Wireless Systems and Standards

Chapter 11
GSM Architecture & Interfaces

Global System for Mobile, GSM, Architecture

Base Station Subsystem

MS: Mobile Station It is divided into two parts, the first one is the hardware and software that provides radio and human interfaces. The second one is the Subscriber Identity Module SIM that provides the mobile equipment with the identity. The SIM is a card that contains: 1) Authentication key (Ki) 2) Cipher key (Kc) 3) Subscriber Information 4) Access control class

 BTS: Base Transceiver Station It contains the equipment required to communicate with all the MSs in the same cell. It is located at the centre of the cell it contains 1 to 16 transceivers each of which represents a separate RF channel. It contains the transcoder rate adapter unit, TRAU, in which the GSM speech encoding and decoding is carried out.

 BSC: Base Station Controller It monitors and controls 10-100 BTSs. Its function is frequency administration, control BTS and exchange function. It is located at BTS or MSC sites.

Global System for Mobile, GSM, Architecture

Network Switching Subsystem

MSC: Mobile Switching Center It provides switching functions between MSs. It monitors the mobility of the subscriber and manages the resources required. It is involved in internetworking functions to accommodate with other networks. GMSC: Gateway MSC It is the gateway that connects the MSCs with other networks so that not all the MSCs access onto the network and cause high traffic.

 EIR: Equipment Identity Register It is the register that contains the serial no. of all MSs, so that in case of being stolen, the service is unprovided. HLR: Home Location Register It is the data base that contains the user data and identity for all the subscribers existing in the same GMSC

 VLR: Visitor Location Register If an MS moved from its home MSC to another one, it became a visitor to the new one. So the VLR will take the wanted information about this MS from the HLR to let this MS be able to initiate or receive calls. AUC: Authentication Center It contains the algorithm that determines the input and output parameters. The SIM contains the same algorithm for authentication. It gives the VLR or HLR the wanted input and output parameters to verify an MS.

Main Specifications of the Radio Interface in GSM

Parameter
Multiple Access Reverse Channel BW Forward Channel BW

Specifications
TDMA/FDMA 890-915 MHz 935-960 MHz

RF Channel BW No of RF Channels

(FDD) Tx/Rx Frequency spacing Number of users/RF channels 8 (full-rate) or 16 (half-rate)

200 KHz 125 (actually 124) because of 2(100KHz) guard band 45 MHz

The GSM Physical Layer

Types of Bursts
1. Normal Burst: It is the most common burst in the GSM system. It is mostly used for traffic. It could be uplink or down link.
T Coded Data S Training Sequence S Coded data T GP

3 57

26

57

8.25

T: tail bit, it is used as guard time Coded data: 114 bits for the data and the channel coding bits.

 S: stealing flag, if it is equal to 0 the burst is used for traffic. If it is equal to 1 the burst is used for control Training Sequence: it is agreed upon by the MS and the BS in order to auto correlate the incoming frame with these bites to extract the coded data at the receiver again GP: guard period, it is a period of time to avoid overlap between two users sending on successive time slots.

2.

Random Access Burst: It is the burst used to send the call initiation (request to access the network). It is uplink (reverse)only.
T Synchronization 8 41 Coded data 36 T 3 GP 68.25

Synchronization acts as a training sequence

3.

Frequency Correction Burst: It is transmitted by the BS to all the MSs within the cell in a certain interval of time in order to synchronize with the master frequency. It is only downlink (forward).
T 3 Fixed zero bit Sequence 142 T 3 GP 8.25

4. Synchronization Burst: it is transmitted by the BS and it is used to synchronize the timing of the mobile (to know which frame and which time slot ones mobile should be in ). It is only downlink (forward)
T Encrypted Data Training Sequence 3 39 64 Encrypted data 39 T 3 GP 8.25

Compute the longest time over which a mobile station would have to wait in order to determine the frame number being transmitted by a GSM base station. The frame number is sent with the base station identity code during the SCH burst. From the previous figure it is clear that the interval between two consecutive SCH burst is 10 TDMA frames. Therefore

235 ms / control multiframe Tmax 10 frames 51 TDMA frames / control multiframe 46.08ms

Termination of a Cellular phone call

User terminated the call deliberately. Dropped calls due to interference. A user accidently disconnects the power supply or battery to the subscriber unit, causing the call to drop. Dropped calls due to improper channel assignment by the base station or switch. Improper tone regeneration by the subscriber unit. A tone on the forward channel is received properly, but due to poor receiver design, drift, or interference, the reverse channel tone is not properly transmitted. Dropped calls due to inappropriate roaming. Or, the call is passed between cellular systems which do not have roaming agreement.

Example
Assume that each base station uses 60 channels, regardless of cell size. If each original cell has a radius of 1 km and each microcell has a radius of 0.5 km, find the number of channels contained in a 3km by 3 km square centered around A under the following conditions: a) Without the use of microcells b) When the lettered microcells in the Fig. are used. c) When all the original base stations are replaced by microcells.

Solution:
a) Without the use of microcells: A cell radius of 1 km implies that the sides of the larger hexagons are also 1 km in length. To cover the 3x3 km square centered around base station A, we need to cover 1.5 km (1.5 times the hexagon radius) toward the right, left, top, and bottom of base station A. This area contains 5 base stations. Since each base station has 60 channels, the total number of channels without cell splitting is equal to 5 * 60 = 300 channels.

a) 5x60 = 300 channels

(b) With the use of the microcells : The base station A is surrounded by 6 microcells. Therefore, the total number of base stations in the square area under study is equal to 5 + 6 = 11. Since each base station has 60 channels, the total number of channels will be equal to 11 * 60 = 660 channels.

(c) If all the base stations are replaced by microcells: There are a total of 5 + 12 = 17 base stations in the square region under study. Since each base station has 60 channels, the total number of channels will be equal to 17 * 60 = 1020 channels. This is a 3.4 times increase in capacity compared to case (a). Theoretically, if all cells were microcells having half the radius of the original cell, the capacity increase would approach 4.

Example 2
Consider a cellular system in which an average call lasts 2 minutes, and the probability of blocking is to be no more than 1%. Assume that every subscriber makes one call per hour, on average. If there are a total of 395 traffic channels for a seven-cell reuse system. Employing 120o sectoring, how will this affect the trunking efficiency of the system, keeping other parameters constant. Does 60o sectoring has a different effect?

Solution:
=1call/hour H=2/60=0.033 hour Au= H=0.033Erlang No. of channels/cell=395/7 about 56 traffic channels per cell. From the Erlang B distribution the traffic intensity of this system = 44.2 Erlangs Number of calls per hour=44.2/0.033=1326 calls per hour.

Employing 120 sectoring:

No. of channels per sector = 57/3 = 19 channels per sector Traffic intensity (A)= 11.2 Erlangs Number of calls per hour=11.2/0.033=336 calls per hour. Cell capacity=sector capacity x number of sectors= 3 * 336 = 1008 calls per hour = 24% degradation in trunking efficiency when compared to the unsectored case.

For 60 sectors:
No. of channels per sector = 57/6 = 10 channels per sector Traffic intensity (A)= 4.46 Erlangs Number of calls per hour=4.46/0.033=134 calls per hour. Cell capacity=sector capacity x number of sectors= 6 * 134= 804 calls per hour = 39% degradation in trunking efficiency when compared to the unsectored case. Thus, using 6 sectors per cell reduces the trunking efficiency and increases the number of necessary handoffs even more.