Coherence in Signal Level Measurements between GSMQOO

and GSM1800 Bands and its application to Single BCCH

Operation
T.B. S@rensen,P.E. Mogensen, C. Posch’, N.H. Moldt+
Center for Personkommunikation (CPK), Aalborg University
Fredrik Bajers Vej 7A-5, DK-9220 Aalborg Ost, Denmark
e-mail: { tbs, pm} @cpk.auc.dk; { cpo, nhm} @dmt.sonofon.dk+

Abstract - In this paper we investigate the network capacity. The basic idea is described in
possibility to operate a dualband GSM network Section II, and a description of the pilot
having co-located GSM900 and GSM1800 cells, experimental study that we performed follows in
with a single broadcast channel (BCCH). Our Section III. After a presentation of the results of
investigations are based on simultaneous analysis in Section IV we end up with a discussion
dualband signal strength measurements using a in Section V and conclusion in VI.
test measurement system, neighbour channel
measurements from a dual band GSM phone, 11. SINGLE BAND BCCH OPERATION
and Abis trace data. Our results indicate that Mobile station signal strength measurements on the
base station antennas with dissimilar radiation BCCH beacon frequencies are used to assist initial
patterns for the two bands will effect a change in cell assignment and hand over between cells. The
mean signal level difference. The characteristics GSM specifications allow the MS (Mobile Station)
of the dualband antenna on the mobile station, to report signal strength measurements on the
especially when interacting with the hand and serving and the six strongest neighbouring cells (the
head of the user, tend to strongly de-correlate neighbouring cell’s BCCH beacon frequency). In
the mean signal level variations in the two the case of separate BCCH beacon frequencies each
bands. Both issues, and in particular the latter, pair of co-located dual band cells will likely
may negatively influence the performance of “occupy” two indexes in the neighbour channel list
single BCCH operation of co-located GSM900 (out of only six indexes). For this reason the
and GSM1800 cells. efficiency of the hand over mechanism, especially
when having a multi-layer network structure,
I. INTRODUCTION reduces significantly. The end result is a reduction
Digital cellular services (GSM1800) at 1800 MHz in capacity and quality.
are used extensively to complement existing GSM
(GSM900) cellular networks in city areas, where Single BCCH operation of co-located GSM900 and
the user density is high. The two networks GSM 1800 cells can be implemented by deriving the
inherently rely on individual system broadcast 1800 MHz signal strength from the 900 MHz
channels (BCCH). The BCCH is broadcast on a measurements (or vice versa). In this case, the MS
beacon frequency which is transmitted continuously can restrict its measurement reporting to RXLevgm
at maximum power. The BCCH channels require a (signal strength on GSM900 BCCH beacon
much larger frequency reuse distance than the frequency), and the radio network should be able to
traffic channel carriers, which can benefit from predict RXLev is00 given RXLevgoo This operating
power control, discontinuous transmission, and scheme relies heavily on coherence (i.e. strong
frequency hopping. The need to transmit a BCCH correlation) in mean signal level between the two
beacon for both bands in the case of co-located bands.
GSM900 and GSM 1800 cells implies a significant
reduction in the net network capacity. The basic operating principle of single BCCH is
illustrated in Figure 1. A hand over to GSM1800
In the following we investigate the possibility of can be made for the threshold setting in case B
single band BCCH operation to increase the because, given RXLevgm, we’have more than 90 %

’ Dansk Mobil Telefon (Sonofon), Denmark

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confidence that RXLevlsW is above the required A pilot experiment has been conducted in order to
threshold level. validate these observations, and further to resolve
the apparent ambiguities. Initially, an urban area
: Signal strength cell was selected to be of particular relevance for
dualband operation.

