Frequency Hopping

Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement
FREQUENCY HOPPING FOR CAPACITY AND QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
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Motorola Confidential Proprietary Page 1
BSS Product/Technical Documentation June 1998
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3 2. REFERENCES...........................................................................................................................4 3. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS.....................................................................................................5 4. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................5 5. FREQUENCY HOPPING TECHNIQUE.......................................................................................7 5.1 FREQUENCY DIVERSITY...............................................................................................................7 5.2 INTERFERENCE AVERAGING.....................................................................................................13 5.3 FREQUENCY HOPPING OPERATION.........................................................................................16 5.3.1 Base Band Frequency Hopping (BBH).....................................................................................16 5.3.2 Synthesiser Frequency Hopping (SFH)...................................................................................18 5.3.3 Hardware Requirements for Frequency Hopping....................................................................20 5.4 FREQUENCY REUSE PATTERNS...............................................................................................21 6. HOPPING SYSTEMS DESCRIPTION AND RESULTS.............................................................26 6.1 SETTING THE BACKGROUND OF FH.........................................................................................28 6.2 NETWORK TYPE A........................................................................................................................30 6.3 NETWORK TYPE B........................................................................................................................33 6.3.1 NETWORK TYPE B WITH LOW CARRIERS/CELL RATIO....................................................33 6.3.2 NETWORK TYPE B WITH NARROW SPECTRUM ALLOCATION.........................................34 6.3.3 NETWORK TYPE B WITH HIGH CARRIERS/CELL RATIO....................................................35 6.4 NETWORK TYPE C........................................................................................................................35 6.5 NETWORK TYPE D........................................................................................................................41 7. FREQUENCY HOPPING AS A CAPACITY SOLUTION...........................................................44 7.1 BASE BAND HOPPING FOR CAPACITY......................................................................................45 7.2 SYNTHESISER FREQUENCY HOPPING FOR CAPACITY.........................................................50 7.3 COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BBH VS. SFH FOR CAPACITY.........................................................51 8. ECONOMIC IMPACT OF FREQUENCY HOPPING..................................................................53 9. GENERAL COMPARISON OF BBH AND SFH........................................................................56 10. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS........................................................58
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1.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Frequency Hopping is Motorolas solution to cope with Capacity and Quality problems arising in highly loaded GSM networks. The present document introduces this technique, describing its basic principles and the advantages that can be achieved by implementing it. There are two different ways to implement Frequency Hopping, known as Base Band Frequency Hopping (BBH) and Synthesiser Frequency Hopping (SFH), both available in all Motorola equipment without any hardware modification at all. The results obtained in different systems where this feature has been implemented show that very good quality and system performance are achieved at the same time that the capacity of the system is dramatically increased. Capacity enhancements of 60% have been achieved with BBH in systems where it is already implemented, and up to 80% with SFH. Theoretical studies claim for higher possibilities for SFH respect to BBH, and capacity increases of 100% can be possible, always considering a conventional fixed plan as the reference. The reduction in costs involved in Frequency Hopping implementation is the third basic point supporting Frequency Hopping as the best option for system operators. The reduction in number of sites and the simplicity of frequency planning and optimisation activities are the key to achieve up to 50% reduction in the investment necessary to set up a network. These important savings in money, time, and resources result in earlier revenues for the system operator, at the same time the network can be easily and quickly expanded. Synthesiser Frequency Hopping is the approach Motorola recommends as being the best solution considering the advantages it has respect to BBH. This implementation is the only existing technique permitting to achieve simultaneously all the benefits previously described. SFH technique and Motorolas experience in Frequency Hopping made up the most powerful weapon the system operators can fall back on to enhance the performance of a GSM network.
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2.
REFERENCES
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] The GSM System for Mobile Communications by Michel Mouly and M. B. Pautet Planning for Freq. Hopping Ver. 1.1 by Phil Jones, Motorola Field Test of Synthesiser Hopping - Interference Averaging by Phil Jones, Motorola GSM Frequency hopping - Capacity - Quality - Interworking by B. B. Mohebbi, Motorola Capacity Study of a Frequency Hopping GSM Network by Preben E. Morgensen and Jeroen Wigard
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3.
GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS
BCCH BBH BER BSC BSS BTS CCB CCCH CDMA C/I, CIR DB TRX DTX FER FH FHI GSM HO HSN MA MAIO MSC OMC RTC SACCH SDCCH SFH TCH Broadcast Control Channel Base Band Hopping Bit Error Rate Base Site Controller Base Station Subsystem Base Transceivers Station Cavity Combiner Block Common Control Channel Code Division Multiple Access Carrier to Interference Ratio Dummy Burst Diversity Radio Channel Unit Discontinuous Transmission Frame Erasure Rate Frequency Hopping Frequency Hopping Indicator Global System for Mobile communications Handover Hopping Sequence number Mobile Allocation Mobile Allocation Index Offset Mobile Switching Centre Operations and Maintenance Centre Remote Tune Combiner Slow Associated Control Channel Standalone Dedicated Control Channel Synthesiser Frequency Hopping Traffic Channel
4.
INTRODUCTION
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement The purpose of this document is to describe the procedure Motorola implements to solve the quality and capacity problems, which arise in a macrocellular GSM network as their complexity and load of traffic increase. Frequency Hopping is the technique that makes it possible. Although this feature was defined in GSM recommendations at its first stages, the operators did not pay attention to it even when the quality-capacity trade-off started to be a problem. Motorola, being the only manufacturer that has had this feature available since 1992, has conducted many theoretical studies, together with field trials. Motorola has gained valuable experience implementing frequency hopping in many commercial networks world-wide and has demonstrated capacity and quality performance improvements using the techniques discussed in the document This is intended to be a self-contained document describing the philosophy and the improvements in quality and capacity than can be achieved with FH as well as the economic advantages involved. Its contents are backed up by the field results obtained. It is intended to be written in order to show how powerful Motorolas Frequency Hopping approach is to cope with quality degradation and capacity limitations.
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5.
FREQUENCY HOPPING TECHNIQUE

Frequency hopping is an old technique introduced firstly in military transmission systems to ensure the secrecy of the communications and combat jamming. The philosophy is as simple as changing the frequency used in transmission at regular intervals. It has been included in GSM specifications mainly in order to deal with two specific problems, which affect transmission quality: Multipath Fading: The immunity to fading increases by exploiting its frequency selectivity, because using different frequencies the probability of being continuously affected by fading is reduced, so the transmission link quality is improved. This characteristic is normally referred as Frequency Diversity. This improvement is much more noticeable for slow moving mobiles. Interference: The situation of permanent interference coming from neighbour cells transmitting the same or adjacent frequencies is avoided using Frequency Hopping because the calls will spend the time moving through different frequencies not equally affected by interfering signals. This effect is called Interference Averaging.
5.1
FREQUENCY DIVERSITY
It is well known that considering a cellular urban environment in most cases multipath propagation will be present and, because of that, important short-term variations in the received level are frequent. This is called Rayleigh fading, and results in quality degradation due to the fact that some of the information will be corrupted. For a fast moving mobile, the fading situation can be avoided from one burst to another because it also depends on the position of the mobile so the problem is not so serious. For a stationary mobile, the reception may be permanently affected resulting in a very bad quality or a dropped call. Once the information is received by the mobile or the base station, the only weapon to cope with the disturbance produced by the fading (errors in the information bits) are the decoding and de-interleaving processes. The effectiveness of the de-interleaving is dependent on the number of errors they have to deal with. Frequency hopping is able to take advantage of the frequency selective nature of fading by spreading the transmitted information across different frequencies. Lets say a mobile is stationary (or quasi stationary) at a point where a deep fade exists on certain frequency at a certain point in time. Without hopping, a call may suffer from a stream of errors caused from a reduce C/I. In a hopping system, the effect of the fade will be minimised as the call hops around other frequencies, which experience different fades at that point. Any errors will be randomly distributed rather than in continuous streams. As a result, the decoding and de-interleaving processes can more effectively remove the bit errors caused by bursts received whilst on the faded frequencies (errors will be randomly distributed instead of having long bursts of errors). This increase in effectiveness leads to a transmission quality improvement of the same proportion.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement The next graphics (figures 1 and 2) show the effects described above:
Freq. 1
Error burst NON HOPPING
Figure 1: Effect of Deep fading in a Conventional Fixed System
Freq. 1
Error bursts
Freq. 2
Error bursts HOPPING SYSTEM
Figure 2: Effect of Deep fading in a Frequency Hopping System
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement It can be easily noticed that the effectiveness of hopping fighting against fading depends on three points. The frequency selective behaviour of the fading at the point in question, the number of hopping frequencies, and the spread of the frequencies in the hopping sequence relative to this fading characteristic. It is more important to clarify that using frequency hopping, raw bit errors, BER (Bit Error Rate), does not give the same measure of speech quality as in fixed frequency system. Poor speech quality is often not noticed in a frequency hopping system until RxQual = 6, 7 whereas in a fixed frequency system this bad quality appears at lower values, RxQual = 5, 6 and 7. The FER, Frame Erasure Rate, (after decoding and de-interleaving processes) is the most appropriate measure, with the drawback that it is not included as a part of the measurement reporting process. Some field tests were carried out by Motorola engineers to evaluate the gain that frequency hopping can provide in a fading environment. A description of them will be given next, as well as a summary of the very conclusive results that were obtained. An area with narrow streets and 2-3 story buildings was selected to simulate the fading environment. The tests were done under none interference conditions, in order to test only the fading effect. The hopping carriers were configured with different sequences in each timeslot, and a variable attenuator was added in the mobile signal path. The parameter used to quantify the signal quality was the uplink Frame Erasure Rate (FER), and some plots of FER as a function of the attenuation are presented. The first test tried to emulate the handportable call with the mobile antenna held quasi stationary at head height. The main results are the following: When hopping is implemented, the number of reports with RxQual 6 and 7 (which originate noticeable quality degradation) is significantly reduced. The reported values of received level (RxLev) are more concentrated around the mean at the same time that the lower values are, by far, less frequently reported when frequency hopping is used. These low values are mainly reported when the mobile is affected by deep fading, so it means that the influence of fading in the level is mitigated . (See figures 3 and 4).
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DL RXLEV Distribution Non Hopping
20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63
P r o b (%)
RXLEV Range
Figure 3: Received Level Distribution for the System without Hopping
DL RXLEV Distribution Hopping (Freqs. 44, 52, 63, 73)

