A.58 Monitoring of PCI to detect PCI collision or confusion

28.5523GPP5G performance measurementsManagement and orchestrationRelease 18TS

Each NR cell is assigned a PCI that enables UE to uniquely identify the cell. PCI values need to be reused, as there are only 1008 PCI values. Typically, operators use network planning tool to assign PCIs to cells when the network is deployed to insure all neighbouring cells have different PCIs. However, due to the addition of new cells or changes of neighbour relations from ANR functions, issues can arise, such as PCI collision, PCI confusion.

The measurement of PCI values for candidate cells can be used by C-SON to detect potential PCI issues. The example in Fig A.x.-1 show the PCI values assigned to neighboring cells, where

– Cell #6: PCI = 7

– Cell #10: PCI = 9

– Cell #7: PCI = 1

– Cell #8: PCI = 7

C-SON PCI configuration function can collect and anaylze the measurements to detecet the PCI issue between cell #6 and cell #8.

Figure A.58-1: PCI configuration example