Call Drop Issue Troubleshooting

2nd Jul, 2014

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.

Content

Call Drop Reasons

Identify the Scope of Problem

Troubleshooting

Call Drop Analysis

Cases

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Call Drop Reasons

 Network Planning and Optimization

 Weak coverage
 Interference(DL/UL)
 Improper network planning(PCI and other Parameters)
 Handover Issue(Missing neighbor config, Improper config, improper handover thresholds cause
delayed handover, improper mobility policies
 Capacity and Load(heavy loaded air interface, overloaded CPU on board, Number of user in the cell
exceeds limit)
 Parameter, Channel and Transmission
 Parameter configuration are incorrect(inactive timer set to large value and retransmission times set to
low value)
 RF channel fault
 Incorrect transmission configuration (VLAN to DSCP mapping are not configured or DSCPs are
abnormal)

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Call Drop Reasons

 Devices
 UE’s are faulty

 Limited UE ability(UE does not support ANR)

 ENodeB fault(Fault alarms, VSWR alarm, board alarm)

 EPC fault

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Content

Call Drop Reasons

Identify the Scope of Problem

Troubleshooting

Call Drop Analysis

Cases

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Identify the scope of problems

• According to the choose regulation, confirm the issue belongs to the whole network issue or
TOP cell issue.
• Based on these counters:
• L.E-RAB.AbnormRel.Radio、L.E-RAB.AbnormRel.TNL、L.E-RAB.AbnormRel.Cong、
• L.E-RAB.AbnormRel.HOFailure、L.E-RAB.AbnormRel.MME,
• output the distributed map about call drop cause, and confirm the major reason
• Analyze the trend of KPI changes

This picture showed the increased call drop rate was related with the increased user number closely.

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Identify the scope of problems
• Identify the scope of problems.
• Based on counter cause and related indicators analysis, different actions
execution sequence should be considered.

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Content

Call Drop Reasons

Identify the Scope of Problem

Troubleshooting

Call Drop Analysis

Cases

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Troubleshooting
• Check Radio parameters

• Check operation logs

• Analysis method:
1. Check abnormal operations before the indicator deteriorated about one week for the
indicator deteriorated scenario;
2. Check abnormal operations around one week for the indicator deteriorated scenario;
3. Check the general abnormal operations for the whole network issue;
4. Abnormal operations including but no limit addition, delete, block, activation and
deactivation operations.

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Troubleshooting
Check device faults, alarms

Alarm ID Alarm Name Alarm Type Alarm Severity Alarm Category

ALM-26506 RF Unit Optical Interface Performance Degraded Fault Major/Minor Communication

ALM-26520 RF Unit TX Channel Gain Out of Range Fault Minor Hardware
ALM-26521 RF Unit RX Channel RTWP/RSSI Too Low Fault Minor Hardware
ALM-26522 RF Unit RX Channel RTWP/RSSI Unbalanced Fault Minor Hardware
ALM-26529 RF Unit VSWR Threshold Crossed Fault Major/Minor Hardware
ALM-26532 RF Unit Hardware Fault Fault Major/Minor Hardware
ALM-26758 TMA Running Data and Configuration Mismatch Fault Minor Hardware
ALM-29201 S1 Interface Fault Fault Major Signaling
ALM-29240 Cell Unavailable Fault Major Signaling
ALM-29245 Cell Blocked Fault Major Signaling
ALM-29246 Cell Simulated Load Startup Fault Minor Signaling
ALM-29247 Cell PCI Conflict Fault Warning Signaling

Check external events

Check for version differences and known issues.

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Troubleshooting

• Inference Analysis <L.UL.Interference.Avg>

• Check poor coverage

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Troubleshooting

• Check handover, neighboring cell

• -Analyze the handover success rate trend, check if this trend was
corresponding to call drop rate trend.
• -Check if neighbor cell missed or not
• -Check if handover happened by exceeded cell radius
• - Handover failure was divided by S1-based handover failure, X2-based
handover failure and intra-eNodeB handover failure

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Troubleshooting

• Check load capacity

 Check if PDCCH symbols equals to 1 and adaptive adjustment switch was off or not.
 counters L.ChMeas.CQI.DL.0----L.ChMeas.CQI.DL.4 proportion. If the proportion exceeded
20% and user number exceeded 10, DL interference was confirmed
 Analyzed the relationship between downlink and uplink RB utilization rate and call drop rate
 Analyzed BRD CPU utilization rate by VS.Board.CPUload.Max, especially LBBP board for
eRAN2.1&2.2 version, MPT board for eRAN3.0 version. If VS.Board.CPUload.Max exceed
90%, BRD load is higher
 If L.RRC.SetupFail.ResFail and L.E-RAB.FailEst.NoRadioRes increased or not.If cells were
congested indeed or not.

