichever applies): Event KPIs Radio Network KPIs Summary Report

For this exercise, select or check on all UMTS Event & Radio Network KPIs and the related UMTS reports. To ensure best load time performance, do not forget to uncheck other options you do not require. Click Next> to continue.

Choose the appropriate Event KPIs, Radio Network KPIs and Reports.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 16

Step 4: Choose Attributes In this step, you can add more binned attributes to the set of default attributes available in the repository. You can also configure location binning settings in this page. For this exercise, choose all UMTS-related binned queries and UMTS attributes required for your template by checking the checkbox on the left of the Attribute. Click Done when you’ve finished.

1. Choose your required binned Data Queries.

2. Select all the required attributes.

3. Configure the binning method.

After clicking Done on the fourth page, you are returned to the New Project start page, where the new template appears in the list of project templates.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 17

Note that for convenience, Spotlight appends the date on which it was created to the project template's name.

Select your new template. Click Next> to continue to select the cellref file, and change the settings and configure thresholds, as described in Step 2 and Step 3 in page 11.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 18

UMTS Summary Dashboard Spotlight Summary Dashboard provides you a quick overview of the data loaded in the current Repository project on a per device basis. If you have configured multiple devices during the template configuration phase, a separate tab per device will be displayed on the dashboard. The Summary Dashboard consists of three main components: Repository Summary Issues Map

Click on Event Explorer to drill down to all Event-based analysis such as Dropped calls, Call setup Failures etc.

Click on Radio Network Explorer to investigate all Radio Network problems and perform wide-area coverage-based analyses.

Click on Log Files to display all information regarding the data file(s) you’ve loaded. Click on Report to generate your UMTS Spotlight Report based on the configuration and settings you’ve defined. The report consists of RF parameter charts and maps with important events and attributes.

Map is the main integral part of Spotlight interface, where it shows the entire drive with Uu_Scan_RSSI being the default attribute is plotted. The cell wedges are colour coded: Green represents site that were serving during part of the drive.

The UMTS Issues panel lists all critical and important issues occurring in the dataset. It allows you to investigate further and drill down to issues in more detail by clicking on the link of the KPIs. The Critical Issues section provides an overview of the drive in terms of failure events. The Important Issues section includes the radio network analyses.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 19

UMTS Spotlight Reports Reports are a good place to start when attempting to identify problems in the loaded data. These can be accessed by clicking on the Reports link from Spotlight's Summary Dashboard page. Note: A report must have been activated in the current project's template. It shows all unfiltered data in the project database for the associated technology.

Click on one of the reports in navigation tabs such as Report, Overview, Overview Map, Radio, CS Domain and PS Domain to explore various pages of the report.

You can either click on the Save button to save report in .htm format or click on the Show Excel Report button to export the report to Microsoft Excel format. Note that if you run the report again on different data, the map bitmaps will be updated to reflect the new data. If you subsequently reopen the workbook that was saved earlier, Excel will ask if you want to update. Choose the Don't Update option, or the maps will be updated with the data from the latest running of the report. The Save button exports the report as a web page. Note that the web page has an associated subfolder with a unique name containing various image and other files relating to that report. However, the image files in each subfolder are always called image1.gif, image2.gif, which may cause you problems in some situations. UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 20

Report: File Overview

Click on any of the navigation tabs such as Report, Overview, Overview Map, Radio, CS Domain and PS Domain to explore various pages of the report.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 21

Report: Overview Map

Maps with Measurements and Failure Events help you to visualize the problem better and to create an appealing report.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 22

Report: Radio

Statistics and histogram give you a quick overview of the statistics (min, max, average etc.) and the distribution of the EcIo and RSCP analyses.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 23

Report: CS Domain or PS Domain

CS Call Information drills down to each call and provides call information based on your log file. Call Drops will be highlighted in Red while Call Setup Failures will be highlighted in Orange. Note that the PS Domain Report looks about the same except only PS call information will be displayed.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 24

Event Explorer The Event Explorer provides a detailed analysis of critical failure events such as Call Drops and Call Setup Failure. You could arrive at this page from the Summary Dashboard as a result of clicking on a Critical Issue or on the Event Explorer icon. Spotlight contains the following Event Explorer pages for you to perform a wide range of analyses: Circuit Switched o

Dropped Calls

o

Call Setup Failures

o

Location Update Failures

Handover Issues o

Handover Failures

o

Missing Neighbors (Only available for Handset and Scanner data files, using the handset and scanner merge feature)

o

Information only ƒ

% Strong NBR Diff Baud (better than the serving cell)

ƒ

% NBR with 5dB (within 5dB of the serving cell)

ƒ

% NBR with 5dB diff Baud (within 5dB of the serving cell but different frequency)

The table in the top panel has a row for each site and lists the failure rates for that site. On the bottom side panel, there is a list of all the dropped calls occurring in the drive. If you select a check box in one of the rows, the bottom side panel will only show the events appearing for the site or sector in that row.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 25

Click on Select Category to select the technology, if you have loaded different technology logfiles.

Click on Event Explorer on the top panel to go to the event dashboard page.

Click on a KPI link to go to the corresponding event-based analysis section.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 26

You can sort by the Diagnostics column to see the diagnostic types grouped alphabetically.

View Only

View and Drilldown Further

If the top table shows high values for a particular problem KPI, check the top left hand box to enable the selection boxes for each row. Then check each row with high “problem” KPIs. The side panel is now filtered to show the events appearing for only the selected site or sector rows. If there are too many rows in the table, you might want to sort by the Diagnostics column to see the diagnostic types grouped alphabetically.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 27

Additional Features You can narrow down your results by choosing which analysis you want to perform, applying filter, displaying your selected attributes or events you would like to look at.

Category Choose a suitable KPI category that you would like to look at quickly to narrow down your result.

Add Filter

Create or Add filter or filters to cut down the outcome and bring you closer to your desire result. You can also delete your filter by clicking on Remove Filter or Remove All.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 28

Attributes

To help you to understand the problem better, you can visualize more attributes by displaying them on the map. Select the attributes you would like to display on current map from the Attributes drop down list.

Events You can also view different types of failure events, Pilot Pollution, Too Many Server etc… by selecting them from the Events drop down list. If you’ve loaded other technology logfile, the relevant events will be displayed in the drop down list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 29

Detailed Event Diagnostics The Detailed Event Diagnostics section provides diagnosis for the failure event. It consists of the following sections: Causes Possible causes for the call drop. Further Explanation Details on the causes for the call drop Further Analysis Suggestions on how to proceed with further analysis Measurement Information RF measurements around the event In this example, the cause of the dropped call is due to Handover Problem. Further investigate the problem by drilling down to a selected sector(s).

Check on the Drill Down checkbox of event that you would like to drill down to.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 30

Drilldown

File-based drilldown: Load the entire file containing the event and analyze further.

Until this stage, the analysis has been based the database. If you would like to drill down further to message level, click on Begin Drilldown.

Time Window drilldown: Specify a time window before and after the event and Actix software will only load data for that window (fastest loading and best time performance)

The table on the left shows a row for each Dropped Call event selected for further drilldown, together with a diagnosis of the cause. There are a few additional views to help analyze the event in more detail. A map and the UMTS Event Navigator window display attributes relating to the selected event. There is also a Protocol Stack Browser providing detailed messaging 1. 2. 3.

