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SDCCH Study

The document discusses SDCCH usage, signalling analysis, and reasons for SDCCH failures in mobile networks. It describes how an MS requests access to the network using RACH and the steps of signalling between the MS, BTS, and BSC. Common reasons for SDCCH failures include poor radio frequency conditions, path imbalance between the MS and BTS, co-channel problems, ghost random access attempts, bursts of random access during handovers, and channel activation message failures. Addressing these technical issues can help reduce the number of SDCCH drop events.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
92 views4 pages

SDCCH Study

The document discusses SDCCH usage, signalling analysis, and reasons for SDCCH failures in mobile networks. It describes how an MS requests access to the network using RACH and the steps of signalling between the MS, BTS, and BSC. Common reasons for SDCCH failures include poor radio frequency conditions, path imbalance between the MS and BTS, co-channel problems, ghost random access attempts, bursts of random access during handovers, and channel activation message failures. Addressing these technical issues can help reduce the number of SDCCH drop events.

Uploaded by

CauTung
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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SDCCH Study :- Uses,Signalling Analysis,Drop Reasons and Solutions

SDCCH usage:

User Requests (Mobile Originated Call, SMS, Supplementary Services)


Answer To paging (Mobile Terminated Call)
Call - Re Establishment
Location Update Procedure
IMSI detach indication

Signalling Analysis:First of all the channel request message is sent from the MS on RACCH Channel to the
BTS and the BTS sends the channel required message to the BSC.
This is always the first step for accessing the network. This part of signalling is performed for
every MS accessing a service, independently on the kind of service required, meaning that it is
valid also for all the other services (not call) the MS can ask: SMS, Location Update, IMSI
detach, Supplementary Service.
This CR message consists of 8 bits 3 bits are reserved for the establishment cause and 5 bits
for the random reference. Among the 8 possible combinations of establishment cause's 3 bits, 5
are valid as establishment causes.
the other 3 combinations are not valid and then refused by the network.
The usage of random reference is when two MSs access the network exactly the same time;
they can be separated
by using the random reference.
After the BSC received the channel required message if the establishment cause is valid (5 valid
cases out of 8 cases
mentioned above) the BSC starts searching for a SDCCH channel.if the channel is available in
the cell where the original access came from, it is reserved otherwise the MS cannot access the
service, the immediate assignment rejected message will be sent to the MS (if SDCCH dynamic
allocation and/or FACCH call setup are not active)
if the establishment cause is not valid (3 cases out of 8 cases mentioned above) the BSC
doesn't proceed with the signalling and RACH will be considered as Ghost RACHH.
Three events may happen:
1. A successful case is acknowledged by the BTS with channel activation acknowledgement
message (#4). The BTS will starts the transmission and reception on the associated SACCH
using the power levels and the timing advance received in the channel activation message.
2. The BTS refuses to activate the new channel, it sends the channel activation not
acknowledgement message to the BSC with the reason of the failure. Possible failure causes
are like radio resource not available, radio channel already activated/allocated, protocol error
and subclause, such as mandatory information error, O&M failure reasons, ciphering algorithm
not supported, Service or option not available.
3. The GSM timer T9103 is used for supervising the channel activation procedure. If the BSC
does not receive the channel activation ack/nack message within the time limit of the timer
T9103, the timer expires and it releases the allocated channel by sending the procedure of
assignment failure to the MSC.

After a successful SDCCH channel activation, the BSC sends the immediate assignment
command message to the BTS on AGCH channel containing data like SDCCH channel number,
page mode: normal paging, channel description of the SDCCH allocated and the associated
SACCH and hopping frequency, mobile allocation if frequency hopping is used, initial timing
advance.
This message is an order from the network to the MS to move to the SDCCH channel defined
before.The GSM timer T3101 is used to supervise the immediate assign procedure. If the
SDCCH channel reservation or activation has failed, the BSC sends the immediate assignment
reject message to the MS.
When the mobile has sent the channel request message on the RACH channel, it expects an
answer from the network within a certain period. The MS starts the timer T3120 and waits for
the answer (immediate assignment or immediate assignment reject).
If the MS doesn't receive the answer within the time limit defined by the timer T3120, the MS
makes a new attempt(Automatically - not by pressing dial button on MS) and sends
another channel request message with a new random reference on the next time slot. A new
value of timer T3120 is computed and used. The MS repeats this process either until it is
granted access or until the maximum number of repetitions is reached; the network broadcasts
the maximum repetition number.
This phenomenon leads to a big value of a counter related to SDCCH failures in Abis interface
that are not perceived by the subscriber.
Now When the MS has performed the radio access phase (i.e. it received the immediate
assignment from the BTS), the signalling proceeds with the establishment phase, the
authentication procedure, the ciphering and encryption reported.
After receiving the immediate assignment message, the MS tunes to the assigned SDCCH and
starts to establish the signalling link across the network. The MS sends the layer 2 SABM to
the BTS on the SDCCH. The SABM contains the layer 3 CM service request message in which
the MS specifies the service type required to the network.
The service request message includes one of the following informations:

