ENHANCED PDCCH LINK ADAPTATION

In legacy functionality, the PDCCH outer loop was really the outer loop for PDSCH plus fixed 10 dB
margin. Since PDCCH and PDSCH experience different interference and have different target error rates,
performing outer loop control for PDCCH based on PDSCH transmission success/failure was not optimal.
The fixed 10 dB margin is too conservative in many cases, leading to PDCCH capacity degradation. This
feature improves the PDCCH outer loop by adjusting the outer loop based on PDCCH
transmission success/failure rather than PDSCH success / failures

PDCCH is many cases are not only traffic but health of UL quality as when PDCCH detection rate
decrease, PDCCH load will increase as aggregation needs to use higher resource. When PDCCH is over
utilized this causes Overload and TPUT down to very low so this feature adjusts PDCCH SINR based on
PDCCH reception success/failure. The number of allocated CCEs ,i.e. Aggregation level, on PDCCH
are calculated based on adjusted PDCCH SINR

Special DRX configuration is used for a UE with a VoLTE call. There is only a very short time period
during which the UE will wake up to receive PDCCH. If the DL assignment is not received in this period,
UE will not wake up for potential HARQ retransmissions. No HARQ mechanism for PDCCH transmission

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This is what happens in DL (left) and UL (right) in case of PDCCH Decoding fail (PDCCH Error)

Impact of PDCCH decoding failure

1. If DL assignment or UL grant transmitted on the PDCCH cannot be received, voice packet

might get lost or delayed

- Voice packet loss rate should be less than 1% 0.5% to avoid impact on voice quality
- Mouth-to-ear delay should be around than 200ms

2. DL radio link failure is detected if PDCCH BLER is greater than 10% for a certain period of
time which may have severe impact on voice quality

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 3. Currently there are many cells which have a PDCCH error rate > 1% for VoLTE users
4. PDCCH decoding failures might be reduced by selecting a higher CCE aggregation level.
This can be achieved by further reducing the PDCCH target error rate for VoLTE users

12.65 kbps AMR-WB codec generates 12.65 bp1ms = 253 bp20ms. After protocol stacks added their
headers we get 300 bits of speech information every 20ms. As voice samples are generated every 20ms,
20 users can share same PRB sets. So, after all headed are added to a Volte packets which includes
20ms speech information, total size reaches to 42 bytes = 336 bits (when 12.2 kbps codec is considered,
12.2 kbps means 244 bp20ms, 244 / 8 = 30.5 bytes, when 12.65 kbps codec is considered, 12,65 kbps
means 253 bp20ms, 253 / 8 = 31.625 bytes) which fits into one PDCP packet. It could be said, PDCP
Packet Loss % = Voice Packet Loss %

PDCCH Error Rate Tuning: In general, a lower target for PDCCH Error Rate will increase the probability
of allocating more CCEs (more robust transmission). As most of the PDCCH error rate samples are within
0%-15% in LTE networks (target is 1.1%), there is still a high probability that the highest CCE aggregation
level (8 CCEs) is not yet used

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By lowering the PDCCH error rate target (pdcchTargetBlerVolte=22 means 1.1% as the
MultiplicationFactor is 0.05), a higher CCE utilization for VoLTE users is expected. Since the total Volte
contribution to overall traffic is very small, only a minor increase of total PDCCH utilization is expected

Step size of DownStep

If target BLER (pdcchTargetBlerVolte) is reduced to half, the DownStep is doubled. e.g. target BLER =
1.1%0.55%, DownStep=0.539 dB1.085 dB

No impact to UpStep (set by pdcchOuterLoopUpStepVolte = 0.006dB default value,) but as downstep is

calculated by DownStep = UpStep * (1- pdcchTargetBlerVolte)/ pdcchTargetBlerVolte) formula, a
decrease on pdcchTargetBlerVolte will lead an increase in downstep size.

Effect of parameter changes to Enhanced PDCCH Link Adaptation

In order to satisfy the required BLER for PDCCH, the estimated SINR must be adjusted to compensate
for the CQI estimation errors on the PDCCH. Both an upward step and a downward step are defined
based on a target BLER. The outer loop adjustment is increased by an upward step or decreased by a
downward step.

To determine the outer loop adjustment criteria, the Enhanced PDCCH Link Adaptation relies on the
following elements:

1. Success or failure of the PDCCH transmissions: The HARQ-ACK reports and the PUSCH
detection results are used for this purpose. If the RBS detects a user HARQ response, either
negative or positive, the PDCCH transmission is considered successful. If no response is
detected, the PDCCH transmission is considered failed. The RBS considers the
transmission on the PUSCH as failed if the Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) fails and no
valid signal is received.

