Swapped Sectors Detection Based on User Location During Inter-Site Handovers

Network roll-out is a process composed of several actions, which, if not completed correctly, may degrade the final system performance. A common error during the roll-out process is the case in which feeders from baseband units to radio units or feeders from radio units to antennas are interchanged. Consequently, in sectorized sites, the service areas of two or more co-sited cells become swapped, affecting the initial network design. This paper proposes to utilize the location of the user during mobility procedures to enhance the state-of-the-art methods to detect swapped sectors automatically. There are multiple solutions to obtain the location of subscribers in mobile communications networks. However, the most accurate ones are either costly or not possible in current networks. Therefore, this paper addresses the problem of applying time-of-arrival techniques based on multilateration in present-day mobile networks by proposing an alternative using standardized signaling. One of the main benefits of the proposed method is its ease of being implemented in real networks without adding additional costs to the operators. Finally, the results are presented to demonstrate that the proposed method improves the performance of state-of-the-art methods.