Lecture 1: Introduction

Chapter 1
Introduction to Wireless
Communication Systems
Introduction
It is dangerous to put limits on wireless. - Gu
glielmo Marconi, 1932
There has been tremendous growth in wireless i
n the past 10 years. Even more in Europe and A
sia than North America

Driven by technological advances digital and R

F circuit fabrication improvements, large scale circu
it integration, miniaturization technologies, digital s
witching

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 Driven by business investment although overinv
estment has created bad profitability recently.
Driven by consumer demand Regardless of curr
ent business profitability, the growth rate in terms o
f numbers of customers is substantial. The ability to
communicate wirelessly is of obvious benefit to ma
ny. What are some of the benefits?

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I. History

Wired Communications
1834 - Gauss and Weber build telegraph system in Ger
many
1844 - Morse connects Baltimore and Washington by te
legraph
1858 - First transatlantic telegraph cable laid
1876 - Alexander Bell demonstrates telephone
1911 - New York can telephone Denver
Wireless Communications --Not so new
Had slow growth at first compared to other inventions.
But now is growing very rapidly.

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 1899 - Marconi sends first radio message across Atlantic
1905 - Hulsmeyer detects ships with radar
1927 - US & Europe telephones linked by HF radio
1934 - AM mobile police radios for public safety widely us
ed
1935 - Edwin Armstrong demonstrates FM radio system, be
came the primary modulation technique.
1940 - First microwave radar
1965 - First commercial communication satellite
1968 - AT&T proposes cellular phone system to Federal Co
mmunications Commission (FCC)

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 1983 - FCC allocates spectrum for analog cellular service
(AMPS)
1990 - GSM digital cellular service introduced in Europe
1995 - FCC auctions new Personal Communication Service
(PCS) licenses in U.S. for digital services
1998 - 40 million cellular phone users in U.S.
2000 - In some countries, mobile users outnumber conventi
onal wireline customers.

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 2001 - 630 million subscribers worldwide (as compared
to 1 billion wired phone lines.
2001 - Over 1% of worldwide wireless subscribers have
abandoned wired telephone service for home use.
2005 Over 130 million cellular phone users in U.S.
(out of population of 300 million including children).

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II. Frequencies

RF - Radio Frequency
1 MHz to 1 GHz - general classification, not absolute
100 MHz to 1 GHz - more widely used definition
Microwave
1 GHz to 300 GHz - general
1 GHz to 100 GHz - more widely used
Trends towards use of higher frequencies
greater signal bandwidth (BW) per channel
more users and/or higher data rates
but more difficult to design - more $$, more
engineering required

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III. Wireless Applications

Mature
Home Appliances - What devices are used that are

wireless?

Communications
fixed microwave (point-to-point or Line Of Sight) -

nearly 20,000 in U.S

satellite to fixed ground stations (TV, phone, defense,

etc.)
analog cellular : AMPS (FM) since 1980's

paging

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 Emerging
WLAN: Wireless Local Area Networks
Mobile computers/email
Wireless Local Loop (WLL)
local phone service via wireless connection
prominent in non-industrialized nations
cheaper to install than wired lines
new IEEE 802.16 standard has been developed for WLL.
Wireless-enabled Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)

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 Wireless Device Connectivity between computer
peripherals (printers, monitors, keyboards, etc.) -
Bluetooth
Satellite to mobile ground units - Land Mobile
Satellite (LMS)
Motorola/Iridium
Digital Cellular/PCS
PCS = Personal Communication Services
Several types of services and capabilities are
offered

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 Radio Frequency Identification Tags (RFIDs) on m
erchandize in warehouses and stores.
Sensor networks small devices wirelessly commu
nicating among themselves to monitor environment
s using a variety of sensors.

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 FCC controls all usable Radio Spectrum -
allocates specific frequency bands for specific
uses
Military
Public safety and public service - Police, fire,
utilities, medical
Commercial - To customers, between commercial
mobiles
Unlicensed
Amateur
Etc.

