Radio Frequency Optimization Training

Who Should Attend?

Engineers new to the field of RF engineering, managers, or other personnel responsible for RF systems whether wireless, cellular/mobile, microwave, or other, will benefit from a comprehensive understanding of RF optimization, spectrum utilization, spectrum planning and capacity and quality of service management for RF systems. An electrical engineering degree or equivalent background is desired, but not required.

Course Content

  1. RF Overview
    • Performance characteristics.
    • RF engineering principles.
    • Testing & measurement.
    • Drive testing.
    • Performance counters and key performance indicators (KPIs).
    • Data collection and post processing of data.
    • Spectrum utilization.
    • Dropped calls.
    • Poor coverage.
    • Hard hand over failures.
    • Soft hand over failures.
  2. RF Operating Environment.
    • Antenna properties, elements and performance characteristics.
      - Impedance.
      - Radiation.
      - Polarization.
      - Gain.
      - Diversity.
      - Dipole definition.
      - Bandwidth.
      - Radiation patterns.
      - Isotropic radiation theory.
      - Effect of ground.
      - Mutual impedance.
      - Angle of incidence.
      - Azimuth & downtilt.
    • Antenna types.
  3. FFR modulation technologies.
    • Frequency planning.
    • Interference matrices.
    • Neighbor planning.
    • GSM logical channels (BCCH, FCH, SCH, SACCH, TCH, RACH).
    • Cell Tiering.
    • Frequency hopping.
    • Congestion.
    • Picocells.Cell on wheels (COW).
    • In building coverage.
    • Towertop Mounted Amplifiers (TMA).
    • GPRS/EGRS Overview & interfaces.
    • GPRS attach process.
    • Throughput measurements.
    • Impact of retransmissions on throughput.
    • LAC/RAC boundaries.
  4. CDMA modulation technologies.
    • PN planning.
    • Soft hand over border planning.
    • FER.
    • Mobile assisted power control.
    • Ec/Io.
    • SIR.
    • Neighbor analysis and search window.
    • ERP changes.
    • Multiband optimization.
  5. RF Optimization Process.
    • Analysis of the existing RF plan.
    • Optimization in fractional frequency reuse networks.
      - Sources of information.
      - Interference matrices.
      - Frequency reuse plan.
      - Parameter investigation.
      - Analysis of the existing RF plan.
      - Cell tiering.
      - Performance of cell site audit.
      - Post processing and analysis of data.
      - Corrective actions.
    • Correlation of customer complaints to possible root cause (RCA).
      - Capacity and loading examples.
      - Dropped call, poor coverage.
      - Dropped call, system resources.
      - Dropped call, other.
    • Mobile drive testing and data collection.
      - Tools available.
      - Post processing, what does it mean.
      - Root cause analysis.
      - Tracking and benchmarking.
  6. Workshop GSM/GPRS.
    • Performance analysis.
    • Optimization process.
    • BCCH parameter optimization.
    • Cell selection & reselection.
    • Interference analysis.
    • GPRS Attach.
    • Routing area updates.
    • Measuring throughput.
    • Root cause analysis (RCA).
    • Final recommendations.

Course Objectives

Provide a basic understanding of antenna design, antenna patterns, RF modulation, RF system design considerations, explain RF performance and optimization, understand propagation, and understand the evolution of standards.

Pre-requisites

Familiarity with communications engineering. An understanding of the architecture of a mobile communications network and the limitations imposed by its air interface would be helpful but is not required.

Training Structure

Four days training divided into logical sessions. Lecture and theoretical exercises.

Methodology

Instructor led training.