Engineering Guidelines

4.1 Interactions with Other Features

It is recommended to always use MS Power Control due to the significant effect on
battery power consumption. The other important reason is the influence on the
interference environment. It is very efficient to use a combination of Dynamic BTS Power
Control, MS Power Control, Frequency Hopping and DTX. The mutual interactions
between these features provides a very powerful method to increase system
performance. This yields that the system can utilize a tighter reuse and thereby higher
system capacity. See further Reference [4], Reference [5] and Reference [6].

Preferably, power regulation should be configured to be performed before an intra-cell

handover occurs. Also power regulation should be configured to always occur before a
bad quality urgency handover is attempted.

The desired power regulation performance can be achieved through a well balanced
combination of the following:

 the MS Power Control parameters SSDESUL and QDESUL that set the limits
for how close to the noise floor (how low rxlev) and how high in interference
(how high rxlev) MS down regulation can be performed.

 the AMR Power Control parameters SSDESULAFR and QDESULAFR, or

SSDESULAHR and QDESULAHR set the limits for how close to the noise
floor (how low rxlev) and how high in interference (how high rxlev) AMR MS
down regulation can be performed.

 the AMR-WB Power Control parameters SSDESULAWB and QDESULAWB

set the limits for how close to the noise floor (how low rxlev) and how high in
interference (how high rxlev) AMR-WB MS down regulation can be performed.

 the quality compensation factor QCOMPUL and the pathloss compensation

factor LCOMPUL that determine the angles of inclination of plan 3 in Figure
3.

 the intracell handover area defined by QOFFSETUL, QOFFSETULAFR and

QOFFSETULAWB(Reference [8]).

 the threshold triggering bad quality urgency handovers, QLIMUL,

QLIMULAFR and QLIMULAWB(Reference [9] ).

 the length of the locating quality filter QLENSD (Reference [9] ), and the
Power Control quality filter, QLENUL .

4.2 Recommendations

4.2.1 General
When introducing MS Power Control into a system it is recommended to begin with
moderate settings for the controlling parameters. The majority of the gain obtained from
using Power Control, both regarding reduced interference and lowered power
consumption, originates from the first decibels of regulation. Therefore, a good strategy
is to down regulate many connections with a few dB.

4.2.2 Tuning of the Algorithm

The shown down regulation in Figure 3 is a target regulation that the algorithm aims for.
It is important to understand that the down regulation is determined by the
combination of the parameters SSDESUL and QDESUL, or SSDESULAFR and
QDESULAFR, or SSDESULAHR and QDESULAHR for AMR or SSDESULAWB and
QDESULAWB for AMR-WB, not one of the parameters alone. Since the environment
changes quickly, and the filtering of signal strength and quality introduces delays, the
target down regulation is never reached directly.

The recommended strategy (see Figure 3) is a good parameter setting that is not
particularly aggressive according to any regulation strategy. By changing the parameters,
the regulation can be made more aggressive towards quality or signal strength or
combinations depending on the needs of the customer.

4.2.3 Filter Tuning

Generally for up regulation, the MS Power Control quality filter QLENUL can be set to a
value between 2 or 5 (note that these values are based on assumptions/simulations and
have not been live tested). This is fairly uncritical since instability in the control loop has
not shown to be a problem with this control strategy. Therefore it is better to have a
short power control quality filter since the response to bad quality then becomes quick. It
is not useful to set QLENUL = 1. This would only lead to extremely nervous behaviour
resulting in less average down regulation.

In order to avoid unstable behaviour, the down regulation must be slow. This would
result in an even more cautious behaviour. The filter length on the down regulation is
determined by parameters QLENUL and UPDWNRATIO. UPDWNRATIO sets how
much longer the down regulation filter is compared to the up regulation filter in percent.
As an example of how the system reacts to bad quality, see Figure 4.

Example:

QLENUL is 3 and UPDWNRATIO is 300.

This gives a 3 SACCH periods filter length for up regulation and 3*300% = 3*3 = 9
SACCH periods filter length for down regulation.
Figure 4 Step Response to Bad Quality. Parameter Setting QLENUL = 3 and
UPDWNRATION = 300 Was Used. Note the Logarithmic Behaviour of the Down
Regulation.

The regulation for signal strength filtering is done in the same way as for quality filtering.
The length of the up regulation filter is set by the parameter SSLENUL and for the down
regulation by SSLENUL and UPDWNRATIO. The parameter UPDWNRATIO should be
tuned for the quality filter. If it is tuned for quality filtering, it is also valid for signal
strength filtering.

An example of how the system reacts to low signal strength, see Figure 5.

Figure 5 Step Response to Low Signal Strength. Parameter Setting SSLENUL = 3 and
UPDWNRATIO = 300 Was Used. Note the Logarithmic Behaviour of the Down Regulation.

The setting REGINTUL = 1 is recommended in order to make the up regulation quick in

a bad quality situation.

4.2.4 Usage of Reduced Power Level After Handover

Reduced Power Level After Handover is mainly intended for interference limited parts of a
network, i.e. hot spots with high frequency load. Using the feature in such areas in live
network has shown performance improvements in the radio network. The improvements
seen are due to reduced interference, since with Reduced Power Level After Handover
less power is transmitted in the radio network.

Figure 6 Example of Reduced Power Level After Handover parameter settings for a hot
spot and the surrounding cells.

To achieve best possible improvement within a hot spot it is recommended to use a fairly
aggressive parameter setting for Reduced Power Level After Handover, i.e. a small
positive setting of MSRPWROFFSET. During live tests MSRPWROFFSET=2dB has
shown to be a reasonable value. When doing this, the potential impact from surrounding
cells shall be considered. Hence, to minimize incoming interference to the hot spot from
surrounding cells, it is recommended to activate Reduced Power Level After Handover in
a number of guard cells as well using the same offset as in the hot spot.

To minimize the impact on the guard cells from the rest of the network, it is beneficial to
use Reduced Power Level After Handover for the cells surrounding the guard cells as well,
but with a less aggressive parameter setting. For an example of parameter settings see
Figure 6. This will give a smooth transition between the areas where Reduced Power
Level After Handover is used and the surrounding network. If after activation some
specific cells are suffering from interference, this can be handled by using a higher offset
in these specific cells.

It is foreseen that the used frequency plan will have an impact on to what extent
Reduced Power Level After Handover will influence radio network performance. The
tighter frequency reuse, the higher potential for Reduced Power Level After Handover. As
a consequence highest gain from Reduced Power Level After Handover is expected in FLP
1/1 networks.

When Reduced Power Level After Handover in uplink is used in an area where there is a
mix of cells equipped with TMA and cells without TMA, it is recommended to carefully
monitor the uplink quality in the cells lacking TMA. The reason for this is that in cells with
TMA the uplink signal is amplified, which influences the Dynamic MS Power Control
algorithm. During an inter-cell handover where the originating cell is equipped with TMA
and the target cell is not, the initial power to be used in the target cell might be too low
to secure good uplink quality if Reduced Power Level After Handover is used without
considering the TMA. This can be handled by a suitable setting of MSRPWROFFSET, i.e.
an increased MSRPWROFFSET value in the cells with no TMA.

4.3 High Capacity Networks

MS Power Control is strongly recommended in networks with a tight re-use as 1/1, 1/3
and MRP. Especially for 1/1 and 1/3 MS Power Control will decrease the near-far effects
that can occur on UL (a mobile camping on a neighbouring cell using high output power
at the cell border causes high levels of interference).