4.

Check on Load entire file if you would like to load the whole file. Note that this will take longer. Key in the desire time in seconds for Before and After box. Check on Load All Devices if you have collected handset and scanner data together, and would like to load all the devices combined. Click on Begin Drilldown to extract detail information (up to message level) from the database.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

around the event. Note: All the views will only have data for the time window specified in the previous step.

Spotlight Training Course • 31

Exercise: Drop Call Analysis In this exercise, we will analyze a call drop where the Dropped Call event will appear on the map. The cell wedges are colour coded to represent dropped call numbers. The side panel lists all the critical events occurring in the drive. We’ll first look at the diagnostics panel on the left or the table in the top panel where a row for each site lists the failure rates for that site. Note that the table shows a set of KPIs corresponding to the currently selected Category. This prevents the table from becoming cluttered by only showing a small set of related KPIs at the same time. Investigate this drop call. Confirm if it is due to poor coverage and see if you can find more information.

This view (screen layout) provides most of the information needed to diagnose a dropped call. It can be modified by saving a new screen layout.

Poor EcNo and Good RSSI when call dropped is shown on UMTS Handset State Form. The chart also shows the TxPower, SIR and SIR Target. Comment [sf7]: This set of views displayed (Screen Layout) can be modified by the user by saving new screen layout.

The UMTS Event Navigatior State Form shows the event and SC.

Stronger neighbors not selected for handover.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

The Protocol Stack Browser provides detailed messaging around the event. Spotlight Training Course • 32

Radio Network Analyses Spotlight contains the following Radio Network Analyses to provide you to perform wide area coverage based analyses in UMTS: Cell Coverage Analysis (based on Scanner/Handset data) Determines the coverage footprint of cells and identifies overshoot against coverage design boundaries. Missing Neighbors Analysis (3G-3G, 3G-2G) Pilot Pollution Analysis (based on Scanner/Handset data)

The UMTS Issues or Important Issues side panel on the Summary Dashboard provides a link to each of the above analysis. Click on a link to go to the corresponding radio network analysis section, or click on Radio Network Explorer to go to the corresponding radio network analysis section.

Click on Radio Network Explorer on the top panel to go to the Radio Network dashboard page. Click on a link to go to the corresponding Radio Network analysis section.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 33

Cell Coverage Analyses The Cell Coverage Analyses allow you to determine coverage for the cells in their networks. You can use this analysis to: Determine the coverage footprint for each cell. Visualize where a cell is the best server. Visualize where cells are overshooting their coverage design boundary (defined by SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold). These analyses are available for both scanner and handset data. The following analyses are available as part of the cell coverage analyses: Cell Footprint Analysis This analysis allows you to determine the coverage footprint for each cell. Best Server Analysis You can quickly visualize where a cell is the best server by selecting a cell. Cell Overspill Analysis Visually determine where cells are overshooting their coverage design boundary (configurable).

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 34

Radio Network Explorer Interface The Radio Network Explorer interface consists of the following components: Top Panel Summary information is displayed in the top panel. When no rows are selected, overview information is displayed in the side panel. The top panel includes the following tabular form information on the sites: Scanner o

EcNo, RSCP (Max, Min, Av)

o

> Beam – Percentage of points outside the cell beamwidth

o

> 180 Beam – Percentage of points outside the 180 Beamwidth

Handset o

EcNo, RSCP (Max, Min, Av)

o

Link Diff. – This is the diference between UL and DL pathloss and is used to highlight cell with possible LNA (TMA) issues. That is if the difference is greater the 8dB

o

Downlink Interference factor

o

Percenatge of coverage issues •

System interference

•

Limited coverage

•

Poor UL & DL

Note: Clicking on a row in this table causes the side panel to display more information about the site. The map zooms to the site and displays the site’s coverage. Map When a row is clicked in the top panel or a site is clicked on the map, the map shows the coverage wedge for the selected cell, EcIo and RSCP. The red circle represents the user-configured coverage design boundary, and data points outside this circle represent overspill. Side Panel This displays various KPI values for the site selected and a histogram of the distances at which the cell was measured. UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 35

The page operates in two modes: Best Server and Where Seen. Changing the mode affects the EcIo attribute that is displayed on the map. In Best Server mode, the EcIo when the selected cell was the best server is displayed. In Where Seen mode, the EcIo whenever the cell was measured is displayed. Note: In the where seen mode, the coverage footprint for only the cells that were best servers in the drive can be visualized. Best Server and Where Seen mode for handset and scanner can be selected from the Analysis drop down menu.

Sort all information by clicking on the headings of the top panel’s table.

Cell Coverage This details panel displays various KPI values for the site selected and a histogram of the distances at which the cell was measured.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 36

Exercise: Cell Coverage Analysis Using Handset Data The Summary Dashboard shows a Important Issue relating to Poor Coverage. Hovering over the link shows the thresholds used to identify this issue. This is based on the following Thresholds:

Changing the thresholds value will only take effect after the next load of data.

1. Click on the issue link to open the Cell Coverage analysis page. 2. The Issues panel showed a high percentage of System Interference issues, so examine the top table of the analysis for indications of poorly performing cells.

Several rows have a low sample count and so are unreliable to use in this investigation. To remove rows with low sample counts, apply a filter.

Note that all samples less than 50 are not displayed after the filter is applied.

3. Sort by Average EcIo and color the cells by EcIo by clicking on the icon beside the column heading.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 37

4. Examine the map and note that there are some samples with poor EcIo, despite being very close to the problem sector. Note that drive test data is binned according to the selections made in step 4 of defining the project template. However, any events displayed on the map (for example, by using the Events drop-down menu) will use the exact position rather than a binned position, so events might not align with the data points.

5. Are any other cells interfering to cause this situation? Experiment with plotting various Events and Attributes.

Plotting the Uu_ActiveSet_Count attribute shows that there is only one clear server, Site 0433 Sector C. This may indicate a missing neighbor or maybe not.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 38

6. Click on the 3G Missing Neighbor tab. Note that the map and table keep the focus on the selected cell.

Seems like there is no recommendation for “Addition” - there is no missing neighbor in this example.

Continue with the next Missing Neighbors exercise to find a good example of a missing neighbor.

