LTE Mobility

troubleshooting cases

Cases caught and tackled in VFE network

Agenda

Introduction, description of customer network and project scope

LTE Mobility brief and flowcharts

Study Cases

Summary and Conclusion

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Scope
› Network Activity: LTE Launch (LTE Site Activation)

› Ericsson NDO Scope of work: optimize and maintain LTE network during Activation
and up to 4 months.

› Process of Rollout: Early Start followed by 900+ site installation and integration, then
1 day activation for DT testing. Finally site full activation after SSV acceptance.

› Challenges: Several Functionalities were problematic due to pre-integration and big

bulks of activation, Mobility performance is discussed in these slides.

› Most of LTE network mobility was over S1 due to missing ANR support features on
core side.

› ANR: Active

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LTE Mobility - Brief
› Intra-LTE handover Process:-
– Is managed by the EnodeB (ENB).
– The source ENB and target ENB communicate through an X2 link if there is one between the
two RBSs.
– When an X2 link is not operable (our case in the network), the RBSs communicate over the
Mobility Management Entity (MME) through S1 links.

› Handover procedure:
– Measurement Configuration
› RRCConnectionReconfiguration message (UE → ENB): the ENB receives measurement
reports from the UE to evaluate need for HO (A2,A3, … Events)
– Measurement Report
› A3Event: normal mobility situation where a better ENB (than serving ENB) appears in
measurement report
– Handover Evaluation: better ENB achieve threshold for mobility
– Handover Preparation: Target ENB received information about UE, prepares resources and
informs source ENB
– Handover Execution: UE starts to setup context with target then source releases UE context.
› Intra-eNB handover
› X2 handover
› S1 handover

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 Intra-LTE mobility flow
Mobility Preparation

› Source ENB › Target ENB

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 Intra-LTE mobility flow
Mobility Execution

› Source ENB › Target ENB

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Study cases

› Mobility Preparation Failure (X2 configured but not active):-

– ENB-ID Mismatch
– TAC change
– Termpoint to MME Down/Locked (in case of MME pooling)

› Execution failure:-
› PCI conflict
› Synchronization issues, low Random Access SR
› CPRI connection/SPF losses between RU and DU

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – ENB-ID mismatch

› If ENB-ID is changed on an ENB and X2 is not functional between ENBs while relations
are created via ANR, the following scenario will occur:-
– ENB-ID is not reflected in MO ExternalEnodeBFuntion in NBRs → restart of ENB is needed then deletion of
EutrancellRelation/ExternalEutranCell/TermpointtoENB MOs is to follow to enable ANR to recreate the
MOs with correct attributes.

› Case in next slide shows an ENB-ID mismatch resulting in HO prep failures( Source Site
is LK6062, Target Site is LK3213.
› After ENB-change, target was not restarted with deletion of the mentioned MOs
resulting in duplication of ExternalEnbFunction of the same target in source LK6062, 1
EnodeBFunction contains the new ENB-ID while the other contains the old.

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – ENB-ID mismatch

Target ENB

Source ENB

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – TAC mismatch

› If TAC is changed on an ENB and X2 is not functional between ENBs while relations are
created via ANR, the following scenarios could occur:-
– TAC is changed through OSS-GUI via planned areas → new ENB TAC will appear in MO
ExternalEutranCellFDD/TDD in neighbors.
– TAC is changed via Command line → new node TAC may not be correctly reflected in MO
ExternalEutranCellFDD/TDD of neighbors, therefore relation/ExternalEutranCell deletion will be needed
so ANR could create the new relation and the neighbor cell with the updated TAC.

› Case in next slide shows a TAC mismatch resulting from TAC change via command line
( source Site is LK3840, Target site is L0120.
› Mobility trend(impacted in preparation phase) of source Site is shown after TAC
change and after relation/External cell were deleted and ANR recreated the 2 MOs

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – TAC mismatch
Target

Source

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – TAC mismatch

TAC of NBR L0120 changed from Relation recreated with correct

1115 to 1118 TAC attribute

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Study cases
mobility preparation failure – Termpoint to mme

› In an MME in pool setup, termination point to all MMEs in the pool should be active
on all neighboring sites. If an MME termpoint is down/locked from an ENB(Target
ENB) the following scenario could occur :-
– After HO event occurs and Source ENB decides the Target ENB and send Handover Required message to
the pooling MME (termpoint to the MME is active) and starts a TS1relocprep timer, the MME then sends
a Handover Request to Target ENB (termpoint is not active), if no Handover Request Acknowledgement
message is received from Target ENB to MME followed by Handover Command from MME to Source ENB
before timer expiry, the Source ENB decides that HO preparation has failed and sends Handover Cancel
message to MME.

