Methodology for WiMAX Performance

Optimization Using Drive Test Data

Fawzi A. Alghamdi
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology
Melbourne, FL, USA
and
Ivica Kostanic
Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida Institute of Technology
Melbourne, FL, USA
Abstract This paper focuses on the performance of
data services in mobile Worldwide Interoperability
for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks and
development of a proper set of Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs) that may be used to assess the
network performance. Data collected via drive test
from an already deployed network were analyzed
with the goal to determine the QoS from the end user
perspective. The analysis helps in determining what
particular aspects of the network settings are causing
degradation of the performance. It also provides
appropriate course of action so that network
operators may perform changes of the network
parameters to improve the QoS of the network and
boost customer satisfaction.
Index Terms Mobile WiMAX networks, quality of
service, network optimization, Key Performance
Indicators, drive test systems
1.

INTRODUCTION

WiMAX is a new 4G technology that offers mobile

Broadband Wireless Access (BWA).
WiMAX
technology supports broadband data and voice services
over the same radio interface. It offers high data rates
and network throughput with long transmission distances.
WiMAX is a very cost effective technology and is fast to
deploy [1] making it a suitable solution for rural areas
where difficult terrain limits the application of a wireless
cellular network and in developing countries which have
limited resources to deploy wireless networks. Mobile
WiMAX supports a wide range of services such as VoIP,
e-mail and web browsing, FTP, streaming video and
audio, and IPTV. It can also serve as a backhaul for WiFi hot spots. WiMAX technology is a worldwide
adopted technology and currently there are more than 516
deployed WiMAX networks in the world [2] up from
about 335 networks in 2008 [3].

IP-based multimedia services over wireless broadband

cellular networks are becoming increasingly popular.
Analysts expect that the use of data services over
wireless networks will dominate network usage and
hence a strong emphasis needs to be placed on delivering
the optimum quality of service (QoS).
WiMAX defined QoS parameters are implemented in the
MAC layer. They help networks in implementing
different radio resource assignment strategies and in
managing WiMAX QoS classes.
However, the
algorithms that manage the radio resources are not part of
the WiMAX standard. Therefore, even though the air
interface parameters are the same across various WiMAX
networks, practical implementations may have different
properties or, in other words, they may perform
differently. As a result the user experience may change
between different networks.
Generally speaking, the users are highly agnostic about
the technological details of the network implementation.
They tend to compare their experience in the wireless
broadband environment to a more familiar experience on
the landline side. As a result, there is a need for a QoS
evaluation methodology of the network that is
independent of the technological detail and focused on
the end user experience.
The QoS evaluation
methodology needs to be based on actual measurements
and on well defined set of Key Performance Indicators
(KPIs) that may be used to assess the network
performance. The methodology needs to be easy to
implement and interpret and it should highlight the
proper courses of action required to fix identified
problems and achieve overall network performance.
This paper introduces an efficient WiMAX performance
optimization methodology that uses data collected
through drive test. The optimization methodology is a
five-step process that is performed after the completion
of
network
planning
and
deployment.

The outline of the paper is as follows: Section 2 describes

the proposed methodology, Section 3 presents data
analysis and evaluation, and Section 4 provides
observations and conclusions.
2.

PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

There is no commonly adopted practice in the WiMAX

network performance evaluation. As a result, one faces a
multitude of ad-hoc techniques that are different from
market to market and do not guarantee optimality of the
process. This methodology presented here proposes a
standardized optimization process that will provide
course of actions to optimize the network and ultimately
improve its QoS. The methodology is a five-step process
which was developed by analyzing data collected through
conventional drive test. The process steps are:

Coverage analysis
Interference analysis
Missing neighbors analysis
Events troubleshooting
Reporting.

Within this methodology, the measured data are binned.

