UTRAN network and service analyser
TEKTRONIX, represented by NewTek Instruments, has announced a protocol analysis solution for UTRAN.
The network and service analyser (NSA) for UTRAN, is a new 3G software application for the K15 monitoring platform.
NSA for UTRAN provides network operators with first-to-market capabilities to improve troubleshooting and optimise performance.
The growth of the wireless market and fierce competition between mobile network operators has created high customer expectations in terms of quality of service.
Network operators have to be able to monitor and manage the quality of new service categories delivered to an increasing number of subscribers by the complex 3G network infrastructure. Network engineers need a powerful and flexible tool that can automatically detect problems.
Based on highly automated analysis algorithms, the NSA for UTRAN enables operators of 3G networks to quickly identify service problems and map them to root causes in the underlying network. This reduces test time, allows engineers to focus on problem solving rather than data acquisition and dramatically reduces operational expenditures.
"By minimising the manual effort and maximising the information available in monitoring the UTRAN interfaces, we enable our customers to cost-effectively focus their test efforts on problems that affect the mobile users' experience," said Alois Hauk, vice president and general manager, monitoring and protocol test, Tektronix.
"The K15 with the NSA for UTRAN is designed to enable our customers to meet the challenges of successful 3G operations, which require increased 3G quality of service at lower operational expenditures."
The NSA for UTRAN provides fully automated instrument configuration for Iub, Iur, Iu-CS and Iu-PS interfaces. This greatly reduces the time required to obtain and analyse the data.
Additionally, the new application provides fully automated Network Topology Discovery. This enables effective troubleshooting of live 3G networks that otherwise would be impossible.
Key performance indicators (KPI) provide the ability to relate breakdowns per service (e.g. voice, video, packet), per network element (e.g., cell, NodeB, RNC, SGSN, MSC), per call and per subscriber (e.g. IMSI, MSISDN) to communication protocol events in the network infrastructure.
This built-in intelligence is essential to navigate through data results and to narrow the scope of the problem to isolate the ultimate root cause. Without these applications, it would take technicians hours to identify the proper network parameters (VPI, VCI, CID) for configuration before starting to perform troubleshooting.
UMTS cell coverage areas overlap one another and network operators have the challenge to prepare reliable cell planning to guarantee high quality of service.
When a UMTS handset reaches the boundary of the coverage area of one cell, it has to be guaranteed that interference coming from adjacent cells do not interfere with the radio link quality and the user perceived quality of service.
If the interference is too strong, service deteriorates, reliable handover operations to the adjacent cell can be impeded and the user connection possibly terminated. Enabling reliable handover and managing the levels of interference between cells requires careful balancing.
With the NSA for UTRAN, operators are able to display the interference levels between any two cells. Using the Cell Overlapping Matrix application, network operators can see the influence of adjacent cells on the cell under analysis.
The Cell Overlapping Matrix reduces time for network reconfiguration tasks such as populating the RNC cell neighboring list and creating a cell scrambling code plan.
The NSA for UTRAN provides multi-user support enabling customers to reduce capital and operational expenditures by sharing the use of one protocol analyser in a server environment.
Additionally, the enhanced User Interface is fully automated and provides fast configuration, reducing the time technicians spend collecting data and allowing for easier use by novice users. The approach enables more senior technicians to focus on critical tasks, increasing the productivity of test teams.
Tektronix' K15 protocol test platform and application software support troubleshooting of live and trial 3G, 2.5G, and 2G mobile networks. It is a high-end, portable hardware platform with a suite of advanced software applications.
The platform runs on a high-performance cPCI bus architecture that hosts several boards to connect to multiple interfaces including E1/T1/J1 electrical, STM-1 optical and 10/100 Mbit/s Fast Ethernet. Remote control and NTP/GPS time synchronisation between different units are integrated into the platform.
Available software applications include decoding for EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA, H.324 and CDMA2000 protocols; expert software for real-time Multi-Interface Call Trace for EDGE, UMTS and CDMA2000; automatic UMTS Iub monitoring configuration; and offline GPRS network performances analysis.
18-Feb-2005