› Case in next slides shows a mobility preparation failure between Source LD3464 and
Target L4676 due a termpoint to MME-HQ being active on Source while locked in
Target.

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 Study cases
mobility preparation failure – Termpoint to mme
Target

Source

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 Study cases
mobility preparation failure – Termpoint to mme

Termpoint to MME-HQ locked in

Target L4676

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Study cases
mobility Execution failure – PCI conflict

› Scenario
– if a Source Cell A has 2 NBR cells B & C with Same PCI, PCI conflict scenario occurs when cells B & C are
known as PCI collision Cells and Cell A is a confused Cell.
– When a UE sends MR to cell A that triggers events A2/A3 towards cell B, HO preparation phase is initiated
and if B is prepared then Cell A sends RRC Reconfiguration message to inform the UE of the Target (Cell B)
data including PCI of the target.
– The UE then attempts to send a RACH request on the target cell using the PCI provided, it can however
attempt cell C since it uses the same PCI, and since Cell C does not have the same radio conditions as B, it
is highly probable that the HO will fail in Execution phase.

› Solution:
– activate PCI conflict reporting feature and use accurate data when preparing new PCI plans.

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Study cases
mobility Execution failure – RACH in Target

› Scenario:
– After HO Preparation phase has succeeded, the Source sends the RRC Reconfiguration Message to UE
informing the UE of Target cell data, starts the tRelocOverall* timer and waits for a UE Context Release
message form MME (in case of S1 HO) or from Target ENB (in case of X2 HO).
– The UE will use a dedicated preamble to UL sync with the target if CFRA is enabled and use a random
Preamble using the RSN of the target otherwise.
– If the target cell has high RACH failures, it will not be able to receive the RRC Reconfiguration Complete
message from UE and thus will not be able to inform the MME (S1 HO) or Source ENB (X2 HO) of HO
completion until the timer expiry. The Source ENB then decides that the HO failed in Execution phase.

› Solution:
– Enable CFRA.
– Check target cell coverage and Cell Range configuration.
– Check Synchronization issues if mixed mode is enabled.
– Perform RSN (RACH Root Sequence) audit.
– Further investigate RACH performance.

* tRelocOverall is used since L16B, timer used in previous SW versions is tRelocOverallValue in ENodeBFunction MO. Default value is 5s
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Study cases
mobility Execution failure – CPRI/SPF losses

› Scenario:-
– If high CPRI/SFP losses occur between RU and Dus in target ENB (due to bending, cable cuts,.. Etc.) the
Digital unit will not be able to process the signals received from Radio Unit leading to probable faulty
detection of Resource setup requests, including RRC Connection Request message (RACH msg 3), leading
to RACH failures and Mobility Execution failures.

› Solution:-
– If Baseband units are used, CLI command CABX shows UL/DL losses due to CPRI/SPF problems.
– Starting from L16, feature CPRI link observability can be used to detect these losses in counter and KPIs,
user description of the feature can be found in CPI.

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Summary

› These ppt slides discuss only a few cases of Mobility performance handling, however
the main steps in troubleshooting to be followed are summarized below:-

– From KPI counters, determine which phase has the high failures.
– Determine whether the problem is in source (to most NBRs), Target (from several NBRs) or in a specific
relation.
– In preparation phase investigation, connectivity and activation are main contributors; ensure the target
and source cells are fully active (on cell/RU and Sector levels) and IP connectivity is enabled. Also
correlate the degradation with recent activities (compare KPIs to LGO,LGN,LGD,LGEAMC command
output).
– In Execution phase investigation, Radio interface and parameter setting are main contributors; check
parameter inconsistency, perform PCI and RSN audits, check HO and alarms and retune mobility behavior
if necessary.
– Perform traces if failures are caught and above steps were not successful.

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