Telecom Hub

Wednesday 29 March 2017

URGENT HIRING FOR CORE GNOC ENGINEER L0 & L1 WITH HUAWEI

Abdul March 29, 2017 2 Comments

URGENT HIRING FOR CORE GNOC ENGINEER L0 & L1 WITH HUAWEI

Domain: TELECOM

Skill:

1.L0 CORE FO Engineer(NOC ENGINEER)

2. L1CORE FO Engineer (NOC ENGINEER)

Job Location - BANGALORE

Job Description -

Skill - 1. L0Core FO Engineer (G NOC Engineer)

Eligibility:

1. Diploma/B.E. in Electronics & Telecommunications, graduated from communication, computer related major, master related professional graduate
2. 1-2 years experience in the communications industry
3. Good English communication skills, Excellent team player, Keen Observer & quick learner
4. Familiar with EXCEL,Word.
5 Good knowledge in CS/PS Core.
6 Good knowledge about network operation center processes and interfaces.
7. Knowledge of Various Alarms and their impacts on the network
8. Good PC Skill.
ROLE - L0 Role
Job Description-
1.Responsible for 24x7 network management by alarm monitoring and alarm management for all nodes within the scope of work delegated by work area responsible engineer / shift leader / FO manager.
Nodes: MGW, MSC, HLR, VLR
2. Ensure Trouble Ticket, follow-up and work order Handling
3. Ensure 1st Level service quality surveillance and alarm handling and problem escalation & restoration
4. Prioritize actioning as per severity
5. Outage Report preparation & validation and Report circulation & analysis.

Shifts: 24/7

Salary:INR 1,00,000 - 4,00,000 P.A

Skill - 2) CORE L1 NOC Engineer

Eligibility Criteria:

1. Bachelor's degree or above, graduated from communication,2- 5 years of experience
2. Communicate with upstream and downstream teams
3. Create and maintain effective working relationships and team environment
4. Take initiatives and progressively assume increased responsibilities
5. Share knowledge with other team members and colleagues
6. Software types and versions of CS Core equipments
7.Knowledge of IP based network - IP back-hauling and IP networking
8. Knowledge of functionality of Network Monitoring System
9.Standard fault-finding (troubleshooting) techniques
10. Knowledge of alarm types, resolution and remedy SLAs and escalation matrix
11. Resolving the Faults and closing the tickets within SLA.
12. Familiar with EXCEL,Word.
Job Location - BANGALORE
Job Description-
1. Responsible for maintaining Network up-time by ensuring that faults are resolved within shortest period of time via performing preventive maintenance activities. Coordinating with multiple teams in performing the corrective actions for restoring the services.
2. Level 1 Fault diagnostics and restoring the fault if possible for tickets raised to them by Network Surveillance Engineer.
3. Restore normal service as quickly as possible.
4. Updating TT with proper RCA.
5. Issue not resolved raising tickets to other relevant parties, Important information captured in the ticket raised.
6. Ensuring Severity of alarm mentioned in ticket should be correct.
7. Should be raised well within Time.
8. Ticket closed with proper reason.
How to Apply:

Interested, please share updated resume @ meenakshi.singh@steelmantelecom.com/ singh.meenakshi054@gmail.com

call Meenakshi@8287779254

Salary:INR 1,00,000 - 3,60,000 P.A

Please refer to the Job description above

COAI wants Department of Telecom to check handset quality over call drops

Abdul March 29, 2017 0 Comments

The cellular operators' body COAI wants the government to chalk out a mechanism to control the quality of mobile handsets in India

COAI has urged the Telecom Department to mandate that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) of mobile devices should fix the issue using an ‘over the air’ upgrade.

The cellular operators’ body COAI wants the government to chalk out a mechanism to control the quality of mobile handsets in India, saying role of devices in service quality and call drops has not been considered “adequately”.

Seeking an “urgent policy intervention”, COAI has argued that the onus of call drops and service quality has been attributed squarely to operators, but “the role of devices in issue of service quality and call drops has not been considered adequately”.

COAI claimed that there has been a “massive influx of untested and uncertified smartphones (more than 10,000 models in India) due to design variations introduced by the device manufacturers”. Drawing the government’s attention to the absence of regulations governing the handset quality, the industry body rued that there was no visibility or control over the large number of “rogue devices affecting the network quality”.

The letter by COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews highlights cases of degradation in data in dual SIM LTE mobile devices, specifically with regard to the “chipset-specific implementation by MediaTek”. However, the association’s suggestions to the government are broad-based.

