IRAT Handover

Northeast RAN Performance

Proprietary and Confidential

IRAT
IRAT handover was successfully tested on 01/09/06 in the UMTS FOA network in Queens. All UMTS cells except for BQU4363C was locked for testing. Call was originated on BQU4363C and then handover to BQ04744B was performed.

IRAT Handover Site Location

For 3G: Only BQU4363C needs to be on-air and the remaining cells should be off.

Site Address: 77-16 101st Ave, Queens, NY 3G Cell BQU4363C

2G Cell BQ4744A and BQ4744B

UMTS & GSM Cell Information

3G Sector BQU4363A BQU4363B BQU4363C

Scrambling Code 76 84 92

Cell ID 28631 28632 28633

LAC 52153 52153 52153

RNC NYRNC003 NYRNC003 NYRNC003

MSC NYMSS900 NYMSS900 NYMSS900

2G Sector BQ04744A BQ04744B BQ04744C

BCCH 594 601 606

BSIC 45 07 62

Cell ID 27441 27442 27443

LAC 32121 32121 32121

BSC 112 112 112

MSC NYMSC04 NYMSC04 NYMSC04

Active Set Ec/Io

UE starts compressed mode measurements to start measuring GSM neighbors RSCP: -96dBm Ec/Io : -4 dB

Handover Command from RNC to UE RSCP: -102dBm Ec/Io: -5 dB

Handover completed to GSM UMTS Call Initiated

IRAT Events

Event 2d: When estimated quality of currently used freq is below a certain threshold, UE sends a event 2d to SRNC, which on receiving this message asks the UE to set up event 3a

Contd

IRAT Events Contd..

RNC send a Physical channel reconfiguration message to UE which tells the UE to enter compressed mode to measure GSM neighbor cells.

The method to induce compressed mode is SF/2

Contd

IRAT Events Contd..

Event 3a -> Event trigger for IRAT; RNC asks UE to report GSM neighbors fulfilling a minimum criteria for signal quality Time to trigger: 100 s

UE sends a measurement report to RNC reporting the RSSI measurements of all the GSM neighbors fulfilling the criteria

IRAT Events Contd..

Handover to GSM command sent by RNC to UE

IRAT handover successfully completed. A more detailed analysis will be done for parameter optimization and to control IRAT boundaries as part of FOA

IRAT Analysis RNC Log

The figure shows the IRAT handover sequence A brief analysis of the corresponding RNC log is attached with all the messages showing the successful IRAT HO.

Path Forward
For this IRAT testing, the UMTS network was changed to 2 digit MNC the same as the 2G network. After the testing, the UMTS network was reverted back to 3 digit MNC. The way forward is to standardize the MNC length to ensure that both UMTS and GSM networks have the same length MNC for successful IRAT handovers.

Appendix

Tables illustrating the concept of Handover events 2d and 3a related to IRAT. Taken from Ericsson ALEX library