Introduction

32.4223GPPRelease 17Subscriber and equipment traceTelecommunication managementTrace control and configuration managementTS

The present document is part of a TS-family covering the 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Telecommunication management, as identified below:

TS 32.421 [2]: "Subscriber and equipment trace: Trace concepts and requirements";

TS 32.422: "Subscriber and equipment trace: Trace control and configuration management";

TS 32.423 [3]: "Subscriber and equipment trace: Trace data definition and management";

Additionally, there is a GSM only Subscriber and Equipment Trace specification: 3GPP TS 52.008 [5].

Subscriber and Equipment Trace provide very detailed information at call level on one or more specific mobile(s). This data is an additional source of information to Performance Measurements and allows going further in monitoring and optimisation operations.

Contrary to Performance Measurements, which are a permanent source of information, Trace is activated on user demand for a limited period of time for specific analysis purposes.

Trace plays a major role in activities such as determination of the root cause of a malfunctioning mobile, advanced troubleshooting, optimisation of resource usage and quality, RF coverage control and capacity improvement, dropped call analysis, Core Network, UTRAN, EPC, 5GC, E-UTRAN and NG-RAN procedure validation.

The capability to log data on any interface at call level for a specific user (e.g. IMSI or SUPI) or mobile type (e.g. IMEI or IMEISV), or service initiated from a UE allows getting information which cannot be deduced from Performance Measurements such as perception of end-user QoS during his call (e.g. requested QoS vs. provided QoS), correlation between protocol messages and RF measurements, or interoperability with specific mobile vendors.

Moreover, Performance Measurements provide values aggregated on an observation period, Subscriber and Equipment Trace give instantaneous values for a specific event (e.g., call, location update, etc.).

If Performance Measurements are mandatory for daily operations, future network planning and primary trouble shooting, Subscriber and Equipment Trace is the easy way to go deeper into investigation and network optimisation.

In order to produce this data, Subscriber and Equipment Trace are carried out in the NEs, which comprise the network. The data can then be transferred to an external system (e.g. an Operations System (OS) in TMN terminology, for further evaluation).