Basics of Drive Test in TEMS

Prepared by Mr. Virender Singh

ZTE Corporation
 Why perform a Drive test?

1. Every alive Network needs to be under continues control

to maintain/improve the performance.

2. Optimization is basically the only way to keep track of the

network by looking deep into statistics and
collecting/analyzing drive test data.

3. Drive test helps operation and maintenance for

troubleshooting purposes.
 Measurements by MS and BTS

RXQUALITY
0 <0.2%
1 0.2-0.4%
RXLEV is the received power level 2 0.4-0.8%
3 0.8-1.6%
RXQUAL is the received quality.
4 1.6-3.2%
It is the bit errorr measured on the M idamble 5 3.2-6.4%
6 6.4-12.8%
7 >12.8%
 Tools for Drive Testing in TEMS
TEMS Software

Mobile TEMS Pocket W600i Handset

GPS

Compass

Inverter input 12V, Output 220 V ac, 400 W

TEMS Software 7.1.1 Data Collection

TEMS Software 7.1.1 Route Analisys

Map Info or Mcom

 Work Process while conducting DT

Cell File (TEMS)

Collect Database Drive Test
And
OMC Parameter RF Network Design Measurements
Dot Tab Site (mapinfo)

Site Check

Coverage

Dropped Calls

Verification of Call Setup Success

RF Network Design
Handover Perf.
Analysis Programs
Speech Quality

General Check
 Why Drive testing to be done

Drive Test = Testing the network in particular area to give the real picture of
the networksperformance on the field, with a certain tools.

Planning
Parts of
Drive
test
Implementation

Optimization
 As Drive Test Tools TEMS
DRIVE TESTING HIGHLIGHTS
Drive Test Equipments
Handset

Laptop
Notes :

1. -power supply needed, usually using inverter in the car from laptop, GPS and MS

2. -GPS should use external antenna

3. -MS can use external antenna or not use external antenna.

4. (Use external antenna means measure RxLevel Pedestrian / Street Level)

5. (Not use external antenna means measure RxLevel In car level) -> more realistic result

6. If using scenario not external antenna, MS position should be carefully chosen and stable during drive test
 MODE OF DRIVE TEST

Dedicated / Continuous / Long Call Mode

1.Making continuous call along drive test activity. drive test number,
eg. 222
2.To see the quality and coverage of the network
 MODE OF DRIVE TEST :Idle Mode

Drive test activity, the MS is ON but no call occur

To see the coverage of the network

Sequential /

To see the real network performance run, when people call

 Testing by Drive Test

THE USE

Initiate the drive test after a site on-air. Make sure that site perform well after on-air.
Test Call New Site

Conducting tests call at a new On-Air site, to justify the performance of a site just after On-Air.

Drive Test Upgrade/Expand TRX

After implement new TRX or expand TRX, a drive test performed to justify that site working well with
the new TRX.

Drive Test SFH/Hopping implementation

After implement SFH/hopping in the network, a drive test performed to justify that this hopping
solution working well with the whole network.
 Modes of Drive Test

Drive Test Handover/ Add & Delete neighbors

Drive test conducted after theres changing in neighbours database. Make sure the add really added and the
delete really deleted.

Drive Test before & after Downtilt

Downtilt conducting, to get better coverage from each antenna. Drive test performed to make sure the better
coverage from each angle changed.

Drive Test Network Audit

Performing drive test activity to maintain the whole network. Could be an annual work.

Drive Test Benchmark

performing drive test to get justification about our network. Can compete or not. With comparing the whole network
including 'us in drive test.

Drive Test troubleshooting

Drive test for special troubleshooting case. Such as, a site that cannot handover from sites surround it, a site that
cannot transmit good signal and cannot achieve its coverage.
Windows in Tems to understand

Definitions:
1. Time: It is system time of computer.
2. Cell name: It displays the name of the
sector which is serving according to the
cellfile that is loaded in TEMS.
3. CGI : It stands for the Cell Global
Identity which is unique for every
sector of the site. It consists of
MCC,MNC,LAC,CI.
MCC: Mobile Country Code 0 999
(e.g. 404 in India), MNC: Mobile
Network Code 0 99 (e.g. 98 for Airtel
in Gujarat) LAC : Location Area Code
0 -65535 (e.g. 5101 in Gujarat) CI: Cell
Identity 0 65535 (e.g. 11001)
Current Channel

Cell GPRS Support: Tells sector is having

GPRS or not. Values are Yes or No .

Band : It tells in which Freq. Band mobile is

operating e.g. GSM 900/ 1800.

BCCH ARFCN: It tells by which BCCH is the

mobile station getting served.

TCH ARFCN: On which Traffic Freq. call is

going on.

