Jaana Laiho

Radio Network Planning and Optimisation for Umts

From the Publisher: Radio Network Planning and Optimisation for UMTS comprehensively explains how to dimension, plan and optimise UMTS networks. It introduces the properties of the spread spectrum system and provides a general overview of the physical layer of UTRA FDD. The radio network planning process for WCDMA is clearly presented and detailed information on how to dimension, plan and rollout a 3G network, both theoretically and practically is provided. This valuable text examines current and future radio network management issues and their impact on network performance as well as the relevant capacity and coverage enhancement methods. Authoritative and instructive, this text will have instant appeal to wireless operators and network and terminal manufacturers. It will also be essential reading for university students, frequency regulation bodies and everyone interested in radio network planning and optimisation, especially RF network systems engineering professionals.

Advanced analysis methods for 3G cellular networks

The operation and maintenance of the third generation (3G) mobile networks will be challenging. These networks will be strongly service driven, and this approach differs significantly from the traditional speech dominated in the second generation (2G) approach. Compared to 2G, in 3G, the mobile cells interact and interfere with each other more, they have hundreds of adjustable parameters, and they monitor and record data related to several hundreds of different variables in each cell. This paper shows that a neural network algorithm called the self-organizing map, together with a conventional clustering method like the k-means, can effectively be used to simplify and focus network analysis. It is shown that these algorithms help in visualizing and grouping similarly behaving cells. Thus, it is easier for a human expert to discern different states of the network. This makes it possible to perform faster and more efficient troubleshooting and optimization of the parameters of the cells. The presented methods are applicable for different radio access network technologies.

Neural analysis of mobile radio access network

The self-organizing map (SOM) is an efficient tool for visualization and clustering of multidimensional data. It transforms the input vectors on two-dimensional grid of prototype vectors and orders them. The ordered prototype vectors are easier to visualize and explore than the original data. Mobile networks produce a huge amount of spatiotemporal data. The data consists of parameters of base stations (BS) and quality information of calls. There are two alternatives in starting the data analysis. We can build either a general one-cell-model trained using state vectors from all cells, or a model of the network using state vectors with parameters from all mobile cells. In both methods, further analysis is needed to understand the reasons for various operational states of the entire network.

Utilization of advanced analysis methods in UMTS networks

The scope of this paper is to introduce new analysis and visualization methods for WCDMA cellular networks. The proposed examples are mainly based on the self-organizing map (SOM) method, but also other neural and statistical methods are equally applicable. The main motivation for advanced methods is to increase the abstraction level from the raw network measurements, i.e. radio access network language, to network functional areas or a language closer to the business of network operator. Furthermore the vast amount of quality of service (QoS) and service combinations, that 3G will enable, require effective data handling procedures.

Verification of WCDMA radio network planning prediction methods with fully dynamic network simulator

The WCDMA based cellular systems offer variability of packet and circuit switched services and therefore are more complicated to plan and control than todays networks. For an operator, it is essential to utilise all possible resources to improve the capacity and quality of service of the radio network. To guarantee the optimum performance, the operator must have means to visualise the offered services and their quality in the radio network-planning phase. The proposed static prediction method is compared with dynamic analysis results. Based on this comparison it is demonstrated that the static prediction method is accurate enough for the radio network planning process. Example results of active set size, dominance and transmit power distributions from both simulators are presented.

A virtual time simulator for studying QoS management functions in UTRAN

The issue of QoS management in the radio interface has not been widely studied and the effects of parameters and algorithms in the user and control plane on different bearer services in high traffic situation have been rarely addressed. This paper describes a virtual time simulator for studying and validating enhanced QoS management functions before their deployment throughout the UMTS radio access network (UTRAN). Several simulations have been run to look into the feasibility of such a tool, and one relevant case is discussed in this paper, where the effectiveness of radio resources utilisation and differentiation among bearer services in terms of call block ratio, throughput, queuing time, object transfer delay and served guaranteed bit rate (GB) traffic load is investigated. The simulation results show the proposed simulator to be an appropriate tool for analysing QoS management functions.

Analysis of mobile radio access network using the self-organizing map

Mobile networks produce a huge amount of spatio-temporal data. The data consists of parameters of base stations and quality information of calls. The self-organizing map (SOM) is an efficient tool for visualization and clustering of multidimensional data. It transforms the input vectors on a two-dimensional grid of prototype vectors and orders them. The ordered prototype vectors are easier to visualize and explore than the original data. There are two possible ways to start the analysis. We can build either a model of the network using state vectors with parameters from all mobile cells or a general one cell model trained using one cell state vector from all cells. In both methods, further analysis is needed. In the first method the distributions of parameters of one cell can be compared with the others and in the second it can be compared how well the general model represents each cell.

Quality-based auto-tuning of cell uplink load level targets in WCDMA

The objective of this paper was to validate the feasibility of auto-tuning WCDMA cell uplink load level targets based on quality of service. The uplink cell load level was measured with received wideband total power. The quality indicators used were called blocking probability, packet queuing probability and degraded block error ratio probability. The objective was to improve performance and operability of the network with control software aiming for a specific quality of service. The load level targets in each cell were regularly adjusted with a control method in order to improve performance. The approach was validated using a dynamic WCDMA system simulator. The conducted simulations support the assumption that the uplink performance can be managed and improved by the proposed cell-based automated optimization.

Trial report on self-organizing map based analysis tool for radio networks [GSM applications]

Telecommunications networks move towards wireless applications and service and business driven network management. Operators provide new services on different access technologies, in a multi-technology environment. This shift in abstraction level towards services, away from technology and network element management, requires new tools and methods to support the operational tasks, of which service monitoring and traffic analysis is an especially important area. In this paper, the concept of a neural network based tool that aids the operators in detecting the quality of end-user experience (QoE) is introduced.

Mutual impact of two operators' WCDMA radio networks on coverage, capacity and QoS in a macro cellular environment

In 3/sup rd/ generation cellular systems using WCDMA radio access technology (RAT) one operator could theoretically operate its network by using only one frequency when another operator in the same area uses the immediate adjacent frequency. Then, on contrary to other systems, the adjacent channel interference (ACI) is coming entirely from another operator. Since most likely the network plans will be completely independent, the only means to combat this ACI is applying appropriate filters. This paper shows results on a study of the influence of 2 macro operators using WCDMA RAT in the same area in adjacent channels, by applying the filter values specified in 3GPP TS 25.101and 3GPP TS 25.104 . Two cases, one from an urban and one from a suburban area are shown. Example results on outage, coverage probabilities, quality of service, transmit power distributions etc. are presented with and without the second operator present and compared with each other. In conclusion of the comparison it is shown, that in macro cellular scenarios the influence of both operators on each other is negligible.