India's IT, telecom and BFSI sectors stare at 1 million jobs cuts over 12-18 months

Abdul March 29, 2017 0 Comments

Ever since the demonetisation of high-value currencies were undertaken in early November last year, the media was abuzz with reports of scores of jobs being lost, mainly in the country's hinterlands where the unorganised sector thrives.

India's job situation does not present a happy picture in the current scenario despite being projected as the world's fastest growing economy during the current financial year 2016-17.

Reuters.

The situation is likely to worsen going ahead, as the country could be staring at a huge 1 million job cuts in the IT, telecom and BFSI sectors over the next 12-18 months. These three sectors have mainly been the engines of job creation for last 20 years.

According to a report, these three sectors together provide employment to around 60 million professionals. Jobs in the IT sector will be affected due to changing dynamics and automation. Experts say that four out of every 10 jobs in the IT sector globally would be lost due to automation by 2021. Experts also say low-skilled and high transaction jobs will be affected as automation takes away their jobs.

In case of telecom and banking sectors, more jobs will be lost as the industry is in the midst of a consolidation phase.

8.7 lakh telecom subscriber forms non-compliant with norms: Sinha

Abdul March 29, 2017 0 Comments

NEW DELHI: As many as 8.7 lakh out of 1.7 crore customer acquisition forms have been found non-compliant with subscriber verification norms by the monitoring wing of Telecom Department, Parliament was informed, according to PTI report.

“During last year 2016 and current year i.e 2017 (up to February 28, 2017) out of total of 1.71 crore CAFs audited, a total of 8.76 lakh CAFs were found non-compliant to the prescribed CAF verification norms by Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cells,” Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

Telecom operators are mandated to verify all customers as per prescribed Know Your Customer (KYC) norms before enrolling them. The existing instructions on subscriber verification have been issued by Telecom Department in consultation with Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

In order to ensure adherence to the instructions by all the telecom operators in carrying out the verification as per the prescribed KYC norms, the TERM Cells carry out sample verification of CAF of 0.1 per cent of all customers available in the system at the end of each month.

The sample size in case of Jammu and Kashmir, North East and Assam service areas is 0.2 per cent on quarterly basis.

The verification process by TERM cells brings out non compliant cases where DoT guidelines were violated by operators including cases of missing forms, pre-activated mobile connections, missing photos or proof of identity in the form and alleged forged documents, among others.

As per the guidelines, non-compliance attracts a stringent penalty ranging from Rs 1,000 to up to Rs 50,000 per CAF based on the failure rate. Also, there is provision for filing of complaints and FIR against forged cases. In addition, the service provider has to either disconnect or submit compliant form to the monitoring unit within 72 hours failing which financial penalty is prescribed, the minister added.

Recently, the Supreme Court has directed re-verification of all existing mobile subscribers through Aadhaar-based eKYC preferably within one year.

To another question, the minister said that the Wifi hotspots are proposed to be set up in all Gram Panchayats in the country, leveraging the BharatNet infrastructure for provision of services to citizens in rural areas, with funding from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

Also a scheme for setting up 25,000 public wifi hotspots at rural telephone exchanges of BSNL has been approved from the Fund.

SoftBank and Ericsson to Conduct 5G Trials at 28 GHz

Abdul March 29, 2017 0 Comments

Ericsson and SoftBank, are moving to the next step of a 5G trial that started in August 2016. The comprehensive 5G trial included base stations and user equipment with control signal feedback using a mid-band spectrum at 4.5 GHz. This is now one of the future candidate bands for 5G services in Japan. After the successful completion of 5G trials in the 4.5 GHz and 15 GHz bands in Tokyo, the two companies are now proceeding with more advanced tests.

The next 5G trial will be conducted both in indoor and outdoor environments, for both device mobility and stationary tests. The trial will utilize Ericsson's mmWave 28 GHz 5G Test Bed solution, which includes base stations and device prototypes and will showcase advanced 5G technologies including Massive-MIMO, Massive Beamforming, Distributed MIMO, Multi-user MIMO and Beam Tracking together with multi-gigabit data rates and ultra-low latency which are becoming key requirements for future consumer mobile broadband and industrial use-cases.

SoftBank started to verify 4.5 GHz radio back in August 2016 and now 4.5 GHz is becoming the leading candidate band for 5G services in Japan together with the 28 GHz band. They are leveraging Ericsson's Test Bed with a 28 GHz radio to validate a lot of advanced features at a super low-latency and high throughput, which will help position them as a pioneer of 5G.