Data binning is an area compression technique of the data
commonly used to smoothen out signal variations due to
fast fading effects and to provide much easier
identification of the trends within the data. In the work
presented in this paper, the binned areas are 50 by 50
meters squares and each square is called a bin.
A. Coverage Analysis
The first step in the network optimization process
involves examining the coverage of the network and
identifying areas where coverage problems occur. End
users consider network coverage to be of a major
significance in all networks since it provides a clear
indication of good or bad service. To determine if a
WiMAX network has downlink coverage, one needs to
consider two fundamental indicators; one is the received
power level and the other one is the Carrier to
Interference plus Noise Ratio (CINR). For an area to be
considered as having good downlink coverage, both
indicators need to be above certain thresholds. The
received power level may be obtained using the
following equation
RSLmin = 10 log (kTB) + F + CINR

(1)

where F is the noise figure of the receiver, kT is the

power spectral density of the thermal noise and B is the
bandwidth of the WiMAX signal. The value of CINR
may be obtained from the Bit Error Rate (BER) vs. CINR
waterfall curve for the different type of modulation
schemes [4]. For this methodology, a 1% threshold of
BER is selected which corresponds to a CINR value of
10 dB. Given 10MHz deployment and receiver noise

figure of 8dB, and adding a little bit of fade margin, the

RSLmin threshold value is calculated to be 80 dBm.
So, the received power level needs to be above 80 dBm
and the CINR should be above 10 dB. TABLE I shows
RSLmin formulated values for different WiMAX system
deployments.
TABLE I. WiMAX system deployments and formulated
RSLmin values
BW [MHz]
5
10
15
30

RSLmin [dBm]
-85
-80
-75
-74

Similarly, to determine if the WiMAX network has

uplink coverage, one needs to consider the mobile
transmit power. WiMAX has a very tight power control
algorithm making sure that the mobile is managed tightly
when it comes to transmit power. Therefore, if the
mobile is transmitting close to maximum power limits, it
means that it is simply not being able to reach the base
station and the base station is issuing commands to the
mobile station to power up. This is an indication of a
poor area from the uplink coverage standpoint.
To fix the poor coverage a course of action needs to be
identified. Such course of action may involve adding a
cell site, powering up or reconfiguring existing cell site
parameters. If the network coverage is good, then one
may proceed to the next step of the optimization process.
B. Interference Analysis
This step involves examining interference across the
network and identifying areas where interference is an
issue. WiMAX technology has been engineered to
minimize the effect of interference through the
Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM).
In OFDM, the transmitted signal consists of large number
of sub-carriers each carrying one portion of the data
stream. The sub-carriers are aggregated at the receiver
end. If a portion of the sub-carriers encounters
interference, the reconstructed signal may contain a large
number of errors.
Two fundamental indicators need to be considered when
examining for interference: received power level and
Carrier to Interference plus Noise Ratio (CINR). An area
is considered to be having interference, if the received
power is greater than the threshold as estimated in
TABLE I and the CINR is less than the predefined
threshold obtained from the appropriate waterfall curve.
The course of action that needs to be taken to fix
interference issues may involve antenna adjustments such
as a tilt up or down and antenna patter selection, or power
corrections of the cell site. If the network has no

interference issues, then one may proceed to the next step

of the optimization process.
C. Missing Neighbors Analysis
The third step in the network optimization process
involves determining which areas across the network
have missing neighbors and identifying the missing
neighbors. Freedom of mobility over large distances is
one of the great features that distinguish mobile WiMAX
from other broadband wireless Wide Area Network
(WAN) technologies. To support such a feature, mobile
WiMAX has established sophisticated handover (HO)
techniques. A handover is the process of switching
between neighboring cell sites to ensure un-interrupted
service.
Deployed WiMAX networks maintain the neighbor list
relationships between the sites. These lists are very
critical in assisting mobile stations transitions from one
cell site to the other. The neighbor list includes candidate
neighboring cell sites which a moving mobile station
could switch to so that it remains connected to the
network. For example, a mobile station that is connected
to the network usually has a serving base station. When
the mobile station is traveling within the network, it
receives a neighbor list message from its serving base
station. The mobile station will then switch to the
appropriate neighboring cell site within the direction of
its travel.
A missing neighbor condition occurs when a candidate
neighboring cell site is missing from the list provided by
a serving base station. The key indicator that needs to be
considered when examining for missing neighbors is
relative handoff window. A relative handoff window
specifies a threshold for a candidate cells signal so that
this cell may be considered for a neighbor list. Typically,
a cell should be on the neighbor list if its signal strength
is within 6dB of the serving cells signal.
The missing neighbor analysis is performed using an RF
measurement scanning receiver. The receiver is capable
of scanning for all possible preamble signals and thus
providing an accurate and more reliable report of
neighbors.
The missing neighbor analysis identifies the serving cell
site and obtains its neighbors list from the system data
base. It then identifies the neighboring cell sites with
received signal values that are within the predefined
relative handoff threshold and compares those with the
list obtained through the system data base. If a cell site is
missing, it is identified as a missing neighbor. The
course of action that needs to be taken to correct for
missing neighbors is simply the addition of missing
neighbors.