30
25
20
P r o b (%)
15
10
0 0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63
RXLEV Range
Figure 4: Received Level Distribution for the Hopping System
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement Looking at FER, a gain of about 8 dB respect to the fixed system is achieved using hopping (any configuration). FER and Average RxQual behaviours are strongly correlated, but the improvement in FER (quality perceived by the user) is higher. This is represented in figure 5.
Location 1 FER
30 25 20 FER 15 (%) 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 Attenuation (dB)
Hopping (44,52, 63, 73) Hopping (44,63,73) Hopping (44,73) Non Hopping (49)
Figure 5: Frame Erasure Rate Comparison between Hopping and Non Hopping A second test was performed to evaluate the effect of frequency hopping in an environment where fading was mainly caused by moving scattering. The antenna was placed in a fixed position near a roundabout on a busy road, and deep fading caused by passing cars was observed. Again, as it was shown before, significant gains due to frequency hopping are observed: Concentration of level values around the mean, and about 6 dB gain in FER respect to the fixed system. This time, the hopping gain for RxQual is significantly less than the gain for FER (proving that FER is the right measure to quantify the quality enhancement). This is shown in figures 6 and 7.
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DL RXLEV Distribution Non Hopping
30 25
P r o b (%)
20 15 10 5 0
0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63
RXLEV
Figure 6: Received Level Distribution for the System without Hopping
DL RXLEV Distribution Hopping (Freqs. 44, 52, 63,73)

60 50 40 30 20 10 0
0-2 2-4 4-6 6-8 8-10 10-12 RXLEV 12-14 14-16 16-18 18-63
P r o b (%)
Figure 7: Received Level Distribution for the Hopping System
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Location 2 FER
30 25 20 FER (%) 15 10 5 0 0 2 4 6 8 10 Attenuation (dB)
Hopping (44, 63, 73) Hopping (44,73) Hopping (44, 52, 63, 73) Non Hopping (49)
Figure 8: Frame Erasure Rate Comparison between Hopping and Non Hopping The performance of frequency hopping for a fast mobile (placed into a car) was tested. As was expected, no significant difference between hopping and non-hopping cases was observed because the effects of fading are averaged over the SACCH multiframe reporting periods (480 milliseconds.). As a conclusion of these tests, it has been demonstrated that frequency hopping offers important enhancements in a fading environment considering stationary or quasistationary mobiles.
5.2
INTERFERENCE AVERAGING
The second effect of frequency hopping is referred as averaging the interference experienced by the calls. Consider a non-hopping system, the set of calls on the cells which can interfere with the wanted call is fixed for the duration of those calls. Some calls will be found with very good quality (no interference problems) and some others with very bad quality (permanent interference problems). Using hopping, the set of interfering calls will continually change and the effect is that calls tend to experience an average quality rather than extremes of good or bad quality. All the calls will suffer from a controlled interference but only for short and distant periods. This interference averaging results in a spreading of the raw bit errors (BER caused by the interference), i.e. have a random distribution of them instead of bursts of errors. This enhances the effectiveness of decoding and de-interleaving processes to cope with the BER and lead to a better value of FER.
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NON HOPPING SYSTEM
f1
f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1
Wanted Call (f1 fixed)
f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1
f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1 f1
Interfering Call (f1 fixed)
Corrupted Bursts because of Interference

Figure 9: Co-channel Interference for a Conventional Fixed System
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HOPPING SYSTEM
f1
Wanted Call (Pseudorandom Hopping over f1, f2, f3)
f3
Interfering Call (Pseudorandom Hopping over f1, f2, f3)
Corrupted Bursts because of Interference

Figure 10: Co-channel Interference for a Hopping System It is easy to see from figures 9 and 10 how this procedure works to improve the quality of the system. Frequency Hopping can be used to improve quality or the addition of more carriers, while keeping the same level of quality. Thus, there is a trade-off Quality vs. Capacity with Frequency Hopping. Considering a fixed system with a certain quality and capacity as a reference, just only enabling the frequency hopping feature, a system with better quality and the same capacity will have been achieved. Provided that the reference quality was good enough, more new carriers (meaning an increase of capacity) could be added to the hopping system until the system quality goes back to the previous value in the fixed system. The result will be a hopping system with the same quality as the nonhopping one but with much more capacity.
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Q U A Q U A C A P C A P
HOPPING SYSTEM
C A OR Q U A
HOPPING SYSTEM HOPPING SYSTEM
OR
Q U A
C A P
Figure 11: Quality - Capacity Trade-off The main idea is very simple: For the same capacity FH improves the quality, and for a given average quality FH makes possible increase the capacity. Motorola engineers have also conducted field tests in order to assess frequency hopping as a method to average the interference and hence improve system quality and capacity. It has been proven that effective gains can be obtained with frequency hopping because the interference effect is minimised and it is easier to keep it under control.
5.3
FREQUENCY HOPPING OPERATION

So far in the document, only the aspects associated with the effect of using different frequencies have been treated and nothing about the way in which the system hops over the set of frequencies has been commented. From the infrastructure point of view, there are two ways of implementing frequency hopping in a Base Station System (BSS), one referred as Base Band FH and another as Synthesiser FH. The operation philosophies only differ in the way they establish the Base to Mobile Station link (Downlink) in the Base Station part, looking at from the Mobile Station, there is no difference at all between both types of frequency hopping.
5.3.1
Base Band Frequency Hopping (BBH) The main characteristic is that the transmitting units (TRXs) are always transmitting a fixed frequency and frequency hopping is performed by switching the information for every call between the available TRXs on a per burst basis. A call that starts on a particular timeslot of one TRX will move to the same timeslot of the other TRXs, spending the time associated to a burst (about 577 microseconds.), in each TRX (and hence in each different frequency). Changing the frequency implies changing the TRX (the call hops between TRXs). It must be noted, that although data is transmitted by different TRXs all the processing (coding, interleaving, etc.) is done by the TRX the call was initially assigned to. The following table (figure 16) will explain the performance. Assuming a cell with 4 TRXs and 4 frequencies (f1 to f4), doing Base Band Hopping in a cyclic way and a call is assigned to TRX 3 timeslot 5, the call process will be described.
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f4
f3
f2
f1
TRANSMISSION (Downlink) BURST # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... Timeslot 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 ... Frequency f3 f4 f1 f2 f3 f4 f1 ... TRX# 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 ...
RECEPTION (Uplink) Timeslot 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 ... Frequency f3 f4 f1 f2 f3 f4 f1 ... TRX# 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 ...
Figure 16: Transmission and Reception Processes in Base Band Hopping The first consequence is that as many TRXs as frequencies in the hopping sequence need to be physically equipped in the cell. This means that the restriction in the number of frequencies to hop over will come from the traffic requirements in the cell (number of TRXs equipped in the cell). At the same time, because the TRXs do not need to retune each burst, this type of FH can be used in cells where the combination of transmission signals to the antenna is done normally through Remote Tune Combiners. High capacity cells usually equip that kind of combiners. As required by the GSM system, the BCCH frequency must be always on the air transmitting the maximum power (Power control does not apply for BCCH carriers), and its timeslot 0 can not hop. From the working philosophy described for BBH, there is no problem at all for timeslots 1 to 7 of the BCCH carrier to hop (provided that they are not used to allocate CCCHs) since the permanent presence of this frequency on the air is guaranteed. However, the bursts using this frequency will be transmitted at maximum power. This is another important point in BBH: The BCCH frequency can be included in the hopping sequence and also the BCCH carrier can carry hopping calls in timeslots 1 through 7. If Downlink Power Control is enabled in the Base Station it will only take effect for the bursts transmitted in the non-BCCH frequency.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement 5.3.2 Synthesiser Frequency Hopping (SFH) In this type of hopping, the TRX changes the transmitting frequency each burst and the call always stays in the same TRX where it started. Motorola base station equipment has had SFH available since 1992 and a high reliability in implementing this kind of hopping has been achieved. The TRX is able to retune to a different frequency for transmission every 577 microseconds, and because such fast frequency changes, Remote Tune Combiners (RTCs) must not be equipped if synthesiser FH is to be used. Therefore, Synthesiser Frequency Hopping requires the use of wideband combiner devices such as hybrid combiners. The main advantage of SFH is that there is no restriction on the number of carriers equipped in the cell. The number of TRXs will be determined by the traffic requirements, but they can hop up to 64 different frequencies (as specified in the GSM recommendations) if they are available according to the planning. Using SFH, the number of hopping frequencies may be greater than the number of carriers. If the BCCH frequency is included in the hopping sequence, its presence on the air would not be guaranteed unless the BCCH carrier transmits it when no other carrier does. This has two implications: * The BCCH frequency can be included in the hopping sequence (SFH through BCCH) but timeslots 1 to 7 from BCCH carrier can not be used to carry traffic because they must be reserved to put the BCCH frequency on the air when necessary (dummy bursts -DB-). At the same time, for the bursts transmitted in the BCCH frequency the TRXs will do it at the same power used by the BCCH carrier (BCCH power). * The BCCH carrier will never hop. It will either carry traffic in timeslots 1 to 7 on the BCCH frequency (if not included in the hopping sequence) or transmit dummy frames. Because of this, BCCH frequency is not included in the hopping sequence, so BCCH timeslots do not hop and non-BCCH timeslots do. Following is a more detailed explanation of this, with an example. Assuming a cell with 2 TRXs and 5 frequencies (fb for the BCCH and f1, f2, f3 and f4 for hopping -fb being the lowest one-), using Synthesiser Hopping in a cyclic way on TRX 2. If a call assigned to TRX 2 timeslot 5, the call process is described next in the table of figure 17.
BCCH Frequency: fb Hopping Frequencies: f1, f2, f3, f4

