Telecommunication management; Control of Remote Electrical Tilting (RET) antennas; Requirements
The present document defines the requirements for the network wide control of RET antennas via the Itf-N.
Two example types of RET antennas are those that are tilted using a mechanical tilting mechanism and those that use a phased array.
The control of RET antennas has been studied in 3GPP RAN3 with an approved work item for “Remote Control of Electrical Tilting Antennas” provided in RP-030193 at RAN#19 in March 2003, producing TR 25.802 [1].
The RET control mechanism makes use of the Iuant interface, which is defined in the following set of specifications for General Aspects and Principles [8], Layer 1 [9], Signalling Transport [10], and Remote Electrical Tilting (RET) Antennas Application Part (RETAP) Signalling [11].
The ability to control Antenna tilt permits cell size to be adjusted, thereby permitting control of up and downlink throughput.
The ability to control Antenna tilts remotely from a network management system permits a network wide perspective to be obtained and for settings to be adjusted in response to predicted population movements, or in response to performance monitoring data to help make the best use of the available radio access network.
Figure 1 shows the main Network Elements (NEs) and depicts the two system contexts A and B where the IRPagent may be located either in the Element Manager (EM), or within the Network Element (NE).
Figure 1