III. DUALBANDEXPERIMENT
The experiment was conducted in one sector of an
existing tri-sectored base station (small urban
e- macro cell) in Aalborg, Denmark. The urban area is
characterised by 3 to 5 story apartment buildings
A _
with street width varying between 10 and 15 m.
The measurement area is similar to the area used in
B
[31.
10 % probability area
I
The base station uses two single band antennas
Figure 1 Single band BCCH operating principle. placed 4 m apart (horizontal spacing). The
Threshold setting A: hand over from GSM900 to GSM1800 antenna (18.0 dBi) is aligned vertically,
GSM1800 will not be attempted; Threshold setting B: whereas the GSM900 antenna (17.0 dBi) has a 5.5”
hand over takes place. down tilt relative to the vertical. The position of the
antennas is 35 m above median ground level.
Halfway in-between the two existing base station
The possibility to predict the 1800 MHz signal antennas we placed a dualband (wideband log-
level from 900 MHz measurements has already periodic) reference antenna (aligned vertically).
been exemplified in the COST231 Hata extensions
The radiation patterns for this antenna are almost
[ 11. The COST23 1 extension adds extra
identical for the two frequency bands with a
compensation (path loss) terms to the frequency horizontal beamwidth of 90” and a (wide) vertical
dependent term of the Hata model. Originally, the beamwidth of 65”. The two single band antennas
idea was that these additional path loss terms,
differ primarily in having a different vertical
together with the observed large scale signal beamwidth (GSM1800 6.5” and GSM900 9”) with
coherence between GSM900 and GSM1800
multiple sidelopes (-15 dB). Vertical (E-plane)
frequency bands, would allow the extensive
radiation patterns can be seen in Figure 2 with tilt
knowledge base of 900 MHz signal propagation to
of the GSM900 antenna included.
be extended to the 1800 MHz band. A summary of
the factors contributing to the path loss difference is
given in [2]. goO
120/A- / 5\ 60
According to results input to COST231 [3] the path
loss difference between the two bands was
measured to be within the range of 8.7 - 11 dB
(urban area) depending on base station height and
position. Further, the standard deviation was found
to be as low as 3.3 - 3.6 dB and the correlation
between slow fading signal variations in the two
bands was high (above 0.9). Slightly different 180 0
results were reported in [4]: 6.4 - 7.0 dB mean
difference with a standard deviation of 3.1 dB. Also
in this case the correlation was above 0.9. These
results suggest that prediction is feasible.
However, recent measurement results, obtained
using dual band GSM test mobiles, do not support
the observation of a fixed mean signal strength
2401 1 A300
difference and a small standard deviation; hence
270
these GSM network results are in contradiction to
the more ideal propagation measurements that Figure 2 E-plane antenna radiation patterns for BTS
supported the COST23 1 modelling. single band antennas.

