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UK

Radio Datasheet 0300 Radio Design Guidelines For Special


Events
This datasheet is compiled and owned by Radio Engineering. Date of last update : 24 November 2010.

SUMMARY: For the purposes of this document special events can be considered to be any
activity which is of a temporary nature and likely to draw large numbers of
people into a limited geographical area and thus generate high levels of peaky
GSM and UMTS voice and data traffic.
This datasheet provides 2G and 3G radio design guidelines based on
experience of such events to date. It is not exhaustive and will need to be
updated as new issues and solutions are identified.
It should be noted that management of such events will always be a challenge
as there can rarely be sufficient radio resource deployed to cope with the
traffic peaks generated and therefore any solution is likely to involve a
compromise between performance and capacity
The following guidelines are structured in order of increasing difficulty of
deployment and currently refer only to the NSN RAN.
Target Audience Cell planners, Regional radio planners and optimisers

Enhancing capability of 2G
existing Sites using
For GSM the most significant issue is likely to be Common channel congestion affecting
parameters
call setup and paging failures under high traffic load. This may not be reflected in network
performance stats. Radio Engineering Bulletin 042 (ref [1]) addresses this.
Two key features to support high traffic load are:
Extended Common Control Channel (ECCCH) which doubles the CCH
signalling capacity
Dual Rate applied sufficient to match expected traffic to the available carriers
3G
For the UTRAN a number of parameter changes are available to improve the radio
resource capability of the Node B to manage traffic peaks. However these changes are
sub-optimal in terms of performance and are therefore for temporary use only. These are
defined in Radio Engineering Bulletin 083 (ref [2])
It is recommended that maximum Baseband resource is implemented within the
constraints of the existing hardware where significant traffic peaks are anticipated.
For Flexi sites the Channel Element (CE) licence can be increased to the maximum
permitted by each System Module.
For RU10/RU20 these are:
FSMB 240 CEs available (but 26 must be reserved for signalling)
FSMD 396 CEs available for Traffic
FSME 612 CEs available for Traffic
This is usually implemented by the NSN support team. The required licences will be
downloaded from the RNC pool to the target BTS subject to appropriate commercial
cover

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O2 UK Radio Datasheet 0300 Radio Design Guidelines For Special Events

Enhancing capability of 2G
existing Sites using
Upgrading of existing GSM sites will normally be limited to installation of additional
hardware upgrades
carriers remembering that the use of UMTS900 carriers to support the event will prevent
the use of EGSM.

3G
If the existing 3G site is at HSDPA3.6 then it is recommended that this be upgraded to
HSDPA7.2 configuration for the benefits of second carrier working. If the extra
transmission (3xE1) is not available to support this then, on a short term basis only, the
site can operate with just 3E1s on the basis that voice services can be protected at the
expense of likely PS congestion on the Iub.
Where the existing sites is already at HSDPA7.2 heavy then the potential upgrade options
(in order of ease of implementation) are:
Baseband congestion is expected:
o For Flexi:
Upgrade System Module to FSME
Add a second System Module
o For Ultrasite:add additional WSPC cards
U900 carrier upgrade, in EGSM cleared areas - if interference can be controlled,
using existing GSM antennas.
6 sector upgrade

Temp / Mobicell Dimensioning


Deployment
As a rule of thumb assume a 6 carrier (typically 4P and 2D) sector is required as
considerations 2G
a minimum for every 20K people (not just O2 customers) attending. Note that
EGSM capability is unlikely to be available.
Consideration may be given to providing EDGE capability if significant GPRS
traffic is anticipated and backhaul bandwidth (typically 3 x E1s) is available

Preferred Locations and coverage levels


Need to get reasonable sector dominance but not as critical as 3G. Should aim
for >-75dBm on street with >15dB C/I unloaded

Antennas see Ref [6]

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O2 UK Radio Datasheet 0300 Radio Design Guidelines For Special Events

Temp / Mobicell Dimensioning


Deployment
As a rule of thumb assume a 2 carrier (U2100) sector is required as a minimum
considerations 3G
for every 10K people (not just O2 customers) attending, preferably seeking to
Machieve better than one (2x U2100) sector for every 5K attending
o
?
Preferred Locations and coverage levels
For 3G it is essential to get as close as possible to the traffic being served. This
will provide the most efficient service delivery. This is not always possible - so
in practice sites will be central (6 sector) or peripheral (3 sector, High Gain ants,
MHAs and HPAs) to the event. Should aim for >-75dBm on street with >-9dB
Ec/Io

