Method for monitoring the transmission quality in a cellular radio communications system

• US 20030060192A1
• Filed: 09/20/2002
• Published: 03/27/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/20/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens AG
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Oestreich, Stefan
• Granted Patent: US 7,333,805 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/423
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements

Abstract

In a cellular radio communication system that supports in each of its cells a plurality of different codec modes for the purpose of radio transmission, the terminals working in a cell and a base station of the cell refer to the information relating to the use of codec modes as CM information. The extent of use of the individual codec modes is registered by filtering the pieces of CM information from the data traffic of the cell and collecting them in a memory in cell-related statistics.

Claims

1. Method for monitoring the transmission quality in a cellular radio communication system which supports plural different codec modes for the radio transmission in each of its cells (Z1, Z1′

, Z2) between the base station (BS1, BS1′

, BS2) of the cell and a terminal device (MS1, MS2) operating in the cell, the codec modes being combined into at least two codec mode sets, and the base station and the terminal device of a connection exchanging with one another items of information concerning the use of the codec mode,

wherein

the extent of the use of the individual codec modes is determined, these items of information are collected into statistics (S1, S1′

, S2) respectively relating to a geographical partial region of the radio communication system, and based on the statistics the composition of the codec mode set is determined.

2. Method according to claim 1, wherein the items of information transmitted by a first partner of a connection are control instructions for determining the codec mode to be used by the second partner of the connection.

3. Method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the statistics (S1, S1′

, S2) for each codec mode determine a quantity which is representative of the frequency of transmission of a control instruction for use of the mode concerned.

4. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the items of information transmitted by a first partner of a connection to the second partner indicate the codec mode used by the first partner.

5. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the statistics for each codec mode determine a quantity which is representative of the number of frames transmitted using the codec mode concerned.

6. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the geographical partial region is identical with the cell.

7. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the statistics are supplied to a base station (BS1, BS1′

, BS2), a base station control (BSC1, BSC2) or a TRAU (TRAU1, TRAU2) of the cell.

8. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the statistics are supplied separately for uplink and downlink.

9. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the statistics are supplied separately for each transmission frequency of the cell.

10. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the statistics are supplied for each time slot of a transmission channel of the cell.

11. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the control instructions for determining the codec mode comprise an instruction for selection of a set of codec modes from at least two sets and an instruction for determining the codec mode to be used in the current selected set, and

wherein the composition of the sets is determined such that the number to be transmitted of instructions to select the set of codec modes is minimized.

12. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the control instructions for determining the codec mode comprise an instruction to select a set of codec modes from at least two sets and an instruction to determine the codec mode to be used in the current selected set, and wherein the composition of the sets is determined such that one of the sets includes the most used codec mode.

13. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein items of information transmitted in tandem free operation between two terminal devices of different geographical partial regions remain ignored in the statistics.

14. Method according to claim 13, wherein, of items of codec mode information transmitted in tandem free operation between two terminal devices of a first and a second geographical partial region, only those are considered in the statistics relating to the first geographical partial region whose use is occasioned by transmission conditions in the first geographical partial region.

15. Method according to claim 13 or 14, wherein furthermore statistics relating to the second geographic partial region are supplied in which, in the items of codec mode information transmitted in tandem free operation, those are considered whose use is occasioned by transmission conditions in the second geographical partial region.

16. Method of monitoring transmission quality in a cellular mobile radio communication system, which supports plural different codec modes for the radio transmission in each of its cells (Z1, Z1′

, Z2) between the base station (BS1, BS1′

, BS2) of the cell and a terminal device (MS1, MS2) operating in the cell, the codec modes being combined into at least two codec mode sets, and the base station and the terminal device of a connection exchanging with one another items of information concerning the use of the codec modes,

wherein

the extent of use of the individual codec modes is determined, these items of information are collected in statistics (S1, S1′

, S2) respectively relating to a geographical partial region of the radio communication system, and the statistics are considered for an extension of the radio communication system.

17. Cellular radio communication system with plural base stations (BS1, BS1′

, BS2), which support plural different codec modes for radio transmission in their respective cells (Z1, Z1′

, Z2), the terminal devices (MS1, MS2) operating in a cell (Z1, Z2) and the base station (BS1, BS2) exchanging control instructions with one another which determine the codec mode to be used for a transmission from the terminal device to the base station or from the base station, and the codec modes being combined into at least two codec mode sets,

wherein

a memory (S1, S1′

, S2) is allocated to each base station (BS1, BS1′

, BS2), and is arranged to receive records regarding the use of each codec mode in the cell of the base station concerned.

18. Cellular radio communication system according to claim 17, wherein the memory (S1, S1′

, S2) is established at one of the TRAUs (TRAU1, TRAU2) or base station controls (BSC1, BSC2) allocated to one of the cells (Z1, Z2).