Miscellaneous Navigation Concepts When moving from a Critical Issue to an Important Issue, all diagnostic views will be unloaded, except for those opened by the user - for example: table, Message Browser, Protocol Stack Browser. During your analysis, you may have found it necessary to move or remove the existing diagnostic views, and to open one or more new views. To get back to the original layout, select Click here to re-sync views for this investigation. Note that this will not affect any views you opened earlier.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 39

Example: Missing Neighbors Analysis This analysis lets you groom neighbor lists based on scanner data for sites within a user-defined radius (Tools Æ Display Thresholds Æ Spotlight Æ SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold) of the cell selected. The suggestions made by the software can be exported directly to a CSV file for easy import and updates directly to the switch. If the cellrefs file contains neighbor information, the analysis examines the relationship between the existing neighbors and the potential neighbors as seen by the scanner, and generates add, remove and retain recommendations for each site and cell. The interface consists of the following components: Top Panel Summary information is displayed in the top panel. It includes in a tabular form a number of “addition”, “removal” and “retain” neighbor recommendations for every site. Clicking on a row in this table causes neighbor information for the selected cell to be displayed in the side panel, and lines to neighbors to be drawn on the map. Map When a row is clicked in the top panel or a site is clicked on the map, lines to neighbors are drawn from that site. The circle represents the user-defined radius used by the analysis to identify potential neighbors. As the data point used in the analysis are displayed. Side Panel Details of the neighbor recommendations are displayed on the side panel. Check boxes next to a recommendation can be selected for export to a CSV file.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 40

Before You Begin Before you begin, you should have collected the following: Scanner data that relates to a single UMTS frequency that is loaded as a separate stream with a suitable matching cellrefs file. Increasingly, UMTS scanners are able to scan several frequencies (identified by the UARFCN) simultaneously. This must have been loaded using a suitable matching CellRefs file, which must contain a field called WCDMANeighborList on the WCDMA_Cell network element.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 41

Using Neighbor List Analysis 1. To start this analysis, from the Summary Dashboard page, click on the Radio Network Explorer button and click on this tab, or click on an appropriate Important Issue in the left-hand Issues panel. 2. If you have not done so before, check the data settings that control the neighbor list analysis algorithm. These are the default settings recommended by Actix (see Appendix B for details).

3. Sort by the Additions column in the top table to find out which site/sector has the most missing neighbors.

You can now see the sector with the highest number of recommended additions to its neighbor list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 42

4. Click on the top row in the table to show information for that sector.

A Green line indicates the selected sector is recommended to be added, while a red line indicates that the selected sector should be removed.

The thickness of the line indicates the higher percentage, i.e.: Site 0342 sector b1 should be retained (the line is blue) because it has been scanned of total 28.6% and it is a co-sector of sector a1.

The map now shows green lines to each recommended additional neighbor. The thickness of each line shows how well the suggestion meets the criteria of the analysis. The circle represents the user-defined radius (SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold) used by the analysis to identify potential neighbors. The map also displays the data points used in the analysis. Note that drive test data is binned according to the selections made in step 4 of defining the project template. However, any events displayed on the map (for example, by using the Events drop-down menu) will use the exact position rather than a binned position, so events might not align with the data points.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 43

5. Examine each suggested additional neighbor. You may have reasons for refusing to accept the suggestion on geographical grounds (for example, existing cells between the sector and the suggested addition), or for reasons related to the data settings. If you disagree with a suggested addition, you may want to use the SC Search feature to find an alternative sector to add to the neighbor list. Note that in this case you will not be able to output your choice, and will need to make the correction to the switch manually (for example, by editing the CSV file).

6. If you accept all suggestions for a sector, you can click the related button in the table to mark your choice.

Note that the number beside the button changes to match your selection.

7. Repeat this process for each row in the top table, as necessary.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 44

8. You can now go through the same process for the 'Removals' column. Note that by default the map does not show lines for removal recommendations. 9. Once you are satisfied with the recommendations that you have selected, you can output them to a CSV file. From the top of the page, click the Export Data link.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 45

Additional Features for 3G Neighbor Analysis You can narrow down your results by choosing which analysis you want to perform, applying filter, displaying your selected attributes or events you would like to look at.

These are some additional features available at this interface: View SC search feature Visualize an SC on the map where the specified SCs will be colored red in all the sites. This is very useful to quickly identify the Co-SC locations. Data Settings dialog box This opens up a dialog box for configuring the algorithm that Spotlight uses for the UMTS missing neighbor analysis, which can be used to build lists of suggested neighbor cells to add and remove. All of the options in the group take effect when you run the UMTS Missing Neighbor analysis. Filters The table on the top panel can be filtered by adding filters through this dialog. Attributes drop down menu Lets you plot on the map one or more commonly used attributes. Currently plotted attributes are shown in red in the list. The currently selected attributes will be kept as you move between Spotlight's analysis pages. Events drop down menu As above but for plotting Events on the map.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 46

Device Choose the device (handset or scanner) that you would like to look at. In this example, there is only one device “All”, where everything is grouped together.

View SC Visualize an SC on the map. Specify an SC and this feature colors red all the sites using this SC. Key in the SC you would like to search for in the Scrambling Code field. Click on Search to search for the SC 273. Note SC 273 is highlighted in RED in the map:

Filter

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 47

Data Settings (See Appendix B for details)

Export Data Select this link to export neighbor recommendations to a CSV file.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 48

Add Filter

Create or Add filter or filters to cut down the outcome and bring you closer to your desire result. You can also delete your filter by clicking on Remove Filter or Remove All.

Attributes

To help you to understand the problem better, you can visualize more attributes by displaying them on the map. Select the attributes you would like to display on the current map from the Attributes drop down list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 49

Events You can also view different types of failure events by selecting them from the Events drop down list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 50

Exercise: 3G-2G Missing Neighbors Analysis Situations where the 3G network cannot carry a call due to interference or poor radio conditions - and the call needs to be carried out or completed in the 2G network - are typically caused by missing neighbors, which are cells that have not been defined in the neighbor list of the strongest cell at a given location, but which have an RxLevel good enough to be added to the UE’s neighbor list as a potential cell to hand over from 3G to 2G. The analysis is a single defined process that integrates map visualization of neighbor relationships with reported recommendations. The 3G-2G Missing Neighbors analysis uses scanner data for cells within a specified radius and compares the visible channels to the current neighbor list as given in the 2G cellrefs data. The results of the analysis are presented in a map and table.

Sort by Additions column to find out the recommendation of which missing neighbor sites/sectors should be added.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 51

Before You Begin You will need to have loaded the following: 1. A UMTS scanner stream that relates to a single UMTS frequency. Increasingly, UMTS scanners are able to scan several frequencies (identified by the UARFCN) simultaneously. 2. A GSM scanner or handset stream that was logged at the same time. If a handset stream is used, it must have been logged in idle mode. 3. These must have been loaded using a suitable matching cellrefs file, which must contain a field called GSMNeighborList on the WCDMA_Cell network element.

Using Neighbor List Analysis 1. To start this analysis, from the Summary Dashboard page, click on the Radio Network Explorer button and click on this tab, or click on an appropriate Important Issue in the left-hand Issues panel:

2. If you have not done so before, check the data settings that control the neighbor list analysis algorithm. In this example we will be interested in the Minimum Sample Count and the Addition Threshold. If you alter a data setting, the analysis will immediately update.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 52

3. Sort the top table by the Additions column. You can now see the sector with the highest number of recommended additions to its neighbor list. Check that the Server Count column shows an acceptable value (you can also define a cutoff threshold using the Minimum Sample Count as shown above). 4. Click on the top row in the table to show information for that sector.

Add the CPICH_Scan_EcIo_SortedBy_EcIo_0 attribute to the map.

There are many additions in this example as the cellrefs file does not contain any 3G-2G neighbor definitions - therefore there are also no retentions or removals suggested.