2. Aggressive and conservative PDCCH allocation: The PDCCH allocation is considered

conservative if the number of allocated Control Channel Elements (CCE) exceeds, within a
predefined range, the required number, and it is considered aggressive in the opposite case.
The outer loop keeps track of adjustments made when allocation is aggressive or
conservative, and it uses this information to decide how to make the adjustment

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Effect of pdcchTargetBlerVolte (lower value means larger outer loop downstep adjustment. Higher
PDCCH aggregation level is used most likely in lower values)

Configured Value: 22 means 22*0.05=1.1% Target PDCCH BLER=>-0.539dB SINR outer loop
downstep adjustment

Test Value: 6 means 6*0.05 = 0.3% Target PDCCH BLER =>-1.994dB SINR outer loop downstep
adjustment

Formula used: DownStep Size = UpStep Size * (1- pdcchTargetBlerVolte)/ pdcchTargetBlerVolte)

Effect of pdcchOuterLoopInitialAdjVolte (higher value means more compensation. Higher PDCCH

aggregation level is used most likely in higher values)

Configured Value: -70 means -7dB initial SINR adjustment value

Test Value: -90 means -9dB initial SINR adjustment value

Note: Each successful PDCCH detection (i.e. HARQ response (ACK or NACK) sent by UE is received by
eNB) increases SINR outer loop adjustment. This is added to estimated-SINR for compensation. If
PDCCH blocks are detected successfully, this makes estimated SINR closer to actual SINR and also

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leads to less compensation. The less the compensation, the less aggregation level on PDCCH (less
PDCCH CCE consumption). There is a trade-off between PDCCH robustness and PDCCH capacity.

Expected results after parameter changes

- PDCCH BLER % reduction

- QCI1 Packet Loss % reduction yields lower jitter and higher MOS
- PDCCH CCE Utilization % increase
- Slight improvement on Volte retainability might be expected

Related Counters in Ericsson

Unicast: to a specific UE, no broadcast like SIBs

Counter
pmDlAssigsTrans
pmDlAssigsWithDetctedHarqAck
pmDlAssigsWithUnknownReception
pmUlGrantsTrans
pmUlGrantsWithDetectedPusch
pmPdcchTxConservative
pmPdcchTxAggressive
pmDlAssigsTransVolte
pmDlAssigsWithDetectedHarqAckVolte
pmDlAssigsWithUnknownReceptionVolte The total number of unicast DL assignments that are transmitted to UEs
pmUlGrantsTransVolte
pmUlGrantsWithDetectedPuschVolte
Description
The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted.
The total number of unicast DL assignments that are confirmed by
detecting a corresponding HARQ-ACK.
The total number of unicast DL assignments for which the reception is
unknown.
The total number of unicast UL grants transmitted.
The total number of unicast grants that are confirmed by detecting a
corresponding PUSCH transmission.
The total number of conservative unicast PDCCH transmissions.
The total number of aggressive unicast PDCCH transmissions.
The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted to UEs that have
any bearer mapped to a QCI with ServiceType of VOIP. The DL
assignments are excluded if this cell is a secondary cell for those UEs.
The total number of unicast DL assignments that are transmitted to UEs
with any bearer mapped to a QCI with ServiceType of VOIP, for which the
reception is confirmed by detecting a corresponding ACK or NACK for any
transport block. The DL assignments are excluded if this cell is a
secondary cell for those UEs.
with any bearer mapped to a QCI with ServiceType of VOIP, for which the
reception is unknown. The DL assignments are excluded if this cell is a
secondary cell for those UEs.
The total number of unicast UL grants transmitted to UEs that have any
bearer mapped to a QCI with ServiceType of VOIP.
The total number of unicast UL grants that are transmitted to UEs with

