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ANALYSIS OF SDCCH DROP

1 Purpose
This Document gives a brief about the SDCCH, flow of various signals for SDCCH
establishment, SDCCH drop and how to do traces for the SDCCH Drop.This
document is valid for R9.1.

2 Signal flow for SDCCH establishment

RNSDCCH RNLCT RMSCS RMHBI RCLCCH BTS

RNCHREQUIRED Channel request on RACH

RMCHANNELREQ
RNALLOCCH
CCALLS

RNGETNOSDCCH

RNGRTNOSDCCHACK (1)
CCONG

RNALLOCCHR

RMCHACTIVATE

ABIS MSG

RMCHACTIVATER

RMESTINDIC
CMESTAB

(2)

Note:

1) CCONG will be increased if there is no deblocked channel individual is available.

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2) CNDROP will only be increased after establishment of SDCCH i.e. after increment
of the counter CMESTAB.

2.1 CNRELCONG

If CCONG is network perceived congestion then CNRELCONG would be the

subscriber perceived congestion.

The Released Connections on SDCCH due to Radio Resource Congestion counter is

incremented when a connection on SDCCH is released due to radio resource
congestion, that is when there is congestion on TCH or congestion on transcoder
resources. The counters are stepped when a CLEAR COMMAND message with
cause 'No radio resource available' (Cause value 33) is received. The counter
(CNDROP) is also stepped at the same time. The counters are not incremented if
CLEAR REQUEST has been sent by BSC previously

Actually CCONG will be increased due to SDCCH congestion in a cell but in case of
CNRELCONG it is due to TCH congestion and call will get drop on SDCCH.The
counter value of CNRELCONG increased when block RMCNT received signal
RMRELCNT (with counter indicator 3)from block RMHBI

RMRELCNT

RMHBI ------------------------------------------------------------>> RMCNT

3 Analysis of SDCCH drop

Call setup, Paging, location Updating,authentication,ciphering, SMS and IMEI check
are the main functions of SDCCH. So it is equally required to check MSC part also
while analyzing the SDCCH drop.

There could be the following reasons for SDCCH drop

 Signal strength

 Quality

 Timing Advance (TA)

 Other reasons

Our experience from field says that if SDCCH drop is due Signal strength or Quality
or TA, then it is not very difficult to find out the valid cause but the “Other Reasons” is
the area which is really difficult to point out as there could be various possibilities of
the same. There is list of some possibilities that has to be taken care while analysing
the SDCCH drop:

3.1 Hardware Fault at BTS

For BTS, HW fault should be the prime and preliminary point to be concentrated. This
can be seen by collecting The OMT Logs of CF,TRX, ECU etc.This type of fault could
also be intermittent in nature.
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3.2 Definition of Parameter

Wrong definition or parameter in the BSC could lead to this type of fault. Few
important ones are as follows

 The MS power control and BTS power control : As the MS and BTS
powers are regulated in order to decrease battery consumption of the MS and
not to saturate the multicoupler of the BTS as well as decreasing the
interference in the system.

So the fine tuning of the control parameters are very important in accordance
with R&D recommendation.

 Activation of Adaptive configuration : This could also be the reason for

the SDCCH drop. So proper R&N consultation is needed before activating the
same, if required . It is advisable to use of this only in those cells which are
really needing the same not the entire BSC area.

3.3 DIP Status

DIP with poor quality may lead to drop call problem in different cells. Poor quality may
implicate High BER or Frame Loss in the DIP connected to a site. DIP Quality
Supervision tools should be initiated for the suspected connecting Digital Path.
Mismatch of DIP could be another reason behind drop call occurrence in some of the
cell.

3.4 Frequency Interference Problem

Interference is generally related with Quality Drop, but sometimes it may provoke
Sudden Drop as per situation.

3.5 C7 link

 The C7 link between BSC to MSC should be properly dimensioned and check
the command C7ERP for SCCP information.

 Stability of C7 link

4 USEFUL TRACES FOR TROUBLESHOOTING

There is a signal RMCONRELINIT2 which can be very useful for finding out the
reasons for call release.

RMCONRELINIT2

RMCC ------------------------------------------------------------>> RMCR

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To find the cause of SDCCH Drops, we use the trace on RMCONRELINIT2

<TEST SYSTEM;
EXECUTED

<ON OUT DO:IF DR6=33851,IF DR16=H'E9, P SWD,;

EXECUTED

<ON OUT RMCC RMCONRELINIT2;

EXECUTED

<INIT;
EXECUTED

Here,

DR6= Channel Individual i.e Logical channel No. of SDCCH channel (In RLCRP we
can see SDCCH-33851). In our example it is 33851 ( H’843B)

DR16= Cell individual, in our example it is H’00E9.

< WO BMCH1BE91001/018/040000 AT-20 TIME 040102 1107 PAGE 1

PROGRAM TRACING (1)

ON OUTSIG
RMCC BUFSIG SSP=H'0E8 RMCONRELINIT2 ON THL
TO RMCR WITH DR2 DR4
H'00 0BC1
H'0000, H'0011, H'0003, H'0020, H'0009, H'0001,
H'843B, H'1618, H'0900, H'1D80, H'0A11, H'A572,
H'0000, H'0000, H'1618, H'0010, H'00E9, H'000D,
H'0000, H'0000, H'0000, H'FFF0, H'FFFF, H'0000
DR6
END DR16

< WO BMCH1BE91001/018/040000 AT-20 TIME 040102 1224 PAGE 1

PROGRAM TRACING (1)

ON OUTSIG
RMCC BUFSIG SSP=H'0E8 RMCONRELINIT2 ON THL
TO RMCR WITH
H'00 0564
H'0000, H'0002, H'0004, H'0020, H'XXXX, H'0001,
H'843B, H'1618, H'0900, H'1D80, H'0A11, H'F171,
H'0000, H'0000, H'1618, H'0010, H'00E9, H'0020,
H'0000, H'0000, H'0000, H'FFF0, H'FFFF, H'0000

END

It important to see the value of DR2 and DR4 which shows the release cause. From
above trace the important observations are as follows
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1. In first case value of DR2=H’0003 and DR4=H’0009 then this is normal SDCCH
release.

2. In second case DR2=4 , that is the indication of fault and further investigation is
required . There could mainly be following two possibilities when DR2=4 :

 DR2=4, DR3=8, DR4=1 (usually) and it indicates “T200 expired (N200+1)

times, abnormal release”. Generally in this case problematic part is BTS.

 DR2=4,DR3 is other than H’ 0008 then the value of DR4 is not valid and
in this case problematic area could be anyone described in section 3 i.e.
“Analysis of SDCCH drop”.