The side panel on the left shows each recommendation for a sector individually, sorted by the % of data points that meet the recommendation algorithm. If you accept the suggestion, you can select the checkbox in the table to mark your choice.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

The map now shows lines to the recommended additions. The thickness of each line shows how well the suggestion meets the criteria of the analysis. The circle represents the user-defined radius (SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold) used by the analysis to identify potential neighbors. It also displays the data points used in the analysis

Spotlight Training Course • 53

5. Select and examine a few suggested additional neighbors. If you accept all suggestions for a sector, you can select the related checkbox in the table to mark your choice. Note that the number beside the button changes to match your selection. For example, there were 178 suggested additions in the first row, with none currently selected for export, the number would show 0/178.

If you clicked, read 178/178. If you do not want to select every recommendation for a sector, you can use the table in the side panel on the left. So if you selected 13 additions, this would result in that number - useful if, as in this example, there are many recommendations, and you need to keep track of how many you have already selected. If you refuse to accept the suggestion, for example because there is no 3G-2G neighbor data in the cellrefs file, the sheer number of suggested additions is 51, compared with the maximum permitted number of 32. Note that the more potential neighbors you add, the longer it will take for a handset to find appropriate neighbors, conceivably resulting in a dropped call. You may well have an upper limit already defined by your internal guidelines.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 54

6. If you disagree with a suggested addition, you may want to use the View SC feature to find an alternative sector to add to the neighbor list. Note that in this case you will not be able to output your choice, and will need to make the correction to the switch manually (for example, by editing the CSV file).

7. Repeat this process for each row in the top table, as necessary. 8. You could now go through the same process for the 'Removals' column (this example contains no 'removals' suggestions). Note that by default the map does not show lines for removal recommendations. 9. Once you are satisfied with the recommendations that you have selected, you can output them to a CSV file. From the top of the page, click the Export data link.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 55

Example: Pilot Pollution Analysis This analysis give you the ability to quickly identify ‘inbound’ vs. ‘outbound’ pilot pollution and visually see the offending sectors on the map. You can determine the relative degree of pollution for each cell and prioritize which cells in the network are the strong candidates for down-tilts and coverage optimization. This analysis is available for scanner as well as handset data.

Interface The interface consists of the following components: Top Panel Summary information is displayed in the top panel. It includes in a tabular form the number of pilot pollution events for each site, and the total number of inbound/outbound polluters. Clicking on a row in this table causes pilot pollution information for the selected cell to be displayed in the side panel, and lines to polluters to be drawn on the map. Map When a row is clicked in the top panel or a site is clicked on the map, lines to inbound as well as outbound pollution are drawn from that site. All the pilot pollution events involving the site also get plotted on the map. The lines to polluters have a direction arrow suggesting inbound or outbound pollution. Side Panel Details of the inbound and outbound pollution for the selected site.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 56

You can choose any of the following Analysis types:

Inbound cells are where the selected sector is being polluted by other sectors. Inbound pilot pollution lines are drawn in blue. Rolling over the lines with the cursor displays more detailed information.

All Inbound and Outbound sites and cells (sectors) of the selected sector is listed in the Cell Pilot Pollution Details panel.

Outbound cells are where the selected sector is polluting other sectors. Outbound pollution lines are drawn in red from the selected sector to the sectors being polluted. The arrow on each line points from the polluting sector to the polluted sector. The thickness of the lines indicates the degree to which pilot pollution was detected for the selected sector, based on the loaded data.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 57

Additional Features for Pilot Pollution Analysis These are some additional features available in this interface: Filters The table on the top panel can be filtered by adding filters through this dialog. Attributes drop down menu Commonly used attributes that can be selected to be plotted on the map. Events drop down menu Event attributes that can be selected to be plotted on the map. So for example, while looking at pilot pollution, you could dump the UMTS Dropped Call event on the map and quickly find out if the call dropped due to pilot pollution. Analysis drop down Select Scanner or Handset analysis. Overview Clicking on this link will display an overview of pilot pollution in the entire drive. View SC Visualize a SC on the map. Input an SC to visualize on the map, and this feature would color all the sites with this SC red. This helps in quickly identifying Co-SC locations.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 58

Exercise: Pilot Pollution Analysis Using Scanner Data 1. From the Summary Dashboard, click on an appropriate Important Issue in the left-hand Issues panel, such as Too Many Servers (a pilot pollution issue). Alternatively, click on the Radio Network Explorer button and click on the Cell Pilot Pollution tab.

2. Sort by # Outbound Cells

In this example, sector 0433b1 looks like the best candidate for investigation as it has a high number of Too Many Servers events, and Outbound and Inbound Cell polluters.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 59

3. De-select the Inbound Cells box to hide the inbound polluting lines. The map now highlights the selected sector.

4. De-select the Outbound and select the Inbound Cells

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 60

5. On the map, to show lines to cells, drag a box around the area with a cluster of Too Many Server events by using the Area Select in the map.

There is no clear dominator in this area, and a few polluting cells are some distance away, so you would need to improve the coverage in that area.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 61

6. In the image below, the EcIo values have been plotted on the map to confirm the situation near the Too Many Server events.

7. To see how the selected sector is polluting other sectors, from the top table, de-select Inbound Cells and select Outbound Cells.

8. The selected sector is causing pollution at quite a distance, past much closer sectors. This confirms that the selected sector may need some downtilt to avoid causing the pollution and to increase nearby coverage. Use the Cell Coverage tab to see how best to improve the coverage for the selected sector.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 62

GSM Summary Dashboard Spotlight Summary Dashboard provides you a quick overview of the data loaded in the current Repository project on a per device basis. If you have configured multiple devices during the template configuration phase, a separate tab per device will be displayed on the dashboard. The Summary Dashboard consists of three main components: Repository Summary Issues panel Map Click on Event Explorer to drill down to all event-based analyses such as Dropped Calls, Call Setup Failures etc.

Click on Radio Network Explorer to investigate all Radio Network problems and perform wide area coverage-based analyses.

Click on Log Files to display all information regarding the data file(s) you’ve loaded. Click on Reports to generate your GSM Spotlight Report based on the configuration and settings you’ve defined. The report consists of some RF parameter charts and maps with important events and attributes.

Map is an integral part of theSpotlight interface, showing the entire drive, with RxLev being the default attribute plotted. The cell wedges are colour coded: Green represents site that were serving during part of the drive.

GSM Issues panel lists all critical and important issues occurring in the dataset. It allows you to further investigate and drill down to issues in more detail by clicking on the link of the KPIs. The Critical issues section provides an overview of the drive in terms of failure Events. The Important Issues section includes the Radio Network analyses.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 63

GSM Spotlight Reports Reports are a good place to start when attempting to identify problems in the loaded data. These can be accessed by clicking on the Reports link from Spotlight's Summary Dashboard page. Note: A report must have been activated in the current project's template. It shows all unfiltered data in the project database for the associated technology.

Click on one of the reports in the navigation tabs, such as Report, File Overview, Overview Map, Radio and CS Domain to explore various pages of the report.