Transmission and reception are always routed through the same timeslot in the same carrier (it does not happen for transmission in Base Band Hopping). In this case, for timeslot 5, depending on the inclusion of BCCH frequency in the hopping sequence or not, the evolution of the call will be different (see table of figure 17):
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SFH through BCCH
SFH (BCCH frequency not included in the hopping sequence)
BURST #
BCCH TRX Frequency
TCH TRX Frequency fb (BCCH Pow) f1 f2 f3 f4 fb (BCCH Pow) f1 ...
BCCH TRX Frequency fb fb fb fb fb fb fb ...
TCH TRX Frequency f1 f2 f3 f4 f1 f2 f3 ...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ...
fb (DB) fb (DB) fb (DB) fb (DB) fb (DB) ...
Figure 17: Effect of Inclusion of BCCH Frequency in the Hopping Sequence using Synthesiser Frequency Hopping For frequency hopping operability, GSM defines the following set of parameters: Mobile Allocation (MA): Set of frequencies the mobile is allowed to hop over. MA is a subset of all the frequencies allocated by the system operator to the cell (cell allocation) although it can be the same. Hopping Sequence Number (HSN): Determines the hopping order used in the cell. 64 different HSNs can be assigned where HSN = 0 provides a cyclic hopping sequence and HSN = 1 to 63 provide various pseudorandom hopping sequences. Mobile Allocation Index Offset (MAIO): Determines inside the hopping sequence which frequency the mobile starts to transmit on. Frequency Hopping Indicator (FHI): Defines a hopping system, made up by an associated set of frequencies (MA) to hop over and a sequence of hopping (HSN).
Motorola equipment allows the system operator to define the hopping system on a per timeslot basis thus allowing different hopping configurations for different timeslots. This is very useful for interference averaging and to randomise the distribution of the errors.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement 5.3.3 Hardware Requirements for Frequency Hopping As it was previously mentioned, Frequency hopping has been a feature included in Motorola equipment since the first stages of GSM deployment. The only thing that must be considered is the combining issue: Base Band Hopping requires cavity combiners, so if Synthesiser Frequency Hopping is to be equipped, hybrids will be required for combining purposes. The main consequence of using hybrids for combination is that it must be done in an intelligent way in order not to be affected by the initial limitations of hybrids compared with cavity combiners. The situation can be summarised as follows: Up to six carriers can be combined through a Cavity Combine Block (CCB) giving the maximum specified transmit power at the top of the rack (20 W). Due to the losses associated with hybrid combining, only two carriers may be combined while maintaining a 20W top of rack power (GSM 900). This limitation can be overcome by applying air-combining techniques. Consider a cell where six carriers are going to be equipped, and three antennae available (typically one transmitting and two receiving with diversity), the two possibilities are: Cavity Combining Blocks: The six carriers are combined and transmitted by the same antenna all together (figure 18). The maximum power can be achieved at the output of the cabinet (20W).
RX1
TX
RX2
Max. Power (20W)
CAVITY COMBINER
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
Figure 18: Cavity Combination of Carriers used with BBH Air Combining: The six carriers are combined by pairs through hybrid combiners, and the three outputs are fed to one to the three antennae (one transmitting and two receiving, for diversity) through a duplexer (only necessary in the two antennae used simultaneously for transmission and reception). The TRXs are calibrated to transmit maximum Power (20W) at the output of the duplexer (top of the rack). The six carriers are combined on the air, after being radiated by the antennae, and the duplexers permit to use the same antennae for both, transmission and reception (figure 19). With this configuration, two antennae transmit and receive, and the other one only transmits. Therefore, for both configurations, cavity combining blocks and air combining, the maximum power at the top of the rack (20 W) can be transmitted.
Motorola Confidential Proprietary Page 20 BSS Product/Technical Documentation June 1998
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement TX1/RX1 TX3 TX2/RX2
Max. Power (20W) DUPLEXER DUPLEXER
HYBRID
HYBRID
HYBRID
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
D R C U
Figure 19: Air Combination used with SFH An additional advantage of this configuration is that fewer frequencies are combined in the same antenna (2 in each antenna, compared to 6 in one antenna with cavity combiners) so, less intermodulation products are generated (All intermodualtion products are an acceptable 7th order or lower if there is less than 11.2 MHz separation between transmit frequencies). Even more than 6 carriers can be air combined maintaining the maximum power at the output without increasing the number of antennae, by using dual polarisation antennae. In fact, one of these antennae can be considered as being equivalent to two conventional antennae, so up to four carriers can be combined in one antenna using hybrids and transmitting the maximum power.
5.4
FREQUENCY REUSE PATTERNS

The basic principle, cellular systems are based on, is the reuse of the frequencies in order to obtain the highest capacity with the minimum spectrum. The more the frequencies are used inside a certain coverage area, the more amount of traffic (capacity) can be carried. The possibilities of reusing the frequencies are limited by interference problems arising when the same frequency is used in two cells that are too close each other (co-channel interference). It can be considered that a cellular network is made up by a basic unit, in which all the frequencies are used, repeated all along the area that is intended to be covered. This basic unit (set of cells) is usually known as cluster, and it is the pattern used to deploy the network. The size of the cluster is directly related to the capacity that can be achieved. The smaller the size, the closer the re-use and the more times the cluster may be packed into a given coverage area. So the higher the reuse ratio and hence, the capacity.
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Figure 20: Frequency Reuse Pattern: Cluster The usual way to refer to a reuse pattern is by giving the number of cells included in the cluster as well as its configuration. In that way, a cluster made up by m sites with n cells per site, giving a total of p = m*n cells, will be referred as mxn reuse pattern. Any frequency will be used once and only once inside the cluster. As an example, a 12-cell cluster made up by 4 three-cell sites, known as 4x3-reuse pattern, is represented in figure 21, meaning that one frequency will be reused once each 12 cells. Equivalently, that 12 frequencies (one per carrier) will be needed to configure this cluster (a 4x3 reuse pattern with, for instance, 3 carriers per cell would require up to 36 different frequencies).
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Figure 21: 4x3 Frequency Reuse Pattern Considering a conventional fixed frequency system in GSM, it has been agreed that a 4x3-reuse pattern is the best compromise solution taking into account the co-channel interference and the reachable capacity. Higher capacity goals, without allocating more spectrum, lead to different techniques able to control the interference and allow the system operator to use smaller clusters (tighter frequency reuse patterns). Frequency hopping is the most efficient one, considering the very small cluster size that can be achieved. As it will be described later in the document, a 3x3 reuse pattern (see figure 22) can be successfully implemented in a system working with Base Band Hopping. Additionally multiple reuse patterns per TRX layer can be employed to further increase capacity on Motorola BBH systems.
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Figure 22: 3x3 Frequency Reuse Pattern implemented with BBH More aggressive reuse patterns such as 1x3 (all the sites reuse the same set of frequencies) are possible in a system working with Synthesiser Frequency Hopping (figure 23). It must be noted that with SFH more than one frequency can be assigned to each carrier. This reduction in the size of the cluster, respect to the 4x3 one, can be used to increase capacity. The results achieved in the systems already implemented using that configuration prove its effectiveness to allow a very high capacity increase.
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Figure 23: 1x3 Frequency Reuse Pattern implemented with SFH It is important to notice that, either for a fixed system or a Base Band Hopping system, the ratio of Frequencies/Number of carriers is always 1, whereas for a Synthesiser Frequency Hopping system, it can be higher than one. In fact, as it will be shown later in this document, for these systems it is recommended to have at least double number of frequencies than carriers. In that way, it is common to refer to a SFH system as having a mxnxt reuse pattern, t being the number of frequencies used to hop over. Sometimes, the ratio is intended to be noticed and they are named as mxn r/t reuse patterns (r carriers hopping over t frequencies). The number of frequencies needed to implement a cluster with that reuse pattern would be m*n*t. As an example, the 1x3 2/4 reuse pattern uses 12 frequencies separated into three groups of four frequencies each, and two carriers hop over these four frequencies. (A 50% reduction in the number of frequencies required, with respect to the fixed system that commonly uses a 4x3-reuse pattern).
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6.
HOPPING SYSTEMS DESCRIPTION AND RESULTS