header
CM service type: mobile originated call, short message service, supplementary
services, emergency call
Ciphering key sequence number
MS classmark 2
mobile identity

The BTS forwards the MS service request to the BSC in the establish indication message with
following data:

message discriminator - radio link layer management


message type - establishment indication
channel number - SDCCH + AGCH
link identifier - main signalling channel SDCCH
L3 Information - complete L3 service request as received from the MS.

This message indicates to the BSC that MS is now on the SDCCH channel. If this message is not
received by the BSC, the counter of abis failure will be incremented and the setup of the
service will be interrupted.
The BSC decodes the cause of the service request from the content of the establish indication
message.

Reasons For SDCCH Failures:1. Poor RF Condition:The MS is in poor coverage area is sending RACCH to access the cell.After receiving RACCH
request BTS is reserving SDCCH for that request and send immediate assignment message to
MS.But due to bad coverage area MS will not receive assignment command.The BT S will
release the SDCCH upon expiry of Timer T3101 which will counted as SDCCH abis failure.Then
MS will re transmit the RACCH upto parameter Max No. Of Retrasmission defined in the BTS.If
RF conditions improve within this period then call set up will be successful otherwise user will
have to redial the call.So incase of poor coverage condition there might be cumulative SDCCH
failure and hence it show high SDCCH drop in statastics but the end user wont perceive the
same at that level. The only effect will be long call set up time.
2. Path imbalance or sensitivity difference between MS and BTS
It is observed that path imbalance between uplink and downlink is poor as in most of the cases
uplink diversity gain is not expected due to installation limitations.At the same time sensitivity
difference between the BTS (-110 dbm) and MS ( typically -102 dbm) is also high.
3. Co-BCCH & BSIC problem
The MS is sending RACCH request to serving BTS that have the same BCCH and BSIC with
another BTS so far.
The request will be received by both of the BTS and will reserve the SDCCH and both BTS's will
send immediate assignment to MS.But MS will accept the command only from the dominant
BTS so far BTS will not receive any ack from MS.So far BTS will drop the reserved SDCC H after
timer expiry of T3101.
4. Ghost random RACCH
The BTS is continuously monitoring the UL Random Access Channel slots in order to find
whether or not there has been a random access from a mobile. The information contents of a
random access burst are rather
limited, thus it is possible the BTS detects a random access from background noise. This kind of
a "ghost random access" contains a random Establishment Cause, and it is detected with a
random timing advance.
There will always be a certain number of ghost accesses in the network. If the number of
SDCCH seizures per site is very small, then it is possible that the majority of the accesses are
ghost accesses. If this is the case, then the result will be a high failure rate, and nothing can
really be done except to ignore the SDCCH Abis fail on sites where there is very little traffic.
The rejection is based on the Establishment Cause. Since the Establishment Cause is random,
in some cases the Establishment Causes in the ghost random accesses will not be valid.

5.Bursts of random accesses (HO access)


The handover access burst is exactly like a random access burst (as electromagnetic shape);
the fields in the handover access burst may be interpreted as the Establishment Cause and the
random reference of the Random Access burst.So the MS will receive the assignment command
from far BTS but will not respond and finally far BTS will release the reserved SDCCH and
considered as SDDCH drop.
6. channel activation not acknowledgement message failure
After the BSC has sent the channel activation message to the BTS, it waits for the answer;
three different events may happen:

The BTS sends the channel activation acknowledgement,successful case


The BTS sends the channel activation not acknowledgement because of a failure
The BSC doesn't receive any signal from the BTS; in this case (after the timer
T9103 expires

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