Method and apparatus for increasing performance of communication links of communication nodes

• US 9,912,433 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2017
• Issued: 03/06/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 05/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ISCO International Inc.
• Original Assignee: ISCO International Inc.
• Inventors: Abdelmonem, Amr, Seoane, Jorge, Galeev, Mikhail, Komoravolu, Krishna, Wang, Zhigang, Reichard, Jr., Gordon
• Primary Examiner(s): Onamuti, Gbemileke J
• Application Number:
  US15/497,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20170230128A1
• Time in Patent Office: 314 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/005 of intercell interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 11/0066 of narrowband interference narrowband interference reduction H04B1/1036
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0021 in which codes are applied as a frequency-domain sequences, e.g. MC-CDMA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0023 Time-frequency-space
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/006 Quality of the received signal, e.g. BER, SNR, water filling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 5/0073 Allocation arrangements that take into account other cell interferences for intercell interference mitigation or co-ordination in orthogonal multiplex systems H04J11/005
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/02 Arrangements for optimising operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/10 Scheduling measurement reports ; Arrangements for measurement reports
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/241 taking into account channel quality metrics, e.g. SIR, SNR, CIR, Eb/lo
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/243 taking into account interferences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/541 using the level of interference
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/08 Access point devices

Abstract

A system that incorporates aspects of the subject disclosure may perform operations including, for example, obtaining performance parameters in a communications network, identifying a degradation in performance of one or more nodes of the communications network according the monitored performance parameters, and initiating corrective action to mitigate the degradation in performance of the one or more nodes of the communications network. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

determining, by a processing system including a processor, a first threshold according to a first baseline average power obtained across a frequency range and a plurality of cell sites;

obtaining, by the processing system, a plurality of Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements at the plurality of cell sites;

identifying, by the processing system, a first cell site of the plurality of cell sites according to a first SINR measurement of the plurality of SINR measurements that is below the first threshold, wherein the first SINR measurement is associated with the first cell site;

initiating, by the processing system, corrective action at the first cell site to improve first SINR performance of the first cell site responsive to identification of the first cell site;

obtaining, by the processing system, a second SINR measurement of the first cell site subsequent to initiation of the corrective action;

comparing, by the processing system, the second SINR measurement of the first cell site and the first SINR measurement of the first cell site; and

adjusting at least in part, by the processing system, the corrective action initiated at the first cell site according to comparison of the second SINR measurement of the first cell site and the first SINR measurement of the first cell site.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the processing system, a second threshold according to a second baseline average power obtained across the frequency range and the plurality of cell sites.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising determining, by the processing system, whether the second SINR is below the second threshold, wherein the second SINR measurement and the first SINR measurement are compared according to determination of the second SINR falling below the second threshold.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the corrective action alters performance of a corresponding path associated with the first cell site.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising reversing at least in part, by the processing system, the corrective action responsive to determining that the corrective action has not improved the first SINR performance of the first cell site.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the processing system, whether the corrective action has degraded second SINR performance of a second cell site of the plurality of cell sites.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising reversing at least in part, by the processing system, the corrective action responsive to determination that the corrective action has degraded second SINR performance of the second cell site.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the first threshold is determined according to a time of day, an event affecting operations of the plurality of cell sites, a key performance indicator (KPI), or any combination thereof.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of SINR measurements at the plurality of cell sites each comprise an average of multiple SINR measurements according to a sampling size.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the corrective action comprises filtering adjacent signals, adjusting gain of an uplink, filtering interference signals, utilizing diversity signal paths, adjusting a pilot signal, adjusting transmit parameters, adjusting receive parameters, adjusting a modulation scheme, adjusting a coding scheme, adjusting a position of an antenna to reshape a coverage, or any combination thereof.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each SINR measurement includes an interference component that is based on measurements of signals that exceed an inter-cell threshold.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the inter-cell threshold comprises an average of inter-cell signal measurements.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the inter-cell threshold is above a thermal noise level.

14. A system, comprising:

a processing system including a processor; and

a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, comprising;

determining a first threshold from a first baseline average power obtained across a frequency range and a plurality of cell sites;

obtaining Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements from the plurality of cell sites;

identifying an affected cell site of the plurality of cell sites according to a first SINR measurement of the SINR measurements that is below the first threshold, wherein the first SINR measurement is associated with the affected cell site;

initiating corrective action at the affected cell site to improve the SINR measurement of the affected cell site responsive to the identifying of the affected cell site;

obtaining a second SINR measurement of the affected cell site subsequent to initiation of the corrective action;

comparing the second SINR measurement of the affected cell site and the first SINR measurement of the affected cell site; and

adjusting at least in part the corrective action initiated at the affected cell site according to comparison of the second SINR measurement of the affected cell site and the first SINR measurement of the affected cell site.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise determining a second threshold from a second baseline average power obtained over the plurality of cell sites.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the corrective action is determined to have improved the SINR of the affected cell site according to the second threshold.

17. The system of claim 14, wherein the operations further comprise determining whether the corrective action has reduced a second SINR measurement of a second cell site of the plurality of cell sites.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the operations further comprise reversing at least in part the corrective action responsive to determining that second SINR measurement of second other cell sites has been reduced.

19. A machine-readable storage medium, comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a processing system including a processor, facilitate performance of operations, comprising:

determining a first threshold according to a first baseline average power obtained across a frequency range and a plurality of cell sites;

obtaining Signal to Interference plus Noise Ratio (SINR) measurements from the plurality of cell sites;

determining a first SINR measurement of the SINR measurements for an affected cell site of the plurality of cell sites that is below the first threshold;

identifying the affected cell site of the plurality of cell sites from which the SINR measurement was obtained;

initiating corrective action to improve the first SINR measurement of the affected cell site responsive to identification of the affected cell site; and

obtaining a second SINR measurement of the affected cell site subsequent to initiation of the corrective action;

comparing the second SINR measurement of the affected cell site and the first SINR measurement of the affected cell site; and

adjusting at least in part the corrective action initiated at the affected cell site according to comparison of the second SINR measurement of the affected cell site and the first SINR measurement of the affected cell site.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 19, wherein the corrective action is determined to have improved the SINR of the affected cell site according to a second threshold associated with the first baseline average power obtained across the plurality of cell sites.