The leading position Motorola enjoys in Frequency hopping technique is the result of the big investment on time and work made during the last year dealing with FH in live networks. Conceived as trials, the first experiences with Frequency Hopping were conclusive enough to prove to both, system operators and Motorola, that this technique was the solution for quality and capacity enhancement they were looking for. Because of that, system operators using Motorola equipment started to implement this functionality. The experience Motorola gathered by implementing those systems and testing new ideas and functionality makes system operators be more interested in Motorolas Frequency hopping solution. Looking at the advantageous situation during the first stages of implementing FH, where Motorola has been the only manufacturer with Synthesiser Frequency Hopping available, the attention was mainly paid to this type of hopping. Although some Base Band Hopping systems have been put into service world-wide, Motorolas interest is focused on Synthesiser Frequency Hopping since simulation results point at SFH providing advantages over BBH. This is why most of the systems that will be described later are working in that way. Four different types of networks have been considered and frequency hopping systems implemented on them. Physical configuration aspects have been considered to classify the networks: Distribution of the sites in the network Orientation of the sectors in the sites Geography of the area Regular site distribution: All the cells have coverage areas with almost the same size, and the sites are equally separated. Regular sector orientation: All the sites have three sectors orientated to the same directions, in such a way that the advantages of sectorisation to reduce the interference was completed Flat area: No sites placed on high areas or mountains are present, so the interference problems can be kept under control. Irregular site distribution: Sites are more concentrated in the areas with high traffic, normally downtown, leading to cells with small coverage area and more separated in the suburbs of the towns. Regular sector orientation: All the sites have three sectors orientated to the same directions, in such a way that the advantages of sectorisation to reduce the interference was completed. Flat area: No sites placed on high areas or mountains are present, so the interference problems can be kept under control.
Network Type A
Network Type B
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement Network Type C Regular site distribution: All the cells have coverage areas with almost the same size, and the sites are equally separated. Irregular sector orientation: The sectors have different orientation in the different sites, in such a way that sectors equally numbered can be found shooting towards each other, making the use of regular reuse patterns difficult, Hilly area: Some sites placed on high areas or mountains are present, so the interference coming from that high sites must be considered. The environment makes difficult to control the propagation, and the area of influence of those cells is not restricted to an area around the antenna location. Irregular site distribution: Sites are more concentrated in the areas with high traffic, normally downtown, leading to cells with small coverage area and more separated in the suburbs of the towns. Irregular sector orientation: The sectors have different orientation in the different sites, in such a way that sectors equally numbered can be found shooting each other, making the use of regular reuse patterns difficult. Hilly area: Some sites placed on high areas or mountains are present, so the interference coming from that high sites must be considered. The environment makes it difficult control the propagation, and the area of influence of those cells is not restricted to an area around the antenna location.
Network Type D
The previous description can be summarised easily in the table of figure 24:
NETWORK TYPE A B C D
SITE DISTRIBUTION Regular Irregular Regular Irregular
SECTOR ORIENTATION Regular Regular Irregular Irregular
OROGRAPHY OF THE AREA Flat Flat Hilly Hilly
Figure 24: Description of the Different Scenarios Considered
The following sections describe the first trials carried out and the systems already implemented, together with the results achieved, that serve to validate Frequency Hopping as the technique able to increase the capacity and quality of a network. The choice between Synthesiser and Base Band Frequency hopping to be implemented on the different networks has been also based on conditions such as the number of carriers per cell, number of frequencies available, etc. The systems that will be described are summarised in the table of figure 25:
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NETWORK TYPE A B B B C D
SOLUTION SFH SFH BBH BBH BBH SFH
OBJECTIVES Quality Quality Capacity Quality and Capacity Quality and Capacity Capacity
Figure 25: Frequency Hopping Systems Already Implemented
6.1
SETTING THE BACKGROUND OF FH

A type B network, including the presence of the sea, was chosen to carry out the first trial in a commercial network. This first step served to prove the good performance of frequency hopping as well as to get some conclusions and useful practical rules for future tests. These results were the basis and obliged reference for all the systems implemented later. This is the description of the system used for the tests: 7 sites (120 degrees sectorisation) 19 cells Site configuration: 2/2/2 39 frequencies available
Two types of tests were carried out, always focusing on Synthesiser Frequency Hopping with pseudo-random sequences: 1. General performance of the system when frequency hopping was enabled, considering the previous fixed system as the reference. A very conservative hopping plan was used looking for clean frequencies to hop over in order not to disturb the system. Four traffic channels of BCCH carriers were blocked to minimise the influence in the results of non-hopping channels (most of the traffic was forced on to the TCH carriers). No specific frequency reuse pattern was used. 2. Force and assess particularly interesting situations that could arise in a hopping environment, such as: - Include the BCCH frequency of a neighbour cell in the hopping sequence. - Include an adjacent frequency to the BCCH of a neighbour cell in the hopping sequence. - Test sequences with 4, 8 and 15 frequencies and with different separation between them (0.6 and 1 MHz). - Test the 1x3 reuse pattern (reuse all the frequencies on a per site basis) for hopping carriers using 5 frequencies in the hopping sequences (it means a 1/5 ratio).
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement The most relevant conclusions achieved after the analysis of results are presented below: 1. The number of drop calls is dramatically reduced when frequency hopping is implemented, partly due to the use of a better frequency plan with hopping, and mainly because of the interference averaging. Improvement in the received level in fading situations was observed. Looking at the number of drop calls, it was also noticed a helpful contribution of Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) (enabled in both uplink and Downlink directions), reduced the drop call rate in both the hopping and non hopping systems (see figure 26).
CALL PERFORMANCE
1,4 % DRO P CALLS 1,2 1 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0 NO DTX NO FH FH DTX DTX AND FH CONFIGURATIONS 0,58 0,4 0,94 1,39
Figure 26: Drop Calls Performance Comparison for Majorca System 2. The received level distribution narrows, so the values are more concentrated around the average, meaning that low RxLev values are less frequent, as it was expected to happen since hopping helps in fading situations. 3. Base station to Mobile station link (Downlink) seems to be more critical because the interference comes from fixed positions instead of random ones as it happens in the uplink (assuming random distribution of mobiles causing interference in a specific moment). 4. Discontinuous transmission in the Downlink direction has negative effects in subjective quality. The most important achievements in these tests are some practical rules to be kept in mind for future trials: 1. Negative effect in performance is observed when a BCCH frequency from a neighbour cell is included in the hopping sequence, and although an adjacent frequency is tolerated, separate frequency bands for BCCH and TCH planning are recommended (figure 27).
n channels
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m channels
TCH
BCCH
Figure 27: Separate Bands of Frequencies for BCCH and TCH Planning 2. The larger the separation of the frequencies in the sequence, the better result in fighting against fading can be achieved, as it is shown with the reduction in low values of received level. The availability of frequencies will limit that separation. 3. Quality handovers must be optimised to avoid an increase in number. This is because they are controlled by RxQual, which has a different meaning in a hopping system. If a quality handover based on FER purposes is not available, a higher quality threshold (RxQual value) should be set up in that case.
6.2
NETWORK TYPE A
With all the previous results and conclusions as the reference, an ambitious wide test plan was designed to be carried out in a prototype of regular network, (to be considered as the best environmental case). The busiest area of the city was selected, and a reference fixed frequency plan was implemented to be evaluated and considered as the reference for comparison with the four synthesiser frequency hopping configurations planned to be tested: 1x3 reuse pattern using 4 frequencies to hop over (1x3x4). 1x3 reuse pattern using 8 frequencies to hop over (1x3x8). 1x1 reuse pattern using 27 frequencies to hop over (1x1x27). 1x3 reuse pattern using 8 frequencies to hop over in a cyclic sequence. 10 Sites 26 Cells Site configuration: 2/2/2 for 9 sites and 3/3/2 for the other. 62 available frequencies
The Hopping System Configuration was as follows:
The distribution of frequencies was done as follows: 32 frequencies located in the middle of the band were reserved for BCCH planning and the remaining 27 (13 + 14) for TCH planning (the 2 frequencies separating these subbands and the frequency next to the band allocated for the other operator were not used). That selection of frequencies allows to use a more spread band, which is expected to help fighting against fading. Due to the regularity of the network, the reduced number of carriers per cell and the high number of frequencies available, a very good fixed frequency plan with almost no interference was achieved using only 48 frequencies. This meant that the existing quality benchmark thresholds were very good even before FH was introduced. The 1x3 reuse pattern should have good performance in that kind of network, and the very aggressive 1x1 reuse pattern (the cluster is made up by only one cell!!) was another interesting proposal. A good result implementing that reuse would lead to an almost nonexistent planning work for non-BCCH carriers since all the cells reuse the same set of frequencies. Different pseudorandom sequences for every cell were always used. Cyclic hopping, since it seems to be an intermediate situation between a fixed plan and a pseudorandom hopping system, was interesting too and a 1x3 reuse pattern was agreed to be implemented in order to test this kind of hopping.
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement In order to test the system under high traffic load conditions the traffic channels on the BCCH carriers were always locked for 18 of the 26 cells under tests, and in special occasions for the remaining 8 cells (week ends). In that way, almost all the traffic was carried by hopping channels. In all the tests, both Base Station and Mobile Station Power Control were always enabled, and only changes in the parameters related with this feature were done. Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) was enabled/disabled depending on the test, but only in the Uplink direction because DTX in the Downlink was not available due to a MSC limitation. At the same time, the quality handover thresholds were modified when frequency hopping was implemented. The main interest was to prove that even in this case, where the reference is a system with very good quality, hopping is able to enhance it. So, in order to evaluate the subjective system quality, Buzzard equipment was used (evaluates the voice quality transmitting tones), and the results obtained for the different configurations are summarised in figure 28.
SUBJECTIVE VOICE QUALITY
100,00
99,50
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
99,00
99,50
99,50 99,50
99,50
98,50
98,00 % GOOD CALLS
98,50 Uplink Dow nlink
97,50
97,00
96,50
96,00
95,50
95,00 FIXED 1x3x4 1x3x8 1x3x8 BCCH lock 1x1x27 1x3x8 Cyclic
Figure 28: Audio Quality Comparison for SFH on a Type A Network. (Buzzard results).
The audio quality was excellent, better than the fixed plan, for Cyclic and pseudorandom 1x3x8 reuse pattern with all BCCH traffic channels blocked, and for 1x1x27 configurations. For the other cases, the quality is very good too. Together with the quality increase, the most important result was the reduction in the drop call rate (on dedicated channels) by 50%, with any of the hopping configurations respect to the fixed system (see figure 29). At the same time the conclusions reached previously about the performance of the DTX feature have been confirmed: DTX improves the performance of a hopping system (drop calls are reduced) but the opposite tendency is observed when it is enabled with the fixed plan.
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%R L S FOS
1 8 ,4 1 ,4
1 ,2
1 5 ,0
0 2 ,9 0 ,8 0 3 ,8 0 2 ,8 0 4 ,7 0 ,6 0 8 ,6 0 3 ,6 0 4 ,7 0 5 ,7
0 ,4
0 ,2 1x3x8 DTX Off BCCH lock
1x3x27 DTX Off
1x3x27 DTX On
1x3x4 DTX On
1x3x8 DTX On
1x3x8 DTX Off
1x3x4 DTX Off
Fixed DTX On
Fixed DTX Off
Figure 29: Drop Call Comparison for SFH on a Type A Network The analysis of the benefits of frequency hopping fighting against fading was done looking at the distribution of RxLev, especially in the Downlink direction. The results obtained are presented for the cases where DTX was not used, and show a very similar behaviour for all of them. The cyclic configuration has the narrowest distribution (a characteristic observed when hopping is implemented) and the 1x1x27 configuration reports higher received levels more frequently than the fixed system. Low values are less frequently reported when hopping is present, meaning that fading situations are better handled by a system with hopping (see figure 30).
D W L KR L VD T IB T N O N IN X E IS R U IO
1 2
1 0
8 % O F REPO RTS
F E PA IX D L N 1 x4 re se x3 u 6 1 x8 re se x3 u 1 x2 re se x1 7 u 1 x8 C x3 yclic
10
13
16
19
40
43
46
52
55
RL V XE
Figure 30: Comparison of RxLev Distributions for SFH on a Type A Network. The main conclusions achieved in that system are as follows:
61
49
58
22
31
34
25
28
37
1x3x8 cyclic
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement 1. The 1x3x4 reuse pattern gives very good quality results (without considering the reference now) with only 12 frequencies needed for TCH planning. Since only 1 carrier per cell was hopping, the ratio carriers/frequencies was still high (1/4) and it was not too risky to say that more carriers per cell could be added and increase the capacity having still good quality. Future hopping systems should test this 1x3 reuse pattern with a rate closer to the theoretical limit n/2n (always considering that the number of hopping carriers n is greater than 1. 2. The 1x3x8 reuse pattern gives excellent results but 24 frequencies are too many for a system with only one hopping carrier. It was not the optimum solution even for quality purposes only. The aggressive and simple 1x1x27 reuse pattern gave the best results for that type of network, improving the fixed performance. Since the frequencies used are more than twice than those needed for 1x3 reuse, that value (27) seemed to be very high and lower number of frequencies should be tested. After analysing all the available data, since the main objective was the quality enhancement, the system operator decided to implement frequency hopping with a 1x1x27 reuse pattern and carry out an opinion poll among their subscribers comparing fixed system with frequency hopping 1x1x27. Customers opinion is summarised below: 60% of subscribers observed a quality improvement after Frequency Hopping implementation. 25% of subscribers did not notice any quality change in the system. 15% of subscribers observed a quality degradation.
It was also noticed that some problematic places to set up calls had disappeared after implementing frequency hopping. In spite of the solution chosen by the system operator, 1x3 reuse pattern hopping over 4 frequencies is the best compromise solution, giving very good quality and using only 12 frequencies for TCH planning. This configuration offers for the moment the highest possibilities to increase the capacity (until the optimal loading ratio required to implement a 1x1 reuse with good performance is found).
6.3
6.3.1
NETWORK TYPE B
NETWORK TYPE B WITH LOW CARRIERS/CELL RATIO The same scenario used for the first tests of frequency hopping was selected to implement it again. Considering that most of the cells have only two carriers, Synthesiser Frequency Hopping was used. This is the best solution to address this kind of networks, since Base Band Hopping would only permit to hop over two frequencies, limiting the advantages of hopping. System description: 7 sites (120 degrees sectorisation) 19 cells Site Configuration: 2/2/2 A separate band was reserved for BCCH planning purposes.
The main interest was to continue implementing regular tight reuse patterns. 21 of the 39 available frequencies were reserved for BCCHs (7 groups of 3 frequencies each) using a very loose reuse and the 18 remaining used for TCHs following different reuse patterns. Synthesiser Frequency Hopping with pseudorandom hopping sequences was used again. This time DTX was always disabled, both Uplink and Downlink, and Power Control always enabled, both Uplink and Downlink again, to observe only the impact of Frequency Hopping.
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement For the general testing, the configuration was 2 carriers per cell (1 BCCH + 1 TCH) and all the timeslots from 1 through 7 of the BCCH carrier were locked in order to test the system under full load conditions on the non-BCCH carrier (the hopping one). Apart from the reference system (fixed frequencies) three hopping configurations were evaluated: 1x3 reuse pattern with 1 carrier hopping over 4 frequencies (only 12 frequencies of the 18 available were used). 1x3 reuse pattern with 1 carrier hopping over 6 frequencies. 2x3 reuse pattern with 1 carrier hopping over 3 frequencies.
The results obtained show a significant quality increase with hopping configurations respect to the fixed system, looking at the results shown in figure 31 (Downlink is the most critical direction) supplied by Buzzard, (equipment able to assess the quality of a network from a subjective point of view). At the same time, 1x3 using only 12 frequencies was the best configuration for the system under study meaning that 4 frequencies in the sequence is the best compromise solution even for a network where the sites are quite concentrated.
DOWNLINK VOICE QUALITY