BTS configs
In general, where it is possible to place site(s) in the centre of the target
population ,then six sector operation should be preferred. As Mobicell mast
loading is a major issue and path loss is unlikely to be significant then MHAs
may be dispensed with. (Note that the site configuration file must reflect this).
Alternatively or additionally in EGSM cleared areas ,the use of the U900 carrier,
utilising the GSM antennas may be considered, if interference can be controlled.
Where the sites have to be placed around the periphery of the event then the
standard HSDPA 7.2 Heavy configuration should be utilised. The use of U900
carriers should be considered in preference to six sector working due to the
propagation benefits and the difficulty of orientating multiple U2100 sectors in
one general direction.
Special consideration for antenna type and placement is covered below. Use of
High Power Amplifiers for distant sites is currently being considered.
Ref [3] provides detailed guidance on U2100 macrocell BTS configurations.
U900 deployment guidelines are at Ref [5]
Consideration should also be given to the provision of the U900 carrier(s) in
EGSM cleared areas.
Consideration may also be given to provision of microcells if the twin
requirements of lack of macrocell dominance, coupled with close proximity to
the target population can be achieved. Microocell guidelines are at Ref [4]
Note that SE parameters deliberately limit the maximum number of HSDPA
codes to 5 effectively limiting peak rates to HSDPAP3.6 irrespective of the HW
installed!
For this reason deployment of HSPA+ at special events is not recommended

Antennas
see Ref [6]

Transport Requirements
In general the standard transport configuration of 6 x E1 should be utilised for most
configs

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O2 UK Radio Datasheet 0300 Radio Design Guidelines For Special Events

WiFi At the time of writing the O2 WiFi strategy is still being defined. However the provision
of Wifi for cellular data offload should be encouraged where this is economically and
practically possible.
WiFi Access Points (AP), in accordance with the 802.11b/g/n standard, are limited to a
maximum transmitted power of 30dBm (1W) ERP and therefore must be located close to
their target audience to be effective. A maximum throughput of 10Mbps can be assumed
per AP and it is recommended that these are provided on the basis of one for every 2K
people (not just O2 customers) attending.
Note that there are effectively only 3 channels available in the most common 2.4GHz
band. These are channels 1, 6 and 11 and therefore adjacent APs should be planned with
alternating channels to minimise interference which will degrade maximum throughput.

Backout of Special Event Unless the event is defined as repeating, see below, then special event:
parameters and
parameters should be backed out within 48 hours
upgrades
and
hardware upgrades restored within 7 days
of the end of the event in order to avoid ongoing performance degradation and non
standard BTS configurations which cannot be supported.

Repeat Events A repeat event is a defined special event for which it is determined in advance that the
frequency and difficulty of upgrade is significant enough to warrant maintaining special
event configurations on an ongoing basis accepting the continuing performance
degradation (ie MPD) that will result.
An examples of such repeat events might be sites surrounding football stadia where
matches are played weekly throughout the football season.
For obvious reasons such repeat events should be minimised and a register maintained to
avoid fruitless investigations into the resulting poor performance issues

Performance Monitoring Close supervision of a number of network performance counters is recommended for the
and Response to Severe sites involved. These include, in order of priority:
Congestion
Service availability(cs, ps)
Service Accessibility(cs,ps)
Service Retainability(cs, ps)
Average speed(ps)
Peak speed(ps)
Latency(ps)

Depending on the event timescales the normal 60 minute reporting via PrOptima may be
sufficient.
Where traffic profiles are likely to change rapidly hour by hour then it is possible to
instigate 15 minute reporting instead to provide additional granularity. The downside of
this, however, is that the entire BSC / RNC is impacted and that PrOptima logging (which
is hourly only) will be interrupted for the entire BSC / RNC for the period that 15 minute
logging in activated
A preferred approach for UTRAN monitoring is to use Traffica which reports

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O2 UK Radio Datasheet 0300 Radio Design Guidelines For Special Events

performance and alarm status on the basis of 1 minute intervals for the RNCs to which it
is connected.
At the time of writing it is anticipated that Traffica and the associated monitoring
processes will be widely rolled out to cover most RNCs, if not all.
If 3G voice call setup success rate (CSSR) drops below 90% or voice call completion
success rate (CCSR) drops below 80% for extended periods then consideration should be
given to selective cell barring in order to force traffic to the more resilient neighbouring
2G cell. This decision needs to be taken on a case by case basis according to a pre
determined action plan.
With 2G as the fallback for 3G traffic there is no similar requirement to remove congested
GSM cells from service
Note that locking down a 3G cell is non preferred as traffic will be forced onto
neighbouring 3G cells which themselves are likely to be congested thus causing a
congestion ripple effect outwards from the centre of the event.
If 3G voice performance remains stable then poor data performance is less of a concern as
the customer impact is likely to be less noticeable.
Note that the 3G radio resource pre-emption features deliberately seeks to reduce data
resources in order to preserve the more critical voice service under congestion conditions.

[1] REB 042 Reducing GSM Cell Access Blocking at Major Events
Reference Documents: [2] REB 083 Parameter Optimisation for 3G Hotspots
[3] Radio Datasheet 1320 3G BTS Configurations
[4] Radio Datasheet 1101 3G Microcell Deployment Guidelines
[5] Radio Datasheet 1103 UMTS900 Deployment Guidelines
[6] Radio Datasheet 7512 RF System configurations for Special Events

END OF DOCUMENT

The author of this document is dfraley, Radio Engineering. For any questions or issues, please contact the Radio
Engineering helpdesk on 01753 565882 or e-mail radio.engineering.uk@O2.com.

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