GSM TCH Congestion & Solutions

ZTE university
Training goals

To know the signaling flow of TCH occupation and

relevant counters;
To know causes of TCH congestion;
To know the process of investigating TCH
congestion;
To know the common methods of handling TCH
congestion
Contents

TCH occupation signaling & relevant counters

Causes of TCH congestion
Problem investigation process
Common methods of solving TCH congestion
Typical cases
What is TCH congestion?
TCH congestion means MS applies for TCH
during the access process; MSC will send
Assignment Request signaling to BSC after it
confirms MS application for TCH; BSC will search
for suitable TCHs; if no TCHs are available, BSC
will refuse the request, and record congestion as
one time.
Congestion often brings inconvenience to
subscribers, thus it is the most complained
problem . High TCH congestion rate has harmful
effect on call establishment rate, handover
success rate and call drop rate.
TCH congestion & relevant counter

KPI
TCH blocking rate
name
Indicator
TCH congestion times/TCH call attempts)*100%/
definition

(C900060020+C900060031+C900060043+C900060047+C900
Counter 060022+C900060033+C900060045+C900060049)*100%/
formula (C900060019+C900060030+C900060042+C900060046+
C900060021+C900060032+C900060044+C900060048)
TCH congestion & relevant counter
Counter Counter Description

C900060019 Number of voice TCH/F seizure attempts for assignment

C900060020 Number of voice TCH/F seizure failure for assignment

C900060021 Number of voice TCH/F seizure attempts for handover

C900060022 Number of voice TCH/F seizure failure for handover

C900060030 Number of data TCH/F seizure attempts for assignment

C900060031 Number of data TCH/F seizure failure for assignment

C900060032 Number of data TCH/F seizure attempts for handover

C900060033 Number of data TCH/F seizure failure for handover

TCH congestion & relevant counter
Counter Counter Description

C900060042 Number of voice TCH/H seizure attempts for assignment

C900060043 Number of voice TCH/H seizure failure for assignment

C900060044 Number of voice TCH/H seizure attempts for handover

C900060045 Number of voice TCH/H seizure failure for handover

C900060046 Number of data TCH/H seizure attempts for assignment

C900060047 Number of data TCH/H seizure failure for assignment

C900060048 Number of data TCH/H seizure attempts for handover

C900060049 Number of data TCH/H seizure failure for handover

Signaling of TCH congestion

Upon receiving Assignment Request from MSC, BSC will

search for suitable TCHs.
If no usable TCHs are available, BSC will send a Assignment
Failure message to MSC, and the system records congestion as
one time.
Contents

TCH occupation signaling & relevant counters

Causes of TCH congestion
Problem investigation process
Common methods of solving TCH congestion
Typical cases
Causes of TCH congestion

High dense Low TCH

traffic usability due to
exceeds BTS hardware
capacity problem

TCH
Problem with
channel Large Traffic burst
adjacent cells Congestion

Too large
Unreasonable coverage,
setting of radio isolated island
parameters effect
Contents

TCH occupation signaling & relevant counters

Causes of TCH congestion
Problem investigation process
Common methods of solving TCH congestion
Typical cases
Process of handling TCH congestion
Expand the BTS with
A cell with high TCH enough TRXs
congestion rate

If the BTS
TCH Yes reaches its Yes
Lower BTS power,
Investigate
availability is max increase down-tilt to
hardware
low? configuratio abate congestion
n?

Due to high traffic density

Yes Isolated- Yes

Any problem effect exists
Investigate Reduce coverage and
with adjacent due to too
adjacent cells eliminate the effect
cell? large
coverage?

Yes Yes
Caused by Optimize HO
Check radio
too many parameters to Adjust parameters
parameters
handovers? reduce HO
Contents

TCH occupation signaling & relevant counters

Causes of TCH congestion
Problem investigation process
Common methods of solving TCH congestion
Typical cases
Common methods of solving TCH congestion

Traffic
control

Solutions
Open
expansion to
congestion HR

Control
coverage
Common methods of traffic control

Control cell selection C1CBACBQ

Control cell C2CROCRH

reselection

Control Handover PBGT HO Macro-micro

HO, Traffic HO

Control coverage TRX static Power class,

range Down tilt
Traffic controlcell selection
Cell selection
When MS is open or it enters coverage from blind area, it detects the cells
signal and stays synchronous with the cell, then it scans BCCH in different
cells and select one to reside according to cells priority and the principle
C1>1.
C1: parameter for cell pathloss judgment principle
C1 = RXLEVELDL-RXLEV_ACCESS_MINMAX(MS _TXPWR_MAX -
P)
RXLEVEL: MS receive level average
DL-RXLEV_ACCESS_MIN: minimum MS access level
MS_TXPWR_MAXmax BCCH power level
Pmax MS output level
Traffic controlcell selection
Cell selection priority
In PHASE2+ regulations, parameters CBA and CBQ to represent
the cells priority are added. Through combined settings of the two
parameters, we can get different selection priorities, and we can
set lower priority for congested cells.

