LTE KPI Measurement Methodology and Acceptance Procedure

Here I write in simple word on LTE KPI Measurement Methodology and its Acceptance
Procedure. As its for only at network start up stage and now a day worldwide so many
operator starts to launch LTE and so this is the way for them to check of KPI in LTE
LTE KPI Measurement Methodology
The KPIs are formulated to measure the network performance in terms of Accessibility,
Integrity, Mobility, Retainability, and Subscriber perceived quality.
LTE KPIs are mainly classified into 5 classes, which are, Accessibility, Retainability,
Mobility, Latency, and Integrity. The KPI architecture is shown in the following figure.

The above KPI classification fully considers the customer experience and focuses on the
Quality of Experience, providing a wide range of network KPIs to reflect network factors
that are relative to the service quality, using industry standards as reference to define
network counters and KPIs.
LTE KPI Acceptance Procedure
LTE network KPI acceptance procedure for the two phases, preliminary acceptance and
final acceptance, are recommended as shown above.
During the phase of preliminary acceptance before commercial launch, KPIs will be derived
from the drive test analysis and stationary measurements, and this analysis and
measurement are on the basis of cluster which constitutes a group of sites (20-40 sites).
Statistics KPIs are not proposed and measured at this stage as the traffic is insufficient,
statistics will not eligible statistical result without enough samples.
After on-going optimization while the traffic keeps increasing after commercial launch, the
final acceptance of the whole network performance on the basis of statistics will be
implemented. However, the KPI values of statistics probably might not be same with those
in drive test due to different calculations and considerations.
LTE Service KPIs and LTE Network KPIs
The Field Test KPIs into two categories: LTE Service KPIs and LTE Network KPIs.
Service KPIs are the KPIs that are not subject to be effected by cluster tuning and
optimization activities, mainly determined by product performance, configuration and
parameter setting, e.g. ping delay, throughput, etc. I recommend that only one cluster
(named pilot cluster) is selected for the evaluation and acceptance for the Service KPIs, no
necessary for repeating the measurement in all clusters Based on the above reasons, the
Service KPIs test is suggested to be performed by Stationary Test (ST) in the area with good
RF conditions and close to the cell in order to eliminate the affect of poor RF or nonequipment factor and the test is proposed to be implemented under the condition of one
serving cell.

LTE Network KPIs, such as Call setup success rate, Call Drop Rate, Handover Success
Rate, which is determined by the radio network environment, planning and optimization
capabilities, should be performed on the Drive Test (DT) routes in rollout clusters.

How and Which KPI to Check before and after LTE Launch
Operator always needs to check LTE performance before commercial launch and after
commercial launch and here I write how and which KPI to check.As This is general guide so
it is change for different operator but it cover all KPI.
There are two types of methods for KPIs measurement: Field Test and Statistic Collection.
Different measurement methods and KPI categories shall be taken into consideration so as
to match the following two acceptance phases.
Preliminary Acceptance
For Preliminary Acceptance (before the commercial launch), low traffic (even empty) is not
able to produce sufficient traffic data to evaluate the correlative Statistics KPIs. The main
purpose of Preliminary Acceptance is to verify whether the optimized cluster achieves the
coverage and performance requirements or not, so the Field Test (Drive Test and Stationary
Test) KPIs are recommended for this phase.
Final Acceptance (Stability Acceptance, Optional)
For Final Acceptance (after the commercial launch), statistics collection method could be
introduced under the condition that a minimum amount of traffic per site at the Busy Hour
is reached (the sufficient data are available). Based on worldwide experiences of LTE
commercial networks, the following KPIs are suggested for Preliminary Acceptance and
Final Acceptance separately.
Proposed KPIs for Preliminary Acceptance
The following table lists the proposed KPIs for Preliminary Acceptance.

Proposed KPIs for Final Acceptance (Stability Acceptance, Optional)

The following table lists the proposed KPIs for Final Acceptance.

Cluster and Test Route

The following contents present recommendation for Cluster Optimization and the selection
of Drive Test Route for LTE project.
Cluster Optimization
Performing optimization/acceptance per Cluster is recommended. Cluster means a group of
sites (Normally 20-40 sites) which are geographically neighbor and all the eNodeBs of this
test cluster should be integrated and on air, along with surrounding neighbor cells, but the
actual sites number of per cluster should be flexible to allow a faster rollout and acceptance.
Drive Test Route Selection
For cluster optimization, the planning of the test route shall consider the handover
performance, neighboring relations, coverage, etc. In general the test routes shall be
planned according to the following criteria:

All sectors of each site in the cluster should be covered by the drive route, if possible.

Routes shall pass through Key business centers, major roads, shopping centers,
tourist attractions and railway stations.