BSIC (Base Station Identity Code) : It is

combination of Network Color Code (NCC) (0
7) & Base Station Color Code (BCC) (0 7).
e.g. 62. It is decoded by mobile on every Sync.
Channel Message.

Mode: It is shows in which state is mobile

operating, Idle, Dedicated & Packet.

Time slot: On which time slot of current TCH

call is going on. Viz. time slot no. of TRX.
Current Channel
Channel Type: Type of channel mobile
is getting now. Like BCCH / SDCCH/8
+ SACCH/C8 or CBCH / TCH/F
+FACCH/F +SACCH/F.
Channel Mode : Shows mode of coding
like Speech Full Rate of Half Rate.
Speech Codec: It shows FR for Full
Rate, HR for Half Rate & EFR for
Enhanced Full Rate.
Ciphering Algorithm : It shows
ciphering algorithm used by the system
to protect data for privacy. E.g. Cipher
by A5/2.
Sub Channel Number: It is displayed at
a time when mobile is on dedicated
mode at time of call setup when it is
getting SDCCH at that time it shows
which SDCCH it is getting out of 8
available. E.g. 2.
Current Channel

Hopping Channel : It shows that current

sector is having hopping feature or not.
Values are Yes or No.

Hopping Frequencies : It displays no. of freq.

on which mobile is allowed to hop. viz. MA
List for hopping of that sector.

Mobile Allocation Index Offset (MAIO): It is

the number which tells from which freq.
from given MA list for sector hopping has to
be started. E.g. 0 means sector will start from
first freq. to hop.

Hopping Sequence Number (HSN) : Indicates

sequence in which frequencies are allowed to
hop from the MA List. 0- 63. 0 for Cyclic
Hopping, 1 63 random hopping sequences.
Radio Parameters
RxLev : Receiving level in terms of dBm
that mobile is receiving from the site.
Range of -30 dBm to -110dBm.
RxQual : Quality of voice which is
measured on basis of BER. Range of
RxQual 0 -7.
FER : Frame Erasure Rate it represents
the percentage of frames being dropped
due to high number of non-corrected bit
errors in the frame. It is indication of
voice quality in network.
BER Actual : Ratio of the number of bit
errors to the total number of bits
transmitted in a given time interval.
BER is a measure for the voice quality
in network.. Depending on BER RxQual
is measured. E,g, BER 0 to 0.2 %
corresponds to RxQual 0. Max. BER
countable and useful is up to 12.8 %
which corresponds to RxQual of max. 7.
Radio Parameters

SQI : SQI is a more sophisticated measure which is

dedicated to reflecting the quality of the speech (as
opposed to radio environment conditions). This
means that when optimizing the speech quality in
your network, SQI is the best criterion to use. SQI is
updated at 0.5 s intervals. It is computed on basis of
BER and FER. For EFR 30, FR 21 & HR 17 are
respectively ideal values.

C/I : The carrier-over-interference ratio is the ratio

between the signal strength of the current serving cell
and the signal strength of undesired (interfering)
signal components. It should be atleast > 9 .

MS Power Control Level : Displays range of power

control from 0 to 8 depending upon network design.
E.g. 0 means no power control and 1 means level that
is defined by operator viz. 2 dBm less acc. To airtel.
Radio Parameters

DTX : Discontinuous transmission (DTX) is a

mechanism allowing the radio transmitter to
be switched off during speech pauses. This
feature reduces the power consumption of the
transmitter, which is important for MSs, and
decreases the overall interference level on the
radio channels affecting the capacity of the
network..

TA : Value that the base station calculates

from access bursts and sends to the mobile
station (MS) enabling the MS to advance the
timing of its transmissions to the BS so as to
compensate for propagation delay. Value of 0
means MS in radius of 550mt. From BS.
 Radio Parameters

RL Timeout Counter (Cur) : This parameter define

the maximum value of the radio link counter
expressed in SACCH blocks. Range of 4 64 in step
size of 4. it shows current value of RLT. Decrease by
1 but increase by 2. When it reaches zero it results in
normal DROP Call.

RL Timeout Counter (MAX) : This parameter define

the maximum value of the radio link counter
expressed in SACCH blocks. Range of 4 64 in step
size of 4. it shows current value of RLT. Normally 16,
20, 24.

MS Behavior Modified : This window shows current

settings for the mobile station, for instance whether
handover is disabled or multiband reporting enabled.
 Serving + Neighbor

Cell Name : Name that describes the neighboring cell as per the cellfile.
ARFCN : Channel number mobile receives as neighbor.
BSIC : BSIC of the neighboring cell.
RxLev : Receiving Level in dBm of neighboring cell.
C1 & C2 : These are the cell path loss criterion and cell reselection criteria. Valid during idle
mode of mobile station.
C31 & C32 : GPRS signal strength threshold criterion C31 and GPRS cell ranking criterion
C32. Valid both in packet idle and packet dedicated mode.
 Why Sub & Full values
When using FULL measurement result?

