GSM Accessibility Modules Counters/KPI --- The 1st Module that one must

look at!

Accessibility = 100 PSFAIL,

PSFAIL = (SFAIL/TASSALL)*100%
SFAIL = TASSALL-TCASSALL .Idealy SFAIL = 0 !!!
SFAIL Call Setup Failures
TASSALL. All setup attempts
TCASSALL Successful Call Setups

Also check PTTCH (% TCH availability)

PTCCH=(TCH/DTCH)*100%
PCDROP=(CNDROP/CMSESTAB)*100%
PCCONG=(CCONGS/(CMSESTAB+CCONG))*100%
PCFAIL=(CFAIL/CCALL)*100%
PCTRFAIL=(CTRFAIL/CCALLS)*100%
PTFAIL=(TFAIL/TCALLS)*100%
CCALLS..All control channel setup attempts
CFAIL..Number of control setup attempts failures
CTRFAIL..Number of unsuccesfull control channel setups
CMSESTAB.. Successful MS that managed to get SDCCH

TFAILNumber of TCH setup failures

Causes of Low Accessibility

E1 link failure/Transmission Failure
Check BTS Hardware Failure/Faulty TRU
Congestion (PCCONG & PCONG)
Interference
Low Signal Strength check power parameter settings
Cell definition Cell not defined in MSC

5.4 Accessibility
5.4.1

General

The accessibility is defined as the ability to set up a call. This ranges from the arrival of
the random access burst to the event TCH assignment.
5.4.2

Availability

The channel availability is very difficult to measure despite counters such as TAVAACC,
number of available TCHs. This is due to the fact that TNUCHCNT, number of defined
TCHs, depends on whether the number is system defined or operator defined.
System defined means that the number of TCHs is based on the number of allocated
frequencies instead of the number of installed TRXs.
Operator defined means that the number of defined TCH channels is calculated as the
required number of Basic Physical Channels (BPCs) defined by command (parameter
NUMREQBPC) for the cell/channel group minus the number of BPCs used for BCCH and
SDCCH in the cell/channel group. This is especially useful when synthesizer hopping is
used (more frequencies than hardware). The equation below can be used to calculate the
number of available TCHs of total number of defined TCHs but the result will not be
correct if the feature Adaptive configuration of logical channels is used. If Adaptive
configuration of logical channels is activated the number of TCHs might change in the
cell depending on the SDCCH traffic level.
If the number of TCHs are operator defined or if synthesizer hopping is not active the
following formula can be used:

Figure 5

Available TCHs of Total Number of Defined TCHs

Other useful indicators for availability are the counters for cell downtime statistics in the
object type DOWNTIME.

TDWNACC

The counter is stepped every tenth second if there are no TCHs in

IDLE or BUSY state in the cell and the cell state is ACTIVE.

TDWNSCAN

The counter is stepped every tenth second when the cell state is
ACTIVE.

BDWNACC

Accumulated number of scans of the cell where the BCCH was

unavailable.

The total cell downtime in percentage is then expressed as:

Figure 6
5.4.3

TCH Downtime Percentage

Paging

The object type CELLPAG consists of two counters related to paging on cell level. The
location area dimensioning guideline, see Reference [5], and the idle mode behavior user
description Reference [27] contains a full description of how to use the counters in object
type CELLPAG to determine if there is a congestion problem on the PCH (from the ratio
of pages discarded in the BTS to pages received in the BTS) and how to calculate the
load on the CCCH. The counters are only for the PCH queue in the BTS. Pages on PPCH
are not queued in the BTS:
PAGPCHCONG

Number of paging messages discarded due to full cell paging queue.

PAGETOOOLD

Number of paging messages discarded due to being too long in the

paging queue. At the point when a page is taken from the paging
queue, its age is calculated and compared to the BTS parameter
AGE-OF-PAGING (the parameter is set to 5 seconds in Ericsson BSS).
If it is too old, it is discarded and PAGETOOLD is incremented.

The object type BSC consists of two counters related to paging on BSC level:
TOTPAG

Number of paging messages received from the MSC.

TOTCONGPAG

Number of paging messages discarded due to lack of capacity in the

BSC or due to congestion in the BSC paging queues or due to no
Data Link Individual is available for a paging request taken from the
paging queue.