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Counter
pmDlAssigsTransSCell
pmDlAssigsWithDetectedHarqAckSCell
pmDlAssigsWithUnknownReceptionSCell The total number of unicast DL assignments that are transmitted to UEs
pmDlAssigsTransPCell
pmDlAssigsWithDetectedHarqAckPCell
pmDlAssigsWithUnknownReceptionPCell The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted to UEs that use
pmUlGrantsTransPCell
pmUlGrantsWithDetectedPuschPCell
pmUlGrantsTransNoAck
pmUlGrantsTransVolteNoAck
pmUlGrantsTransPCellNoAck
NOTE: Volte packets uses lower SN length than the other bearer packets (lower bit rate requirement,
lower packet size)
rlcSnLength: 5 for qci1 and 10 for the rest
Description
any bearer mapped to a QCI with ServiceType of VOIP, for which the
reception is confirmed by detecting a corresponding PUSCH transmission.
The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted to UEs that use
this cell as a secondary cell.
The total number of unicast DL assignments that are transmitted to UEs
using this cell as a secondary cell, for which the reception is confirmed by
detecting a corresponding ACK or NACK for any transport block.
using this cell as a secondary cell, for which the reception is unknown.
The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted to UEs that use
this cell as the primary cell and do not have any bearer mapped to a QCI
with ServiceType of VOIP.
The total number of unicast DL assignments transmitted to UEs that use
this cell as the primary cell and do not have any bearer mapped to a QCI
with ServiceType of VOIP, for which the reception is confirmed by
detecting a corresponding ACK or NACK for any transport block.
this cell as the primary cell and do not have any bearer mapped to a QCI
with ServiceType of VOIP, for which the reception is unknown.
The total number of unicast UL grants transmitted to UEs that use this
cell as the primary cell and do not have any bearer mapped to a QCI with
ServiceType of VOIP.
The total number of unicast UL grants transmitted to UEs that use this
cell as the primary cell and do not have any bearer mapped to a QCI with
ServiceType of VOIP, for which the reception is confirmed by detecting a
corresponding PUSCH transmission.
The total number of transmitted unicast UL grants not designated for
PUSCH data transmissions.
The total number of unicast UL grants not designated for PUSCH data
transmissions. The grants are transmitted to UEs that have any bearer
mapped to a QCI with serviceType of VoIP.
The total number of unicast UL grants not designated for PUSCH data
transmissions. The grants are transmitted to UEs that use this cell as the
primary cell, and that have no bearer mapped to a QCI with VoIP
serviceType
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pdcpSnLength: 7 for qci1 and 12 for the rest

Volte icin, ePDCCH Link Adaptation parametreleri ayarlanarak volte KPI ve metriklerinde iyilesme elde
edebiliriz. Asagida kabaca, featurein calisma mantigini toparlamaya calistim.

Her bir basarili PDCCH detectionda (yani eNBnin UEden, ACK ya da NACK olmasindan bagimsiz olarak
HARQ responseunu almasi), toplam SINR compensation, upstep size kadar azaltilir. Her basarisizlikta
ise, SINR compensation, downstep size kadar arttirilir (ki bizimde parametrik degisiklikle amacladigimiz,
bu miktari arttirarak UEye, daha yuksek PDCCH aggregation level kullandirmak). Daha yuksek
compensation, daha yuksek PDCCH aggregation level kullanilmasini saglayacak ancak PDCCH CCE
Utilizationin artmasina neden olacak. Boylece, PDCCH decodingteki basari ile PDCCH kapasitesi
arasindaki trade-offu Volte servisi icin degistirip, Volte kullanicilarinin performansi arttirabiliriz. Aktif QCI1
ERABina sahip kullanicilar icin, PDCCH link adaptationi sekillendiren iki ana parametreyi asagida
bulabilirsiniz.

pdcchTargetBlerVolte: Default deger = 22 (i.e. Target PDCCH BLER % = 1.1% ), bu deger 0.539 dBlik
bir SINR outer loop downstep adjustmenta karsilik geliyor. Bu deger (SINR outer loop downstep) ne
kadar yuksek olursa, o kadar fazla SINR adjustment yapilir dolayisiyla daha yuksek PDCCH aggregation
level kullanilip, daha saglam bir PDCCH decode performansi elde edilerek, Volte paketlerinin kaybolmasi
ya da gecikmesi engellenebilir.

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 DownStep Size = UpStep Size* (1- pdcchTargetBlerVolte)/ pdcchTargetBlerVolte)

UpStep Size, pdcchOuterLoopUpStepVolte parametresi ile ayarlanir (default deger= 6)

pdcchOuterLoopInitialAdjVolte: Default deger = -70 (-7dB). Bu, SINR outer loop downstep
adjustmentin initial kismini -7dB olarak set ediyor. Bu deger ne kadar dusuk olursa, o kadar fazla SINR
compensation yapilir.

Turkcell P.I.Works
MO Parameter
Value Recommendation

EUtranCellFDD pdcchTargetBlerVolte 22 16
pdcchOuterLoopInitial
EUtranCellFDD -70 -80
AdjVolte

Degisikliklerden sonra beklenen etkiler:

- PDCCH BLER % te azalma

- QCI1 Packet Loss % te azalma (bunun sonucunda jitterda azalma ve MOS artisi)

- PDCCH CCE Utilization % artisi (ozellikle aggregation level 8de). Volte trafigi
toplam trafigin cok kucuk bir miktarini olusturdugu icin, bu artisin genel performansi
etkilemesi beklenmez. Yine de monitor edilmesi iyi olur.