CellBarQualify CellBarAccess Cell selection Cell reselection

priority status

0 0 Normal Normal

0 1 Barred Barred

1 0 Low Normal

1 1 Low Normal
Traffic controlcell reselection

Cell reselection
When C2 algorithm is open, MS reselects the cell with
max C2 to reside.
whenPT11111
C2C1CROTOHPTT
whenPT11111 With the adoption of C2, cell
selection range can be adjusted.
C2C1CRO Flexible setting of C2 can reduce
of which cell real coverage and congestion.
When x<0, Hx0
When x0, Hx1
CRO: cell reselection offset
TO: temporary offset (temporary correct value of C2.
temporary means the value works on C2 just during a period,
which is decided by PT.)
PT: penalty time
Traffic controlhandover based on layers
PBGT HO
Through setting PBGTHoLayer and NCellLayer, we can control whether
the handover can be carried out among undefined layer, same layer
different frequency band, upper layer, and lower layer, thus we can reach
flexible control over traffic distribution.
Traffic HO
Through setting parameters: layer relation-TrafficHoLayrCtl (same layer,
upper layer, lower layer), frequency band TrafficHoFreqCtl and
NCellLayer, we can contol the layer and frequency band for target cell of
traffic handover, and traffic distribution can be controlled flexibly as well.
For specific parameters,
please refer to relevant
Macro-micro HO technical guidebooks.
Macro-micro handover is to handover the MS moving with slow speed from
macro cell layer to micro cell layer. The micro cell mentioned here is just a
concept in logic. In this example, DCS1800 cell can be regarded as micro
cell, and the macro-micro handover can only be carried out to adjacent
cells on lower layer. Use MacroMicroHoThs to control the difficulty of
handover to lower layers.
Traffic controlcoverage control

Control antenna down-tilt

Static power class

Static power class Max real transmitting power
static RF power step Pn
0 Maximum output power
1 Maximum output power 2dB
2 Maximum output power 4dB
3 Maximum output power 6dB
4 Maximum output power 8dB
5 Maximum output power 10dB
6 Maximum output power 12dB
 Half Rate

Features of HR

Fast expansion of TRX is not necessary; Note radio interference at areas with HR open;
Increase capacity at the cost of speech quality; Note subscribers sensitivity of speech quality;
Flexible setting of cell layers and configuration; Note setting of HR threshold;

Some terminals (MS) can not support HR. Note rate of terminals supporting HR.

Application of HR
HR application in area with burst traffic
HR application at area with dense traffic
HR application at areas with lower-end subscribers
Half Rate
One speech channel TCH includes 26-frame multi-frame, time is
120ms.

FR
1 2 3 12 13 14 24 25 26

TCH/F TCH/F TCH/F SACCH idle

HR 1 2 3 12 13 14 24 25 26

TCH/H1 TCH/H2 TCH/H1 TCH/H2 SACCH1 TCH/H2 TCH/H2 TCH/H1 SACCH2

Half Rate
Activating HR solution achieves fast expansion of wireless network, relieves
network intense capacity, effectively solves partial traffics congestion, and can
be supplement for urgent expansion solution.
Proportion of the MS supporting HR codec
Using HR will lower the speech quality during conversation in worse radio C/I areas
HR solution suits for low-value areas with outburst heavy traffics

HR solution increases the capacity

and spectrum efficiency.
The ZTE BSC avoids the occurrence
transmission in Abis interface is
of HR fragmentations to reserve
continuous and complete timeslot for
FR allocation and data services. In
addition, the BSC can gather the
fragmental HR channels by internal
cell handover, which is re-packaging
mechanism for ongoing half rate
calls.
Two HR subscribers share 16
kbps transmission of Abis
interface; therefore, the
In poor radio environments, the speech quality
not affected. of the HR decreases.
The ZTE BSS monitors the strength of radio
signals and speech quality to dynamically
switch between the HR and FR for a
subscriber. In this way, the network capacity
increases with the satisfying service quality.
Half Rate

Full name Preferred speech version (half)

When implementing the CS channel allocation

policy,describe the preferred half-rate speech
Description
version. Halfrate version 1 refers to HR, and version
3 for AMR

Not specify the preferred version, Half-rate version

Value Range
1, Half-rate version 3
Half Rate

Full name Low priority of channel select priority

When implementing the CS channel allocation

Description policy,BSC describes the channel select strategy
while TCH allocation

No change, Full rate first, Half rate first, Only full

Value Range
rate allowed, Only half rate allowed
Half Rate

Full name High priority of channel select priority

When implementing the CS channel allocation

Description policy, BSC describes the channel select strategy
while TCH allocation

