Intucell Dynamic Self

Optimizing Solutions

© 2012 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Cisco Confidential 1
 2 / Intucell SON in a Nutshell
Data Collection Analysis Implementation

Existing Reactive, Manual, labor Manual Manual

Approaches manual, intensive, validation,
partial expertise complaints

Cycle: days to weeks  “one size fits all” optimization

Proactive, Automatic, Automatic Instant,

frequent, RT continuous
automatic

Cycle: 15 minutes  dynamic optimization

— Confidential —
3 / What is important to Operators?
 QoS and End User Experience
 Performance KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- Drop Call Rate (DCR) (0.3 to 1%)
- Accessibility (98% to 99.8%)

 OPEX Expenses
- Number of Engineers
- Drive Tests

• Network Capacity
- RAN = capacity bottleneck
- Maximizing the utilization of RAN resources

— Confidential —
 4 / Intucell SON & AT&T Success Story
 Intucell selected in December 2011 as sole provider for SON solutions for
AT&T, nationwide (350,000 cells)
 Phase 1 project: ANR, DLB and APO SON modules on 3G
◦ On Ericsson & ALU RAN
◦ Phase 2 signed: introduction to new SON modules
◦ Excellent relationship with AT&T at all levels

 Value Proposition for AT&T:

◦ Reduced Drop Call Rate of 10%
◦ Reduced cell overload – 10% less overloaded cells (= 10% savings on CAPEX
expansions !!)
◦ Saves hundreds of manual man/hour work… daily!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSlidv-Pdy0
 http://www.attinnovationspace.com/innovation/story/a7781187

— Confidential —
5 / How SON Enables the Heterogeneous Network
1. Self-configures
2. Integrates small
new equipment
cells into Macro

Macro

6. Provides
superior data &
voice experience UE
Femto
SON

Metro WiFi
5. Reduces
interference &
improves mobility 4. Facilitates 3. Plugs indoor
Pico
MVMT coverage holes
environment
— Confidential —
6 / Dynamic SON: a closed loop
Real-time diagnosis
Faulty and
underperforming cells
and clusters identified

Automatic
adjustment
Algorithmic applications
tweak the network
without engineer
Instant feedback involvement
Results captured, analyzed -
and lead to new adjustments

— Confidential —
7 / Intucell 3G SON Portfolio

APO New Cell Dynamic Dynamic

Automatic
Interference
Plug & Play Neighbor Relations Load Balancing Management

Synchronization & Coordination Layer

Ericsson Huawei ALU NSN RET

Single Platform, Multiple Applications

— Confidential —
/

1- SON Automatic Neighbor Relations

— Confidential —
9 / Why does the Neighbor List Change?
 Coverage
◦ Introduction of new sites
◦ Change in Traffic/User Behavior/Events
◦ Optimization changes – RET, CPICH, Azimuth
◦ Sites issues – Site down

 Configuration Changes
◦ Rehoming – NRNC, Cell change
◦ Change in HO parameters – e.g. 1a,1b,1c,1d Event Thresholds

— Confidential —
10 / ANR Cycle

 Configure cell
parameters
 Identify Action  Add or delete
sectors with
neighbors
high dropped
call rates
 Generate a
suggested
neighbor list

Snapshot  Verify that the

new relations
Feedback are used
 Restore
changes that
are not used

— Confidential —
11 / Policy Settings

Action

Snapshot
Feedback

 When do we add?
◦ DCR>DCR threshold, met min requirements, calls, missing events

 When do we delete?
◦ When the neighbor list is full

 When do we revert?
◦ DCR is worst, min weight not met

— Confidential —
12 / Optimized Neighbor Relations is Critical

Cell handling Neighbor cells

the call

Wrong neighbor relations: Drop calls,

“silent call”, poor network quality

Typical Tier 1 operator: > 80.000 cells

>5.000.000 neighbors relations to keep updated

Most Time-Consuming Optimization activity

— Confidential —
13 /ANR Optimizes Neighbor Relations Automatically
Cell the ANR
worked on
Cell xxx –ANR added 3 neighbor
cells automatically
Neighbor cells
added SON added neighbor relations with
> 17% usage weight (significant)

— Confidential —
14 / ANR Saves Time and Improves DCR
 > 5000 actions performed in 1 week in 35 RNCs
 12% Call Drop Rate Reduction
Call Drop Rate (%) 12 Full Market # Calls
RNCs
1.00 23,000,000

21,000,000
0.90
19,000,000

0.80 17,000,000

15,000,000
0.70
Avg Drop Rate = 0.75
13,000,000
%
Avg Drop Rate = 0.67
%
0.60 11,000,000

Thanksgivin 9,000,000
g
0.50
7,000,000

0.40 5,000,000
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CS_CALLS

SunMonTueWedThu Fri Sat SunMonTueWedThu Fri Sat SunMonTueWedThu Fri Sat SunMonTueWedThu Fri Sat SunMonTueWedThu Fri Sat SunMonTueWed
47 48 49 50 51 52

— Confidential —
15 / KRNAE13 Optimized using ANR GUI
Before After

Cell we
work
on
Over 60 cells
Affected by
overshooting
Cell

Far less Rejects Alerts!

