Streamline troubleshooting to maximize RF investments and cut opex
RF interference, whether it’s PIM, electrical or out-of-band emissions, wreaks havoc on mobile networks. Interference hunting and troubleshooting take up valuable and costly man hours while generating dropped calls and poor data throughput, which can translate into churn for a service provider.
Considering the direct impact on end-user quality of service, operators need to approach hunting down and eliminating interference with a two-fold goal: minimizing the costs associated with sending valuable engineers into the field for an indefinite amount of time, and streamlining the operational process to ensure customers have a reliable and positive network experience.
Kashif Hussain, global solutions marketing manager for Viavi, explained the situation. “Service providers have spent billions of dollars acquiring RF spectrum to increase network capacity and offer exceptional QoS to their customers. Interference reduces coverage area by desensitizing the receiver and increasing the noise floor. Throughput rate also suffers when interference lowers signal-to-noise ration. To maximize their network investment and reduce customer churn, service providers need to eliminate interference as quickly as possible.”
Take the example of a tier 1 service providing intermittent quality issues in an eNodeB sector; replacing a remote radio head and fiber link didn’t fix the problem. After verifying sync between the RRH and using a fiber tap to analyze the CPRI link, the techs found an unusually high uplink noise caused by external interference from a misconfigured amplifier.
The source of interference was located in just three hours, and due to the specificity of the measurements, the operator saved significant resources by ruling out PIM, which significantly reduced the time and money associated with accessing difficult-to-reach remote radio heads. So how’d they do it?
The team used CellAdvisor, which analyzes spectrum up to 8 GHz with a dual spectrogram view and supports LTE-A carrier aggregation, MIMO 4×4 and PIM detect on an easy-to-update platform. In keeping with growing adoption of C-RAN architectures, CellAdvisor also supports RF measurement over CPRI, which is key in reducing expensive truck rolls and potentially dangerous tower climbs. The product line is compatible with 2G, 3G and 4G mobile networks.
AntennaAdvisor is the handheld companion to CellAdvisor. Technicians of varying experience can follow physical coordinates and maps to interference that is automatically located. AntennaAdvisor supports standard and custom acceptance criteria, onboard storage, mini-USB export port, two additional USB ports, fiber image centering and a user-friendly interface.
“As RF engineers and technicians know all too well,” Hussain said, interference hunting “is easier said than done. Due to the presence of illegal, unlicensed or unintentional signals, interference can show up in the network intermittently or persistently at different frequencies over time. Is hunting for interference a headache? It can be, but with the right tools this headache can be eliminated just like interference.”
To gain an in-depth understanding on how to detect, identify and locate RF interference, watch this webinar, and more for more information about Viavi Solutions, click here.