% BAD QUALITY CALLS 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 NO HOPPING 1x3 1/4 1x3 1/6 2x3 1/3 CONFIGURATIONS 1.8 1.9 5.3 4
Figure 31: Audio Quality Comparison for SFH on a Type B Network. (Buzzard results). The results of this test proved again the great flexibility and reliability of frequency hopping. The implementation confirmed a very aggressive reuse pattern was possible while still guaranteeing a quality enhancement and offering capacity increase opportunities.
6.3.2
NETWORK TYPE B WITH NARROW SPECTRUM ALLOCATION The same type of network was addressed in another type B system, where the main characteristic was the capacity problems due to the narrow spectrum allocation. Taking as starting point the previous fixed system, Base Band Frequency Hopping was selected this time as the solution to increase the capacity of the system keeping the quality unaffected, because the network was already equipped with cavity combiners. Capacity was the goal.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement System description: 30 sites 90 cells System configuration: Fixed System: 2/2/2 BBH System: expanded to 3/3/3 30 frequencies available Better performance than the fixed system was achieved (92% of successful calls) at the same time that one extra carrier had been added in all the cells to configure a 3/3/3 system at the time of implementing BBH. The 4x3 reuse pattern used for all the frequencies in the fixed system (both the BCCHs and the TCHs) was changed to a tighter reuse pattern based on a 4x3 pattern for the BCCH frequencies and a 3x3 reuse for the 2 TCH carriers. The intended capacity goal has been successfully achieved, because the possibility of reusing the frequencies in such a tightly way with BBH permitted to increase the capacity by a 55%. 6.3.3 NETWORK TYPE B WITH HIGH CARRIERS/CELL RATIO This system had a high number of carriers per cell and was experiencing capacity and quality issues. Base Band Frequency Hopping was selected (cavity combiners were already equipped) as the solution to increase the capacity of the system keeping as well good quality values. It was clear from the beginning that the main objective was the increase of capacity, and quality should be enhanced as well to better values. System description: 37 sites 111 cells System configuration: Fixed System: 4/4/4 BBH System: expanded to 5/5/5 48 frequencies available The system performance after BaseBand Hopping implementation showed an enhancement in most of the indicators: 2% Reduction in drop calls due to handovers not performed with respect to the fixed system 5% Reduction in drop calls on traffic channels with respect to the fixed system
The most important point is that this performance was achieved even when one extra carrier had been added in all the cells (a 5/5/5 system was implemented at the same time that BBH was put into service). The system evolved from the initial 4x3 frequency reuse pattern for all the frequencies (both the BCCHs and the 3 TCHs) to a tighter reuse based on a 4x3 pattern for the BCCH frequencies and a 3x3 reuse for the 4 TCH carriers. Again, the initial objective has been achieved: The system capacity has been increased by a 35%, taking advantage of the facilities BBH gives to implement a tighter frequency reuse pattern, and the quality parameters have been also improved.
6.4
NETWORK TYPE C
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement A very complicated scenario with hilly terrain, presence of the sea and irregular sectorisation in the sites was addressed as representative of a type C network. Although it is a big city, few and very big sites with 4 and 5 carriers per cell in some cases make up the GSM network. Such conditions together with the difficult geography of the area gives an environment likely to lead to interference situations. Due to particular conditions in the network, the traffic load of the system is very high, and the serious capacity problems could not be afforded without the quality degradation. As a consequence of the high number of carriers equipped, the cells use Remote Tune Combiners, restricting the hopping option to Base Band Hopping only, but the advantages of hopping were still possible as most cells were equipped with at least four carriers. System description: 11 Sites 30 cells System configuration: 4/4/4 in most of the cells 61 frequencies available
The area with highest traffic in the city was selected and configured with Base Band hopping using pseudorandom sequences. The resulting BBH system was made up by 3 cells with 3 hopping carriers, 17 cells with 4 hopping carriers and 10 cells with 5 hopping carriers. As the BCCH hops as well, a total of 127 carriers were hopping in the test (more than 4 carriers per cell on average). 15 of the 61 available frequencies were used for BCCH planning purposes with a 5x3 reuse pattern, and the remaining 45 frequencies were used for TCH planning with a 4x3 reuse pattern for all of them. A fixed frequency plan was implemented in that way and evaluated as the reference to be improved by the hopping system. Discontinuous transmission was enabled for some tests although it was not available in the Downlink direction due to a switch limitation, and Power Control was disabled in the Base stations, all configured to transmit at full power. At the same time, only power budget handovers were allowed. The objective was to bench mark the fixed frequency plan, so it was also tested with frequency hopping without modifying the reuse patterns to assess the quality improvement reachable by just changing the way of working. The results obtained after data analysis showed a very high quality enhancement and performance improvement as it can be noticed in the following graphics. The voice quality was measured with Buzzard equipment, which assigns a mark to the calls, considering the following criterion: Very good (100 - 90), Good (90 -70), Regular (70 - 50, with some quality degradation), Bad (< 50, with serious deficiencies in quality). It can be seen that with hopping, in the Uplink direction, calls considered as Very good and Good increase, and Bad calls disappear. For the Downlink case, all the calls became Very good and Good with hopping. These results are shown in figures 32 and 33.
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BUZZARD UPLINK VOICE QUALITY
100%
14.10%
90%
17.90%
PE RC EN TA JE
80%
< 50 70 - 50 70 - 50 100 - 90
70%
79.10%
60%
84.60%
50%
FIXED
BBH
Figure 32: Uplink Voice Quality Comparison for BBH on a Type C Network.
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BUZZARD DOWNLINK VOICE QUALITY
100%
15.10%
90%
13.30%
P E R C E N T AJ E
80%
< 50 70 - 50 90 - 70 100 - 90
70%
83.30%
86.70%
60%
50%
FIXED
BBH
Figure 33: Downlink Voice Quality Comparison for BBH on a Type C Network According to the global system performance, the statistics collected from the Operation and Maintenance Centre (OMC) show great improvements: 25% Reduction in drop calls while being on a signalling channel, leading to a significant reduction in no set-up calls (Figure 34). 40% Reduction in drop calls while being on a traffic channel, leading to a significant reduction in drop call rate (Figure 35). 2% Increase in the rate of handovers successfully performed (Figure 36). 30% Reduction in drop calls due to handovers not succeeded (Figure 37).
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SDCCH RFLOSS
6%
5%
4.86% 3.66%
4%
3%
2%
1%
0%
FIXED BBH
Figure 34: Comparison of Drop Calls on Signalling Channel for BBH on a Type C Network.
TCH RFLOSS
1.50%
1.30%
1.25%
1.00%
0.79%
0.75%
0.50%
0.25%
0.00%
FIXED
BBH
Figure 35: Comparison of Drop Calls on Traffic Channel for BBH on a Type C Network.
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HANDOVER SUCCESS RATE

