Non technical:

What challenges do you think you will face in this position?

What skills do you need to develop most?

How do you handle stress?

What do you see yourself doing 2 years from now?

What is your greatest strength?

What is your greatest weakness?

Which is more important to you, the job itself or your salary?

Technical:

What are the objectives of drive test?

 Output of Drive Test tells you about:-

· Unsuccessful calls.
· Dropped calls.
· Coverage
· Poor received quality
· Hand over indication
· Hand over failure.
· Failure signaling message

What are the GSM UL-DL frequency bands for 900&1800?

 Uplink 890-915 MHz, Downlink 935-960 MHz and 45 MHz carrier spacing
 Uplink 1710-1785 MHz, Downlink 1805-1880 MHz and 95 MHz carrier spacing

What is the difference between FER and BER?

What is the relation between RxLev [0 to 63] and RxLev [-110 to -47]?

Why we reuse the frequency?

 Due to the limited number of frequencies available to the planner, the ARFCNs have to be re-
used in other cells
 Sectorization of omni cells leads to better re-use efficiency and increased capacity
 The most commonly used re-use patterns are:
3/9 (3-sites, 9-cells)
4/12 (4-sites, 12-cells)
 7/21 (7-sites, 21-cells)
The numerator indicates number of sites while the denominator indicate the number of cells in
the cluster
What is the GSM standard and practical value of C/I?

What is TA? What is LAC?

TA: The timing of the bursts transmissions is very important. Mobiles are at different distances
from the base stations. Their delay depends, consequently, on their distance. The aim of the
timing advance is that the signals coming from the different mobile stations arrive to the base
station at the right time. The base station measures the timing delay of the mobile stations. If
the bursts corresponding to a mobile station arrive too late and overlap with other bursts, the
base station tells, this mobile, to advance the transmission of its bursts.

1 TA = 554m.

Calculation is given below.

Timing Advance:

T*T (bit) = (2d) /c Where T= Timing Advance

C = vel.of light 3*10^5 m /ms

T (bit) = 1*270.833

(Raw bit rate per carrier is 270.833 Kbps. Each carrier is shared by 8 users in TDMA Fashion.
There for bit rate for one user or one time slot is 1 / 270.833 Kbps ).

Now d = T ((T (bit) *c) /2)

= T ((1/ 270.833)* 3*10^5) /2)

Now after calc. d= T *554 m

TA is from 0 to 63.

What is a cluster?

Why do we use Intra-cell HO?

Which modulation scheme is used in GSM?

Phase modulation:

Digital Modulation
 Figure 4: GMSK modulator

The modulation chosen for the GSM system is the Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK).

What is VSWR?

Ans: Voltage standing wave ratio. It shows how much the signal reflected back to mismatching
the wave guide.

How much signal is transmitted and reflected back. Range is 1.00 – 1.30

What is the difference between cell reselection and handover?

Why Location area update?

Define call flow MOC & MTC.

How to define HO and Ping-pong HO and explain why?

What is the difference between RxLev full and RxLev half?

Simple definition:

RX Lev Full: - DTX is OFF

RX Lev Sub: - DTX is on

Detailed:
 RX Lev Full: is nothing but the Mobile transmitting the measurement report (SACCH multiframe)
for every 480ms. This multiframe contains 104 TDMA frames, in 104 TDMA frames 4 TDMA
frames for Decode the BSIC and remaining 100 TDMA frames for Average measurment of serving
cell and neighboring cell. This average measurement of 100 TDMA frames are RX_LevFull.

RX Lev Sub: DTX is a discontinuous transmission, when the mobile conversation 40% of the time
either Transmitter or Receive is idle. When DTX is ON, DTX will switch off the Transmitter or
Receiver when they is no speech Pulses. Only few TDMA frames will transmit, the average of this
TDMA frames is called RX Lev Sub, give you proper measurement of RX level

Why frequency hopping? Define Cyclic and random sequence.

What is the basic difference between Dual band and multi band? How many channels in 900 & 1800?

 Dual band generally refers to GSM 900 & DCS 1800 co-located sites
 The DCS1800 band has 374 channels as compared to only 124 channels in the GSM900 band
 Generally, operators are assigned more frequencies in the 1800 band as compared to the 900
band, thereby making more capacity available in the 1800 band
 Calls should be set up on the 1800 band and this band should be the preferred band for
assignment of traffic channels as long as the quality is acceptable
 Cell parameters are set so as to give preference or an offset to the 1800 band cells

What are your activates during swap?

What is DTX & DRX?

DTX:

No transmission from mobile when subscriber is “not talking”; uses VAD and SID. Voice Activity Detection
(VAD) – speech is transmitted at the full rate of 13
 Kbit/sec, silences at approx 500 bits/sec
 Reduces overall interference in air interface

DRX:
 Mobile goes to “sleep” when it is not expecting paging
 Reduces battery power consumption in MS

What are the plans before drive test, during drive test and after drive test?

How to find possible feeder swap?

Define handover type

HSN - MAIO
HSN (values 0-63) is basically an Algorithm that assigns frequency to the cell from block/list of
frequencies... Assignment of frequency from the list whatever HSN value is totally random/algorithm
dependent (HSN=0 being cyclic)... normally HSN assigns frequency after each TDMA frame (4.615msec)...
this hopping rate is changeable...

MAIO is used as an offset from the frequency, assigned by HSN, to avoid co/adjacent frequency clash on
the same cell/co site cell... In b/m example as well we have at least a difference of 2 in MAIOs to avoid
frequency clash...

Taking 1x1 examples...