Qualcomm 205 Mobile Platform Brings #4G Connectivity to Entry-Level Mobile Phones

Abdul March 29, 2017 0 Comments

Qualcomm Technologies recently introduced the Qualcomm 205 Mobile Platform, designed to bring 4G LTE connectivity and 4G services to entry-level feature phones. The Qualcomm 205 Mobile Platform includes the Qualcomm 205 SoC, which encompasses the baseband functionalities, plus hardware components including RF front end, discrete Wi-Fi, power management, audio codec, speaker amplifier, and software, all to enable a comprehensive mobile solution.

This Platform is designed for OEMs and ODMs that service consumers who may otherwise be unable to gain access to high quality, affordable, reliable mobile devices. This includes emerging regions, such as those in India, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. As operators around the world redefine subscription plans to take greater advantage of robust LTE network rollouts, devices with the 205 Mobile Platform are designed to support consumers, micro-enterprises, and others, to economically communicate using advanced LTE data services such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) and Voice over Wi-Fi (VoWi-Fi).

Bringing 4G and other advanced connectivity features to emerging regions can have a profound effect on those served. From a business point of view, small enterprises, that make up a large percentage of the economy in regions such as India and Southeast Asia, will have more reliable, faster and more secure access to process financial transactions. Multiple days of battery life means reduced need to charge, important for those who may not always have access to a reliable power source. Faster download speeds allow for on-demand content including music and videos.

LTE RACH Procedure with Call Flow

Abdul March 29, 2017 5 Comments

LTE RACH Procedure with Call Flow

The Base station continuously broadcast MIB's and SIB's. When the UE powers on, it syncs up with the network and it looks for these messages.

Here on, the explanation is provided for the initial connectivity of the UE. i.e. when the UE is powered on:

1. First, the UE has to synchronize with the network at the frame and slot level.

· The Primary Synchronization Signal is responsible for slot synchronization.

· The Synchronization Signal are sent only on time slots(1st and 11th) of each frame.

· PSS is send at the last OFDM symbol of the 1st and 11th slot of each frame.

Query_1: How does UE know to look for the PSS synchronization signal?

Well, UE doesn't need to worry much for this. As, the synchronization signal are always sent only on the center 62 sub carriers irrespective of the channel bandwidth (1.25,3,5,10,20). Therefore, UE will look for the central sub carriers, i.e at the last OFDM symbol of the 1st time slot and again at the last OFDM symbol of the 11th slot. With this UE synchronizes at the slot level.

· The Secondary Synchronization Signal is responsible for frame synchronization.

· Using both these signals, the UE derives the Physical Cell ID of the corresponding cell.

Query_2: How does UE know to look for the SSS synchronization signal?

Once, when the PSS is identified, SSS is always send at the slot before the PSS is present. In other words, SSS immediately precedes the PSS.

Let's see how the UE derives the Cell ID using these two signals:

From PSS: PHYSICAL LAYER CELL IDENTITY is derived. It carries the value of 0, 1 and 2.
From SSS: PHYSICAL LAYER CELL IDENTITY GROUP is derived. It can take the value to 0 to 167.

Formula:
Cell ID= (3*PHYSICAL LAYER CELL IDENTITY GROUP) + PHYSICAL LAYER CELL IDENTITY

2. Once the UE synchronizes with the network, it proceeds to read MIB and then requires the following info for camping on a cell:

· PLMN id

· Tracking Area Id

· Cell Id

· Radio and Core n/w capabilities (for it's n/w selection)

3. The above information is being broadcast by the network in order to help the UE for it's selection process.

4. This broadcast is known as SYSTEM INFORMATION which is MIB and SIB's.

The call flow for the UE to read the System information is mentioned below:

UE Cell Selection Procedure

Query_3: How does the UE read MIB?

· The MIB is transmitted on physical channel (BCCH-BCH-PBCH) and it always occupies the central 72 sub carriers in the Frequency domain irrespective of the channel bandwidth.

· The first transmission of the MIB is scheduled in sub-frame number 0 of radio frames for which the SFN mod 4 = 0

· repetitions are scheduled in sub-frame 0 of all other radio frames

From the MIB, UE gets the following information:

· Channel bandwidth in terms of Resource Blocks

· SFN (System Frame Number)

· PHICH configuration (used for HARQ ACK/NACK)

5. Till now, the UE has synchronized itself with the Cell with the help of PSS and SSS; followed by reading the MIB. Now, UE will proceed to read SIB1 and SIB2 which carriers important information for the UE to select a Cell.

6. After the above process the UE is synchronized with the network in the Downlink direction and have read SIB1 and SIB 2. Now, it needs to synchronize in the Uplink direction

7. For this to happen, RAP (Random Access Procedure) is initiated

RACH is common in FDD and TDD

There are two types of RAP:

· Contention based RAP

· Non-contention based RAP

Contention based RAP

In contention based, multiple UE's attempt to connect to the network at the same time. The eNB is intelligent enough to tackle this situation because every UE should be unique to the network.