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In the experiment we used the two BCCH beacon
frequencies (1806.4 MHz and 958.2 MHz) plus two
CW signals (1812.4 MHz and 959.0 MHz) which
were transmitted on the reference antenna.
For the data recording we used a four-frequency
measurement system mounted in a van. The system
has two separate receiving branches for the 900 and
1800 MHz bands. Each of the two receiving
branches is sequentially switched in frequency in
order to measure on both the GSM BCCH beacon
frequency and the CW frequency. Separate band
(end-fed) dipole antennas were placed on the roof
of the van to receive the four transmitted signals.
All signals were (log) envelope detected in a
bandwidth of 100 kHz and recorded at a constant
spatial sample rate of 10 samples per m.
I Power I
Measurement
System
Figure 3 The setup used in the van.
Alongside the measurement system, as indicated in
Figure 3, we recorded the measurement reports of a
dual-band mobile station (DB-MS) at 1s intervals.
From the frequency carrier numbers and the BSIC
(base station and network colour code)
identification, we were able to track synchronously
the signal level measurements (RXLev) on the two
BCCH frequencies.
In one set of measurements a passive power-
splitting network provided identical signals for the
DB-MS and the test measurement system (Figure
3), whereas in a second setup, the DB-MS used its
own whip-antenna. The DB-MS was placed in a
fixture at a slight slant angle, just behind the
windscreen. During both measurements a call
connection was established in order to trace the
neighbour channel measurement reports.
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The van drove a route of 13 km to cover most of
the streets within the half-power beamwidth of the
base station antennas. At the farthest distance the
van was approximately 2 km from the base station.
IV. COHERENCE ANALYSIS
The signal level measurements provided by the
measurement system were processed to determine
the median level Psow over 12.7 m sections as an
estimate of the local mean signal level. The RXLev
measurements, on the other hand, represent
temporal averaging (in dB) over approximately 7
samples (determined from the size of the BCCH
Allocation list) and were used as is.
1 I , /
I
Figure 4 shows the empirical distribution of the
level difference between CW 900 and 1800 MHz
signals, transmitted from the dualband reference
antenna and received on the dipole antennas. The
distribution is approximate log-normal with 72.5 %
and 94.5 % of the samples having a level difference
within fo and f2o ((3 is standard deviation),
respectively. For a normal distribution the
respective values are 68.3 % and 95.4 %. The mean
level difference is +11.6 dB, and therefore
comparable to the observation in [3]. For the single
band antenna signals the level difference is only
+6.9 dB.
All the results for the mean and standard deviation
have been summarised in Table 1. We note that the
standard deviation is comparable to the values
referenced in Section II. The double entries refer to
the different setups mentioned previously (one is
shown in Figure 3) and have been obtained during
different times of the day. Therefore, we attribute
no significance to the small deviations in the mean
level difference.
The data has been analysed with respect to the
radial distance from the base station, but we found
no significant dependence on distance. Also we
2245 VTC ‘99
noted that the standard deviation of the (log-
normal) local mean variations was no different
from one frequency band to the other.
Table 1 Statistical results of analysis for the level
difference between GSM900 and GSMlSOO. Grey
shaded italic numbers were obained with the setup in
Figure 3, whereas the other results were obtained
with separate antennas.
The evaluation and comparison of the DB-MS data
is not as straightforward. Figure 5 shows a sample
plot of the RXLev difference from which it is clear
that the measurements fail occasionally (sample
points below -10 dB).
1000 1200
Observation number
Figure 5 Sample plot of the level difference calculated
from RXLev reporting (external antenna).
Observations are taken along the measurement route.
From a comparison with the PSO%measurements
(BCCH beacon frequency signal strength
measurements) we concluded that failures are
caused by the RXLevgOo measurement reports.
Supposedly, this is due to the fact that the MS
requires frequency and time synchronisation for a
signal level measurement (it must derive the BSIC)
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and therefore is sensitive not only to signal strength
but also channel dispersion and co-channel
interference. Co-channel interference was most
dominant at 900 MHz.
When we exclude the erroneous measurements the
level difference is calculated to be +6.1 dB with the
external antenna signal and +I.7 dB when the DB-
MS uses its own antenna (Table 1). As before, we
observed that the mean difference is constant (no
dependence on distance), but the standard deviation
has increased to approximately 5 dB. This is in part
due to the different, and less accurate, measurement
procedure in the DB-MS evidenced by the increase
from 3.0 dB to 4.8 dB (standard deviation in Table
1) and, with less confidence, the influence from the
mobile antenna (4.8 dB to 5.1 dB).
To further characterise the coherence in signal
strength between the two frequency bands we
investigated the correlation properties for the Pso%
measurements.
0.9
cc
Figure 6 Empirical Distribution Function (EDF) of
signal correlation.
Figure 6 shows the correlation between the slow
fading processes at 900 and 1800 MHz. The result
has been obtained by analysing the total 13 km
measurement route in sparse sampled segments of
14% 1600 1800
length 240 m (one sample every 16 m). This allows
us to obtain a 90 % confidence interval estimate
using the bootstrap procedure [.5]. The three curves
in Figure 6 should be considered individually and
not in comparison; the confidence limit
distributions serve only to illustrate the estimation
accuracy.
If instead we consider the whole data set as a single
sample the correlation turns out to be in the range
0.87 - 0.89. Clearly, based on Figure 6 we may
likelv exnerience a different local mean behaviour
between GSM900 and GSM 1800.
2246 VTC ‘99
Finally, Table 1 contains a result derived from an VI. CONCLUSION
Abis trace on the same cell as we used for the In this paper, we have reported our investigations
measurements. We see that when the mobile phone on signal coherence between GSM9OO and
users are included along with a mixture of different GSM1800 frequency bands, which is of major
types of DB-MS the situation changes radically. importance for the operation of a single band
The mean level difference has actually changed in BCCH network.
favour of GSMl800, and the standard deviation This investigation shows that despite of quite
confirms the trend observed earlier between PSO% favourable propagation conditions for the
and RXLev derived measurements - a significant prediction of the mean level difference between
increase in standard deviation, and hence less GSM900 and 1800 bands, the influence of mobile
coherence. It must be emphasised that we cannot station antennas, specifically the interaction with
make firm conclusions based on this result, but the user, tends to de-correlate the signal variations.
increased variability is evident. This necessitates high hand over margins for the
cells in the band without BCCH. We therefore
V. DISCUSSION suggest that further investigations be done to
We conjecture that the observed discrepancy in evaluate the influence on network performance.
mean level difference for different base station Also, we point out that base station antennas have
antennas is due to differences in the effective some influence on the operation of single BCCH
antenna radiation patterns. There will be a small dual band cells.
influence from the antennas themselves (Figure 2)
amplified by the difference in downward tilt and VII. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
structures in close proximity to the antenna(s). The work has been co-sponsored by Nokia
This does not prevent signal level prediction for Telecommunications. Their financial support is
single BCCH operation. It merely requires that the very much appreciated.
radio network obtains a preliminary measurement
of the mean level difference so as to characterise VIII. REFERENCES
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