What is RTWP?

Represents a measure of UMTS technology: the total level of noise within the UMTS
frequency band of any cell.
RTWP is related to uplink interference, and its monitoring helps control the call drops mainly CS. It also has importance in the capacity management, as it provides information
for the Congestion Control regarding Uplink Interference.
In UMTS, the uplink interference may vary due to several factors, such as the number of
users in the cell, the Service, Connection Types and Conditions of Radio, etc..
As our goal is to always be as simple as possible, we will not delve in terms of formulas or
concepts involved. We will then know the typical values, and know what must be done in
case of problems.

Typical Values
Ok, we know that RTWP can help us in checking the uplink interference, then we need to
know its typical values.
In a network is not loaded, normal, acceptable RTWP Average value is generally around 104.5 and -105.5 dBm.

Values around -95 dBm indicate that the cell has some uplink interferers.
If the value is around -85 dBm, the situation is ugly, with strong uplink interferers.
Usually we have High, Low and Medium measures of RTWP. However, the maximum and
minimum values are recommended only as auxiliary or reference, since they may have been
caused by a peak of access, or even been forced to have a momentary value due to some
algorithm i.e..
Thus, the value that helps us, and has the most accurate information is the same Mean
RTWP!
For cases in which cell has two carriers, the difference between them RTWP should not
exceed 6 dB.

Based on these typical values, most vendors have an alarm: RTWP "Very High. "

What to do in case of problems?

The first thing to do is check if there is a configuration issue with the RNC or NodeB. This is the
most common case, especially in cases of new activations.

Once verified the parameter settings, the next step is the physical examination, especially jumpers
and cables, often partially reversed. It also should be checked if there is faulty transmitters, or any
other problem that could generate intermodulation between the NodeB and the antenna.
If the parameter settings and hardware are ok, the chance is very high that we have external
interference, such as a Interferer Repeater.

In cases where there may be external interference, we must begin to act after such a
prioritization based on how much this is affecting the cell KPI's across the network, if it
carry high traffic, major subscribers, etc..
Note: There are many forms of interference in the uplink, both internal and external. Only a
few are listed above. The deepening of all possibilities is beyond the goal of being simple to
teach the concepts, but this is a suggestion for whoever wants to deepen the study,
identification and elimination of interference.

In practice
to find - and eliminate - problems of interference is one of the biggest challenges in our
area. For being such a complex problem, we recommend that be collected enough data for
each investigation. Insufficient data collected can lead to erroneous conclusions, further
worsening the problem.
The uplink interference may appear only in specific periods. Thus, it is recommended that
data be collected from at least one week (7 days) for every 24 hours. Usually this amount of
data is sufficient. In the figure below, we see different days and times - colorful - a fictional
example where the interference occurred.

Data should be collected for the suspicious cell, but also for its adjacent cells, allowing it to
make a triangulation increasing the chances of locating the source of interference.
Another way to locate the source of interference is to do a test in field. An antenna guy
must gradually change the azimuth of the antenna, while another professional do RTWP
measurements. That is, through the information directing the antenna and the respective
values of RTWP, you can draw conclusions very good.

It is obvious that changing the online system may not be a good practice, and tests can be
made with a Yagi antenna and a Spectrum Analyzer.
Vendors offer several ways to measure RTWP, using the OSS, performance counters and
logs.

Conclusion
In this brief tutorial, we learn what is RTWP, and that the ideal typical value is about -104.5
dBm and -105.5 dBm.
As the RTWP is directly related to Uplink Interference - and we know that interference is the
main cause of performance degradation - have concluded that improving RTWP, ie making
is as close as possible to -105 dBm, improving the Call Drop Rate!
IMPORTANT : Seizing the opportunity, see what
dictionary - by describing RTWP. Remember that
interesting tutorial in the Tips Section. If you have
I strongly recommend, because it has many issues
area.

Solutions

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If
the
rtwp
is
-85
all
the
time
it
is
external
interference
most
of
the
time.
In order to improve user experience you should find the source and avoid it. If not you can play with
RTWPINITADJUST that can be found at nodeb level MML. Setting it to -150 will add -15dbm more and in
total
you
will
go
-100dbm.
User
experience
will
increase
and
throughput
also.
Just be careful to monitor it as if the external interference will varnish you need to set RTWPINITADJUST 0
again.
Use
automatic
background
noise
also.
Cell
level.
Run dsp ucellchk command(RNC level) before and after to check the changes.

In case of RTWP occurence in the UMTS network checking the system against
intermodulation should be done in the first step. The test is very simple - during monitoring
RTWP in the observed cell set the maximum tx power in that cell. When RTWP rises as tx
power rises intermodulation is suspected. It can be either internal or external but it's simple
to differentiate it - external interference reacts to the tilt change... From my experience the
most cases of internal intermodulation is due to improper connector fixing - corroded
surface acts as a mixer. I've also found several cases of external intermodulation - 100% of
them were GSM
or/and DCS repeaters with too small
attenuation set.
Searching external interference in UMTS network with a spectrum analyzer is tricky to some
extent - it isn't rare the interference is broadband and it's difficult to see it unless the noise
floor on the SA display is around -130 [dBm] or lower so preamplifier should be used along
with pass band filter to avoid intermodulation in the spectrum analyzer alone and false
readout
in
the
result.
Update:

In case of RTWP affected cells neighbours list should be also checked. UE connected to other
cells can cause elevated RTWP in case of missing neighbours between these (affected and
serving UE) cells, especially with lower band (eg 900 MHz) UMTS systems.