96%
95.02 %
95%
94%
93.30%
93%
92%
91%
90%
FIXED BBH
Figure 36: Comparison Successes in Handovers for BBH on a Type C Network.
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HANDOVER FAILURE RATE

1.20% 1.00%
1.09%
0.77%
0.80% 0.60% 0.40% 0.20% 0.00%
FIXED BBH
Figure 37: Comparison of Drop Calls Due to Handover Failures for BBH on a Type C Network.
Apart from the improvements noticed in the results, call tests carried out inside the hopping area showed quality improvements especially in areas that show high interference problems with the fixed frequency plan. Particular cells with bad performance because of that, improved greatly and rates close to the average were achieved for them. The punctual interference problems present with hopping were located in the limits of the hopping area where interference from the area without hopping was observed.
6.5
NETWORK TYPE D
Once the effectiveness of frequency hopping as quality and capacity solution had been proven in some difficult environments, a typical type D network was selected to implement frequency hopping. The characteristics of this system gave a very interesting opportunity to evaluate its performance in a busy system and the implementation would be the definitive proof to make system operators world-wide be interested on it. The selected area, due to the hilly terrain and the presence of a river and the sea is very difficult for RF planning. Abnormalities in propagation make it difficult to keep the interference under control. Considering also the very irregular sectorisation and the high concentration of sites in the centre of the town, where the traffic load is very high, serious interference problems affecting the system quality were present as well as situations of high traffic congestion, making very difficult, if not impossible, conventional planning. Frequency hopping should be able to provide the capacity increase required, because no more carriers could be added in the fixed system, and a quality enhancement. The main objective was increase the capacity. System description: 16 Sites 47 cells
Motorola Confidential Proprietary Page 41 BSS Product/Technical Documentation June 1998
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement System configuration: 3 carriers in some of the cells (20 out of 47) and 2 carriers in the remaining. 40 frequencies available
The frequencies available for planning were separated into two bands: 1) 21 frequencies for BCCH. 2) Some non-BCCHs outside the hopping area, (required to have a good quality free of interference BCCH plan). The remaining 18 frequencies reused for hopping TCHs. The separation channel was not used in the hopping area. Synthesiser frequency hopping was implemented in the busiest area in the centre of the town. Some of the congested cells (5) were expanded from 2 to 3 carriers before implementing frequency hopping. The standard 1x3 reuse pattern was implemented with three different hopping sequences of 6 frequencies each. Considering the problematic situations arising due to the irregular sectorisation, in three specific areas, some frequencies had to be removed from the sequences of some neighbour cells looking for some orthogonality between them. The fixed frequency plan prior to hopping implementation was evaluated for reference purposes, but the carriers added in the expanded cells were not yet on the air. At the same time, power control was always enabled in both Uplink & Downlink and thresholds controlling quality handovers modified to take into account the predicted increase in RxQual. Downlink DTX was not available because of a limitation of the switch. The comparative results showed again the excellent network behaviour with frequency hopping. A significant quality improvement was achieved at the same time that more carriers were added to the system. The results can be seen on figure 38.
TCH RF_Loss
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 Percentage 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 DTX OFF FIXED SYSTEM DTX OFF 1x3x6 0.902 0.71
Figure 38: Comparison of Drop Calls on Traffic Channel for SFH on a Type D Network
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement The rate of drop calls was reduced by 20%, proving that this enhancement can always be achieved, even in a highly loaded system. The interference averaging is responsible for this improvement. Better results than the fixed system were also obtained in handover performance and audio quality. The operator found in frequency hopping with this configuration (1x3x6) the solution for their interference problems which started to impact the system quality and the main objective of capacity was fully achieved. Frequency hopping allowed to increase by 80% the capacity of the system, because the previous 2/2/2 configuration could be expanded to 3/3/3. The whole system in the town and other main cities were planned to move also from the fixed plan to frequency hopping.
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7.
FREQUENCY HOPPING AS A CAPACITY SOLUTION

As it was previously mentioned when describing the interference averaging effect caused by frequency hopping, the gain achieved can be invested in two ways: Improve either the quality or the capacity of the system. There is a trade-off, but what happens in practice is that most system operators implement frequency hopping to increase the capacity of their networks without causing any degradation in the quality. When considering high traffic areas, such as big cities, the capacity of the system is limited by interference caused by frequency reuse. In a system, the Carrier to Interference ratio (C/I) varies significantly within calls: The carrier level (C) changes with the mobile station position relative to the base station, with the amount of obstacles between them, etc.; the interference level (I) changes depending on whether the frequency is being used by another call in some nearby cell (thus, it also depends on the time during the day -busy hour, non busy hours-), and also varies according the distance with the interference source, its level, etc. For planning purposes, the maximum capacity of a system is calculated based on a given percentage of calls subject to a certain decrease in quality level due to interference. Based on this concept of worst case, assuming a value for C/I ratio leading to acceptable quality, the capacity of the system will be higher if the statistical spread of C/I values around this mean value is as small as possible (the narrower the C/I distribution, the lower the probability of worst case quality). At the same time, the greater the number of interferers for the same mean C/I values, the better the system. In a conventional fixed plan system, a cell potentially receives interference from a small number of cells. In a hopping system the number of potential interferers in a system with is higher but due to the occupancy of the interfering signals the probability of interference is reduce. For the same mean interference value in the two systems, a call in the conventional system may either have very good quality or be completely jammed whereas a call in the hopping system will always have a continuous low level of interference, rarely so bad that transmission would fail. The principle based on which capacity can be increased with Frequency Hopping is the following: Spread the interference among many calls of a potential interferer cell instead of a single one as in a conventional fixed system. After the previous explanation it is clear that capacity increase will be obtained as a consequence of reusing the frequencies more closely leading to an environment with higher but controlled interference. There are two cases that must be considered at this point, BCCH carriers and Traffic carriers. Since the Base Station must be transmitting the BCCH frequency continuously and at maximum power, the frequency reuse that can be achieved is very poor. In that way, a 4x3 reuse patter is assumed to be the tightest one ensuring good performance for a quite regular network (specific cases will require more frequencies in order to achieve a good BCCH plan). For non-BCCH carriers, if Frequency hopping is not used, the frequency reuse is very similar to that of the BCCH carrier. Although Discontinuous Transmission and Power Control features could help, the possibilities of improving the capacity are much reduced. On the contrary, when frequency hopping is activated more aggressive reuse patterns can be used ensuring very good performance.
The situation is as follows: Almost nothing can be done with respect to BCCHs and at least 12 frequencies must be reserved for them, which is a big part of the available frequencies for system operators with narrow spectrum allocation. So the remaining ones must be optimally reused taking advantage of frequency hopping. In order to compare the possibilities offered by the different configurations in a quantitative way, the distribution of the cell resources (channels) will be considered. Motorolas recommendation for a cell located in a non-location area border, and 2% of
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement blocking in a traffic channel (TCH) is assumed. The capacity offered to the subscribers is described in the table of figure 39:
NUMBER OF TRXs
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
NUMBER OF TCHs
7 14 22 30 38 45 53 61 69
TRAFFIC OFFERED (E)

2.94 8.20 14.9 21.9 29.2 35.6 43.1 50.6 58.2
Figure 39: Traffic Offered as a Function of the Number of Carriers
7.1
BASE BAND HOPPING FOR CAPACITY

