PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT OF GSM SYSTEM: QOS ANALYSIS AND OPTIMIZATION

Nazmus Saquib(1), Mustafa Hussain(2), Apurba Saha(1), Md. Omar Faruqe(3) (1)Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh (2)Dept. of Electronics and Communications Engineering, East West University, Dhaka, Bangladesh (3)Department of Computer Science & Engineering, BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh nsaquib@bracu.ac.bd, mustafamhussain@gmail.com, apurba@bracu.ac.bd, faruqe@bracu.ac.bd
ABSTRACT In this modern era of technology, the field of telecommunication has advanced tremendously worldwide, enhancing it an ever-expanding process which not only revolutionized the arena of telecommunication but also accelerated the process of making the world a step closer of being a single Global Village. In addition different technical advancement has made the existing mobile companies to upgrade there various services continuously in order to sustain in the competitive world. Therefore, it has become mandatory for the mobile companies of different countries to ensure a high quality voice and data communication services compounded with the provision of various value-added services. Thus QoS (Quality of Service) in the field of telecommunication needs to be emphasized greatly for customer satisfaction and providing a comprehensive service of consumer interest. Since the technology is changing rapidly, it is very important that the QoS is being standardized and constantly monitored in order to ensure that it is up to the set benchmark. In this report we analyzed different performance parameters involved in a calling process for different existing mobile operators, compared these results with the standard bench-marks and gave appropriate solutions to ensure a quality service. The resultant values are taken from a set of test driven real-time data that is attached with the report. Index Terms MIMO, RSSI, CINR, GoS, QoS 1. INTRODUCTION In mobile communication Quality of Service or QoS in an important factor that enhances the mechanisms which include the performance control, stability, reliability, scalability, usability and customer satisfaction. Therefore not only it has to be standardized but also needs to be monitored to ensure necessary changes in the specifications as per requirement. These specifications include the followings: i. Proper network planning with the provision of an effective further expansion. ii. Stability and reliability of the network. iii. Periodic monitoring and proper optimization of different network performance parameters iv. Addition of different value added services without hindering the network performance. Network Performance is the most important QoS parameter for the measurement of quality of service of a Telecommunication Operator. In order to ensure customer satisfaction different performance parameters needed to be maintained with highest quality. The Network Performance parameter can be categorized into the followings: i. Call Success rate. ii. Call set-up time iii. Call drop rate. iv. Handover Success Rate. v. GoS vi. Signal receive Level and its Quality vii. Speech Quality. Call Success Rate (CSSR) is defined as The ratio of successfully established calls to the total number of calls that are attempted. In other words CSSR is The Number of the unblocked call attempts divided by the total number of call attempts. Call set-up time is defined as, The time taken to set up a desired call successfully. This term is very important because this parameter indicates how well the network is designed and the amount of network congestion is there in a particular network. Call Drop Rate is defined as The ratio of calls lost or prematurely terminated after establishment to all established calls. This includes calls dropped due to failure of handover, radio loss and network congestion. Handover success rate is The ratio of the number of successfully completed handovers to the total number of initiated handovers. Grade of Service (GoS) is one of the most important performance parameter for ensuring a standard Quality of Service. The term Grade of Service (GoS) is defined as, The ratio of lost traffic to offered traffic. The offered traffic is the product of the average number of calls generated by a subscriber and the average holding time per call. Whereas, the lost traffic is difference between the offered traffic and the

