LTE Capacity Guidelines

Version 1.0
Date 29th July, 2016

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 Contents

1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................................................3
2 PRACH ................................................................................................................................................................4
2.1 PRACH Capacity .........................................................................................................................................4
2.2 Monitoring ...................................................................................................................................................4
2.3 Recommendations for RACH Capacity Enhancement ..................................................................4
3 PDCCH ................................................................................................................................................................5
3.1 PDCCH Capacity .........................................................................................................................................5
3.2 Monitoring ...................................................................................................................................................6
3.3 Recommendations for PDCCH Capacity Enhancement ...............................................................6
4 PUCCH ................................................................................................................................................................6
4.1 PUCCH Capacity .........................................................................................................................................7
4.2 Monitoring: ..................................................................................................................................................7
4.3 Recommendations for PUCCH Capacity Enhancement ...............................................................8
5 PUSCH ................................................................................................................................................................8
5.1 PUSCH Capacity .........................................................................................................................................8
5.2 Monitoring ...................................................................................................................................................8
5.3 Recommendations for PUSCH Capacity Enhancement ................................................................9
6 PDSCH ................................................................................................................................................................9
6.1 PDSCH Capacity..........................................................................................................................................9
6.2 Monitoring ...................................................................................................................................................9
6.3 Recommendations for PDCH Capacity Enhancement ................................................................10
7 Paging ...............................................................................................................................................................10
7.1 Paging Capacity ........................................................................................................................................10
7.2 Monitoring .................................................................................................................................................10
7.3 Recommendations for Paging Capacity Enhancement ..............................................................10
8 Baseband .........................................................................................................................................................11
9 RRC and ERAB Congestion ........................................................................................................................11
10 Summary:........................................................................................................................................................12

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1 Introduction
This document provides details pertaining to LTE system radio capacity evaluation and specific KPIs to be monitored
including recommendations to minimize the impact of resource limitations.
Capacity Evaluation requires consideration of available capacity for PRACH, PDCCH, PUSCH and PDSCH.
Thresholds mentioned in this document correspond to cell busy hour with maximum payload. The criteria mentioned
in this document will be fine- tuned through mutual discussion with Vodafone team. Thresholds will also be revisited
based on any further inputs available from the network or any best practices followed elsewhere in future. Monitoring
methodology may also be changed based on various future enhancements in devices and network.

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2 PRACH
The Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH) transfers the random access preambles used to initiate the random
access procedure. The random access procedure is used when making the transition from RRC idle mode to RRC
connected mode. It is also used when completing a handover (both inter and intra-cell), and for re-synchronizing.

2.1 PRACH Capacity

Capacity of PRACH is determined by:

 The PRACH configuration index

 The number of PRACH preambles

Single Random Access channel can be accessed by number of UEs simultaneously. PRACH configuration index
specifies the subframe where PRACH is transmitted by UEs.

Current value of PRACH Configuration Index 3 corresponds to a relatively low PRACH capacity which is applicable
to the relatively low quantities of traffic associated with newly launched LTE network. If RACH load is increasing,
number of subframes dedicated for PRACH should be also increased to keep RACH collision probability at the same
level.

2.2 Monitoring
1. Average number of PRACH preambles per slot:

[(RACH_STP_ATT_SMALL_MSG + RACH_STP_ATT_LARGE_MSG + RACH_STP_ATT_DEDICATED)/ (3600*100)] /

(Number of PRACH Preamble Slots)

The ‘Number of PRACH Preamble Slots’ can be computed based on PRACH Configuration Index. For example,
PRACH Configuration Index 3 corresponds to 1 PRACH preamble slot per radio frame.

2. RACH preamble conflict probability:

100*(1- RACH_PREAMBLE_COLLISIONS /RACH_ALL_RETX_PREAMBLE_SUCC)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

PRACH Preamble per slot Greater than 3 4 busy hours in 1 week
RACH
RACH preamble conflict probability Greater than 1% 4 busy hours in 1 week

2.3 Recommendations for RACH Capacity Enhancement

1. Parameter Optimization : PRACH capacity within the cell can be improved with increase in PRACH
instances in time domain. This can be achieved with parameter prachConfIndex.