The rate of discarded paging messages can then be expressed as:

Figure 7

Rate of Discarded Paging Messages in the BSC

Statistics from the MSC are outside the scope of this document. However, the Ericsson
MSC provides some further counters related to paging. The object type LOCAREAST can
for instance be used to calculate the paging success rate for a Location Area (LA):

Figure 8 Successful First and Repeated Page Attempts of Total Number of First Page
Attempts
Related to the paging success rate is the Location Update (LU) performance. The
following ratio can be calculated:

Figure 9

Successful LU Attempts of Total Number of LU Attempts on LA Level

Some useful counters in the MSC object type LOCAREAST:

NLAPAG1LOTOT

Number of first page attempts to an LA.

NLAPAG2LOTOT

Number of repeated page attempts to an LA.

NLAPAG1RESUCC Number of page responses to first page to an LA.

NLAPAG2RESUCC Number of page responses to repeated page to an LA.
NLALOCTOT

Total number of LU attempts in the LA.

NLALOCSUCC

Number of successful LUs in the LA.

5.4.4

Random Access

The object types RANDOMACC, RNDACCEXT and CELLGPRS contain the counters for
Random Access (RA) reasons and performance. The number of successful and failed
random accesses are registered and information about the distribution of the reasons for
random access is also available. A failed random access burst does not necessarily lead
to a call setup failure, as the MS sends many RA bursts each time it tries to connect to
the network. A high number of RA failures might be caused by bad BSIC planning or
interference.
RAACCFA

Number of Failed Random Accesses. This counter is incremented for

a Random access received with too high TA, values that are not used
or in case of "software file congestion" (i.e. when the internal storage
area in the BSC is full which is a very rare case only occuring at very
high loads).

CNROCNT

Number of Accepted Random Accesses. This counter is also

incremented for TRXT connections.

PDRAC

The counter value is incremented when a 44.058 CHANNEL

REQUIRED containing 44.018 CHANNEL REQUEST with establishment
cause "One Phase Packet Access" or "Single Block Packet Access" is
received on RACH.

The following formula can be used to calculate the random access failure rate:

Figure 10

The Random Access Failure Rate.

There are also some load related rejects covered by object type LOADREG.
5.4.5

Call Attempts

The call attempts go from the successful random access to TCH via an SDCCH. Some of
the counters connected with this process are as follows. They are situated in the object
types CLSDCCH, CLSDCCHO, CLTCH and CELTCHF/H.
CCALLS

Channel allocation attempt counter (on SDCCH).

CMSESTAB

Successful MS channel establishments on SDCCH.

CCONGS

Congestion counter for underlaid subcell. Stepped per congested

allocation attempt. The counter for overlaid subcell is CCONGSSUB.

CESTCHACTIV

Number of SDDCH establishment failure that occurs under channel

allocation and channel activation. Note that this counter is stepped
also in case of SDCCH congestion.

CESTIMMASS

Number of SDCCH establishment failure due to time-out after

sending Immediate Assignment, timer T3101 expired.

TFCASSALL

Number of assignment complete messages for all MS power classes

in underlaid subcell, full-rate. There is also an identical counter for
overlaid subcells, TFCASSALLSUB. There are corresponding
counters for half-rate, THCASSALL and THCASSALLSUB, respectively.

TASSATT

Number of first assignment attempts on TCH for all MS power

classes. Both successful and unsuccessful attempts are counted in
the target cell.

TASSALL

Number of first assignment attempts on TCH for all MS power

classes. Successful attempts are counted in the target cell and failed
attempts are counted in the serving cell. The serving cell is the cell
where the mobile station was tuned to an SDCCH or TCH for
signalling.

TCASSALL

Number of assignment complete messages on TCH for all MS power

classes.

The counter CCALLS can be stepped several times during a call setup, due to for
instance congestion or several received Random Accesses (RAs) from a mobile. This
could result in very high values for these counters in problem cells and should be
considered with care in those cases. The formula below has compensated for the
attempts at congestion.
The number of SDCCH establishments in relation to the number of seizure attempts
(when no SDCCH congestion) can be calculated as follows:

Figure 11

SDCCH Establishment Success Rate for Over- and Underlaid Subcell

The expression measures the success rate for establishing an SDCCH channel for valid
random accesses that have been received. The reasons for SDCCH establishment failures
can be analyzed by looking at the counters CCONGS, CCONGSUB, CESTCHACTIV and
CESTIMMASS.
The following expression measures the performance of assignments (change from
SDCCH to TCH). By compensating for handover during assignment the formula shows
the TCH assignment success rate for calls started in the cell:

Figure 12

Assignment Success Rate for Over- and Underlaid Subcell

Where
Inc

Sum of all incoming handovers to a cell from all its neighbors.

