Agilent is specialized in range of products staring from Oscilloscopes, Protocol Analyzers, Network Analyzers, Bit Error Ratio Test Solutions, EMI/EMC, Phase Noise, Physical Layer Test Systems and many other important test and debugging products.

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• LTE Design & Test Fundamentals Volume 1
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  • Understanding SC-FDMA – The New LTE Uplink
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  • LTE Protocol Control and Signaling
• LTE Design & Test Fundamentals Volume 2
  • Ten Things You Should Know about MIMO
  • MIMO RF Measurements – Choosing and Using Tools
  • Taking LTE MIMO from Standards to Starbucks
  • LTE MIMO System Level Design and Test
  • Making the Journey from WiMAX to LTE
  • Addressing the Design and Verification Challenges of Cognitive Radio and SDR
  • Introduction to LTE Advanced
• LTE Design & Test Fundamentals Volume 3
  • Completing LTE eNB Closed-loop Conformance Tests
  • Over-The-Air (OTA) Test Methods to Evaluate the Performance of MIMO Handsets
  • How to Verify the Data in Your LTE Downlink Signal
  • 4G For Everyone: Extended RF Performance with Digital Pre-Distortion
  • Understanding Cross Modulation Effects in a Full Duplex LTE

Apart from that you can download App notes, Brochure and Software

• MIMO in LTE Operation and Measurement–Excerpts on LTE Test
• MIMO Performance and Condition Number in LTE Test
• Measuring ACLR Performance in LTE Transmitters
• Stimulus-Response Testing for LTE Components
• Greater Insight into LTE Design and Test
• Move Forward to What’s Possible in TD-LTE Design & Test Solutions
• 89600 VSA Software Trial CD
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In case of Emergency session over IMS, Emergency sessions should be prioritized over non-emergency sessions by the system.

Emergency Service is not a subscription service and therefore, when the UE has roamed out of its home network, emergency services shall not be provided by the home network and shall be provided in the roamed-to network if the roamed-to network supports emergency sessions. If a UE has sufficient credentials, it shall initiate an emergency registration with the network (requiring the involvement of the home network). The CSCFs providing service for emergency sessions may be different from the CSCFs involved in the other IMS services. If the registration fails, the UE may attempt an anonymous emergency call.

When a UE performs an emergency registration, barring and roaming restrictions are ignored.

If the UE has location information available, the UE shall include the location information in the request to establish an emergency session. The location information may consist of network location information, that is the Location Identifier, and/or the Geographical location information.
The P‑CSCF may query the IP‑CAN to obtain location identifier.

In can of IMS emergency service the UE should be able to access the IP-CAN without sufficient security credentials.

IMS Emergency Service Architecture

NOTE:

P‑CSCF, EATF and E-CSCF are always located in the serving network.

Based on operator policy, the E‑CSCF can route the emergency IMS session to the PSAP via an ECS

UE

The UE should able to detect emergency session establishment request. If an incoming call has an emergency call back indicator present, the UE shall detect the incoming PSAP call back session establishment request.

Proxy‑CSCF

Proxy‑CSCF handle registration requests with an emergency registration indication like any other registration request, except that it may reject an emergency registration request if the IM CN subsystem that the P‑CSCF belongs to can not support emergency sessions for the UE.

For non-roaming subscribers, the P-CSCF may forward an emergency session to an S-CSCF if so instructed by operator policy or local regulation.

Emergency‑CSCF

Emergency‑CSCF receives an emergency session establishment request from a P‑CSCF or an S-CSCF. If the UE does not have credentials, a non-dialable callback number shall be derived where required by local regulation.

If location information is not included in the emergency request or additional location information is required, the E‑CSCF may request the LRF to retrieve location information as described in clause 7.6 Retrieving Location information for Emergency Session.

Location Retrieval Function (LRF)

Location Retrieval Function (LRF) is responsible for retrieving the location information of the UE that has initiated an IMS emergency session.

LRF utilizes the a Routing Determination Function (RDF) to provide the routing information to the E‑CSCF for routing the emergency request.

Serving-CSCF

When the S‑CSCF receives an Emergency Registration, the S‑CSCF determine the duration of the registration by checking the value of the Expires header in the received REGISTER request and based on local regulation or operator policy of the serving system.

