Improving the quality of the mobile radio network

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22 November 2000 Test & Measurement

Information from WWG SA

Providers of mobile radio networks are faced with new challenges daily due to the continuing liberalisation and technical progress in the telecoms market. Operators are competing to gain the major share of the growing number of mobile radio users, who naturally require a high quality of service.

Round-the-clock availability and complete coverage, coupled with acceptable quality at appropriate terms are important factors that are used to differentiate between service providers. Operators are not simply eager to meet these needs; user requirements must also be met if the aim of customer satisfaction is not to be lost sight of. Further growth depends on this. Although the capacity and coverage required must be provided, special attention must be paid to quality and the ensuing costs.

The degree of coverage and the capacity is already calculated at the network planning stage. Using these calculations, network elements are located in the best positions, keeping costs as low as possible. Maintaining coverage involves several critical points, two of which are particularly important with regard to network elements that have been installed already and are therefore fixed. These two points are output power and receive level.

The output power and receive level during operation are the main parameters governing reception quality. To keep radio signal interference to a minimum, the basestation and mobile station power levels must be kept as low as possible. This generally results in poorer quality reception or reduced range for the signals. Discontinuous transmission (DTX) and frequency hopping are used to combat this, but they often give users the impression of poorer speech quality (in the form of noise; DTX switching can also result in the loss of speech data packets). Reducing output power and improving reception quality seem to be opposing aims. They can only be optimised by iterative fine tuning of the network parameters.

Wavetek Wandel Goltermann has a range of documents that addresses the questions involved in improving the quality of service in mobile radio networks, which is intended to help service providers cope with the daily challenges of running the network. The information contained in the messages, message types, information elements and cause values of the mobile radio and SS#7 protocols used are the keys to optimising quality of service. This information is captured, condensed and evaluated with the aid of the MA-10A Signaling Protocol Analyser together with comprehensive optimisation tools.

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