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 PRACH Preamble System Subframe
Configuration Format frame number
Index number
0 0 Even 1
1 0 Even 4
2 0 Even 7
3 0 Any 1
4 0 Any 4
5 0 Any 7
6 0 Any 1,6
7 0 Any 2,7
8 0 Any 3,8
9 0 Any 1,4,7
10 0 Any 2,5,8
11 0 Any 3,6,9
12 0 Any 0,2,4,6,8
13 0 Any 1,3,5,7,9

2. Physical optimization to shift some traffic to nearby site (if applicable)

3. If congestion is observed even after above steps, then option of Micro/Macro site addition should be considered.

3 PDCCH
PDCCH is used to transfer Downlink Control Information (DCI). DCI is used to signal:

 Uplink resource allocations

 Downlink resource allocations
 Transmit Power Control (TPC) commands

The capacity of the PDCCH is dependent on channel bandwidth, the number of OFDMA symbols allocated to the
downlink control channels and the radio conditions. While channel bandwidth determines the number of Resource
Elements in the frequency domain, the number of OFDMA symbols determines the number of Resource Elements in
the time domain. The radio conditions determine the quantity of redundancy required for reliable transmissions.

3.1 PDCCH Capacity

PDCCH capacity is quantified in terms of Control Channel Elements (CCE). A CCE is equal to 36 Resource Elements.
A single PDCCH transmission requires 1, 2, 4 or 8 CCE. A UE in good radio conditions may only require 1 CCE,
whereas a UE in poor radio conditions may require 8 CCE. The use of 1, 2, 4 or 8 CCE is also referred to as the use
of aggregation levels 1, 2, 4 or 8. Max number of CCEs depend on system bandwidth and the parameter “Max
Symbols for PDCCH”. Below table shows CCE capacity for different bandwidth and PDCCH symbol combinations.

Max CCEs
Bandwidth, MHz 5 10 20
PDCCH Symbols = 1 5 10 21

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 PDCCH Symbols = 2 13 26 54
PDCCH Symbols = 3 21 42 87

3.2 Monitoring
PDCCH Blocking can be computed as:

100 * SUM (AGG1_BLOCKED_PDCCH + AGG2_BLOCKED_PDCCH + AGG4_BLOCKED_PDCCH

+ AGG8_BLOCKED_PDCCH) / SUM (AGG1_USED_PDCCH + AGG2_USED_PDCCH + AGG4_USED_PDCCH +
AGG8_USED_PDCCH + AGG1_BLOCKED_PDCCH + AGG2_BLOCKED_PDCCH + AGG4_BLOCKED_PDCCH +
AGG8_BLOCKED_PDCCH)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

Greater than
PDCCH PDCCH Blocking Rate 4 busy hours in 1 week
3%

3.3 Recommendations for PDCCH Capacity Enhancement

1. Feature “Usage based PDCCH adaptation” should be active in the cells
2. Following parameter values should be considered

Parameter Value

pdcchAggSib 4
pdcchAggPaging 4
pdcchAggPreamb 4
pdcchAggRaresp 4
pdcchAggMsg4 4

3. Physical optimization to shift some traffic to nearby site (if applicable)

4. Addition of small cell or new site as per the requirements

4 PUCCH
The Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) is used to signal:

 Scheduling Requests (SR)

 HARQ acknowledgements for downlink data
 Channel State Information (CSI) for downlink channel:
o CQI
o Rank Indicator - RI
o Precoding Matrix Indication - PMI

PUCCH Formats:
 PUCCH formats 1, 1a and 1b transfer Scheduling Requests and HARQ acknowledgements
 PUCCH formats 2, 2a and 2b transfer HARQ acknowledgements and CSI reports

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4.1 PUCCH Capacity
PUCCH capacity can be computed based on resource blocks required for PUCCH formats 2, 2a, 2b and PUCCH
format 1, 1a and 1b.

Number of Resource Blocks required for transmitting CSI reports depend on:

 RRC Connected UEs

 CQI periodicity
 Parameter deltaPucchShift determine multiplexing capability

Number of Resource Blocks required for transmission of scheduling request depends upon:

 Number of RRC connected UEs

 Scheduling Requests periodicity
 Parameter deltaPucchShift determine multiplexing capability

Number of Resource Blocks for UL HARQ Ack/Nack depends on number of scheduled UEs in the downlink. This
depends on max number of CCEs (control channel element) for the specific downlink bandwidth.

Parameter Value
cellSrPeriod 20
deltaPucchShift 2
cqiPerNp 20

Total RBs required for PUCCH can be computed as:

(Number of RBs for CQI + Number of RBs for SR + Number of RBs for Ack/Nack)

4.2 Monitoring:
If PUCCH capacity becomes a limitation, then Admission Control blocks RRC connection establishments. Any
PUCCH limitation resulting in signaling connection rejection will result in increment of counter
SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_FAIL_PUCCH.