No change, Full rate first, Half rate first, Only full

Value Range
rate allowed, Only half rate allowed
Half Rate

Full name Dynamic ts

YES: Representing dynamic timeslot; NO:

Description
Representing fixedly configured timeslot

Value Range Yes/No

Flow of network expansion Rate of open HR
shall not be too
Open certain percent of
Gather each cells traffic high
HR, calculate theoretical
report of a week traffic to be supported

Traffic
Filter out each cells max No
(actual)>traffic Open HR for
traffic volume to be the base
HR expansion
of expansion calculation.
(theoretical)

Look up in Erl B, obtain the Calculate number of TRX

cells theoretical busy hour needed for expansion
traffic Erl (theoretical) (actual need)

TRX(actual
Yes No
Traffic (actual) need)>max Complete
>traffic number of expansion plan
(theoretical) TRX allowed

Add new BTS Cell split

No expansion need
Contents

TCH occupation signaling & relevant counters

Causes of TCH congestion
Problem investigation process
Common methods of solving TCH congestion
Typical cases
Typical case 1
TCH congestion rate at an overseas BTS was shown higher than usual after
it's been swapped with ZTE equipment.

Problem description
From the dynamic data management, we observed that all FR TCHs have been
occupied, while a lot of HR TCHs were idle.

Problem analysis
Through signaling analysis, we found congestion just occurred on assigning FR
TCH. Basically, it was confirmed that the assignment failure was caused by
congestion due to lack of FR TCH ;
After checking the channel assignment parameters of MSC, BSC and cells, we
found the system takes the first speech version assigned by MSC as default;
after most TRXs were configured with HR TCH, the channel assignment priority
in radio parameters has not been changed accordingly;
Typical case 1

Problem analysis
Since most TRXs in these cells were configured with static HR TCHs, there
were just a few FR TCHs, which led to congestion due to lack of TCH/F;
The primary cause of congestion is there is still a certain number of MSs do not
support HR.

Problem handling
Adjusted ChanSelectPrio (channel selection priority), changed the default No
Select to half Rate First , The problem was solved.
Typical case 2
Frequent congestion due to improper parameter settings
Problem description
During optimization of a local network, the busy hour congestion rate
(incl. HO) of two cells was high (10%), while that (excl. HO) was
normal. And number of TCH assignment failure was high, which for
the two cells were 89 and 61.
Traffic volume was lower than that before optimization.
Interference band was normal.
Congestion rate was normal before optimization.

Problem analysis
Since the congestion rate deteriorated after optimization, and only the
rate with HO included went bad, so we could exclude reasons like
antenna interference, hardware problem, etc., but focus on HO.
Recorded the two cells handover statistical performance of 15mins,
we found almost all handovers from a certain cell CGI=**1768 to
these two cells failed.
Typical case 2
Problem handling
Checked the two cells HO statistics, we found they were co-channel
and co-BSIC, and they were adjacent cells to a certain cell at the
same time, so almost all handovers from the certain cell to each of
these two cells failed inevitably, and the failure just occurred during
TCH assignment.

After the two cells BCCH and BSIC were adjusted, HO and
congestion returned to normal.
Typical case 3
Serious congestion due to traffic burst

Problem description
Congestion rate in two cells under a certain BTS increased suddenly
during 21002300 pm, and the rate even reached 30%, while there
was no congestion during other periods.
Number of call attempts and traffic volume were obviously increased when
congestion occurred.
Other radio indicators were in normal status.

Problem analysis
Checked if high dense traffic existed within coverage of the two cells, its
found that there was a high school dormitory building, and traffic burst
occurred after school.
We checked the two cells' configuration, which has already reached the
max allowed.
After checking we found HR in the two cells was off, so its suggested that
HR be open for cell expansion.
Typical case 3
Problem handling
Obtained the two cells busy hour traffic of 7 consecutive days from performance
report.
Found out the number of TCHs supporting traffic from Erl B.
From calculation, we found that HR of 40% TCHs had to be open to satisfy the actual
traffic need.
Opened the two cells dynamic HR, and set the threshold as 60%.
When HR was open, the congestion disappeared.

TCH TCH overflow TCH call

UserLabel TCH available TCH traffic
congestion rate times attempts
Site77_bts1 26 24.78 23.51 612 2603
Site93_bts2 25 23.48 18.17 428 2355
Site77_bts1 26 24.27 23.39 589 2518
Site93_bts2 25 23.14 17.95 407 2267
Site77_bts1 26 24.89 28.9 737 2550
Site93_bts2 25 23.72 20.89 507 2426
Site77_bts1 37 29.73 0.44 13 2831
Site93_bts2 35 28.42 0.26 7 2692
Site77_bts1 40 30.12 0.53 15 2881
Site93_bts2 36 28.14 0.11 3 2655
Questions for thinking

Why congestion occurs when traffic per TCH

channel reaches 0.4Erl in cells with single TRX?

What methods can be used to achieve traffic

balance?