The UE's can always send the same Preamble ID to the network, thereby resulting on collisions. This kind of collision is called "Contention" and is known as "Contention based" RACH Process. The network would go through additional process to resolve these contention and hence this process is called "Contention Resolution" step.

The below mentioned call flow would explain elaborately:

Contention based RACH procedure

1. In the first message the UE provides an indication to the network about it's resource requirement. This carries the Preamble ID, RA-RNTI

Query_4: How does UE gets or selects these parameters:

a. Most of the information is passed on to the UE through SIB2 .

i. UE MAC layer has to select the Preamble sequence (Group A or Group B)

ii. UE will configure itself with the max retires it will try for sending RAP (if it doesn't receive RAR)

iii. Also, after every retry, how much power level has to be increased for transmitting the RAP

iv. UE MAC layer constructs the RAP message and passes it to the UE PHY layer. UE PHY layer will transmit this message through PRACH

v. Once the UE has transmiited the RAP on PRACH, it will start looking for RAR immediately after 3 sub-frames. This number i.e. 3 sub-frame is specified by 3GPP.

Query_5: How long should UE monitor the frames for RAR?

This sub-frame number is again specified in SIB2 and is known as window length; so, after the 3 sub-frames as mentioned above, UE will start looking for RAR in the sub-frames as mentioned by the Window length. If by that time UE doesn't receive RAR, it will go back to transmit RAP

2. The eNB conveys the resources reserved for this UE along with the Timing Advance (TA), Preamble ID and T-CRNTI (a number generated by eNB and asks the UE to send the RRC connection)

3. UE sends the RRC connection Request using resources given by the eNB. It also sends the identifier (CRI) to the eNB which is used to resolve the Contention.

4. The eNB runs an algorithm and generates C-RNTI which will be a permanent ID for the UE till the connection is alive. The eNB sends the UE identifier. In this step, the UE which has received the ID continues while other UE's will back off and try again.

Scenario:

Step 1: Msg1

· UE selects one of the 64 available RACH preambles

· Now UE also needs to give its own identity to the network so that network can address it in next step. The identity which UE will use is called RA-RNTI (Random access radio network temporary identity). Basically its not some value sent by UE but interestingly RA RNTI is determined from the time slot number in which the preamble is sent

· If UE does not receive any response from the network, it increases its power in fixed step and sends RACH preamble again

Step 2: Msg2

· eNodeB sends "Random Access Response" to UE on DL-SCH (Downlink shared channel) addressed to RA-RNTI calculated from the timeslot in which preamable was sent, as explained in step 1 (about RA-RNTI calculation)

· The message carries following information

· Temporary C-RNTI: Now eNB gives another identity to UE which is called temporary C-RNTI (cell radio network temporary identity) for further communication

· Timing Advance Value: eNodeB also informs UE to change its timing so it can compensate for the round trip delay caused by UE distance from the eNodeB

· Uplink Grant Resource: Network (eNodeB) will assign initial resource to UE so that it can use UL-SCH (Uplink shared channel)

Step 3: Msg3

· Using UL-SCH, UE sends "RRC connection request message" to eNodeB

· UE is identified by temporary C-RNTI (assigned in the previous step by eNodeB)

· The message contains following

· UE identity (TMSI or Random Value )

· TMSI is used if UE has previously connected to the same network. With TMSI value, UE is identified in the core network

· Random value is used if UE is connecting for the very first time to network. Why we need random value or TMSI? Because there is possibility that Temp-CRNTI has been assigned to more than one UEs in previous step, due to multiple requests coming at same time (Collision scenario explained later)

· Connection establishment cause: The shows the reason why UE needs to connect to network

Step 4: Msg4

· eNodeB responds with contention resolution message to UE whose message was successfully received in step 3. This message is address towards TMSI value or Random number (from previous steps) but contains the new C RNTI which will be used for the further communication

Multiple UE's attempt to access the network:

1. So, the UEs initiates RACH with same Preamble sequence, RA-RNTI

2. Therefore, the UEs will receive the same T-C-RNTI and resource allocation from eNB

3. All UEs would send msg 3 (RRCconnectionRequest) message through the same resource allocation to the Network

4. Once, when msg3 is transmitted, two Timers are started:

a. T300 : Transmission of RRCconnectionRequest

b. Contention Resolution Timer: broadcasted in SIB2. If the UE doesn't receive msg4 (Contention Resolution message) within this timer, then it go back to Step 1 i.e. transmitting RAP. If there is a HARQ NACK for msg3 (RRCconnectionRequest) and it has to be re-transmitted then this Contention Resolution Timer will be re-started

Query_6: Now the big question: How should the eNB behave?

