CQI Adjustment Based on Dynamic BLER Target Trial

North 3G Optimization Team

Dec - 2015

HUAWEI TECHNOLOGIES CO., LTD.

Table of Contents

 Executive Summary
 Trail Details
 Implementation Plan
 KPI Benchmark
 Field Results
 Conclusion

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 Executive Summary
 To improve user throughput in CMPAK North network a trial was proposed to improve the HSDPA
throughput by modifying how CQI is adjusted to assign HSDPA TBS.

 Previously no algorithm for CQI adjustment was being used which resulted in less efficient
assignment of TBS and hence lower HSDPA throughput.

 Initial trial was implemented in 2 clusters of Rawalpindi city ( 3 & 7). 75 sites.

 The results are quite encouraging providing an improvement of around 8% in KPIs and greater than
15% improvement in field KPIs.

 Based on the results it is recommended to implement these settings globally

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Trial Details

• The CQI measures the channel conditions of a UE and is reported from the UE to the NodeB. Without this feature, the NodeB
determines an appropriate TBS based on the reported CQI, system resources, and the TFRC policy. If the reported CQI and related
conditions remain the same, the NodeB does not change the TBS because it does not consider the ever-changing radio environments.

• The constant changes in radio environments, caused by multipath effects and UE mobility, lead to fluctuating channel quality. Under
these circumstances, choosing a TBS based on the reported CQI makes it difficult to always achieve the optimum downlink
throughput.

• With the feature CQI adjustment based on dynamic BLER target, the NodeB monitors the channel quality fluctuations for HSDPA
users in a cell in real time and dynamically selects a proper BLER target instead of a fixed BLER target.

• The NodeB then uses the adjusted BLER target to adjust the CQI reported by the UE. Based on the adjusted CQI, the NodeB
determines an appropriate TBS to achieve higher downlink throughput for HSDPA users and higher cell throughput

Setting : CQI Adjust Algorithm Switch of non-Conversational Service is set

to CQI_ADJ_BY_DYN_BLER(CQI Adjusted by Dynamic BLER) at Node B level

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Implementation Plan
o Trial Area
As the switch and parameter are configurable on NodeB level trial was implemented it in Cluster 03 & Cluster 07 in Rawalpindi city ,
Cluster 03 has heavy traffic load while Cluster 07 has light traffic load and another one where we have high traffic load.

o Monitoring Method
About 1 week monitoring was done to benchmark the impact on KPI, but as throughput KPIs are not fully indicative of user throughput
field testing was also done in both clusters and results are shared.

o Testing & Benchmark

• The HSDPA throughput KPIs were checked to see if any improvement/degradation.
• Field results are compared to check pre & post scenario.
• All other major KPIs are benchmarked including accessibility , retainabilty and mobility KPIs.

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 Trial Results

KPI BENCHMARK

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User Throughput

The average throughput has improved from 1520kbps to around 1650kbps which is an improvement of around 8%

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PS Traffic & Users

The HSDPA user number remained stable and because of increased average throughput PS traffic has increased slightly

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PS Drops & IRAT

PS DCR is very slightly increased from 0.35 to 0.37 , while PS IRAT is in normal fluctuating trend.

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CS KPIs

Accessibility KPIs and CS Retainability have remained stable.

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PS Traffic & Users

The CQI in 26-30 range shown as percentage has improved from 6.5% to 7.5%. while NACKs count has reduced.
*Note that th used CQI counters at the NodeB level are different from the reported CQI values sent by the UE to NodeB

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Reported vs Used CQI Comparison

• The above graphs show that that the reported CQI by the UE to system has not changed, indicating overall
there is no change in the radio conditions.
• On the other hand there is improvement in the “used” CQI i.e the CQI values used by the NodeB to assign TBS,
indicating the impact the algorithm change has had on the CQI adjustment

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 Trial Results

FIELD TESTING

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Cluster_03

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 PS Throughput Drive
Cluster 03 (PRE) Cluster 03 (POST)

HSDPA throughput has only slightly improved in field KPIs, but samples in the best range have improved. .

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HSDPA Throughput Comparison
Cluster 03

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 CQI Distribution Plot
Cluster 03 (PRE) Cluster 03 (POST)

There is only marginal improvement in CQI, please note that this is the “reported” CQI by the UE and not the “adjusted
CQI” used in assigning TBS by the NodeB.

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CQI Comparison
Cluster 03

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Static HSDPA Testing
Plot Statistics (PRE) Statistics (POST)
HSDPA HSDPA HSDPA HSDPA
Point Point
(Mean) (MAX) (Mean) (MAX)
1 6.46 9.75 1 9.1 12.55
2 4.82 9.48 2 4.89 9.62
3 10.14 13.37 3 8.37 14.33
4 5.8 8.2 4 8.62 11.97
5 9.07 15.61 5 8.66 14.55
6 11.3 15.5 6 10.1 13.72
7 9.5 12.39 7 9.9 12.84
8 11.09 17.54 8 10.9 12.95
9 6.19 9.64 9 7.28 9.27
10 9.01 13.96 10 9.96 14.33

Mean 8.338 12.544 9.793 12.93

17% improvement

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Cluster_07

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 PS Throughput Drive
Cluster 07 (PRE) Cluster 07 (POST)

HSDPA throughput has improved in field KPIs.

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HSDPA Comparison
Cluster 07

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 CQI Distribution Plot
Cluster 07 (PRE) Cluster 07 (POST)

There is only marginal change in CQI, please note that this is the “reported” CQI by the UE and not the “adjusted CQI”
used in assigning TBS by the NodeB.

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CQI Comparison
Cluster 07

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Static HSDPA Testing
Plot Statistics (PRE) Statistics (POST)
HSDPA HSDPA HSDPA HSDPA
Point Point
(Mean) (MAX) (Mean) (MAX)
1 7.55 Mbps 12.09 Mbps 1 5.76 Mbps 11.92 Mbps
2 7.95 Mbps 12.66 Mbps 2 6.55 Mbps 10.49 Mbps
3 6.54 Mbps 11.19 Mbps 3 7.42 Mbps 12.27 Mbps
4 2.39 Mbps 4.57 Mbps 4 6.22 Mbps 12.10 Mbps
5 5.60 Mbps 8.66 Mbps 5 6.92 Mbps 10.99 Mbps
6 4.40 Mbps 8.68 Mbps 6 5.58 Mbps 10.98 Mbps
7 1.93 Mbps 5.77 Mbps 7 7.75 Mbps 13.11 Mbps
8 4.12 Mbps 8.03 Mbps 8 8.60 Mbps 10.92 Mbps
9 7.96 Mbps 11.80 Mbps 9 8.34 Mbps 14.24 Mbps
10 3.56 Mbps 5.55 Mbps 10 4.22 Mbps 6.35 Mbps

29% improvement Mean 5.2 Mbps 8.9 Mbps 6.736Mbps 11.337 Mbps

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Observations
• Significant improvement in HSDPA throughput and CQI usage was seen in RWP
Cluster 07 which is slightly remote.
• Slight improvement in HSDPA throughput and CQI usage was in RWP Cluster 03
which is highly utilized
• Total NACKs and CQI usage on KPIs is seen to have improved.
• There has been no degradation with this setting and all KPIs are following normal
trend.

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Conclusion

The trial results show positive gains from the trial and we can go for a global
implementation to see the impact on network-wide throughput and user perception.

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Thank you
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