You can either click on the Save button to save the report in .htm format, or click on Show Excel Report button to export the report to Microsoft Excel format. Note that if you run the report again on different data, the map bitmaps will be updated to reflect the new data. If you subsequently reopen the workbook that was saved earlier, Excel will ask if you want to update. It is important that you choose the Don't Update option, or the maps will be updated with the data from the latest running of the report. The Save button exports the report as a web page. Note that the web page has an associated subfolder with a unique name containing various image and other files relating to that report. However, the image files in each subfolder are always called image1.gif, image2.gif, which may cause you problems in some situations.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 64

Report: File Overview

Click on any of the navigation tabs, such as Report, File Overview, Overview Map, Radio and CS Domain to explore various pages of the report.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 65

Report: Overview Map

Maps with Measurements and Failure Events help you to visualize the problem better and create a more appealing report.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 66

Report: Radio

Statistics and histograms give you a quick overview of the statistics (min, max, average, etc.) and the distribution of the RxQual and RxLev analysis.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 67

Report: CS Domain

Call Information drills down to each call and provides call information based on your log file. Call Drops will be highlighted in Red while call setup failure will be highlighted in Orange.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 68

Event Explorer The Event Explorer provides a detailed analysis of critical failure events such as Call Drops and Call Setup Failures. You could arrive at this page from the Summary Dashboard as a result of clicking on a Critical Issue or on the Event Explorer icon. Spotlight contains the following Event Explorer pages for you to perform a wide range of analyses: Circuit Switched o

Dropped Calls

o

Call Setup Failures

o

Location Update Failures

Handover Issues o

Handover Failures

o

Missing Neighbors (Only available for Handset and Scanner data files, using the handset and scanner merge feature)

o

Information only ƒ

% Strong NBR Diff Baud (better than the serving cell)

ƒ

% NBR with 5dB (within 5dB of the serving cell)

ƒ

% NBR with 5dB diff Baud (within 5dB of the serving cell but different frequency)

The table in the top panel has a row for each site and lists the failure rates for that site. On the bottom side panel, there is a list of all the dropped calls occurring in the drive. If you select a check box in one of the rows, the bottom side panel will only show the events appearing for the site or sector in that row.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 69

Click on Event Explorer on the top panel to go to the Event dashboard page.

Click on a KPI link to go to the corresponding event-based analysis section.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 70

You can sort by the Diagnostics column to see the diagnostic types grouped alphabetically.

View and Drilldown Further

View Only

If the top table shows high values for a particular problem KPI, check the top left hand box to enable the selection boxes for each row. Then check each row with high problem KPIs. The side panel is now filtered to show the events appearing for only the selected site or sector rows. If there are too many rows in the table, you might want to sort by the Diagnostics column to see the diagnostic types grouped alphabetically.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 71

Additional Features You can narrow down your results by choosing which analysis you want to perform, applying a filter, or displaying your selected attributes or events you would like to examine.

Category

Choose a suitable KPI category that you would like to quickly look at, which reduces the clutter of KPIs in the top table.

Add Filter

Create or Add filter or filters to cut down the outcome and bring you closer to your desire result. You can also delete your filter by clicking on Remove Filter or Remove All.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 72

Attributes

To help you to understand the problem better, you can visualize more attributes by displaying them on the map. Select the attributes you would like to display on the current map from the Attributes drop down list.

Events You can also view different types of failure events by selecting them from the Events drop down list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 73

Detailed Event Diagnostics The Detailed Event Diagnostics section provides diagnosis for the failure event. It consists of the following sections: Causes Possible causes for the call drop. See Appendix E for more information on how the diagnostic information is derived. Further Explanation Details on the causes for the call drop Further Analysis Suggestions on how to proceed with further analysis Measurement Information RF measurements around the event In this example, the cause of the dropped call is due to Poor Coverage. Further investigate the problem by drilling down to a selected sector(s).

Check on the Drill Down checkbox of the event that you would like to drill down to.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 74

Drilldown File-based drilldown: Load the entire file containing the event and analyze further.

Up till this stage, the analysis has been generated from the database. If you would like to drill down further to message level, click on Begin Drilldown to drilldown further.

Time Window drilldown: Specify a time window before and after the event and Actix software will only load data for that window (fastest loading and best time performance)

5. 6. 7.

8.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Check on Load entire file if you would like to Load the whole file. Note that this will take longer time. Key in the desire time in seconds for Before and After box. Check on Load All Devices if you have collected handset and scanner data together, and would like to load all the devices combined. Click on Begin Drilldown to extract detail information (up to message level) from the repository (database)

Spotlight Training Course • 75

Exercise: Drop Call Analysis In this exercise, we will analyze a call drop where the dropped call event will appear on the map. The cell wedges are colour coded to represent dropped call numbers. The side panel lists all the critical events occurring in the drive. We’ll first look at the diagnostics panel on the left or table in the top panel where it has a row for each site and lists the failure rates for that site. Note that the table shows a set of KPIs that correspond to the current Category to prevent the table from becoming cluttered by only showing a small set of related KPIs at the same time. Investigate this drop call. Confirm if it is due to poor coverage and see you can find more information. This view (screen layout) provides most of the information needed to diagnose a dropped call. It can be modified by saving a new screen layout.

Poor RxLev and poor Quality when call dropped is shown on GSM Line Chart State Form. The chart also shows the RxLev, Rx Qual and UE TxPower Comment [sf8]: This set of views displayed (Screen Layout) can be modified by the user by saving new screen layout.

Handover Failure right before the call dropped is shown on GSM Troubleshooter Navigatior State Form. It shows the event and serving BCCH.

Stronger neighbour not selected for handover

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Protocol Stack Browser provides detail messaging around the event. Note that there was a Handover Failure before the drop.

Spotlight Training Course • 76

Radio Network Analyses Spotlight contains the following Radio Network Analysis: Coverage and Overspill Analysis (based on Handset and Scanner data) Allows you to perform wide area coverage-based analyses in GSM; it determines the coverage footprint of cells and identifies overshoot against coverage design boundaries. The GSM Issues or Important Issues side panel on the Summary Dashboard provides a link to this analysis. Alternatively, click on Radio Network Explorer.

Click on Radio Network Explorer on the top panel to go to the Radio Network dashboard page.

Click on a link to go to the corresponding Radio Network analysis section.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 77

Cell Coverage Analysis The Cell Coverage Analysis allow you to determine coverage for the cells in their networks. Using either scanner or handset data, you can use this analysis to: Determine the coverage footprint for each cell. Visualize where a cell is the best server. Visualize where cells are overshooting their coverage design boundary (defined by SC_Overspill_Dist_threshold). Visualize the neighbor, BCCH and TCH plans. The following analyses are available as part of the cell coverage analyses: Cell Footprint Analysis This analysis allows you to determine the coverage footprint for each cell Best Server Analysis You can quickly visualize where a cell is the best server by selecting a cell Cell Overspill Analysis Visually determine where cells are overshooting their coverage design boundary (configurable) GSM Cell Visualization Visually see the neighbour, BCCH and TCH plans

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 78

Radio Network Explorer Interface This consists of the following components: Top Panel

Summary information is displayed in the top panel. When no rows are selected overview information is displayed in the side panel. It includes in tabular form information on the sites, containing the following information: o

BCCH

o

# - Number of samples. Ensure that you are looking at a statistically sensible number of samples.

o

> Dist. - Number of samples greater than the coverage design boundary (defined by SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold).

o

RxQual, RxLev, (Av, Max, Min). Note that clicking on the icon only displays the Average value.

o

% > Beam – Percentage of points outside the cell beamwidth.

o

% >180 Beam – Percentage of points outside a hypothetical beamwidth of 180 degrees.

o

Link Diff – This is the difference between UL and DL pathloss and is used to highlight cell with possible LNA (TMA) issues, if the difference is greater the 8 dB, where: UL = UE Tx Power - BTS Sensitivity + BTS Antenna Gain DL = BTS EIRP - RxLevSub

o

Poor Ql % and Poor Lv % combined with No Dom % (see Coverage Criteria in page 87 for details).