Outg

Sum of all outgoing handovers from a cell to all its neighbors.

AW

Number of successful assignments to worse cell, counter HOSUCWCL.

AB

Number of successful assignments to better cell, counter HOSUCBCL.

5.4.6

Drops on SDCCH

Object types concerned are CLSDCCH, CLSDCCHO and CELLCCHDR.

CNDROP

The total number of dropped SDCCH channels in a cell.

CNRELCONG

Number of released connection on SDCCH due to TCH- and

transcoder congestion in underlaid and overlaid subcell. The subset
for overlaid subcells is CNRELCONGSUB. The two counters are
located in CLSDCCH and CLSDCCHO respectively. CNDROP is stepped
at the same time.

CDISTA

Dropped SDCCH connection at excessive Timing Advance (TA).

CDISSS

Dropped SDCCH connection at low signal strength on down- or uplink

in underlaid subcell i.e. below LOWSSDL and/or LOWSSUL. There is
also a counter for overlaid subcell, CDISSSSUB.

CDISQA

Dropped SDCCH connection at bad quality down- or uplink per cell in

underlaid subcell i.e. worse than BADQDL and/or BADQUL. There is
also a counter for overlaid subcell, CDISQASUB.

The different drop reasons are ranked in the order excessive TA, low signal strength, bad
quality or sudden loss of connection. This means that if connection suffers from
excessive TA and low signal strength and drops, the drop reason will be registered as
excessive TA. The urgency condition bad quality is triggered by a high bit error rate on
up- or downlink.
The formula for drop on SDCCH, drop due to TCH congestion excluded, is:

Figure 13
5.4.7

Drop Rate on SDCCH, Drops Due to TCH Congestion Excluded

Congestion

A low congestion rate is very important for the general performance improvement. A lot
of revenue gain is to be made if the congestion is kept as low as possible. The object
types concerned are CLSDCCH, CLSDCCHO, CELTCHF, CELTCHH.
CCONGS

Congestion counter for underlaid subcell. Stepped each time an

allocation attempt fails due to SDCCH congestion. Also available for
overlaid subcells, CCONGSSUB.

CTCONGS

Congestion time counter for underlaid subcell. The counter is stepped

each second all available SDCCH channels are busy. Also available for
overlaid subcells, CTCONSUB.

CSCSTCONG

Congestion time counter for signalling connection setup for

procedures requiring a TCH. Starts incrementing when a signalling
connection setup attempt for a procedure requiring a TCH fails and
stops incrementing when there is a successful signalling connection
setup of any kind on a SDCCH or a TCH.

CSCSOPTCONG

Congestion time counter for signalling connection setup for

procedures that can be completed on a SDCCH. Starts incrementing
when a signalling connection setup attempt for a procedure that can
be completed on an SDCCH fails and stops incrementing when there
is a successful signalling connection setup of any kind on a SDCCH.

CNRELCONG

Number of released connections on SDCCH due to TCH- or

Transcoder (TRA) congestion in both underlaid and overlaid subcell.
The subset for overlaid subcells is CNRELCONGSUB. CNDROP is
stepped at the same time.

TFNRELCONG

Number of released TCH signalling connections due to transcoder

resource congestion during immediate assignment on TCH. The
corresponding counter for half-rate is THNRELCONG. These
counters are also available for overlaid subcell as TFNRELCONGSUB
and THNRELCONGSUB. TFNDROP is stepped at the same time.

TFCONGSAS

Number of failed channel allocation attempts at assignment or

immediate assignment in underlaid subcell. The counter is also
available for half-rate and for overlaid subcells, e.g.
THCONGSASSUB.

TFCONGSHO

Number of congestion at incoming handover in underlaid subcell. The

counter is also available for half-rate and for overlaid subcells, e.g.
THCONGSHOSUB.

TFTCONGS

Soft congestion time counter for underlaid subcell. The counter starts
to increment when a channel is requested but no idle channels are
available. The corresponding half-rate counter for overlaid subcells is
named THTCONSUB. In the case of GPRS no consideration is made
as to whether on-demand PDCHs exist in the cell or not i.e. both ondemand and fixed PDCHs are regarded as busy.

