VIII TELEKOMUNIKACIONI FORUM TELFOR'2000, Beograd, 21-23.11.2000.god.

DUAL-BAND 900/1800 NETWORK AS A SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF LACK OF FREQUENCIES FOR GSM 900 NETWORK
Igor Tomic Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Belgrade
I INTRODUCTION GSM 900 system uses 124 carriers in 890-915 MHz band for uplink and 935-960 MHz band for downlink (200 kHz for each carrier). After several years of functioning, and increased number of subscribers and growing traffic, this number of carriers was insufficient. Operators encountered a problem of lack of frequencies, especially in big cities, or border areas. DCS 1800 system as an addition to GSM 900 dual band network, was found as solution. Author of this paper met dual-band network during profesionall practice in Globtel GSM a.s., operator of mobile telephony in Slovakia, where he was a member of the network optimization team. This paper will present experiences with dual-band network gained during practice. II DUAL-BAND NETWORK DCS 1800 uses frequency band 1710-1785 MHz for uplink and 1805-1880 MHz band for downlink, with 374 carriers. This system can be used as an additional system to GSM 900, but it can work as independent one, in case a new operator is founded and all the frequencies from 900 layer are already used. The idea of using DCS 1800 system as an extension to GSM 900, is to transfer part of the traffic to 1800 layer. Frequencies from 1800 layer are cleaner, since they are rarely used, and we have many of them. So, from frequency management point of view, it is not a problem to find frequencies for new sites. Operators must be very careful when making strategy for transfering traffic to 1800 layer and with positioning 900/1800 cells, because only new generation mobile phones (dual-band) can communicate in 1800 layer and a lot of phones without this possibility are still in use. The question is how to define DCS 1800 cells, their relation to GSM 900 cells, terms for handover between two layers, and provide optimum work of network ? GSM system offers a lot of ways for defining cells, through many different parameters which can, but not necessarily need to, be defined for every single cell. We will mention some parameters with descriptions. These parameters are defined by Nortel, manufacturer of equipment used by Globtel GSM a.s. Other manufacturers defined similar parameters, with different names, but the point is the same. parameter: CAPTURE THRESHOLD description: this parameter is used for defining micro-cells. It is expressed in dBm and the value is usually around 85dBm. That means, that communication will pass to micro-cell whenever the level of electrical field from micro-cell is stronger than this value. Handover back to umbrella-cell is possible only as a rescue-handover. It's interesting to mention one problem from practice connected to this parameter. Before setting this parameter, it is necessary to check the level of signal on some critical places, as the traffic-light. Why ? It is well known, that micro-cells are dedicated to slow-moving subscribers. Some algorithms exist to prevent fast-moving subscribers to select micro-cells. But, for example, the car which stopped on a traffic-light is acting as a slow-moving subscriber. But, in case of selection of micro-cell, we will have drop-call after green light, because of insufficient time for handover. So, we must set this parameter on the way which will prevent selection of micro-cell from fast-moving subscribers. parameter: HANDOVER MARGIN description: value of this parameter is expressed in dB and it can be positive or negative. In case that difference between level of electrical field from the cell for which this parameter is defined and level of electrical field from current serving cell is lower than this value, handover will occur. This parameter is usually used for preventing the ping-pong effect, but it can also be used for dual-band network management, as we will see. parameter: CELL RESELECT OFFSET description: this parameter is expressed in dB and it's value is added when C2 parameter is calculated. C2 parameter is used for cell selection, and with setting CELL RESELECT OFFSET we can increase or decrease probability of selection for particular cell. The parameters described above were used or are used at the moment for defining DCS 1800 cells in Globtel GSM a.s. In the next chapter we will present problem of lack of frequencies in Slovakia and experiences os Globtel GSM a.s. with optimization of dual-band network as solution for problem .

number of handover commands

III EXPERIENCES OF GLOBTEL GSM A.S. WITH DUAL BAND NETWORK After the start of mobile telephony services and increased number of subsribers and traffic, Globtel GSM a.s. faced the problem of lack of frequencies. Problem was especially serious in Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, because of several reasons. First, Bratislava is, with 500 000 citizens, a city with high population - subscriber density. Second, Bratislava is very close to the border with Austria, Hungary and Czech republic, and there is an agreement between these states about sharing frequencies in border area. Third, Slovak army use some frequencies dedicated to GSM. As a result, Globtel can use only around 20 carriers from 900 layer in Bratislava! It was very hard to provide proper work of network, and dual band was the solution. Dual-band network is succesfuly used in big cities: Bratislava and Kosice. First attempt was to define 1800 cells as micro-cells, with 900 cells as umbrella-cells. CAPTURE THRESHOLD parameter was set to 85 dBm. We can notice that this level was quite low, comparing to the level of electrical field of 900 cells during communication, which is between 60 and 80 dBm. This is because the radiation power of 1800 cells antennas is lower comparing to 900 cells antennas, since 1800 layer frequencies are cleaner, so communication is possible on weaker level of electrical field. After a while, we noticed that network had worked propertly, but the transfer of traffic could be more intensive. The next step was to define DCS 1800 cells as normal cells, but to set HANDOVER MARGIN parameter to 24 dB for these cells. It means that whenever the signal level from DCS 1800 cell was not weaker than 24 dB comparing to GSM 900 cell, handover to DCS 1800 cell occured. This condition was more often satisfied, so transfer of traffic to 1800 layer was increased. But we noticed too large a number of handovers between two layers. Since each handover is a potential break of communications and needs a lot of operations in the network, we decided to try to decrease it. The final attempt, currently active, was to set CELL RESELECT OFFSET to 20 dB for DCS 1800 cells (HANDOVER MARGIN is zero). Before these settings, communication started in 900 layer, and it was transfered to 1800 layer in case that some criteria were satisfied. With these settings communications start in 1800 layer (for dual band mobile phones). C2 parameter has no influence on handover, so only recsue-handover back to 900 layer is possible. With these settings we managed to decrease the number of unnecessary handovers between two layers. It can be seen on the following figure 1.

1200000 1000000 800000 600000 400000 200000 0

figure 1. number of handovers in Bratislava We can see that number of handovers on last maximum (peak hours) is significantly decreased. In future we can expect the changing of ratio between dual-band and non-dual-band mobile phones, which will have impact on setting of parameters for optimal work of network. IV CONCLUSION In case of growing traffic and lack of frequencies, standard optimization techniques can help, but they are limited. Dualband network is the necessary and satisfactory solution. REFERENCES [1] http://www.tdap.com/tdap/wireless/wireless (Eric_GSM). html [2]http://www.nortelnetworks.com/products/01/gsm/d_b.html [3] Asha Mehrotra, GSM System Engineering, Artech House, Boston 1997. Gratitude: I would like to thank to all people from Globtel GSM a.s. for being kind, helpful and patient with me during all time of my training. Especially thanks to mr.Vladislav Ciernik, Ciernik manager of optimization team, who was my official supervisor and whose help was immeasurable. I would like to thank to IAESTE YUGOSLAVIA organization, which succesfully organized my training in Slovakia. Abstract: Dual-band 900/1800 network is a good answer for the problem of lack of frequencies in 900 MHz layer in case of growing traffic. In this paper are desribed the expierences of Globtel GSM a.s. in problems of setting parameters and optimization of dual-band 900/1800 network. DUAL-BAND 900/1800 NETWORK AS A SOLUTION FOR THE PROBLEM OF LACK OF FREQUENCIES FOR GSM 900 NETWORK, Igor Tomic.