Providing network
coverage and quality of service (QoS) is an important task of a cellular network
operator. This is because cellular spectrum is normally licensed under certain
coverage obligations, and operators need to be competitive in market. To improve
their networks, operators often send engineers in the field to collect radio
measurements, to discover problems such as coverage holes in the network, and
to determine whether certain parameter tuning is needed.
However, such
conventional “drive tests” require large Operation Expenditure (OPEX), while
the collected measurements can only give limited snap shots of the entire
network. In their Release 10 (Rel-10) specification, 3GPP studied and specified
solutions to reduce this OPEX for drive tests, under the work item named “Minimization
of Drive Tests (MDT).” The solution utilizes the user (customer) equipments
(UEs) to collect field measurements, including radio measurements and location
information. This article describes in details the solution adopted in 3GPP MDT;
how they were developed and intended to be used.
The solutions developed in Rel-10 focus on the Coverage Optimization use case that will benefit operators to design reliable coverage maps and consequently to detect coverage issues.
