This MDA capability is for analysis of coverage related problem.

The RAN coverage problem may cause UEs to be out of service or result in a downgrade of network performance offered to the UEs, such as failure of random access, paging, RRC connection establishment or handover, low data throughput, abnormal releases of RRC connection or UE context, and dissatisfied QoE. There are various types of coverage problems, e.g. weak coverage, a coverage hole, a pilot pollution, an overshoot coverage, or a DL and UL channel coverage mismatch, etc., caused by different sorts of reasons, such as insufficient or weak transmission power, blocked by constructions and/or restricted by terrain. The 5G related coverage problem may exist in NR, in E-UTRA or both. To unravel a coverage problem, it is necessary for MDAS consumer to determine the details about when and where the problem occurred or likely to occur, and the type and cause(s) of the problem. Therefore, it is desirable for MDA to correlate and analyze multifold data (such as performance measurements, MDT reports, RLF reports, RCEF reports, UE location reports, together with the geographical, terrain and configuration data of the RAN) to detect and describe the problem with detailed information. The RAN coverage related problems can cause network performance degradation and in the extreme cases can result into service degradation. So besides identifying the problems after they have happened, it is also necessary to proactively avoid the RAN coverage related problems well before they occur. To avoid coverage related problems or to proactively undertake actions to avoid their occurrence, the consumer of MDA MnS may wish to know the characteristics and quality of the coverage of the RAN. This may be expressed graphically on a Map, called a Radio Environment Map, that shows the coverage quality for a set of cells. Such a map may be constructed e.g. to show the RSRP or the SINR of the cells as derived from the observed UE performance and/or from radio configuration parameters of the cells including transmit powers, antenna gains, antenna tilts, etc. It is desirable that the MDAS producer can provide the Radio Environment Map in an appropriate graphical form. Moreover, where a new RAN node is provisioned, the MDAS producer should be able to take into considerations the coverage of existing cells as defined by a Radio Environment Map and derive the configuration of the new cell(s) and the existing cells to optimize the coverage. Image analytics should help to identify the most optimized set of initial radio configurations that can be assigned to a new RAN NE. To help MDAS consumer to solve the coverage problem as quickly as possible, MDA may also provide, along with the description of the problem, the recommended remedy actions (e.g. reconfigure or add cells, beams, antennas, etc.).

This MDA capability is for the slice coverage analysis.

The slice coverage is one of the indicators when a 3rd party (i.e. slice tenant) issues a slice request and is mapped into the desired geographical coverage area with the available radio coverage which depends on the base station planning and deployment. In order to map the desired slice coverage perfectly, MDA can be used to optimize the slice coverage on the slice instantiation and runtime considering:

1. slice-aware statistics, e.g. slice-UE distributions and mobility patterns;
2. slice SLA; and
3. access node capabilities.

In 5G the notion of coverage is represented by a set of one or more Tracking Areas (TAs), which are contained in a Registration Area (RA), which is assigned to a UE once it registers to the network. Depending on the MDA MnS producer output, TA and RA planning, i.e. grouping cells to form a TA and then TAs to an RA, can be optimized and the RAN parameters can be adjusted to shape the cell edges and load distribution. The main objective is to fulfill a given slice SLA involving as few cells as possible by leveraging the benefits of adjusting cell configurations for satisfying the desired coverage.

This MDA capability is for enabling various functionalities related to paging optimization.

As per the current procedures, if the UE goes Out-Of-Coverage (OOC) the paging which was initiated by the network Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF) fails. The re-attempts continue to fail until UE enters the coverage and respond to the paging attempts. This repetitive paging attempts result in the wastage of network resources. As an example, the use case includes a user or a group of users getting into an area, with no cellular coverage on a regular basis for a considerably long duration, for e.g. the user gets into a shielded room for some testing purpose every day for a defined period. The Network initiated paging for such users will fail until they are back in the area with cellular coverage. This would result in in-efficient network resource usage. It is desirable to use MDAS (Management data analytic service) to optimize the current paging procedures in 5G networks. MDAS producer provides an analytics output containing the user(s) paging analytics indicating the time window at which a group of users are OOC on a regular basis at the particular location. MDAS producer also provides the geographical map within which the UEs would experience paging issues and hence will not be able to respond on a network-initiated paging. Based on the provided MDA output, MDAS consumer (e.g. AMF, gNB) decides on whether, when and where to initiate or not to initiate the paging procedures, thereby ensuring the efficient paging procedures and optimal network resource utilization, as paging can be initiated only when there are more chances for it to be successful.