1. One: The signals act as interference to each other and eNB decode neither of them. In this case, none of the UE would have any response (HARQ ACK) from eNB and all UE will go back to Step 1.

2. Second: The eNB would successfully decode the message from only one UE and fail to decode from others. The decoded UE will get HARQ ACK from eNB

3. Third: eNB receives msg3 (RRCconnectionRequest) from both the UE's. Here, eNB will send msg4 (Contention Resolution) with MAC CRI (Contention Resolution Identity) to both the UE's. This CRI will carry a reflection of the RRCconnectionRequest as generated by one of the UE. The MAC layer of the UE will match the CRI (as received from msg4) with the CRI embedded in the RRCconnectionRequest. If it matches, then the UE will proceed to decode RRCconnectionSetup and the other UE's will back off and return to Step1, i.e start the RA procedure again.

Contention Resolution process is again of two types:

1. MAC based Contention Resolution
=> C-RNTI on PDCCH
=> uses the DCCH logical channel
=> used in HO scenarios
==>The rule is: if the UE has a valid C-RNTI and is going for RA procedure then it will be a MAC based Contention Resolution procedure

2. L1 based Contention Resolution
=> CRI (Contention Resolution Identity) on DL-SCH based
=> Contention Resolution is addressed to T-CRNTI
=> uses CCCH logical channel
==>The rule is: if the UE doesn't has a valid C-RNTI and is going for RA procedure then it will be L1 based Contention Resolution procedure

Non-contention based RAP

This procedure is always initiated from network in case of a handover. For this procedure, the eNB reserves a set of preamble sequence. When this type of scenario is encountered the eNB allocates the set from this reserved pool.

This entire procedure is controlled by the eNB. Hence. no question of collision.
The call flow is mentioned below:

Non Contention Based RAP

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Are telecom companies really offering you unlimited free calling?

Abdul March 28, 2017 0 Comments

Telecom operators have introduced a number of ‘unlimited’ calling schemes to take on Reliance Jio’s free unlimited voice calls offer.

However attractive the tariff plans might look, when recharging with post-paid or prepaid plans, be sure to ask the fair usage policy (FUP) mentioned for that plan.

Vodafone, Airtel, Idea and BSNL introduced calling schemes and data packs that were similar to Reliance Jio’s, the deadlines for some were surpassed like Vodafone’s Rs 346 which had the last date of enrolment on March 15.

However Vodafone's FUP show that the ‘unlimited’ calling was actually capped at 300 minute usage per day.

It said, " All consumer plans are meant only for the use of retail customers and are not meant for commercial/ non-retail use. Commercial/ non-retail usage is defined as calls to more than 300 unique numbers (mobile and/or landline and STD and/or ISD calls) in a week; AND (b) cumulative duration of Incoming calls < 15 minutes during any period of seven (7) consecutive days."

Idea’s Rs 348 plan offered unlimited local and STD calls along with 50 MB of 2G/3G/4G data wherein 4G handset users will get additional 974 2G/3G/4G data, the company said with an asterisk over ‘unlimited.’

Idea's policy read, “This STV should not be used for any commercial activity. Commercial activity will mean customers using the said product for calling 100 unique callers in a week or more than 300 mins in a day or 1200 mins in a week.”

Further the company added, “For any customer found violating any of these conditions, tariff @ Rs 0.30/min will be applicable.”

Even on Airtel’s Rs 347 plan for prepaid customers offered 'unlimited' local and STD calls along with unlimited data for 4G handsets upto 1 GB per day and 50 MB for others for 28 days.

However the company said that the ‘unlimited calls’ part of the plan was ‘subject to fair usage policy.’

"Commercial Use’ in case of ~Rs 349 means any use which is in excess of (a) 1200 minutes (Local/STD calls) in a rolling seven (7) day period or 300 minutes (Local + STD call) in a single day, whichever is earlier, or (b) 100 unique MSIDNs in a rolling seven (7) day period," Airtel said.

Post conclusion of the 'unlimited' calling scheme customers would be charged at 30 paise per miniute.

While subscribing to telecom company's 'unlimited' plans other plans of paise per second and such will not be applicable so customers would have to pay the penalty charges of exceeding the free minutes, sources said.

To prevent further bleeding of revenues that was seen during the third quarter of telecom operators launched ‘unlimited’ free calling and data packs at the start of this year following Reliance Jio.