GSM Network reporting question.

g'day,

The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and
intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.

Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.

I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems
I hope somebody can answer, or at least direct me to a more
appropriate ng.

Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?

Can rain be a cause for these failures.

Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of
signal range) a more likely cause?

Can the cold (written with a straight face) be a factor to reception?

Questions may appear silly but they are asked in seriousness. You
may have experienced people, as a part of your job being on call,
calling you at 3am. It's a pain, at best. It's not much fun making
those calls either just quietly. Just trying to improve my
understanding of how the GSM networks report to us,.

cheers

da jam daddy

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› See More: GSM Network reporting question.

Jam Man wrote:

> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
> mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
> well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?

How are you determining that the network has failed?

You appear to be saying that even while the network has apparently has
failed (and is still in failure mode), that if you ring the mobile, it
is actually working.

Peter

Possible that the devices you monitor do self checks like my home alarm
system. If at the time there is no service this could trigger an alarm
depending on how the system is setup.
As radio devices are subject to drop out I would either bypass the checking
of the GSM network or have some sort of time delay that would extend it to
1 or 2 minutes (even more depending on the system and its use).

There are a lot of reasons why you may not be able to get "connected" to
the GSM network, for example congestion which is probably more likely on
poor weather days due to people calling taxis and road side assistance. The
sun has storms that can mess with radio signals along with tin foil on the
head (joke).

Do you find most failures occur on a Friday night?
Maybe a simply solution could be to change networks and select one that
offers better coverage in the area that the systems are located.

This link may help as well http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?
forumID=83&threadID=200396&messageID=2137356

:-P


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"Jam Man" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
> g'day,
>
> The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and
> intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.
>
> Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.
>
> I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems
> I hope somebody can answer, or at least direct me to a more
> appropriate ng.
>
> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
> mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
> well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?
>
> Can rain be a cause for these failures.
>
> Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of
> signal range) a more likely cause?
>
> Can the cold (written with a straight face) be a factor to reception?
>
> Questions may appear silly but they are asked in seriousness. You
> may have experienced people, as a part of your job being on call,
> calling you at 3am. It's a pain, at best. It's not much fun making
> those calls either just quietly. Just trying to improve my
> understanding of how the GSM networks report to us,.
>
> cheers
>
> da jam daddy
>

I've worked on networks with GSM backup, but it was only there for accessing the alarm, power and control system in the event of transmission loss.
It's not actually a backup for the transmission, it's just a backdoor to the control system. It doesn't carry the traffic of the given base station.
Actually dialing the sims number with another phone would be useless (there's no actual phone onsite just a little black box with a sim in it) it had to be connected through a router then you could interrogate the individual network elements using their ip addresses. So being able to communicate with the site doesn't mean the site is communicating with the rest of the network.
If the transmission is by way of microwave, then yes weather can play a part in losses/ failure. And the reasons for a site failing are really varied, power outage, bird /vermin attack, weather, vandalism, fire etc etc etc...
With a better knowledge of how the network is put together and how it works, comes a better ability to read the failure conditions and therefore diagnose probable causes before you ring the oncall guy. The best way i know to gain that knowledge is to /be/ the oncall guy for a while.

H

> g'day,
>
> The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and
> intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.
>
> Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.
>
> I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems
> I hope somebody can answer, or at least direct me to a more
> appropriate ng.
>
> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
> mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
> well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?
>
> Can rain be a cause for these failures.
>
> Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of
> signal range) a more likely cause?
>

My guess is that when the unit dialled in, the codes got scrambled via
distortion, causing the base to miss the sign on code therefore not
recognising that it was armed. Maybe relocate the aerial to a better spot.
GSM, being a backup system shouldn't be used except for when the main line
goes down. Best to interigate the system via landline and if everything is
OK then treat the GSM signal as missing a beat.

Jam Man <[email protected]> wrote

> g'day,

fggwwjw

> The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.

That aint work.

> Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.

> I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems I hope somebody can answer, or at
> least direct me to a more appropriate ng.

> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures.

Then there's the real world...

> I can ring the mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder, well, if it
> answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?

Can be for a variety of reasons.

> Can rain be a cause for these failures.

Nope.

> Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of signal range) a more likely cause?

Yep.

> Can the cold (written with a straight face) be a factor to reception?

Nope.

> Questions may appear silly

They do indeed.

> but they are asked in seriousness. You may have experienced people, as a part of your job being
> on call, calling you at 3am. It's a pain, at best.

Thats life.

> It's not much fun making those calls either just quietly.

Best to do the decent thing and top yourself.

> Just trying to improve my understanding of how the GSM networks report to us,.

It would be more useful to try explaining it to a stone.

> cheers

> da jam daddy

Pathetic, really.

"Two Bob" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>> g'day,
>>
>> The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and
>> intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.
>>
>> Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.
>>
>> I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems
>> I hope somebody can answer, or at least direct me to a more
>> appropriate ng.
>>
>> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
>> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
>> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
>> mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
>> well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?
>>
>> Can rain be a cause for these failures.
>>
>> Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of
>> signal range) a more likely cause?
>>
>
> My guess is that when the unit dialled in, the codes got scrambled via
> distortion, causing the base to miss the sign on code therefore not
> recognising that it was armed. Maybe relocate the aerial to a better spot.
> GSM, being a backup system shouldn't be used except for when the main line
> goes down. Best to interigate the system via landline and if everything is
> OK then treat the GSM signal as missing a beat.



Thanks to all that replied, to this point. Most useful.

"Jam Man" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Two Bob" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>> g'day,
>>>
>>> The role I do includes monitoring various sites for plant and
>>> intruder alarms. I work 2200~0600.
>>>
>>> Some sites use GSM as a backup to their standard dialler.
>>>
>>> I have some questions regarding the behaviour of these systems
>>> I hope somebody can answer, or at least direct me to a more
>>> appropriate ng.
>>>
>>> Occassionally these networks fail. We then ring people to advise
>>> them of this. It would be nice (when ringing someone at 0245) to
>>> be able to offer some reasoning for these failures. I can ring the
>>> mobile in question and hear it chirping, and for eg.. I wonder,
>>> well, if it answered, why is it appearing to be offline, or failed?
>>>
>>> Can rain be a cause for these failures.
>>>
>>> Or is mobile tower / repeater location (dropping in and out of
>>> signal range) a more likely cause?
>>>
>>
>> My guess is that when the unit dialled in, the codes got scrambled via
>> distortion, causing the base to miss the sign on code therefore not
>> recognising that it was armed. Maybe relocate the aerial to a better
>> spot. GSM, being a backup system shouldn't be used except for when the
>> main line goes down. Best to interigate the system via landline and if
>> everything is OK then treat the GSM signal as missing a beat.
>
>
>
> Thanks to all that replied, to this point. Most useful.
>
>
>
>

You need to explain in more detail as to how the system works, and how you
have come to the conclusion that the network is "down". It could be an
interfacing issue to the GSM dialler?



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