For PUCCH related failures, KPI “Signalling connection establishment failure due to PUCCH resource limitation”
should be monitored.

KPI “Signalling connection establishment failure due to PUCCH resource limitation “is defined as:

Sum (SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_FAIL_PUCCH)/Sum (SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MO_S + SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MT_S +

SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MO_D + SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_DEL_TOL + SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_HIPRIO +
SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_EMG)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

Signalling connection establishment failure due to
PUCCH 0.1% 4 busy hours in 1 week
PUCCH resource limitation

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4.3 Recommendations for PUCCH Capacity Enhancement
1. Parameter optimization : Increase resource allocated for PUCCH

Increasing the capacity of the PUCCH involves increasing the number of allocated Resource Blocks. This should be
done according to the dimensioning rules which determine the Resource Block requirement for a specific number of
connected mode users.

2. Physical optimization to shift some traffic to nearby site (if applicable)

3. Additional Micro/Macro sites to add capacity

5 PUSCH
The Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) is used to transfer:

 Uplink data
 RRC signalling messages
 Uplink Control Information (UCI)
PUSCH can be modulated using QPSK, 16QAM or 64QAM. Only UE categories 5 and 8 support 64QAM
modulation.

PUSCH carries UL user data, therefore its capacity is critical for achieving high UL throughput. Limitation of the
available UL capacity may lead to UL throughput degradation.

5.1 PUSCH Capacity

PUSCH capacity depends on UL channel bandwidth, assigned PUCCH resources, radio conditions, number of users
and the power they transmit.

5.2 Monitoring
To check if PUSCH is overloaded for specific cell, following requirements should be checked

Average PUSCH PRB Utilization (%):

UL_PRB_UTIL_TTI_MEAN/10
Even a single user of very few users can increase PUSCH utilization to a very high level. Therefore it is recommended
to monitor following KPI as well:
Average PUSCH PRB usage per UE
100*(UL_PRB_UTIL_TTI_MEAN/10)/ (CELL_LOAD_ACT_UE_AVG)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

4 busy hours in 1
PUSCH PRB Utilization Greater than 80%
week
PUSCH
4 busy hours in 1
PUSCH PRB Utilization per user Less than 10%
week

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5.3 Recommendations for PUSCH Capacity Enhancement
 Parameter optimization: Uplink power setting parameter
 Physical optimization to shift some traffic to nearby site (if applicable)
 Small cell or new site addition

6 PDSCH
The Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) is used to transfer DL data, system information and RRC signalling
messages. Since PDSCH carries DL user data, therefore its capacity is critical for achieving higher downlink
throughput.

The PDSCH can be modulated using 64QAM, 16QAM or QPSK. All UE categories support 64QAM in the downlink
direction. The eNode B selects the appropriate modulation scheme according to its link adaptation algorithm. In
general, this is based upon the propagation channel and buffer occupancy. QPSK is always used when transferring
system information or paging messages. This helps to ensure that these low bit rate messages can be received across
the entire cell.

6.1 PDSCH Capacity

PDSCH capacity is directly dependent on downlink channel bandwidth, DL PRB consumption, No. of spatial layers,
number of users and radio conditions.

6.2 Monitoring
1. DL PRB Utilization (%):

(DL_PRB_UTIL_TTI_MEAN)/10

Even a single user or very few users can increase PDSCH utilization to a very high level. Therefore it is
recommended to monitor following KPI as well.

2. Average PDSCH PRB usage per UE:

100*(DL_PRB_UTIL_TTI_MEAN/10)/ (CELL_LOAD_ACT_UE_AVG)

Cells with poor radio conditions may result into higher resource utilization. Therefore such cells should be ignored
from PDSCH capacity evaluation perspective. Criteria for such cells is average CQI value.

3. Average CQI:

Sum (1*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_01+ 2*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_02+ 3*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_03+

4*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_04+ 5*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_05+ 6*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_06+
7*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_07+ 8*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_08+ 9*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_09+
10*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_10+ 11*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_11+ 12*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_12+
13*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_13+ 14*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_14+ 15*UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_15)
/ Sum (UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_00+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_01+ UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_02+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_03+
UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_04+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_05+ UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_06+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_07+
UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_08+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_09+ UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_10+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_11+
UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_12+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_13+ UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_14+UE_REP_CQI_LEVEL_15 )

Overall criteria for PDSCH capacity monitoring will be a combination of following 3 KPIs, i.e., all 3 KPIs
thresholds should exceed the specified thresholds.
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 Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

DL PRB Utilization Greater than 80% 4 busy hours in 1 week

PDSCH DL PRB Utilization per UE Less than 10% 4 busy hours in 1 week

Average CQI Greater than 7 4 busy hours in 1 week

6.3 Recommendations for PDCH Capacity Enhancement

 Physical optimization to shift some traffic to nearby site (if applicable)
 Small cell or new site addition

7 Paging
Paging messages are transferred on air interface using PDSCH. Paging records are sent inside RRC Paging message.
When the Paging message is used to initiate mobile terminating connections then paging records address individual
devices. Only those individual devices respond to the paging message. The paging message is broadcast across all
cells belonging to the Tracking areas.