— Confidential —
/

2- Sandy Storm and Intucell SON Self

Healing

— Confidential —
17 / Sandy route: Intucell SON monitoring

Sandy
Sandy
map
Map

New England market: 20,558 cells

— Confidential —
18 / Sandy effect in New England
Sandy Storm: Massive
Network Outage
>x7 increase in Downtime
>50% increase in missing Neighbor events
Sudden Cell
Outage increase

Missing Neighbor
Events

78h daily avg 577h daily avg

— Confidential —
 Intucell SON ANR Self Heals the
19 / Network
• x 3 increase in ANR actions !

Intucell ANR :
Increase in # Actions

Intucell SON: Strong increase of number of actions, Self Healing activities

— Confidential —
20 / Adapts Rapidly to Network Changes

Intucell ANR module detected a high drop rate, and got into crisis mode.
To compensate the missing cell, ANR automatically added 8 cells in 24hours

— Confidential —
/

3- SON Dynamic Load Balancing

— Confidential —
22 / RF Shaping: Traffic Balance in Cluster
 RF shaping to push UEs to neighboring cells
 Increase the size of neighboring cells
 Decrease the apparent size of current cell
 Immediate Improvements
 Lower the maximal peak in loaded cell, More Calls
 Improved KPIs & user experience
 Lower the need for sites expansions

Loaded cell

Modified neighbor

Unaffected neighbor

— Confidential —
23 / LB Triggers
Power
HW Load Admission
Trigger Rejections
Trigger
Code
Code Load Admission
Trigger Rejections
Trigger

HW
Power Load Start Admission
Trigger Snapshot Rejections
Trigger

— Confidential —
24 / Snapshot

Source Cell • Min Required HO Factor

• Minimal CPICH
Requirements Percentage

• Min No of Neighbors
Candidate • Max no of Neighbors
Neighbor • Min Weight of Each Neighbor
Requirement • Min Total Weight of
Neighbors

• Maximum Load Balancing

Action Duration
• Cell Block Time
• IntraFreq Operation Start
Action Level
• IntraFreq Operation Max
Level

— Confidential —
25 / Cell 32 Loaded: Looking at Best Neighbors
Color-coded
display of LB:
Selected cell

Unaffected
Neighbor

LB activated
Cell 32:
Overloaded

Cell 32 will now share its traffic with its best neighbors (circled)

— Confidential —
26 / Load Balancing shares network resources
Before Load Balancing

High Admission Rejections

Overloaded cell

With SON Load Balancing

Admission Rejects = 0

Load is balanced in RT

Congested cell , Power Load Limitation, with High Admission Rejects

With Load Balancing: load is shared,—admissions rejects = 0
— Confidential
27 / North Florida: 57% Less overloaded cells
600 70000000
TOT_MOU Loaded Cells 549
555
505 60000000
500
459
428 50000000
400

40000000
300
272 276
30000000
250
200 212
20000000
156 148 156
126
100 92 10000000

0 0
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23 24
Baseline Week cSON Week

24.476 cells in North Florida

Loaded Cells Improvement = 57% less overloaded cells
— Confidential —
/

4- Automatic Parameter Optimization

— Confidential —
 PnP: Intucell SON Self Organization
29 / Module
Plug & Play Module Automatic Neighbor Relations
Self Organization Self Optimization

New Cell in Automatic

Initial NBR Automatic
OSS: Fine
Detected List
Creation Tuning
Automatically

New Cells are Introduced & Optimized Automatically

On air within 10 mins, compared to a manual process of up to
an hour or more

— Confidential —
30 / Comparison
Obtain Cell Manual neighbor Manual Script Manual neighbor
info planning Loading verification
Time consuming
& possible human mistake

Manual amendment Manual neighborlist

Site on air Script Loading amendment
Conventional way of
integrating new site Tedious work & risks of human error

Obtain Cell Loading Cell info Neighbor list

info into system Generated Site on air

SON Fine tune by

Automated Parameter Optimization ANR

Automated & reduced Ad-hoc works

— Confidential —
31 / Smoother expansion with Plug & Play
Results from a live network
Site added Site added Site added
manually manually with SON
2.0

1.6

1.2

0.8

0.4

0.0
Drop rate Drop NBR

— Confidential —
32
/

Next Steps

— Confidential —
33 / Intucell 3G SON Portfolio

APO New Cell Dynamic Dynamic

Automatic
Interference
Plug & Play Neighbor Relations Load Balancing Management

Synchronization & Coordination Layer

Ericsson Huawei ALU NSN RET

Single Platform, Multiple Applications

— Confidential —
34 / Simple & Fast Deployment
 Simple connection & integration to core Intucell Admin
(Web access)
 Sw-only solution, standard carrier grade HW
 Full network coverage in few weeks only
Intucell
 Vendor agnostic Server
OSS
Ericsson OSS Huawei

RNC

BTS Core Network

Radio Access
Network — Confidential —
Thank you.

Delivering dynamic SON, Today!