MGCF

The MGCF may:

• Determine based on the operator policy if an incoming call form the PSTN is for the purpose of PSAP call-back. The operator policy decision may be based on that the call is from an emergency centre or from a PSAP and/or any other information made available to the MGCF.
• Include a “PSAP call-back indication” in the SIP session establishment request if an incoming call is determined to be for the purpose of PSAP call-back.

Reference

3GPP 23.167 – IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) emergency sessions

Minimization Of Drive Test Requirements Analysis

In this part the main focus on different use cases where MDT can be applied.

Minimization of Drive Test (MDT) specifies different ways to improve network efficiency by using UE measurement logs. The logs collection in UE can be periodic or event triggered (e.g Radio Link Failures).

To make the MDT process more efficient and provide adequate results, different use cases are defined.

Coverage Optimization

Information about radio coverage is essential for network planning, network optimization and Radio Resource Management parameters optimization.

The coverage optimization of the network is required in the following cases.

Deployment of new base stations cells

When new base stations or cells are deployed, drive tests are performed before and after the service deployment. When initially the radio waves are transmitted the cell is barred from normal use. (This is done through setting barred information in SIB 3).

But after the initial tests are over and the cell is made available for normal use, the operators does drive test to collect more extensive data of UL/DL coverage measurement to make sure the location under test provides goof UL/DL coverage.

Construction of new highways, railways or major buildings

Areas where new highways / railways / major buildings are constructed are potential areas which residing population will increase, and are important areas to provide good coverage. Also, such large constructions normally introduce weak pilot areas as they become new sources of shadowing losses.

Customer’s complaints

Customer’s complaints are an important trigger to perform drive tests. When customers indicate coverage / throughput concerns (e.g. poor DL coverage at their home, office, etc.), operators perform “drive tests” in the relevant area to observe the coverage quality.

Periodic drive tests

This is the additional phase of drive test that is performed for a particular cell / smaller network area or the entire network in a regular and on demand manner.

Mobility optimization

Information about mobility problems or failures can be used to identify localized lack of coverage or the need to adapt the network parameters setting, e.g. in order to avoid too early or too late handover and to improve the handover success rate and overall network performance.

Capacity optimization

The operator needs to be able to determine if there is too much/little capacity in certain parts of the network i.e. to detect locations where e.g. the traffic is unevenly distributed or the user throughput is low. This helps to e.g. determine placement of new cells, configure common channels and optimize other capacity related network parameters.

Parametrization of common channels

User experience and/or network performance can be degraded by suboptimal configuration of common channels (e.g. random access, paging and broadcast channels).

QoS verification

This aspect is important also in the initial deployment of a new radio access technology, in order to check if the quality of service experienced by the end user is in line with the performance target defined in the planning strategy and more in general to test the overall performance of the technology along the subsequent deployment phases.

Summery

In the coming parts there will be some more articles on Minimization of Drive Test, the patents related to the technology and what can be the future of this.

References

• 3GPP TR 36.805 – Study on Minimization of drive-tests in Next Generation Networks
• 3GPP TS 37.320 – Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Radio measurement collection for Minimization of Drive Tests (MDT); Overall description; Stage 2 (Release 10)

The repetitive drive tests are a big bottleneck to the network operator in terms of money spent for carrying out the operation and the time spent to debug certain issues. To minimize these 3GPP standardization groups proposed new techniques to minimize the amount of drive tests by collecting information from mobile users. The information can be on different kinds of measurements, handovers, or signalling failures.

There are two different type of MDT (Minimization of Drive Test)

Immediate MDT

MDT functionality involving measurement performance by UE in CONNECTED state and reporting of the measurements to eNB/RNC available at the time of reporting condition.

Logged MDT

Where UE log in idle mode together with time stamps and optionally with accurate location information.

Requirements for minimization of drive test

Minimization of drive test should follow the following requirements.

UE measurement configuration

The operator can bale to configure an UE measurements for logging purpose independent from the NW configurations. This is done for Radio Resource Management (RRM) purpose.

UE measurement collection and reporting

The time interval for measurement logs collection and reporting shall be configurable in order to limit the UE battery consumption and network load.