The missing neighbor analysis also identifies significant

missing neighbors. This is accomplished by setting a
significant bin count threshold. If the number of bins
where a missing neighboring cell site is missing is more
than the bin count threshold, then it is identified as a
significant missing neighbor.
This research has
formulated the significant bin count threshold value to be
5 bins.
D. Events Troubleshooting
This step examines abnormal WiMAX application
events, such as dropped calls and blocked calls, and
identifies issues that could impact the users experience.
If the three previous steps of the network optimization
process have been passed successfully, then one can
assume that there are no major RF problems in the
network. So, in this step, data and voice applications
need to be examined to make sure that they are running
properly.
Part of the dropped calls and blocked calls events can be
explained by the previous three steps of the network
optimization process. For example, a call can be dropped
because there is poor coverage, high interference or a
missing neighbor. However, sometimes a call just drops
and there are no apparent reasons from the RF side.
When such an incident happens, then one needs to look
into the protocol messages between the WiMAX system
and the mobile to try to determine the reason or reasons
of such a call drop. Sometimes one can go back and still
relate this to the RF side due to temporary loss of a signal
for example. However, most of the time the problem
could be related to core network issues, signaling issues
or the broader internet issues which need to be fixed
within the core network.
Typical applications that are being examined in drive
tests are Ping, FTP get, FTP put, and HTTP on the
data side and Voice over IP (VoIP) on the voice side.
Ping is a command that is usually sent to the network to
test for a network commands acknowledgment response.
FTP get refers to File Transfer Protocol download and
FTP put refers to File Transfer Protocol upload. The
FTP get performs a downlink event analysis and is used
to download a sizable file. Similarly, the FTP put
performs an uplink event analysis and is used to upload a
file of a specific size. The HTTP performs a downlink
analysis by opening a predefined web page.
The analysis is set to examine events that are organized
as parts of a sequence of tasks which can include some or
all applications, and then, generates counts of successful
and failed applications attempts.
The analysis also examines for causes of applications
failures. Failures from the RF side may be due to poor
downlink, downlink interference, poor quality or poor
uplink. The analysis statistics are then accumulated to be

able to understand the causes and to verify that

applications are running properly.
Key indicators that are of great importance for this
analysis are received power level, interference received
power level, CINR, and mobile transmit power. For
example, in a 10MHz deployment, a poor downlink is
reported when the average received power level is less
than 95 dBm; Downlink interference is reported when
the average received power level is greater than 80
dBm while average CINR is less than 10 dB; Poor quality
is reported when the average CINR is less than 10 dB;
Poor uplink is reported when the average mobile transmit
power is greater than 15 dBm.
E. Reporting
This step of the optimization process verifies that tasks
have been accomplished. An evaluation of KPIs is
performed and a report is generated to verify that these
KPIs have been reached. The report includes general
measurements statistics of typical KPIs such as received
power level, CINR, mobile transmit power, downlink and
uplink rates in kbps.
The statistics include
measurements values such as average, minimum,
maximum, variance, and standard deviation. The report
also includes a histogram illustrating the probability
density and cumulative distribution functions of each
measurement. The report also includes other KPIs such
as success rates of events such as FTP and HTTP.
3.

laptop is equipped with suitable data collection software

which is used to record measurements for both the
phone-based and the scanner-based analyses.
The
recorded measurements are analyzed to evaluate network
performance. The phone-based analysis uses a single or
multiple connecting phone devices and an external GPS
antenna.
The scanner-based analysis uses an RF
scanning receiver with built in GPS receiver and an
external RF antenna. In both analyses, the GPS provides
time and location associations with each recorded
measurement.
The unique feature of cellular networks relative to other
communication networks is that problems occur over
certain geographical areas. In other words, the quality of
service needs to be tied to a particular geographical
location. As a result, the QoS matrices are usually
presented on a map.
An example of the coverage analysis for the network
under consideration is provided in Fig. 2. The areas of
good coverage are indicated in green and the areas of
poor coverage are indicated in red. For an area to be
indicated as a good coverage, both received signal level
and CINR threshold need t be high.