Note: Click on a row in this table causes the side panel to display more information about the site and the map zooms to the site and displays its coverage. Map When a row is clicked in the top panel or a site is clicked on the map, the map shows the coverage wedge for the selected cell, RxLev (& RxQual for

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 79

best server only). The red circle represents the user-configured coverage design boundary, and data points outside this circle represent overspill. Side Panel This displays various KPI values for the site selected and a histogram of the distances at which the cell was measured (on the Distance tab).

The page operates in two modes: Best Server and Where Seen. Changing the mode affects the RxLev attribute that is displayed on the map. In Best Server mode the RxLev when the selected cell was the best server is displayed (note that in this mode, RxQual can be seen). In Where Seen mode, the RxLev whenever the cell was measured is displayed. Note: In the where seen mode, coverage footprint for only the cells that were best servers in the drive can be visualized. Best Server and Where Seen mode can be selected from the Analysis drop down menu.

Sort all information by clicking on the headings of the top panel’s table

In this example, the Quality tab of the side panel shows a high percentage of Poor RxQual at the same time as Good RxLev, which usually indicates interference. UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 80

Additional Features These are some additional features available at this interface:

Filters The table on the top panel can be filtered by adding filters through this dialog. Attributes drop down menu Select one or more commonly used attributes to plot on the map Events drop down menu Select one or more events to plot on the map Analysis drop down menu Select handset (Best Server or Where Seen) Show Overview Clicking on this link will display an overview of Grade of Service for the entire drive. You can narrow down your results by choosing which analysis you want to perform, applying filter, displaying your selected attributes or events you would like to look at.

Device

Analysis

Choose the device (handset or scanner) that you would like to look at. In this example, there is only one device “All”, where everything is grouped together.

Where Seen is where the map will show a different footprint of the sector, where it was detected anywhere during the drive, not just the strongest signal. Note: The coverage footprint for only the cells that were best servers in the drive can be visualized. Best Server is by selecting the row will select the cell on the map will show the areas on the map where the selected cell has been detected as the strongest cell.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 81

Add Filter

Create or Add filter or filters to cut down the outcome and bring you closer to your desire result. You can also delete your filter by clicking on Remove Filter or Remove All.

Attributes

To help you understand the problem better, you can visualize more attributes by displaying them on the map. Select the attributes you would like to display on the current map from the Attributes drop down list.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 82

Events You can also view different types of failure events by selecting them from the Events drop down list.

Miscellaneous Navigation Concepts When moving from a Critical Issue to an Important Issue, all diagnostic views will be unloaded, except for those opened by the user - for example: tables, Message Browser, Protocol Stack Browser. During your analysis, you may have found it necessary to move or remove the existing diagnostic views and to open one or more new views. To get back to the original layout, select Click here to re-sync views for this investigation. Note that this will not affect any views you opened earlier.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 83

Exercise: No Dominance The Summary Dashboard shows a Important Issue: '% area with No Serving Cell Dominance' (See Coverage Criteria in page 87 for details)

Click on the no Serving Cell Dominance link to open the Cell Coverage analysis page.

1. Click on the issue link to open the Cell Coverage analysis page. 2. Note that several rows in the top table have a low sample count, '#', and so are unreliable to use in this investigation. 3. To remove rows with low sample counts, apply a Filter with a threshold of, say, 50 counts. Click Add Filter and OK.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 84

4. From the Attribute drop-down menu, select an attribute to plot on the map, based on the related Important Issue from the Summary Dashboard (for this example, No Serving Cell Dominance): Important Issue

Attribute

Poor Voice Quality

ServRxQualSub

Poor Signal Strength

ServRxLevSub

The attribute is used in the calculation to identify the issue, as explained in Coverage Criteria in page 87. Note: The drive test data is binned according to the selections made in defining the project template earlier. However, any events displayed on the map (for example, by using the Events drop-down menu) will use the exact position rather than a binned position, so events might not align with the data points. 5. Examine the top panel summary information, which provides indications of poorly performing cells relating to the Important Issue, and select likely candidate rows.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 85

In the example below, a problem row has been selected. The first map image shows the 'NumNeighbors within 5 dB' attribute, which highlights an area of poor dominance (drawn in red). The second map image shows RxLev (Where Seen) plotted for the same sector, which shows that it covers an unnecessarily large area. This could be corrected by applying some downtilt to the sector.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 86

Coverage Criteria Condition

Top table column or Quality tab1

Criteria

Poor Voice Quality

Poor Quality, Poor Ql

ServRxQualSub < G_RxQualSub_Max threshold

Poor Signal Strength

Poor Level, Poor Lv

ServRxLevSub < G_RxLevSub_Min threshold

No Serving Cell Dominance

No Dom

If the sum of all these conditions is > 2: ((ServRxLevSub-NborRxLev[n]) Uu_PilotPollutionThreshold (-15 dB).

Pilot Pollution:

4+ pilots in the Active or Monitored Set with Ec/No within

Too Many Servers

Uu_TooManyServersThreshold dB of the best server (Uu_ActiveSet_EcNo_0).

Interference Problem CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_EcNoInterferenceThreshold (-15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_RSCP_InterferenceThreshold (-80 dBm). Coverage Limitation

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_CoverageLimitedUE_TxPowerThreshold (10 dBm).

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 98

Dropped Calls Diagnosis

Condition and notes

Poor DL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_PoorEcNoThreshold (-15

Problem

dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower < Uu_LowUE_TxPower (-15 dBm).

Poor UL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_HighUE_TxPower (15 dBm).

Lost DL Channel

Over 5-seconds, on average, Uu_Trch_DownlinkBLERAGG > SL_BLER_Threshold.

Investigate Further

More investigation is needed. Use other tools and views

(unknown diagnosis)

to refine your understanding of the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 99

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 100

Note that the window size used to evaluate the condition is the period from 5 seconds before the drop, up to the drop itself. Call Setup Failure Diagnosis

Condition and notes

System Rejected /

When an RRC message contains an RRC Reject.

RRC Failure CM Service

A CM Service Abort / Reject message was received.

Abort/Reject System Released

When the cause code is Not Normal (0-31, 42) in either the NAS message or the RRC message.

Missing Neighbor

SC in Active Set after event < > SCs in Active Set and Neighbor list before event.

Handover Problem

Multiple Active Set update messages are received and a particular SC is not added to the Active Set.

