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Bug #4008

open

Channel Activation starts SACCH too early in Asynchronous Handover

Added by laforge almost 5 years ago. Updated about 2 years ago.

Status:
Feedback
Priority:
High
Assignee:
-
Category:
-
Target version:
-
Start date:
05/19/2019
Due date:
% Done:

70%

Spec Reference:
3GPP TS 48.058 Section 4.1.3

Description

In case of an asynchronous hand-over related channel activation, 3GPP TS 48.058 Section 4.1.3 is very specific:

BTS starts transmission immediately on the main channel in the indicated mode and with encryption if so indicated. If
the MS Power element is present the BTS may start transmission also on the SACCH.

When receiving a correct access burst with the correct handover reference, BTS starts the normal reception process on
the main channel in the indicated mode and starts receiving (and sending if not started earlier) on SACCH. Deciphering
is started if so indicated. The handover detection procedure towards BSC is also started.

However, as uncovered by an upcoming BTS_Tests.TC_sacch_chan_act_ho_async test case, we appear to be activating the SACCH unconditionally from the first moment.

The problem here is quite obvious: Until we have received the access burst from the MS, we don't yet know the timing offset, and hence the timing advance that we should advertise in the downlink SACCH. If we start SACCH transmission too early, it means that a wrong TA is advertised, which may be picked up by the MS, which will then apply a wrong TA value -> boom.


Checklist

  • osmo-bts-trx
  • osmo-bts-sysmo
  • osmo-bts-oc2g
  • osmo-bts-lc15

Related issues

Related to OsmoBTS - Feature #3750: Extension of BTS_Tests.ttcn test coverageResolved01/08/2019

Actions
Related to OsmoBSC - Feature #4010: Test RSL CHAN ACT related details for different scenariosNewneels05/19/2019

Actions
Related to OsmoBTS - Bug #4009: Channel Activation starts SACCH too early in Synchronous HandoverNew05/19/2019

Actions
Actions #1

Updated by laforge almost 5 years ago

  • Related to Feature #3750: Extension of BTS_Tests.ttcn test coverage added
Actions #2

Updated by laforge almost 5 years ago

  • Related to Feature #4010: Test RSL CHAN ACT related details for different scenarios added
Actions #3

Updated by laforge almost 5 years ago

  • Checklist item osmo-bts-sysmo added
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-oc2g added
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-lc15 added
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-trx added

There's good news and bad news.

The actual behavior of the BTS is very dependent on the specific PHY used. I've analyzed osmo-bts-trx and osmo-bts-sysmo as two representatives, where lc15 and oc2g are mostly like -sysmo.

osmo-bts-sysmo

osmo-bts-sysmo gets it half-way right. It
  • checks if the activation is HO related, and only activates uplink RACH detection until a RACH is received
  • then activates all other logical channels / SAPIs after the RACH was received
What it gets wrong:
  • it doesn't activate DL main channel (FACCH/SDCCH) while waiting for the RACH
  • it unconditionally delays activation of DL+UL SACCH, even if the MS Power IE and/or TA IE were present in RSL CHAN ACT

osmo-bts-trx

osmo-bts-trx gets it wrong in all cases:
  • it always activates both main channel and SACCH in UL and DL from the very beginning, even before any RACH is received in UL

In fact, osmo-bts-trx and its scheduler don't even know the concept of L1 SAPI and hence don't have the infrastructure to enable/disable individual logical channels within one dedicated channel.

Summary

What does this all mean in practise for osmo-bts-trx? There is a significant risk of poor hand-over performance, as
  • some phones could receive a massively wrong timing advance before we even know the TA
  • some phones could simply refuse to send the RACH if there is no downlink FACCH/SDCCH visible
Actions #4

Updated by laforge over 4 years ago

  • Priority changed from Urgent to High
Actions #5

Updated by laforge over 4 years ago

  • Assignee deleted (laforge)
Actions #6

Updated by laforge over 4 years ago

  • Priority changed from High to Normal
Actions #7

Updated by neels over 3 years ago

  • Priority changed from Normal to High
Actions #8

Updated by neels about 3 years ago

  • Checklist item osmo-bts-sysmo set to Done
Actions #9

Updated by neels about 3 years ago

  • Checklist item osmo-bts-sysmo set to Done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-oc2g set to Done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-lc15 set to Done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-trx set to Done
Actions #10

Updated by neels about 3 years ago

  • Checklist item osmo-bts-sysmo set to Not done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-oc2g set to Not done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-lc15 set to Not done
  • Checklist item osmo-bts-trx set to Not done
  • Status changed from New to In Progress
  • % Done changed from 0 to 70

Patches have been merged to keep SACCH deactivated in certain situations
(depending on what IEs the BSC sent during Channel Activation).

Still, OsmoBSC always sends the MS Power IE, so those patches will never have an effect when using OsmoBSC.
The rather non-trivial question is: what IEs should the BSC send in which situations?

The aim of this ticket is to keep SACCH deactivated as long as the TA is not known.
3GPP TS 48.058 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 define which SAPIs should be enabled for a handover target lchan.
Summary of that spec:


          |          | Access ||  transmit         |  activate  
          | MS Power | Delay  ||  on main channel  |  dl SACCH  
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 async ho   no         *     -->  yes                 no        
 async ho   yes        *     -->  yes                 may be started
 sync ho    no         no    -->  yes                 no        
 sync ho    yes        no    -->  yes                 may be started
 sync ho    yes        yes   -->  yes                 shall be started

So for this ticket we are mostly interested in the MS Power IE being present or not.