Whenever we want to see BTS parameters settings works at live network

DTX off

When using SUB measurement result ?

Whenever we want to see BTS works without parameters

DTX on

How TEMS measure FULL or SUB measurement?

TEMS record both SUB and FULL measurement at the same time and at the same log files, it is just need to
set what we wan to see in replay mode.
 Overview of Params in Drive Test

1. RxLevel

Level of Received signal strength. In dBm or Steps. If the value in form of step substract 110 to the
value to get dBm value.

RxLevel is received power level at MS (maximum RxLevel measured by MS is () 40 dBm

 Rx Qual vs BER

Relation of Rx Qual & BER

Bette
r
 SQI- Speech Quality index

SQI

The parameter used by TEMS to measure Speech Quality.

SQI has been designed to cover all factors that RxQual lack to measure.

SQI computation considers the factors:

the bit error rate (BER)

the frame erasure rate (FER)

data on handover events

statistics on the distribution of these parameters

 WHAT TO SEE WHAT TO MEASURE

1.FER

2.SQI

3.RX level

4, RX Qual

5.TA

6.ARFCN

7.BSIC

8.NBR & Server

 Parameters in Tems to be seen in Drive Test

FER Frame erasure rate; See on Radio Parameter windows

ARFCN BCCH-BSIC Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number of Broadcast Control Channel.

Base Station Identity Code

Important data of a site

Hopping Indicating if SFH implemented. See on Current Channel windows, on hopping channel, hopping
frequencies, MAIO, HSN

C/I

The carrier-over-interference ratio is the ratio between the signal strength of the current serving cell and
the signal strength of undesired (interfering) signal components. The C/I measurement function built into TEMS
Investigation enables the identification of frequencies that are exposed to particularly high levels of interference,
something which comes in useful in the verification and optimization of frequency plans.

TA

Timing Advance. Valid only in dedicated mode. ; To measure the distance of MS from serving cell. Valid
only in dedicated mode. See on Radio Parameter windows.
 To See How the Network Runs

The examples of How Drive Test can see a Network runs.

 Drive analysis when site is Off / Down

CASES :Site OFF or Down

Get in to the site (whether its new or existing), then see on TEMS display,

At parameters BCCH, BSIC. If the intended sites BCCH doesnt appear, the site is Down

If we dont have the site data. We can go the exact position of the site, near/under the antenna.

Then see if on the serving cell, the Rxlev is good ( above -60 dBm)
 Cases of Ping Pong Handover

Handover
We need to check the handover between sector1 of Site A to sector3 of Site B.

We start at the Site A. Check the parameters on TEMS. Make sure the serving cell now

Is from the sector1 of site A. See the neighbour, if the sector3 of site B appear.

Start the drive test, with dedicated mode, to site B sector3 (specified the route first).

The handover should be occur along this drive test. If its not, note this as a problem.

See any possibility of the problem, such as:

the neighbour not appear, possibility havent been created

theres other site between

theres obstacle

Then do the opposite, start from sector3 Site B to sector1 Site A.

 To See How the Network Runs

CASES :Swap

Theres aFeeder
3. Swap possibility that we have bad installation, for example swap feeder.

Swap feeder occur when the installation switch by mistake, for example the feeder to sector1

Became to sector 2, from BTS.

We can see this from drive test.

For example, we have a site with 2 sectors, with a road in front it, to be covered.

We should have the data of this site, such as the BCCH of each sectors.

We start the drive test from sector 1 to sector 2. While were on sector1 coverage, see if the

BCCH of serving cell is the correct one, according to the data we have.

And do the opposite from sector 2 coverage to sector1

sect2
sect1
 Overshooting of Neighbour site

Overshooting

When we get the signal from the site that not close to the current area drive test.

Usually we get bad RxQual and long/bigger TA.

We can suspect this as a overshoot case. This case happen when a site/cell is serving far

away from its area.

 Windows & Params in Tems
CASES :Call Drop

Reasons of Call Drop:

1.Call Drop due to low coverage

2: Due to Intereference

3: Drop due to Link failure

4; Drop due to Handover

5: Drop due to overshooting

Drop call due to bad coverage
Sudden increase & decrease of rx level of Nbrs
Drive with Ping pong Handover,Lack of dominant server
Drive with Ping pong Handover,Sudden dip in coverage due to tunnel
Handover failure due to missing neighbours
 Bad Quality due to low coverage Dip in FER & BER

Bad Quality due to low

coverage ,DIP in FER &
BER