For the Raked RF Condition, the system picks the diagnosis with the highest value, providing it is higher than the specified threshold: Pilot Pollution

4+ pilots in Active or Monitored Set with Ec/No > Uu_PilotPollutionThreshold (-15 dB).

Pilot Pollution:

4+ pilots in the Active or Monitored Set with Ec/No within

Too Many Servers

Uu_TooManyServersThreshold dB of the best server (Uu_ActiveSet_EcNo_0).

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 101

Call Setup Failure Diagnosis

Condition and notes

Interference Problem CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_EcNoInterferenceThreshold (-15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_RSCP_InterferenceThreshold (-80 dBm). Limited Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_CoverageLimitedUE_TxPowerThreshold (10 dBm).

Poor DL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_PoorEcNoThreshold (-15

Problem

dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower < Uu_LowUE_TxPower (-15 dBm).

Poor UL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_HighUE_TxPower (15 dBm).

Lost DL Channel

Over 5-seconds, on average, Uu_Trch_DownlinkBLERAGG > SL_BLER_Threshold.

Investigate Further

Use other tools and views to refine your understanding of

(unknown diagnosis)

the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 102

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 103

Note that the window size used to evaluate the condition is the period from 5 seconds before the drop, up to the drop itself. Excessive Calls Diagnosis

Condition and notes

Multiple RRC attempts More than 1 RRC attempt. For the Coverage Issue Condition, the system picks the diagnosis with the highest value, providing it is higher than the specified threshold: Pilot Pollution

4+ pilots in Active or Monitored Set with Ec/No > Uu_PilotPollutionThreshold (-15 dB)

Interference Problem CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_EcNoInterferenceThreshold (-15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_RSCP_InterferenceThreshold (-80 dBm) Limited Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_CoverageLimitedUE_TxPowerThreshold (10 dBm)

Poor DL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet < Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_CoverageLimitedUE_TxPowerThreshold (10 dBm)

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 104

Excessive Calls Diagnosis

Condition and notes

Poor UL Coverage

CPICH_EcNo_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_EcNoThreshold (-

Problem

15 dB) AND CPICH_RSCP_in_ActiveSet > Uu_Poor_RSCP_Threshold (-95 dBm) AND UeTransmittedPower > Uu_HighUE_TxPower (15 dBm)

High RAB Activation

Uu_RRC_RadioBearerSetup_r3_IEs_activationTime_0 >

Time

229 (part of the RadioBearerSetup message)

Investigate Further

More investigation needed. Use other tools and views to

(unknown diagnosis)

refine your understanding of the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 105

Appendix D: GSM Thresholds You can modify threshold values for event detection using the Tools, Display Thresholds command. It is important to set your threshold before loading the data because it will affect the analysis, diagnosis and display of data in Spotlight. To modify the value, simply click on the associated number and type in the new value.

Sportlight Thresholds SL_Overspill_Dist_Threshold This threshold is used if there is no Max_ServerDist information in the cellref file, and indicates the maximum serving distance (in meters) a cell should serve. Default is 5000m.

GSM Spotlight Thresholds SL_GSM_BTS_Sens_Threshold This threshold is the default BTS recieve Sensitivtity, used in the calculation of UL pathloss.

SL_GSM_Ant_Gain_Threshold This threshold is the default Antenna gain, used in the calculation of pathloss.

SL_GSM_EIRP_Threshold This threshold is the default EIRP, used in the calculation of DL pathloss.

SL_GSM_Site_Issues_Dist_Threshold This threshold is used in the “outside beamwidth” analysis, and only data within this distance from the site is considered for the analysis.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 106

Dragged_Dominance_Hysteresis This threshold is the dBm hysteresis applied to the Best Neighbour Level to trigger a loss of dominance of the server. Once a loss of dominance is triggered, and not re-established before the Dragged_HO_Window timer expires, then any subsequent Handover Failure or Dropped Call will trigger the Dragged Handover Failure or Dragged Drop. Dominance loss = ServRxLevSub < (Best_Nbr Hysteresis).

Dragged_HO_Window This threshold is the number of milliseconds that the MS must lose dominance for, before a Dragged Handover Failure or Dragged Dropped Call is triggered.

G_Analysis_Time_After This value is used to determine the time (in ms) allocated to investigate the radio conditions AFTER the detected event occurrence. Typically, values of 5000 to 10000 ms are used. Values less than 5000 ms will tend to be more accurate, but less attributes will be detected, while values in excess of 10000 ms tend to have a high detection of attributes, but with relatively low accuracy since the time under analysis is large.

G_Analysis_Time_Before This value is used to determine the time (in ms) allocated to investigate the radio conditions PRIOR to the detected event occurrence. Typically, values of 5000 to 10000 ms are used. Values less than 5000 ms will tend to be more accurate, but fewer attributes will be detected, while values in excess of 10000 ms tend to detect a large number of attributes, but with relatively low accuracy since the time under analysis is large.

G_Distance_Max This threshold is used to determine the maximum distance allowed per cell. Typically, values in excess of 8000 meters are usually regarded as distant serving cells.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 107

G_Handover_Min This threshold is used in conjunction with handover to determine the minimum possible signal difference for handover to take place. Recommended values are 5-6 dB.

G_HandoverSuccessRate This threshold is used to determine the criterion for KPI acceptance in the repository views. The Handover Success Rate should be in excess of 98% for most GSM networks in the busy hour. If the resulting KPI is equal or in excess to this value, it will be flagged as accepted and will show up as a green tick mark in the KPI table. If it is less than this value, it will be flagged as failed and will show up as a red cross in the KPI table.

G_Interference_Radius This value is used to define a radius of analysis about a selected sector for coadjacent interference and neighbors visualizations in the Cell Plan Viewer. You can set the units to be used (either miles or kilometers) in Preferences, General Settings, Distance Units.

G_MsTxPowStepOrdered_Min This threshold is used in conjunction with the signal strength to determine incorrect uplink power balance. This value is usually set to 0 to indicate maximum uplink power.

G_RxLevSub_Min This threshold is used to determine the minimum acceptable value for signal strength. Any signal below this threshold is categorized as poor coverage. Recommended value: -95 dBm.

G_RxQualSub_Max This threshold is used in conjunction with the signal strength to determine whether there is interference present on the cell. Typically, values in excess of 3 with good signal strength usually indicate the presence of interference. UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 108

G_ScanSortSigLevel_Min This value is used in relation to the scanner signal level; for example, in the Channel Overlap analysis in the GSM Cell Plan Viewer.

G_TimingAdvance_Max This threshold is used in absence of the Distance parameter to determine the maximum distance allowed per cell. Typically, values over 16 (that is, approximately 8 km) are usually regarded as distant serving cells.

Ping_Pong_HO_Window This threshold is the number of milliseconds during which a handover back to the previous cell will trigger the Ping Pong Handover Event.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 109

Appendix E: GSM Diagnosis

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 110

Call Setup Failure Diagnosis

Condition and notes

RR Failed

An RR Channel Request is not followed by an RR Immediate Assignment with matching establishment cause and random reference within the time period specified by the G_Timeout_ChannelRequest threshold.

Immediate Reject

An Immediate Reject message was received.

Another Call Started

•

Another RR Channel Request with the same establishment cause and random reference occurs more than 200 milliseconds after the RR Immediate Assignment and before the call setup is complete.