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Troubleshooting

• Check interference and RF channels

• Call drop issue generated by eNodeB equipment adjustment actions involved new
built or swapped sites, should identify RF alarm majorly, check if there were
channel faults, standing wave or not

• Check transmissions

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Content

Call Drop Reasons

Identify the Scope of Problem

Troubleshooting

Call Drop Analysis

Cases

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Call Drop Reasons

Call drop due to radio link failure

1. Upon T310 expiry;

2. Upon indication from RLC that the maximum number of retransmissions has been reached;

3. Upon random access problem indication from MAC while neither T300, T301, T304 nor T311
is running.

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Call Drop Analysis

• Radio link failure due to T310 expiry

Sib2
ue-TimersAndConstants
t300 : ms1000
t301 : ms1000
t310 : ms2000
n310 : n20
t311 : ms3000
n311 : n1

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Call Drop Analysis

Radio link is out of sync

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Call Drop Analysis

• Definition of T310

• Start: Upon detecting physical layer problem i.e. upon receiving N310 consecutive out-of-
sync indications from lower layers.

• Stop: Upon receiving N311 consecutive in-sync indications from lower layers, upon triggering
the handover procedure and upon initiating the connection re-establishment procedure.

• At expiry: If security is not activated: go to RRC_IDLE, else: initiate the connection re-
establishment procedure.

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Call Drop Analysis

• Radio link failure due to maximum RLC retx reached

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Call Drop Analysis

• maxRetxThreshold:
• This parameter is used by the transmitting side of each AM RLC entity to limit the
number of retransmissions of an AMD PDU.

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 Call Drop Analysis

RRC Connection Setup (DL-CCCH) RRC Connection Reconfiguration (DL-DCCH)

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Call Drop Analysis

• Radio link failure due to HO failure

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 Call Drop Analysis
Definition of T304

Start
If the RRCConnectionReconfiguration message includes
the mobilityControlInfo and the UE is able to comply with
the configuration included in this message,
the UE shall:
start timer T304 with the timer value set to t304,
as included in the mobilityControlInfo.

Stop
if MAC successfully completes the random access procedure,
stop timer T304.

At expiry (handover failure)

initiate the connection re-establishment procedure, upon which the RRC connection reconfiguration
procedure ends.

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Call Drop Analysis

• Radio link failure due to non-HO random access failure

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Content

Call Drop Reasons

Identify the Scope of Problem

Troubleshooting

Call Drop Analysis

Cases

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Case 1: Service drops are caused by the reason that
top UEs continuously fail in reestablishment.
As shown in the figure on the upper right, most abnormal releases on the
eNodeB are caused by failures in exchanging the first three signaling
messages during the reestablishment process.
As shown in the figure on the middle right, from the perspective of fault
occurrence time, most service drops occur in a continuous manner within a
period from 11:51 to 18:49 in cell 0.
As shown in the figure on the bottom right, from the perspective of TMSI
information, service drops are caused by a certain UE (TMSI C2 B0 B0 40)
and the main cause value of reestablishment is reconfiguration failure.
As shown in the figure on the bottom left, from the perspective of reconfiguration
message type, messages are not handover commands or measurement
configuration messages but may be CQI, sounding, and transmission mode
(TM) reconfiguration messages. In addition, the UE does not respond to the
RRC CONN REESTAB message and therefore the eNodeB releases E-
RABs 5s later.

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 Case 2: Service drops are caused by radio
problems.
• Release cause
› UE_RESYNC_TIMEROUT_REL_CAUSE (Radio Connection With UE Lost displayed in the S1 tracing result): indicates a L2-report release caused by resynchronization
after timeout of the resynchronization timer following the out-of-synchronization.

› UE_RLC_UNRESTORE_IND (Radio resources not available displayed in the S1 tracing result): indicates the L2-reported RLC unrestore indication that is sent after the
maximum number of RLC retransmissions reaches.

› UE_RESYNC_DATA_IND_REL_CAUSE (Unspecified displayed in the S1 tracing result): indicates a L2-reported release caused by data-triggered resynchronization
after the out-of-synchronization.

• Cause analysis
› From the last four 512-ms messages of DRB scheduling information to the last 16 64-ms messages of DRB scheduling information, abnormal releases are caused by
faults similar to suddenly stopped data transmission in most cases. Possibly, the SIM card is removed or the UE is faulty. The following figure shows information
recorded in the CHR.

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 Thank You

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