7.1 Paging Capacity

Paging capacity is determined by:

 Rate at which Paging messages are broadcast

 Number of paging records which are accommodated in each paging message

Parameter pagingNb determines the rate at which Paging Frames occur. Parameter value pagingNb = T implies that
paging frame occurs every one radio frame. The maximum number of paging records which can be accommodated
within a paging message is 16.

7.2 Monitoring
Paging Discard Rate: 100*(DISC_RRC_PAGING)/ (RRC_PAGING_REQUESTS)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

Paging Paging Discard Ration Greater than 1 % 4 busy hours in 1 week

7.3 Recommendations for Paging Capacity Enhancement

Following steps should be considered in the sequential order

1. Parameter Optimization: pagingNb should be set to ensure that paging messages occur every radio frame (i.e.
every 10ms).

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2. Parameter Optimization: defPagCyc. Setting a higher value of this parameter will ensure instances of discarded
paging records are reduced
3. Split of tracking area
4. Addition of small cells or new sites.

8 Baseband
In LTE, system module capability is measured in terms of amount of connected users. Connected users are defined
as users in RRC connected mode with DRB established and with or without data to transmit in the buffer.

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

RRC Users Avg RRC Connected Users (%) Greater than 75% 4 busy hours in 1 week

Avg RRC connected users (%) can be computed as: (RRC_CONN_UE_AVG)/ (MaxNumRRC).

MaxNumRRC is user defined parameter.

9 RRC and ERAB Congestion

If the threshold for connected users is reached, admission control doesn’t allow establishment of initial context
setup.

RRC Setup failure due to max number of RRC connection can be measured in following way:

100* (SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_FAIL_MAXRRC)/ Sum (SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MO_S + SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MT +

SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_MO_D + SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_EMG+ SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_HIPRIO+
SIGN_CONN_ESTAB_ATT_DEL_TOL)

Post establishment of RRC, congestion in ERAB resources may result in ERAB setup failure.

EARB Setup failure due to resource congestion can be measured in following way (radio resources) :

100* (ERAB_INI_SETUP_FAIL_RNL_RRNA +ERAB_ADD_SETUP_FAIL_RNL_RRNA+ERAB_ADD_SETUP_FAIL_UP +

ERAB_INI_SETUP_FAIL_NO_UE_LIC)/ (EPS_BEARER_SETUP_ATTEMPTS)

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

RRC Resource Congestion Greater than 0.2% 4 busy hours in 1 week
Congestion
RAB Resource Congestion Greater than 0.2% 4 busy hours in 1 week

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10 Summary:
From LTE Radio Capacity perspective, following KPIs can be monitored as per specified thresholds. Thresholds
value can be reviewed subsequently based on specific network requirements.

Category Monitoring KPI Threshold Criteria

PRACH Preamble per slot Greater than 3 4 busy hours in 1 week
RACH
RACH preamble conflict probability Greater than 1% 4 busy hours in 1 week

PDCCH PDCCH Blocking Rate Greater than 3% 4 busy hours in 1 week

PUCCH Signaling connection establishment Greater than 0.1% 4 busy hours in 1 week
failure due to PUCCH resource
limitation

PUSCH PRB Utilization Greater than 80% 4 busy hours in 1 week

PUSCH
PUSCH PRB Utilization per user Less than 10% 4 busy hours in 1 week

DL PRB Utilization Greater than 80% 4 busy hours in 1 week

PDSCH DL PRB Utilization per UE Less than 10% 4 busy hours in 1 week

Average CQI Greater than 7 4 busy hours in 1 week

Paging Paging Discard Ration Greater than 1 % 4 busy hours in 1 week

RRC Resource Congestion Greater than 0.2% 4 busy hours in 1 week

Congestion
RAB Resource Congestion Greater than 0.2% 4 busy hours in 1 week

RRC Users Avg RRC Connected Users (%) Greater than 75% 4 busy hours in 1 week

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