For Base Band Hopping, since the number of frequencies to use in the hopping sequence is determined by the number of carriers equipped, a system with high number of carriers per cell is recommended (4 carriers per cell is a good value). The higher this ratio the better the performance enhancement achieved. Alternative reuse patterns have been suggested to be implemented combined with Base Band frequency hopping operation: Progressive reuse patterns: Each new carrier added to a cell is equipped with a frequency reused in a more tightly way:
1st TCH carrier: 4x3 reuse pattern 2nd TCH carrier: 3x3 reuse pattern 3rd TCH carrier: 2x3 reuse pattern ... Homogeneous reuse pattern: A tighter than the conventional 4x3 reuse pattern is used for all the TCH carriers, leading to the same situation as achieved with the progressive ones for high loaded systems, and saving frequencies (available for other purposes, microcellular layer for instance) in systems with few carriers per cell. Homogeneous 3x3 reuse pattern is the option widely chosen to implement in some systems with very good performance results.
For comparative issues, a highly loaded system of 4 or 5 carriers per cell where BBH is expected to give more benefits will be considered. Since all the calls spend part of its time in each carrier, no difference should be noticed between both planning methods. However, homogeneous 3x3 reuse has the advantage that all the frequencies contribute equally to the interference experienced by the calls. For Progressive re-use the tighter reused frequencies contribute more to the quality degradation, so the effect of one carrier
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement going out of service is different for each TCH TRX in a Progressive re-use than in an Homogeneous one. Considering, as an example, a typical case with 40 channels available (one third of GSM spectrum), the increase of capacity can be seen as follows: Fixed plan BCCH: 12 frequencies 1st TCH: (4x3) 12 frequencies 2nd TCH: (4x3) 12 frequencies A system with 3 carriers per cell can be configured with 4 frequencies left. Base Band Hopping BCCH: 12 frequencies 1st TCH: (3x3) 9 frequencies 2nd TCH: (3x3) 9 frequencies 3rd TCH: (3x3) 9 frequencies A system with 4 hopping carriers per cell can be configured with 1 frequency left. According to the data presented in the table of figure 39, the implementation of BBH leads to 47% of capacity increase. A Base Band Hopping system consisting of 25 sites with 5/5/5 configurations is working in a type B network implemented with 48 frequencies, re-used with a 4x3 pattern for BCCHs and 3x3 pattern for TCHs. The performance of the hopping system improved on the fixed system values. Because the previous configuration of 4 carriers per cell (4/4/4) was expanded to 5 carriers per cell (5/5/5) the capacity increase was 33%, only possible with Base Band Hopping feature. Another BBH system implemented in a type B network, made up by 30 sites with 3/3/3 configurations is in service, with only 30 frequencies, using the same 4x3 and 3x3 reuse patterns. This time the system was expanded from a 2/2/2 configuration to a 3/3/3, leading to a 82% of capacity increase. As another test to assess the possibilities offered by Base Band Hopping, the following situation was experienced in a type 3 network: Two neighbour cells (A and B) were selected. 2 out of the 4 TRXs of cell A were re-tuned to be co-channel with 2 out of the 5 TRXs of cell B configuring an abnormally tight frequency reuse of 50% and 40% of the frequencies of cell A and cell B respectively. Data corresponding to drop calls and handover performance was monitored for both cells during a period of time involving the busiest hours and compared with data belonging to the fixed system. At the same time that lots of calls were made to evaluate the audio quality. The results obtained, shown in figures 40, 41, 42 and 43, serve to confirm that no degradation in cell performance appear even when such very aggressive frequency reuse is implemented. The audio quality did not suffer any degradation either.
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DROP CALLS ON TRAFFIC CHANNEL
1,40% 1,35% 1,20% 1,00% 0,96% 0,80% 0,60% 0,40% 0,20% 0,00% CELL A CELL B FIXED PLAN BBH TIGHT REUSE 1,24% 1,25%
Figure 40: Drop Calls on Traffic Channel Using a Very Aggressive Frequency Reuse
DROP CALLS ON DEDICATED CHANNEL

7,00% 6,00% 5,00% 4,00% 3,00% 2,00% 1,00% 0,00% CELL A CELL B 3,60% 3,52% 6,60% 5,86%
FIXED PLAN BBH TIGHT REUSE
Figure 41: Drop Calls on Signalling Channel Using a Very Aggressive Frequency Reuse
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DROP CALLS DUE TO HANDOVER FAILURE
1,40% 1,20% 1,00% 0,80% 0,60% 0,40% 0,20% 0,00% CELL A 0,85% 1,29%
1,40%
1,04% FIXED PLAN BBH TIGHT REUSE
CELL B
Figure 42: Drop Calls Due to Handover Failure Using a Very Aggressive Reuse Pattern
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HANDOVER SUCCESS RATE

98,00%
96,00%
96,08% 95,60%
94,00% 93,46% 92,00% 92,30%
FIXED PLAN BBH TIGHT REUSE
90,00% CELL A CELL B
Figure 43: Success in Handovers Using a Very Aggressive Frequency Reuse
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement Keeping in mind the results achieved in the different type B networks, where a 3x3 reuse pattern has been successfully implemented, and the conclusions obtained from the previously described test in a type C network. The possibilities of increasing the capacity in this system are as follow: the 61 available frequencies can be reused with a 3x3 pattern in order to implement a system with up to 6 hopping carriers per cell, with the following capacity increase: Fixed plan BCCH: 15 frequencies TCH: 46 frequencies with 3 carriers per cell on average A system with 4 carriers per cell on average (the system was configured with cells with 3, 4 and 5 carriers) was implemented. Base Band Hopping BCCH: 15 frequencies TCH: 45 frequencies with 5 carriers per cell using a 3x3 reuse pattern.
According to the data shown in figure 39, the implementation of BBH leads to 63% of capacity increase.
7.2
SYNTHESISER FREQUENCY HOPPING FOR CAPACITY

In the case of Synthesiser Frequency Hopping the ratio frequencies/carriers is higher than 1, which means that more frequencies than carriers can be used, taking advantage of a larger spectrum used to hop over. In that case, all the benefits of hopping can be achieved even with few carriers in the cell, since they are allowed to hop over as many frequencies as wanted. Having more frequencies than carriers means that these frequencies are not permanently on the air, and hence the interference introduced in the system is lower, compared to the situation found in BBH and fixed. The higher the ratio frequencies/carrier, the lower the interference in the system. This reduction in interference gives the possibility of reusing the frequencies in a much more tightly way when Synthesiser frequency hopping is implemented. A very well understood reuse implemented with SFH is the 1x3 reuse pattern, leading to a frequency reuse 3 and 4 times tighter than the BBH (3x3) and Fixed (4x3) common reuses, respectively. Very good performance has been achieved with this 1x3 pattern, using a ratio carriers/frequencies greater or equal to n/2n. This value has been calculated to be the limit when the 1x3 SFH system has the same performance as the 4x3 fixed system. With SFH, considering a 1x3 reuse with double frequencies than carriers, the same resources as needed for a 2x3 reuse pattern implemented with a fixed of BBH plan are required. Therefore, with SFH it is possible to enhance the spectral efficiency by 100% respect to a fixed system, and by 50% respect to the BBH system. This reduction in the size of the cluster (tighter reuse pattern), or equivalently, increase in spectral efficiency, is directly translated to a capacity increase, which is the main interest in using that technique. The reuse scheme suggested to be implemented combined with Synthesiser Frequency Hopping operation is the following: BCCH carrier: 4x3 reuse pattern TCH carriers: 1x3 reuse pattern Double frequencies than carriers (n/2n Ratio)
Considering, as an example, the same case mentioned before, with 40 channels available (one third of GSM spectrum), the increase of capacity can be seen as follows:
Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement left. Synthesiser Frequency Hopping BCCH: 4 hopping TCHs: (1x3 4/8) 12 frequencies 12*2 = 24 frequencies Fixed plan Base Band Hopping A system with 3 carriers per cell can be configured with 4 frequencies left. A system with 4 hopping carriers per cell can be configured with 1 frequency
A system with 5 carriers per cell can be configured with 4 frequencies left. According to the data presented in figure 39, the implementation of SFH leads to capacity increases of 96% respect to the fixed system and 33% respect to the BBH system. As an example, a Synthesiser Frequency Hopping system in 19 sites is working in a type D network implemented with 39 frequencies, 21 of them used for BCCHs and the remaining 18 in a 1x3 reuse pattern for TCHs giving very good performance results, improving the fixed system values. The capacity increase intended in this system is possible because the previous configuration of 2 carriers per cell (2/2/2) will be expanded to 3 carriers per cell (3/3/3). Thus an 82% capacity increase was achieved, only possible with Synthesiser Frequency Hopping .
7.3
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BBH vs. SFH FOR CAPACITY

It has been already proved that since both BBH and SFH allow to re-use the frequencies in a tighter way, it is possible to increase the capacity of a system with respect to the values achieved within a fixed system. Besides that, there are some particularities to be considered. Because a carrier doing BBH can only hop over as many frequencies as carriers are equipped in the cells, BBH requires cells to be equipped with as many carriers as possible to take advantage of frequency hopping (three should be the minimum), so its efficiency is reduced for small cells. SFH has the same benefits independently of the number of carriers, provided that at least double number of frequencies than carriers are used in the hopping sequences. This is a useful solution for capacity in all the systems as it has been shown how combining losses can be reduced by implementing air combining. (explained in section 2.3.3). The global reuse pattern used for SFH (1x3 with at least double frequencies than carriers) is tighter than the one used for BBH (3x3) and hence, the capacity increase is higher with SFH. To have an idea, the table of figure 44 summarises all possible configurations with different number of frequencies, together with the capacity increases achieved in each case. The sites are assumed to have a radio of 0.5 Km and circular coverage area (0.7854 Km2 per site and 0.2618 Km2 per cell) and the previously mentioned reuse patterns are considered: Fixed System: 4x3 for BCCHs and TCHs BBH System: 4x3 for BCCHs and 3x3 for TCHs SFH System: 4x3 for BCCHs and 1x3 for TCHs, with double number of frequencies than carriers.
FREQUENCIES AVAILABLE
CONFIGURATIONS FIXED BBH SFH
TRAFFIC OFFERED (E/Km2) FIXED BBH SFH
CAPACITY INCREASES BBH / FIXED SFH / FIXED SFH / BBH
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24 36 48 60 2/2/2 3/3/3 4/4/4 5/5/5 2/2/2 * 4/4/4** 5/5/5 6/6/6 * 3/3/3 5/5/5 7/7/7 9/9/9 31.32 56.91 83.64 111.54 31.32 83.64 111.54 135.99 56.91 111.54 164.64 222.30 47% 33% 22% 82% 96% 97% 99% 82% 33% 48% 63%
(*) 3 frequencies left (**) One of the frequencies will be reused in a 2x3 pattern
Figure 44: Capacity Increase Comparison Between Fixed, BBH and SFH Systems. The data shows that as the number of available frequencies increases, the advantages of SFH respect to BBH, according to the capacity gain, are greater.
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8.
ECONOMIC IMPACT OF FREQUENCY HOPPING