actual traffic that is carried by the network. Usually GoS is measured is percentage and a network provider that poses a very low value of GoS is considered be more prominent. The proper received level of the signal and ensuring its highest quality is an integral part of quality of service. Received Signal Level (RxLev) is measured in dBm and the received signal power is within a range of -110dBm to -47dBm. Received Signal Quality (RxQual) is measured in percent of received samples allocated on account of quality levels. The RxQual values describe the Bit Error Rate on the Air Interface. The range of the values is from 0 to 7: RxQual Level 0 : BER < 0.2% (Best Quality) RxQual Level 7 : BER > 12.8% (Worst Quality) The Speech Quality is an essential performance indicator for establishing a better Quality of Service. Speech quality is generally expressed as a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) and based on the percentage of the received samples the score is allocated. According to P.862.1 classification scale: Excellent : 3.5 (The percentage of the samples of the received signal results in Excellent Speech Quality) Good : 2.7 and < 3.5 Fair : 2.1 and < 2.7 Poor : 1.5 and < 2.1 Bad : < 1.5 (These Samples results to noise only i.e. no speech is heard at the receiver) [Source: SwissQual] The following charts will give a broaden information of the results obtained from a test drive that mainly emphasizes on the aforesaid performance parameters. 2. EXPERIMENT The sample experimental data for different parameter of QoS are being categorized and analyzed below in a tabular format. [Data Source: SwissQual] 2.1 Call setup success rate The standard statistical percentage for call success rate worldwide is 98-100%. The table below signifies the call success rate for the leading telecommunication companies in Bangladesh (GP: Grameen Phone; AKTEL; Blink: Bangla Link) that is being obtained through the drive test. Operator GP AKTEL BLink AVG Attempts Successful Success Rate (%) 58 58 100.00 63 57 90.48 60 57 95.00 60.33 57.33 95.03 Table 2.1: Call setup success rate

Call setup success rate (%)

100 95 90 85 90.48 100 95 95.03 GP AKTEL Blink AVG

Figure 2.1: Call setup success rate 2.2 Call drop rate The standard percentage for call drop rate worldwide is 2-5%. The following table indicates the call drop rate of the obtained experimented data. Operator Atte Comp Drop Failed Drop mpt leted ped Rate (%) GP 63 62 1 0 1.6 AKTEL 63 57 0 6 9.5 BLink 63 55 3 5 12.7 AVG 63 58 2 3 7.9 Table 2.2: Call drop rate

15 10 5 0 1.6 9 .5

12 .7 7.9 GP A KT E L B l i nk AVG D ro p R at e ( %)

Figure 2.2: Call drop rate 2.3 Handover success rate Successful and efficient handover is an important phenomenon in telecommunication to enhance the performance and thus the success rate is being standardized as 99-100% worldwide. The following table elaborates the successful handover rate of Bangladesh for different mobile operators. 2.4 Call setup time Call setup time is an important performance parameter that needs to be reduced in order to ensure quality service to the subscriber. The standard average call setup time is 3-5s. Operator No of sample Avg setup time(s) 58 7.17 GP 57 9.73 AKTEL 57 7.59 BLink 57 8.16 AVG Table 2.4: Call setup time

Call setup time (s)

10 5 0
Figure 2.4: Call setup time 2.5 Received quality level Received quality level is also an important parameter and therefore as per the worldwide standard, it requires being 0.2-3%. Operator RxQual RxQual < RxQual < 5 [%] samples 3 [%] 27890 78.91 92.53 GP 25094 90.24 94.77 AKTEL 23734 89.95 94.32 BLink 25573 86.37 93.87 AVG Table 2.5: Received quality level

9.73 7.17

7.59 8.16

GP AKTEL Blink AVG

modes according to different channel qualities. Through the combination of modulation and coding, the network can provide different transmission rate. The measurement of channel quality is based on RSSI and CINR in 802.16e. It encompasses the features: Higher data rate of single user, the higher average transmission rate of whole network and Lower interferences. The selection principles are Good channel quality: combination of high efficiency modulation mode and weak coding mode Bad channel quality: combination of low efficiency modulation mode and strong coding mode Advanced/Adoptive Antenna System is a modern antenna system that effectively disseminates the power from the base station. In includes switched beam antennas where the cell is coved by fixed beams and adoptive antenna arrays where the beam can trace the users position automatically and disseminates power accordingly. It includes the features: Increasing SNR and the sensitivity of BS, Decreasing the error bit of system, Decreasing the system interference, Enhancing coverage, Improvement of the spectrum efficiency by adopting the SDMA (Space Division Multiple Access) technology. An effective way to increase the capacity is to create a network using relaying terminals, which effectively emulates an increase of the density of base stations and access points. The advantages of relaying is coverage area of Base Station or Access Point can be extended infrastructure-less networks can be maintained and aggregate path loss is lower than for direct link communication hence, transmit power is lower and/or data rates higher. [1] Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), in wireless communications is an efficient technology that offers significant improvements to data rate in a non-line-of-sight environment [2]. The MIMO system utilizes multiple element antennas (MEAs) both on transmit and receive sides of the communication link and thus increases the capacity in a multi-path propagation environment.[2] 3. SIMULATION AND RESULTS 3.1 Adaptive Modulation The adaptive modulation selects the required modulation mode according to the channel conditions. When the high modulation mode, such as 64-QAM or more is used, the high SNR can be used to conquer other interferences to keep the BER optimum. In addition to improve the coverage range, the lower modulation mode, such as QPSK can be used. If the subscriber is close to the BS the high modulation mode can be used.