Geographical scope of measurement logging

This requirement says that the operator should able to configure the geographical area where the defined set of measurement can be performed.

Location Information

The measurements in the measurement logs should be connected to the location information.

Time information

The measurements in measurement logs shall be linked to the time stamp available in the UE.

Device type information

The terminal type and the capabilities of the UE should be correctly indicated to the NW so that the operator can select correct terminals for specific measurements.

Dependency on Self Organizing Network (SON)

The solutions for minimization of drive test shall be able to work independently from the SON support in the network.

References

• 3GPP TR 36.805 – Study on Minimization of drive-tests in Next Generation Networks
• 3GPP TS 37.320 – Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (UTRA) and Evolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access (E-UTRA); Radio measurement collection for Minimization of Drive Tests (MDT); Overall description; Stage 2 (Release 10)

Rohde&Schwarz also demonstrate the SMS over IMS Verification.

Among all this darkness Nokia did some really good changes in their ways of working, like making Microsoft’s mobile platform as their primary mobile OS. The other good move was Nokia’s alliance with many operators in North America where its market share is not so great. In the US, Nokia has now partnered with At&T and T-Mobile. With AT&T Nokia offered it’s Lumia 900 smart phones while with T-Mobile the Lumia 710 smart phones. Both of these smart phones are powered by the Microsoft’s Mobile OS, which will tap into a niche market. Though the smart phones were not a game changer for Nokia but good reviews by media and consumers definitely gave some boost Nokia’s dooming business.

The 2011 third quarter results of Nokia were not so impressive, but the best thing about Nokia is that they already figured out where they are losing and where to improve.

Apart from smart phones and mobile handset business, Nokia has another big struggling unit, Nokia Siemens Network. On its part Nokia Siemens Network has also made some good moves last year like buying the Motorola Networks and increasing their footprint in the US market. With a reported 17000 cuts many in the services business unit, the focus for them remains on mobile broadband R&D. They face strong challenges from their Chinese counterparts especially since Motorola was using Huawei as its supplier for the radio, it is anybody’s guess the complexities this might lead to between NSN and Huawei.

During the last year Nokia delisted itself in numbers of stock exchanges like Frankfurt, London, Paris and Stockholm Stock Exchanges. Which is surely a big concern for its share holders around the world.

But after all these Nokia needs to take better decisions to make it’s loyal costumers and share holders happy.

A lot of criticism had been thrown towards Nokia, especially by the Nokia loyalists who have since the beginning of time had a strong aversion to anything Windows. Despite being one myself I must admit I secretly believe in the strategy Steve Elop laid down for Nokia a year back. Adopting Windows as the lead OS for its smart phone line-up was a controversial choice. But the message was clear: adopting Android would make Nokia just another commodity device. As much as Android has brought life back in to the Smartphone market, it has also managed to fade the boundaries between traditionally distinct brands. Essentially all android devices feel the same when it comes to the look and feel of their OS. Nokia feared that adopting Android would make it indistinguishable amongst its many rivals. Bold move by Mr. Elop, but truly in line with the Nokia Ideology, the brand is supreme and that sells.

Once you manage to discolor your bias against the Microsoft Corporation, the Windows Mobile OS is not really as bad as it sounds. The OS is evolving and will get better with time and has the potential to rival its contenders. Coupled with Nokia it will cater to a niche market, has the weight of XBox behind it and will soon allow people to make as many folders as they wish in their device. Yes, it did take some time before the copy paste functionality was released but it is nothing like its predecessors.

And what of the much talked about Meego based Nokia N9? Followed by raving reviews it’s guilty of making Nokia rivals skip a beat since its launch. According to Nokia insiders even though the N9 is rumored as the one and only device on this fascinating Linux based OS, this does not mean that it is a dead end track, there is a program office that will maintain the OS and continue working on applications and updates for it. However the relatively smaller footprints of Meego developers might make it challenging for app savvy users to feel comfortable adopting it. If things go bust on the Windows front, Nokia still have this ace in its back pocket.

Will Nokia succeed? Chances are yes it will, it would be unwise to underestimate Finnish SISU – Read: toughness, hardiness and resilience.