•

Another RR Channel Request with a different establishment cause or random reference occurs at any time after the RR Immediate Assignment and before the call setup is complete.

CM Service Abort /

A CM Service Abort / Reject message was received.

Reject System Released

When the cause code is Not Normal (0-31, 42) in either the NAS message or the RR Channel Release message.

Poor Coverage

If ServRxLevSub < G_RxLevSub_Min.

Interference

If ServRxQualSub > G_RxQualSub_Max.

Other

More investigation is needed. Use other tools and views to refine your understanding of the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 111

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 112

Location Update Failure Diagnosis

Condition and notes An RR Channel Request is not followed by an RR

RR Failed

Immediate Assignment with matching establishment cause and random reference within the time period specified by the G_Timeout_ChannelRequest threshold.

Immediate Reject

An Immediate Reject message was received. •

Another RR Channel Request with the same establishment cause and random reference occurs more than 200 milliseconds after the RR Immediate Assignment and before the call setup is complete.

Another Call Started •

Another RR Channel Request with a different establishment cause or random reference occurs at any time after the RR Immediate Assignment and before the call setup is complete.

LU Reject

A Location Update Failure message was received.

Poor Coverage

If ServRxLevSub < G_RxLevSub_Min.

Interference

If ServRxQualSub > G_RxQualSub_Max.

System Released

Other

When the cause code is Not Normal (0-31, 42) in either the NAS message or the RR Channel Release message. More investigation is needed. Use other tools and views to refine your understanding of the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 113

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 114

Dropped Calls Diagnosis

System Released

Condition and notes When the cause code is Not Normal (0-31, 42) in either the NAS message or the RR Channel Release message. Handset: If after the drop, BCH is not in the BA list, but was before the drop.

Missing Neighbor Scanner: If one of the top 6 BCH is not in the BA list before the drop.

Handover Problem

If stronger neighbors than the serving cell for a period. See GSM Dragged Handovers.

Poor Coverage

If ServRxLevSub < G_RxLevSub_Min.

Interference

If ServRxQualSub > G_RxQualSub_Max.

Other

More investigation is needed. Use other tools and views to refine your understanding of the problem.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 115

Handover Failure Diagnosis The diagnosis for Handover Failure is derived directly from the CauseCodeRR value. For example: Diagnosis Handover Impossible (TA out of Range)

Condition and notes

Handover Failure message, CauseCodeRR = 8

Channel mode unacceptable

Handover Failure message, CauseCodeRR = 9

Frequency not implemented

Handover Failure message, CauseCodeRR = 10

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 116

Appendix F: GSM Visualization There are two network visualization features implemented in this page. For each feature, to determine the analysis radius around the selected site, the user needs to set the thresholds G_Interference_Radius or use the default threshold of 10 units. The units for this threshold can be in either Kilometers or Miles, as set in Tools Æ Preferences Æ General Settings Æ Distance Units.

BCCHColourAdjacentCells() 1. Define an analysis radius within which this visualization is to occur. 2. Select a site with BCCH g_bcch. 3. Inside the analysis radius, trigger the analysis for any site with co-channel interference, upper/lower adjacent channel interference: a. If the site has the same BCCH (otherBCCH==g_BCCH) ⇒ Cointerference. b. For all the possible related TCHs, if otherTCH[j]==g_BCCH ⇒ Cointerference. c. If the site has upper adjacent BCCH (otherBCCH==g_BCCH+1) ⇒ Adjacent upper. d. If the site has lower adjacent BCCH (otherBCCH==g_BCCH-1) ⇒ Adjacent lower. e. For all the possible related TCHs, check if otherTCH[j]==g_BCCH+1 ⇒ Adjacent upper. f.

For all the possible related TCHs, check if otherTCH[j]==g_BCCH-1 ⇒ Adjacent lower.

4. As each site can only have one color, the sequence of steps is very important: the first satisfied condition decides the color of the site in analysis. The colors used are: red for co-channel interference orange for upper adjacent channel interference yellow for lower adjacent channel interference. 5. All site information is stored in three structures, one for the co-channel interference, one for the adj/low channel interference and one for the adj/upp channel interference. Three tables, sorted by distance from the selected site, contain information on the sites that neighbor the selected site: a. Distance from the selected site b. SiteName, Sector c. BSIC d. %Interference e. #InterferedChannels

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 117

f.

Channel.

%Interference is calculated as the ratio between the number of channels in common and the sum of all the channels. In the example below, if the other cell has 4 channels, 1 BCCH and 3 TCHs, and the selected cell BCCH is equal to one of the other cell TCHs, the number of channels in common is equal to 2. Then %Interference is equal to 2/(4+1) = 40%.

In this case, BCCHColourAdjacentCells, #InterferedChannels is equal to 1. The Channel field gives the type and the number of the channel that gives interference, i.e. BCCH 740.

TCHColourAdjacentCells() 1. Define an analysis radius within which this visualization is to occur. 2. Select a site with TCHs stored in g_tch. 3. Inside the analysis radius, we trigger the analysis to any site for co-channel interference, upper/lower adjacent channel interference: for all the g_TCHi a. If the site has same BCCH (otherBCCH== g_TCHi) ⇒ Co-interference. b. For all the possible related TCHs, if otherTCH[j]==g_TCHi ⇒ Cointerference. c. If the site has upper adjacent BCCH (otherBCCH==g_TCHi +1) ⇒ Adjacent upper. d. If the site has lower adjacent BCCH (otherBCCH==g_TCHi -1) ⇒ Adjacent lower. e. For all the possible related TCHs, check if otherTCH[j]==g_TCHi +1 ⇒ Adjacent upper. f.

For all the possible related TCHs, check if otherTCH[j]==g_TCHi -1 ⇒ Adjacent lower.

4. As in BCCHColourAdjacentCells(), each site can only have one color, and so the sequence of steps is very important: the first satisfied condition decides the color of the site in analysis. The colors used are: red for co-channel interference orange for upper adjacent channel interference yellow for lower adjacent channel interference. 5. All site information is stored in three structures, one for the co-channel interference, one for the adj/low channel interference and one for the adj/upp

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 118

channel interference. Three tables, sorted by distance from the selected site, contain information on the sites that neighbor the selected site: a. Distance from the selected site b. SiteName, Sector c. BSIC d. %Interference e. #InterferedChannels f.

Channels.

%Interference is calculated as ratio between the number of channels in common and the sum of all the channels. In the example below, if the other cell has 4 channels, 1 BCCH and 3 TCHs, and the selected cell has 2 TCHs that are equal to the other cell’s BCCH and to one of the other cell’s TCHs, then the number of channels in common is equal to 4, and %Interference is equal to 4/(4+2).

In this case, #InterferedChannels is equal to 2. The Channels field gives the type and the number of the channels that give interference, i.e. BCCH 740, TCH 570, TCH 571.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 119

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 120

MyActix and Support For more information regarding Spotlight, logon to our Extranet: MyActix. After you’ve register yourself, you can download the latest Actix Software, self-study modules, and report any problem concerning Spotlight.

UMTS and GSM • Edition B

Spotlight Training Course • 121