Re ce ive d Q uality Le ve l (%) 100 80 60 40 20 0 RxQual < 3 [%] RxQual < 5 [%] GP AKTEL Blink AVG

Figure 2.5: Received quality level The results show that some of the operators dont meet the desired level of the performance in different aspects. Thus to ensure an upgrade of the performance of these operators, the implementation of the newer technologies is necessary, which include Adoptive Modulation techniques, installation of Advanced/Adoptive Antenna System, Relay techniques, MIMO etc. We used Bangladesh mobile operators an example in this paper and addressed the relevant problems associated with these operators. However, other operators in different countries having similar problems can also be suggested to go with the proposed solutions. Adaptive Modulation is an advanced modulation technique that selects the suitable modulation and coding

10 10 10

-1

-2

Diversity-1 Diversity-2 Diversity-4 Diversity-8

64QAM

16QAM

QPSK
BER
BPSK/QPSK 16 QAM 64 QAM 128 QAM 256 QAM

10 10 10 10 10 10

-3

-4

Figure 3.1: Adaptive modulation

10 10 10 10 BER 10 10 10 10 10
0 -1

-5

-6

-2

-7

-3

-8

10

20

30 E /N (dB)
b 0

40

50

60

-4

-5

Figure 3.4: BER versus SNR with different diversity order for 64 QAM modulation techniques. 4. ANALYSIS The graphs referring to figure 3.2 and figure 3.3 signify that while implementing adaptive modulation, the higher modulation techniques provide more BER which also leads to another concern that requires a solution too. However, in this scenario if MIMO can be implemented we can see that BER reduces significantly for higher modulation technique (i.e. figure 3.3 for 64 QAM). Therefore, in collaboration with adaptive modulation and MIMO we can significantly reduce the BER that would not only enhance the performance of the mobile operators but also will improve the parameters involved in this performance enhancement process statistically. 5. CONCLUSION Analyzing the graphs we can come to the conclusion that with the implementation of Adaptive modulation and MIMO the performance parameters will be enhanced that would improve the quality of the services provide by different operators.
10 20 30 E /N (dB)
b 0

-6

-7

-8

10

15

20 Eb/N0 (dB)

25

30

35

40

Figure 3.2: BER versus SNR for different modulation technique for AWGN channel
10
0 -1

10

10

-2

BPSK/QPSK 16 QAM 64 QAM 128 QAM 256 QAM

10 BER

-3

10

-4

10

-5

10

-6

10

-7

40

50

60

10. REFERENCES
[1]. R.R. Joyee, I. Khan, S.N. Haq, Mustafa Hussain, and M.R. Amin, "Concept of Data Relaying at Physical Layer", 8th International Conference on Computer and Information technology (ICCIT), December 28-30, Dhaka, Paper ID ICCIT05_643, 2005 [2]. S. M. Alamouti, A simple transmit diversity technique for wireless communications, IEEE Journal on selected areas in communications, vol. 16, No. 8, Oct. 1998.

Figure 3.3: BER versus SNR for different modulation technique for Rayleigh Channel 3.2 MIMO Using MIMO if the diversity order is increased then the cell radius is subsequently increased with the proportions in the high-order modulation mode to improve the transmission capacity and spectrum efficiency of the radio communication system.