Effective frequency planning to achieve improved KPI's, TCH and SDCCH drops for a real GSM cellular network

Abstract

The drastic development in the field of wireless communications has resulted huge demand for voice and data communication in public domain but spectrum is the major concern and scarce resources which imposes a high cost on the data transmission. Our objective is to provide a quality communication to maximum number of users. The number of users supported by system can be increased by using more frequencies, hence efficient RF (radio frequency) planning is required to maximize the limited spectrum resources. One has to look for optimum compromise between dense reuse with least interference. To establish the quality communication, we investigate KPI (key performance indicators), TCH (traffic channel) and SDCCH (stand alone dedicated control channel) drop on 93 GSM sites for a cellular operator in a city of India. We design an efficient frequency planning approach practically with limited spectrum availability and BCCH-BSIC (broad cast channel- Base station Identity code) set of frequencies, MAL (mobile allocation list) and DCHNO (TCH) frequency with NCCPERM (national color code permitted) parameter are used for least interference. We investigate with the help of Google Earth and simulation software to practically implement these change values in field data. We have found a significant improvement in KPI's, TCH drop and SDCCH drop which out perform the previous frequency plan. TCH drop in NBH period is improved by 15 %, SDCCH drop in NBH (national busy hour) period is improved by 6 %. We also observed that during BBH (bouncing busy hour) period as per TRAI (telecom regulatory authority of India) guideline TCH drop ≤ 2 % is improved by 47 % and SDCCH drop ≤ 2 % is improved by 43 % with respect to previous frequency plan. It is relevant with customer satisfaction and enhances revenue for the cellular operator.