EVALUATION

For the results presented in this section, network data

were collected through conventional drive test in an
already deployed and operational WiMAX network in
Dallas, TX. A drive test to collect data from a wireless
network usually involves setting up equipments in a
vehicle and driving the vehicle around in the network
coverage area. A typical drive test equipment set up is
shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 2. Downlink coverage analysis

Initial network deployments are designed to have a
minimum of 90% area coverage reliability. This network
had less 80% of area reliability in downlink coverage
which is illustrated by the percentage in TABLE II.
TABLE II. Downlink coverage statistics
Downlink Coverage Statistics
Figure 1. Drive test equipment set up
This drive test set up provides capabilities of both phonebased and scanner-based analyses of the network. The

Description
Poor DL
Coverage

Bin
Count
200

Analyzed Bin
Count
964

Percentage
[%]
20.75

The causes have been identified to be the received power

level and CINR across the affected areas in the network.
The uplink coverage evaluation of the network indicated
that it is within the initial design limits as shown in Fig. 3
and TABLE III. The network has an uplink area
coverage reliability of more 93%.

TABLE IV. Interference statistics

Interference Statistics
Description
Interference

Bin
Count
103

Analyzed Bin
Count
964

Percentage
[%]
10.68

The interference issues present in this network are linked

to improper down tilt of the antennas in the network. For
example, for the area shown in Fig. 5, a cell site near the
chosen point on the drive test path is identified as a
server. Interference is coming from a cell site that is a
couple of tiers away. The proper action needed is to
down tilt the interfering antenna.

Figure 3. Uplink coverage analysis

TABLE III. Uplink coverage statistics
Uplink Coverage Statistics
Description
UL Coverage

Bin
Count
58

Analyzed Bin
Count
964

Percentage
[%]
6.02
Figure 5. Cells trace map view of the network

The interference step of the analysis of the network

indicated the presence of interference issues. Areas of
interference are marked red in Fig. 4. TABLE IV
indicates the percentage of interference across the
network.

Figure 4. Interference analysis

The missing neighbors step of the analysis indicated the

presence of missing neighbors across the network in the
areas marked yellow, orange and red in Fig. 6. The
addition of missing neighbors in the indicated areas
should correct for missing neighbors issues.

Figure 6. Missing neighbors analysis

A sample of the significant missing neighbors report is

shown in TABLE V.
TABLE V. Sample report of significant missing
neighbors
Significant Missing Neighbors
Server ID

Missing Neighbor ID

Bin Count

W01-1
W05-3
W05-3
W07-3
W10-3
W10-3

W06-3
W08-3
W09-1
W10-3
W07-3
W06-2

24
23
23
21
19
17

The events troubleshooting step of the analysis indicated

that the network had only one failure. The failure was in
the FTP get application while downloading a 10MB
file. No RF issues have been linked to this failure.
Therefore, it has been determined that the cause is in the
core network. Fig. 7 shows a zoomed-in view of the
applications successes and the failures where failures are
indicated in red.

Figure 7. Applications successes and failures

The reporting step of the analysis has been applied on the
network and a sample report of the success rate of the
typical applications tested is presented in TABLE VI.
TABLE VI. Success rate report of typical applications
tested
Application

Ping_Test
Wait_Timer
FTP_Get_10MB

Total

Failure

Success

Attempts

Count

Rate

16
36
24

0
0
1

100%
100%
95.8%

FTP_Put_1MB
HTTP_Test

8
84
4.

0
0

100%
100%

CONCLUSION

A methodology for WiMAX performance optimization

using drive test has been presented. The methodology is
a very useful tool for RF engineers and presents an
attempt to streamline most of the current procedures in
WiMAX networks optimization. By streamlining, such
processes may be easily automated and as a result the
network optimization becomes consistent and repeatable
process.
5.

REFERENCES

[1] IEEE Standard 802.16-2009, Part 16: Air Interface

for Broadband Wireless Access Systems, May
2009.
[2] WiMAX Forum (November 2009).
WiMAX Forum Industry Research Report. Retrieved
from http://www.wimaxforum.org/resources
[3] Mobile Taiwan Applications (April 30, 2009).
Development of the Worldwide WiMAX Market.
Retrieved from
http://www.mtaiwan.org.tw/eng/global_look_content
.php
[4] Islam, A., Mondal, R., & Hasan, J. (2009).
Performance Evaluation of WiMAX Physical Layer
under Adaptive Modulation Techniques and
Communication Channels. International Journal of
Computer Science and Information Security, Vol. 5,
No.1.