Softer Hand Over

[fuzzyrabo]

is Softer Hand Over valid in gsm or only in umts.

thanks

[hendral]

Softer is only implemented in CDMA / UMTS. Not used in GSM.

Beside softer HO, CDMA or UMTS uses soft HO and GSM only implement Hard HO.

[salrue]

Hello.
The softer handover (for 3G systems) apply only when the Iur interface is present in the network (Interface that connect RNCs and use the protocol RNSap). This interface is only present from R99 to R6. When the Iur interface is present the macrodiversity works and then the UE can make a softer handover.

For 2G (and also the 3G)the softER hand over occurs when the UE moves between sectors than have the same frecuency (These sector are under the control of the same BST or NB).

Please see the atachment. This explain graphically all the kinds of handovers.

[alkelani]

nice post but if you have mor detailed doc it would be great.

[danikd]

Hello.
The softer handover (for 3G systems) apply only when the Iur interface is present in the network (Interface that connect RNCs and use the protocol RNSap). This interface is only present from R99 to R6. When the Iur interface is present the macrodiversity works and then the UE can make a softer handover.

For 2G (and also the 3G)the softER hand over occurs when the UE moves between sectors than have the same frecuency (These sector are under the control of the same BST or NB).

Please see the atachment. This explain graphically all the kinds of handovers.

Just to correct colleague,

The Softer HO is a variant of regular Soft HO. The major difference that for Softer HO the macro diversity process is managed on NodeB level (i.e. HO occurs between two cells that are belonging to the same NodeB), while Soft HO macro diversity is managed by RNC (HO occurs between cells that are belonging to different NodeBs under same RNC or different RNCs with Iur connection).
One more difference in type of macrodiversity - macrodiversity on NodeB level utilizes signal combining method (real diversity), while RNC based macro diversity is more simple and mainly relaying on best signal selection.