TFTHARDCONGS Hard congestion time counter for underlaid subcell. The counter
starts to increment only when it has not been possible to allocate a
channel with the help of any type of preemption. The corresponding
counter for overlaid subcells is named TFTHARDCONSUB. The

corresponding counters for halfrate are called THTHARDCONGS and

THTHARDCONSUB In the case of GPRS no consideration is made as
to whether on-demand PDCHs exist in the cell, simply whether the
preemption has failed or not.
CCALLS and PERLEN are also used in the formulas below.
The different counters for assignment attempts at congestion, CCONGS, TFCONGSAS
etc., are usually stepped several times during a call setup, thus showing very high
values although the time congestion, see below, is still low. The formula below should
therefore be used with that in mind:

Figure 14

SDCCH Congestion Ratio in Underlaid Subcell

The time congestion for SDCCH in percentage of the measured period in underlaid
subcell can be written as follows:

Figure 15

Full-Rate SDCCH Time Congestion in Underlaid Subcell

When looking at congestion for signalling connection setup, the following must be kept in
mind:

When trying to set-up a signalling connection the mobile will retry several times
to setup up a connection in case of congestion. Looking at a success rate on an
attempt basis will thus not show a subscriber perceived congestion.
If allowing Immediate Assignment on TCH, signalling connection setup for
procedures that require a TCH might be successful even in case of complete
SDCCH congestion in the cell.
To see the SDCCH congestion on cell level it is not possible just to add the
SDCCH time congestion in the OL and UL subcells, as there might be available
channels in one if the subcells even if the other is congested. How to determine
the congestion on cell level depends on the channel allocation profile, normally
the UL subcell is the last to be congested.

The counter CSCSTCONG and CSCSOPTCONG give a picture of the signalling congestion
setup congestion on cell level separately for procedures requiring a TCH and other
procedures, e.g. SMS and location area update, that can be completed on an SDCCH. On
cell level it is not possible to get a consistent definition of time congestion that is
connected to availability of resources (for example MSs outside the OL coverage area
may suffer congestion even if there are free channels in the OL subcell), instead these
counters consider successful and unsuccessful signalling connection setups. The counter
CSCSTCONG starts incrementing when a signalling connection setup attempt for a
procedure requiring a TCH fails and stops incrementing when there is a successful
signalling connection setup of any kind on a SDCCH or a TCH. The counter
CSCSOPTCONG on the other hand starts incrementing when a signalling connection
setup attempt for a procedure that can be completed on an SDCCH fails and stops
incrementing when there is a successful signalling connection setup of any kind on a
SDCCH. As the counters consider successful establishments rather than resource

availability the actual congestion time might be slightly exaggerated in cells with low
SDCCH traffic and capacity. It should be noted that BSS cannot in all cases determine if
a connection is for a procedure requiring a TCH or signalling only, if not known it is
assumed that it is for a procedure requiring a TCH. The formula below shows the
congestion time for procedures that require a TCH

Figure 16
TCH

Signalling Connection Setup Time Congestion for Procedures that Require a

The counters TFCONGSAS, THCONGSAS etc. might be stepped several times during an
assignment attempt. Instead, a more accurate measure of the number of call attempts
failing due to TCH congestion is the number of signalling channel drops due to lack of
radio resources, i.e. TCH congestion. The counter to use is CNRELCONG situated in the
object type CLSDCCH and the TFNRELCONG counters. The expression below is a good
measure of the subscriber perceived Grade of Service (GoS) in the cell. The formula
compares the failed TCH assignment attempts due to congestion with the total number
of TCH assignment attempts. Successful attempts are counted in the target cell and
failed attempts are counted in the serving cell. By compensating for handover during
assignment the formula shows the congestion for calls started in the cell
TF_REL_C = TFNRELCONG + TFNRELCONGSUB
TH_REL_C = THNRELCONG + THNRELCONGSUB

Figure 17

Subscriber Perceived TCH Congestion.

The expressions above can be described as:

T_CONG

Total number of dropped calls due to TCH congestion divided by the

total number of TCH assignments.

TF_REL_C

Total number of dropped TCH connections due to transcoder resource

congestion at immediate assignment on TCH for full-rate in both
underlaid and overlaid subcell.

TH_REL_C

Total number of dropped TCH connections due to transcoder resource

congestion at immediate assignment on TCH for half-rate in both
underlaid and overlaid subcell.

The TCH time congestion is also a useful measure. The time congestion for TCH full-rate
in percentage of the measured period in underlaid subcell can be written as follows:

Figure 18

Full-Rate TCH Time Congestion in Underlaid Subcell

SR Makgopa
Radio Planning & Optimisation-Gauteng Region
Mobile: 083 214 3226
E-mail: makgop_s@mtn.co.za