Overview

In this chapter, we discuss the ANSI-41 mobile telecommunications network functions related to operations, administration, and maintenance (OA&M). The subset of OA&M functions supported by ANSI-41 is limited to inter-MSC circuit management. Circuit management can be considered a subset of network management functionality. There are many functions used to manage and control inter-MSC circuits; however, the ANSI-41 intersystem operations only support the most primary functions:

• Inter-MSC circuit blocking (and unblocking)

• Inter-MSC circuit reset

• Inter-MSC circuit testing

These functions are necessary to remove trunks from service, place them back into service, test them for transmission, and reset them to an idle state when necessary. Other functions such as traffic load control and collection of traffic statistics are beyond the scope of ANSI-41.

We describe each of the functions and provide examples of how the ANSI-41 mobile application part (MAP) operations (e.g., TrunkTest) are used to accomplish inter-MSC circuit management tasks. We summarize this information at the end of the chapter. Note that we employ the ANSI-41 convention for operation component acronyms; the Invoke component acronym is in all-capital letters (e.g., TRUNKTEST), while the Return Result component acronym is in all-lowercase letters (e.g., trunktest). Refer to the ANSI-41 standard for the descriptions of the individual ANSI-41 operations and parameters. Also, the reader should consult the Glossary for the description of general terms (e.g., serving system) not explicitly defined in this chapter.

Throughout this chapter we consider the serving system as a single entity encompassing the mobile switching center...