We have a three sectored site having 1x1 implemented A, B, C... Each having 4 TRXs, TRXs A1, B1, C1
being BCCH TRXs

Lets say we have b/m list of frequencies in 1x1 hopping pool...

f1,f2,f3,f4,f5,f6,f7,f8,f9,f10,f11,f12,13,f14,f15,f16,f17,f18

Lets suppose HSN=17 for three cells of the site TDMA______1____2___3, frame freq assigned by

HSN_______f2___f11__f9 (suppositions)

TRX_MAIO

A2___0____f2___f11__f9

A3___6____f8___f17__f15

__________ ^ f8 is assigned which is 6 blocks ahead of f2 because offset (MAIO) is 6... so on...

A4___12___f14___f5__f3

B2___2____f4___f13__f11

B3___8____f10___f1__f17

B4___14___f16___f7__f5

C2___4____f6___f15__f13

C3___10___f12___f3__f1

C4___16___ f18___f9__f7

in above mentioned example hopping TRXs have hopped on to 3 frequencies during 3 TDMA frames
without any freq clash...

In 1x1 HSN is same for cells of same site... Sites in close vicinity are given different HSN values to avoid
assignment of same frequencies...
TILTS

Tilts are of two different types...electrical and mechanical

Mechanical tilt: - in this you bend the antenna mechanically without any change in the internal
circuit.

The major lobe will become heart shaped in case of larger tilts and lead to unwanted distribution
of signal in uncontrollable manner.

Electrical tilt: - this is done with the help of phase shifters. The phase of the feed (voltage) to the
dipoles is changed further leading to change in the radiation pattern in a better manner.

Effects: - Mechanical Tilt Causes:

Beam Peak to Tilt below Horizon, Back Lobe to Tilt Above Horizon and At (+/-) 90° No Tilt

Electrical Tilt Causes:

Beam peak to tilt below horizon, Back lobe to tilt below horizon and At (+/-) 90° to tilt below
horizon

AMR:

Adaptive Multi-Rate

Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) is an audio data compression scheme optimized for speech coding.
AMR was adopted as the standard speech codec by 3GPP in October 1998 and is now widely
used in GSM. It uses link adaptation to select from one of eight different bit rates based on link
conditions.The bit rates 12.2, 10.2, 7.95, 7.40, 6.70, 5.90, 5.15 and 4.75 kbit/s are based on
frames which contain 160 samples and are 20 milliseconds long. AMR uses different
techniques, such as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction (ACELP), Discontinuous
Transmission (DTX), voice activity detection (VAD) and comfort noise generation (CNG). The
usage of AMR requires optimized link adaptation that selects the best codec mode to meet the
local radio channel and capacity requirements. If the radio conditions are bad, source coding is
reduced and channel coding is increased. This improves the quality and robustness of the
network connection while sacrificing some voice clarity. In the particular case of AMR this
improvement is somewhere around 4- 6 dB S/N for useable communication. The new
intelligent system allows the network operator to prioritize capacity or quality per base
station.
GSM Timers:

Timer Locatio
Functionality
Name n
Started after M+1 CHANNEL REQUEST messages have been sent by
T3126 MS the MS stopped on receipt of BSS response; expiry causes MS to return
to idle mode.

Started with value indicated by wait indication parameter on receiving

T3122 MS IMMEDIATE ASSIGNMENT REJECT message; MS may retry call
attempt after timeout.

Started when IMMEDIATE ASSIGNMENT message is sent to MS;

T3101 BSS stopped when SABM is received from MS; timeout causes release of
assigned SDCCH.

Started when a PAGING REQUEST message is sent to the MS;

stopped upon receipt of PAGING RESPONSE message from MS;
T3113 BSS
timeout may cause the network to repeat the PAGING REQUEST
message.

Started when an ASSIGNMENT COMMAND message is sent to the MS;

stopped upon receipt of an ASSIGNMENT COMPLETE/ ASSIGNMENT
T3107 BSS
FAILURE message from the MS; timeout will cause both the old channel
and the new channel to be released by the BSS.

Started when a HANDOVER COMMAND message is sent to the MS;

stopped on receipt of a HANDOVER COMPLETE/ HANDOVER
T3103 BSS
FAILURE message from the MS; expiry causes the old channels to be
released and the call to be dropped.

Started when the first HANDOVER ACCESS message is sent by the

MS; stopped when a PHYSICAL INFORMATION message is received
T3124 MS
by the MS; expiry causes MS to reactivate the old channels and send a
HANDOVER FAILURE message on the main signaling link.

Started when a PHYSICAL INFORMATION message is sent to the MS;

stopped on reception of a correctly decoded layer 2 frame in format A or
T3105 BSS B or a correctly decoded TCH frame or a HANDOVER FAILURE
message from the MS; expiry may cause Ny1 repetitions of the
PHYSICAL INFORMATION message to the MS.

Started when a CHANNEL RELEASE message is sent to the MS;

T3109 BSS stopped when a DISC is received from the MS; timeout causes the BSS
to deactivate (and release) the channels.

T3110 MS Started when a CHANNEL RELEASE message is received by the MS;

stopped on receipt of a UA in response to the DISC; timeout causes the
 MS to return to idle mode.

Started when a DISC is received from the MS during the channel

T3111 BSS release process; timeout causes the BSS to deactivate (and release)
the channels

Started when the MS enters the idle mode; stopped and reset to zero
when the MS receives a LOCATION UPDATING ACCEPT or a
T3212 MS LOCATION UPDATING REJECT message or goes into dedicated mode
or is deactivated; timeout causes the MS to perform a periodic location
update procedure.

Started when the CM REESTABLISHMENT REQUEST message is sent

by the MS; stopped when the MS receives a CM SERVICE ACCEPT
T3230 MS
message (call is reestablished) or a CM SERVICE REJECT message;
expiry would cause the reestablishment to be aborted.