Two main aspects the system operator is concerned about, quality and capacity, have already been addressed, but there is a third one, perhaps the most important, which is the economic aspect. Since the economic aspect is so important, Frequency Hopping becomes more likely to catch on amongst system operators because these quality and capacity increases can be achieved with less investment of money. There are some points involved in the deployment of a system where Frequency Hopping gives the possibility of saving a significant amount of money. A system operator that has decided to implement FH in his system can save money taking advantage of: Reduction in the number of sites needed for the same capacity and quality, respect to the fixed system case. Reduction in time required for planning and optimisation tasks, respect to the fixed system case.
The first aspect, fewer sites required, can be understood with the following example: A new system operator has to deploy a system from scratch to give service to 200000 subscribers. The spectrum assigned to this operator is 9.6 MHz, meaning 48 frequencies are available. Three possibilities can be considered: Conventional Fixed Frequency System Base Band Hopping System Synthesiser Frequency Hopping System 2% Blocking 25 mErlangs by subscriber 7 traffic channels per carrier
Considering standard values used for planning issues:
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement The differences can be summarised in the next table (Figure 45):
COMPARATIVE ASPECTS
BCCH Reuse Pattern: Frequencies Required for BCCHs: TCH Reuse Pattern: Frequencies Assigned for TCHs: Carriers per Cell: Site Configuration: Sites Required (3 cells/Sector): Relative Investment:
FIXED SYSTEM 4x3 12 4x3 36 4 4/4/4 77 100
BBH SYSTEM 4x3 12 3x3 36 5 5/5/5 57 75
SFH SYSTEM 4x3 12 1x3 (n/2n) 36 6 7/7/7 (*) 39 50
(*) Air Combining will be used. Figure 45: Comparison between BBH, SFH and Fixed systems The main conclusions are: The same system capacity can be achieved and only 75% of the investment necessary to implement a Fixed System is required in a Base Band Hopping System. The same system capacity can be achieved and only 50% of the investment necessary to implement a Fixed System is required in a Synthesiser Frequency Hopping System.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement INVESTMENT REQUIRED
100
25% Saving 50% Saving
75 50
FIXED SYSTEM
BBH SYSTEM
SFH SYSTEM
Figure 46: Reduction in Costs Achieved with Base Band/Synthesiser Frequency Hopping The second point in which costs can be reduced is the frequency planning and optimisation activities: In a BBH system, all the calls move around all the frequencies (carriers) and because of that, the resultant performance observed is, in a certain way, an average of the behaviour experienced by all the frequencies separately. The main result is that planning and optimisation on a per carrier basis (each frequency separately) is not necessary and it is enough by doing it on a per cell basis (group of frequencies). The reduction in time required can be quantified in terms of the ratio Carriers/Cell, leading to periods of time up to three or four times shorter, with the corresponding reduction in costs. In an SFH system, as it was discussed, the reuse patterns are much more tighter than the ones used in a fixed system, so the planning is more simple. For the commonly implemented 1x3 pattern, all the frequencies are reused in a regular way in all the sites. The available frequencies are split into three groups and assigned regularly as the hopping sequence to each sector in all the sites. In this way, the planning work is reduced to plan the BCCHs (so, no TCH planning required), which will work without hopping, and built up the hopping sequences. The optimisation task is reduced to take care of the specific areas where collisions could appear because of irregularities in the sectorisation of the network. The optimisation is as simple as removing common frequencies from the sequences in the cells where this interference can be present, which is referred as look for orthogonality in the hopping sequences. To summarise, the periods of time involved in those frequency planning and optimisation processes can be reduced almost by an 80%.
Although this approach has been done from the point of view of developing a new system, it must be considered as well that moving a system from fixed frequency operation to Base Band Hopping does not imply any additional cost at all. The increase in number of subscribers can be achieved without adding new sites, but more carriers need to be equipped in the existing sites. Similarly, for Synthesiser Frequency Hopping, the only requirement is that hybrids be used for combining the carriers into the antennae. As seen above, the technical advantages of frequency hopping described, result in significant savings for system operators, not only because of the capacity increase but also for less time/resources required for frequency planning and network optimisation.
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9.
GENERAL COMPARISON OF BBH AND SFH

Once both hopping systems, BBH and SFH, have been proven to perform better than a fixed plan according to quality in the system and possibilities of capacity enhancement with important savings of money, the main interest of this chapter is to compare BBH with SFH and point out their advantages. The most important aspects will be considered for comparison purposes. Quality: The improvement in quality is the consequence of the frequency diversity, so both BBH and SFH offer the same possibilities to enhance the quality of a network, provided that the same conditions are considered. In that way, for low traffic cells, (few carriers) SFH allows higher improvement because of the higher number of frequencies that can be used. Capacity: The increase in capacity that can be achieved with frequency hopping is related to the reuse of the frequencies. The tighter this reuse, the higher the capacity increase. As it has been described, the commonly used patterns for BBH and SFH lead to tighter reuse patterns in the last case (SFH) and thus the capacity can be increased more if Synthesiser Frequency Hopping is implemented. Frequency Planning: Frequency Hopping leads to a simplification in planning issue, and a reduction of time and work. Base Band Hopping implementation still requires a frequency plan, because frequencies continue being associated to dedicated TRXs (each TRX transmits continuously the same frequency). Synthesiser Frequency Hopping, on the contrary, needs only the planning of BCCHs (non hopping) with no planning at all required for the hopping carriers. The frequencies are regularly distributed in the cells of a site, and reused in that way for all the sites (1x3 reuse pattern). SFH reduces the planning issue only to BCCH planning, always using a number of frequencies high enough to achieve a good BCCH layer, and hence being easy to plan. The best solution to save time and money in planning is to select SFH implementing a 1x3 reuse scheme. Optimisation: Simplicity in optimisation tasks is achieved using Frequency hopping. Base Band Hopping reduces the optimisation periods, since it is done on a per cell basis, instead of doing it on a per carrier basis. According to Synthesiser Hopping, it is done in a different way, because of the different philosophy of working, where the correspondence between cells and frequencies is not so direct. Dealing with a controlled interference environment, the optimisation must be approached by modifying the hopping sequences looking for orthogonality between them in order to reduce the probabilities of co-channel interference. This issue is quite easy and fast, pointing at SFH as the most advisable type of hopping in order to take advantage of the reduction in optimisation. Hardware impacts: Both types of hopping can be implemented in all Motorola equipment without any change, so there is no hardware impact at all. The only restriction Synthesiser Hopping introduces is that Cavity Combiners can not be used together with SFH. Air Combining, as described in previous chapters, allows maximum power of transmission even if high number of carriers are equipped in the cells so there is no limitation at all to use hybrid combiners, having the possibility of implementing both, BBH or SFH.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement Hopping on the BCCH: Implementing Base Band Hopping, all the channels dedicated to carry traffic (TCH carriers and non signalling timeslots on the BCCH carrier) can take advantage of it, since the BCCH is allowed to hop as well on non signalling timeslots. On the contrary, using Synthesiser Hopping, it is of no worth to configure the hopping through the BCCH, since its non signalling timeslots would not be available for carrying traffic, losing capacity in the cell. Flexibility: The main advantage of Synthesiser Hopping appears at the time of integrating a new site, due to the simplicity of this task. Only a clean frequency is needed for BCCH purposes, and the same frequencies used in all the sites will be reused in the new one, following the conventional 1x3 pattern. The growth of the network is easier and faster if SFH is implemented. There is another point to be considered and it is the interdependence between all the carriers in a cell existing in a Base Band Hopping system. As all the calls move around all the carriers, a faulty TRX will affect all the calls. On the other hand, using SFH, all the timeslots work independently from the point of view of hopping, so there is no influence at all from problems appearing on a particular TRX. Economic advantages: From the economic point of view, Synthesiser Hopping gives more advantages, because the planning and optimisation tasks are almost non-existent, so the period of time necessary to deploy a network is much shorter. At the same time, as more capacity per site can be achieved, additional savings can be obtained because fewer sites will be required for the same capacity goal.
The table in figure 47 summarises all the previous results.
ASPECTS OF COMPARISON QUALITY IMPROVEMENT CAPACITY INCREASE SIMPLICITY IN FREQUENCY PLANNING SIMPLICITY IN OPTIMISATION HARDWARE IMPACTS HOPPING ON THE BCCH FLEXIBILITY ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES
BETTER OPTION TO IMPLEMENT BBH & SFH SFH SFH SFH BBH & SFH BBH SFH SFH
Figure 47: Comparative Analysis BBH vs. SFH
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10.
CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS

Frequency Hopping technique has been approached in this document describing the philosophy of working together with some results and conclusions obtained from a number of projects carried out by Motorola. At the same time, the broad experience Motorola has achieved as a result of deploying several systems, where frequency hopping has been implemented, has been presented. As a first approach, the main conclusions can be summarised as follows: Theoretical aspects of Frequency hopping feature implemented in a GSM network have been confirmed in practice. The audio quality of a conventional macrocellular system can be greatly enhanced implementing frequency hopping. High capacity increase can be achieved taking advantage of Frequency Hopping (Values up to 80% have been achieved in some of the systems already implemented) without the need to add new sites. The global performance of the network is significantly improved when frequency hopping replaces conventional frequency plans. No changes in the equipment are required to implement frequency hopping. Frequency hopping quality and capacity solution leads to important savings in money (no new sites), time and resources for the system operator because of the simplifications in planning, optimisation issues and no new sites. Motorolas frequency hopping solution is absolutely reliable and the improvements described are guaranteed to any system operator which decides to implement it.
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Frequency Hopping for Capacity and Quality Improvement