Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Location Area Code(LAC)

Definition 
To locate the location of MS, the whole area covered by each GSM PLMN is divided into different location areas. LAC is used to identify different location areas.
Format 
 LAI contains LAC, which is composed of two bytes. LAC adopts hexadecimal coding. The available range is from 0001H to FFFEH. Code group 0000H and FFFFH cannot be used (please refer to specification GSM0303, 0408, and 1111). One location area can contain one or more cells.

 When MS is power-on or LAC of current cell is found to be different from its originally stored contents, MS will inform network of the current location area via location update, and network use it for paging. Generally the allocation and coding of LAC is set at the early stage of network construction, and seldom modified during the operation. The size of location area (LA) is one of key factors in the system. If the LA coverage is too small, the chances for MS to update location increase. It increases the signaling load in the system. If the LA coverage is too large, when network conducts MS paging, the same paging information will be transmitted in a lot of cells. This will lead to the strong load on CCCH. The adjustment of LA size has no unified standard. Operating departments can decide whether to adjust the size according to the currently running network. If the CCCH signaling load is heavy because of too big LA coverage, then reduce the size of LA and vice versa. It is generally recommended to set the LA as large as possible. The calculation of LA is related with the paging strategies of different manufacturers. If Huawei equipment is employed, it is recommended to set the TRX number to within 300 in one location area. In the early stage of network construction, the traffic is not heavy. So the TRX number in one LA can be larger than this value. It is essential to monitor PCH load and the increase of traffic in a long term. PCH capacity can be increased by adding one extended BCCH channel. But one traffic channel will be reduced. While making LA planning, try to make use of the geographical distribution and behaviors of mobile subscribers to allocate the LA, so as to achieve the objective of reducing the times of location update in boundary between location areas. Please note that LAC in cell parameters must be in consistent with that in MSC. Otherwise, call setup failure will occurs.

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