Looking at 3GPP TS 48.058 we get this information from the footnotes:

  • MS Power IE has two different meanings:
    • when MS Power Parameters IE is not present: MS Power IE indicates the initial power the MS should use.
    • when MS Power Parameters IE is present: MS Power IE indicates the maximum permitted MS power value.

OsmoBSC transmits the MS Power Parameters IE only when in dynamic power control mode.
See https://git.osmocom.org/osmo-bsc/tree/src/osmo-bsc/abis_rsl.c?id=80184ae1714f52cbeed8d94472975f07122e806f#n205

For a new lchan assignment or handover to another cell, OsmoBSC sends the bts->ms_max_power in the MS Power IE.
For a handover within the same cell, OsmoBSC sends the previous lchan's MS power in the MS Power IE.
(see https://git.osmocom.org/osmo-bsc/tree/src/osmo-bsc/lchan_fsm.c?id=80184ae1714f52cbeed8d94472975f07122e806f#n577)

So, first of all, it seems that we have a bug in OsmoBSC:
If a channel activation for handover sends both MS Power IE as well as MS Power Parameters IE (in dynamic power control mode),
then the BTS should interpret the MS Power IE as the maximum permitted MS power. But we send the previous lchan's power.

The other question is whether we can or ever should omit the MS Power IE from a channel activation,
to get the effect that we wanted to achieve with this issue in the first place,
being to omit the DL SACCH from a handover channel activation until the TA is known.
I would have assumed that the lchan should omit DL SACCH when the Timing Advance is omitted from the Channel Activation,
but at least for async HO, the TA presence (the Access Delay IE) apparently does not make any difference in the decision
to activate DL SACCH or not on initial channel activation, according to the spec.

At this moment I am a bit confused / undecided on what IEs the BSC should send in what situations...
any help is welcome.

Actions #12

Updated by neels about 3 years ago

 async ho   yes        *     -->  yes                 may be started

I just realize that OsmoBTS could always deactivate DL SACCH for async HO,
regardless of the MS Power IE presence, because the spec says the DL SACCH may be started, not shall be started.

For sync HO it's a bit different, but this ticket here is about async HO.

Actions #13

Updated by neels about 3 years ago


          |          | Access ||  transmit         |  activate  
          | MS Power | Delay  ||  on main channel  |  dl SACCH  
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------
 async ho   no         *     -->  yes                 no        
 async ho   yes        *     -->  yes                 may be started
 sync ho    no         no    -->  yes                 no        
 sync ho    yes        no    -->  yes                 may be started
 sync ho    yes        yes   -->  yes                 shall be started

A possible overall solution for both async and sync handover:

  • when both MS Power and Access Delay IEs are present, then activate SACCH.
  • otherwise, do not activate SACCH.

This would adhere to all the "no" rows, would opt for not sending SACCH for all "may be started" rows,
and also adheres to the last "shall be started" row.

Hence OsmoBSC would in practice trigger DL SACCH activation or not by sending Access Delay or not.
Then we can implement in OsmoBSC that we mostly omit an Access Delay IE in HO channel activation.
Send Access Delay only when it is an intra-cell HO with an already known TA.

Actions #14

Updated by laforge about 3 years ago

Neels, I currently cannot dive into the last 'depty' of the topic, but one thing
to always keep in mind: OsmoBSC supports a vareity of BTS products out there, OsmoBTS
is only one of them.

So no matter what kind of changes we introduce, we should result in a spec-compliant
behavior. Relying on some special logic in OsmoBTS can only be considered as a last
resort, if the specs don't permit any generic solution.

Actions #15

Updated by fixeria about 2 years ago

  • Related to Bug #4009: Channel Activation starts SACCH too early in Synchronous Handover added
Actions #16

Updated by fixeria about 2 years ago

  • Status changed from In Progress to Feedback

I am trying to investigate a handover related bug report from one of our customers, so I noticed that TC_sacch_chan_act_ho_async is failing and stumbled upon this ticket. The scope of my investigation is limited to osmo-bts-trx, so whatever you see below is related to this BTS model only.

First of all, it should be noted that the current osmo-bts master behaves more or less correctly.

Test case TC_sacch_chan_act_ho_async fails because after sending a CHANnel ACTIVation message with the MS Power IE it does expect Downlink SACCH to be activated immediately, before the first handover RACH is received. The specs. state that "if the MS power element is present the BTS may start transmission also on the SACCH". May does not mean shall, so osmo-bts-trx does not activate it. I corrected the test case expectations, and it started to pass in my local test setup.

https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-ttcn3-hacks/+/27487 BTS_Tests: remove misleading comments in f_sacch_{present,missing}() [NEW]
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-ttcn3-hacks/+/27488 BTS_Tests: cosmetic: use setverdict() in f_sacch_{present,missing}() [NEW]
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-ttcn3-hacks/+/27489 BTS_Tests: fix expectations in TC_sacch_chan_act_ho_{sync,async} [NEW]
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-ttcn3-hacks/+/27490 BTS_Tests: exec TC_sacch_chan_act_ho_{sync,async} on g_AllChanTypes[] [NEW]

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