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 SMR Bands - Specialized Mobile Radio
Three 20 MHz bands from 800-900 MHz
Large number of radio system licenses nationwide
paging/messaging
voice dispatch - taxi, Police/Fire/Ambulance
data (UPS/Fedex)
Extended SMR
Nextel/Motorola partnership
Nationwide coverage providing digital cellular/data
service
Created by buying SMR licenses from a large numb
er of private radio service providers
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 ISM Bands - Industrial/Scientific/Medical
902-928 MHz, 2400-2484 MHz, & 5725-5850 MHz
Garbage bands
spread spectrum modulation
Transmit (Tx) power level < 1 W
Remote meter reading
Wireless medical monitors
Digital cordless telephones
Big new application: Wireless Local Area Networks (W
LANs)

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 Cellular Phone
AMPS: Advanced Mobile Phone System
824-849 MHz

Reverse Channel: Transmit from mobile to fixed

base station
869-894 MHz

Forward Channel: Transmit from base station to

mobile
FCC mandated duopoly in Major Trading Areas (MTAs)
MTA = 51 largest U.S. cities

two providers per MTA

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 PCS Band
1.8-1.9 GHz
FCC Spectrum Auctions - $10 Billion!!
1st time spectrum sold for $$ in U.S.
It is has been hard for companies to recover this investment
A & B blocks for Major Trading Areas (MTAs)
duopoly like AMPS
C, D, E, & F blocks - Basic Trading Areas (BTAs)
BTA = 492 large rural areas (includes MTAs)
Digital cellular phone service + PCS
PCS = special services like messaging, caller ID, voice mail, F
AX, data, etc.
Compete with analog cellular and SMR services combined

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V. Mobile Radiotelephony

The focus of this course: mobile wireless

communications.
Our predominant focus will be on mobile cellular

communications
Historically voice communications, but also

incorporating data into newer generation systems.

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 But we will also take a substantial look at Wireless LANs
Have grown quickly over the past couple of years.

Are an important replacement opportunity for traditional

wiring in buildings.
Some are trying to make them a competitor to cellular for

data communications.
Cellular can or will provide 10s to 100s of kilobits

per second.
But if one can connect to a Wireless LAN (either at

home/office or in public hot spot areas), 10s of

Megabits per second are readily available

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 And below all of these technologies are important radi
o transmission issues we need to study
Radio signal propagation signal strengths varies with distan
ce from the transmitter, but may also vary by large amounts o
ver a few centimeters
Digital modulation putting data on analog wireless signals.
Compensation for fading making channels more reliable
Frequency reuse and sharing (multiple access techniques) m
aking best use of spectrum to support multiple users.
Sharing in the time, frequency, and code domains.

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 Early mobile phone systems used a high power
Tx to cover a large spatial area (R = 50 km)
Half-duplex (HDX) operation
two-way communication using same radio channel

transmit or receive only at a given time (HDX)

push-to-talk system - CB radio

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 Allocated spectrum determines maximum # of
simultaneous users
e.g., 10 MHz allocated BW with 100 kHz channels
= 100 simultaneous users/market
Demand was great in large cities and this led to
poor service (many blocked calls)
Spectrally inefficient system
allocated spectrum supports small # of users

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 In 1976, Bell Mobile Phone Service only had
12 channels for all of New York City (10
million people), which could acceptably only
support 543 customers.
Acceptable service - Certain probability of not
being able to make a call (i.e., be "blocked")
Given the # of customers, average calling load per
customer, # of channels can compute blocking

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 Cellular Concept - break coverage area (market) into
many small cell (many transmitters) where each non-
adjacent cell will reuse different portions (not all) of
allocated spectrum
Increase spectrum efficiency
many users share same channels

Increase in required system infrastructure (base stations)

more capital costs to provide adequate coverage

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 BASE
STATION

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 Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) spectrum
allocated by FCC in 1983
Full duplex (FDX) operation : simultaneous two-way

communication
two 30 kHz channels (forward & reverse)
Two providers for each market - duopoly
limited competition
Analog frequency modulation (FM) used exclusively
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
one channel per pair of users

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 USDC: U.S. Digital Cellular proposed in 1991
(D-AMPS or IS-54)
Replace single user analog channel with digital
channels that support 3 users/30 kHz channel BW
User capacity is 3 times greater than AMPS - more
provider revenue ($$)
Digital modulation & speech coding allow Time
Division Multiple Access (TDMA)
3 users share one channel by using different time slots
This service is provided under the title "Digital
Cellular"

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VI. Mobile Radio Terminology

Table 1.4, pg. 10 - everyone is responsible for these definiti

ons

Mobile: high speed motion (e.g. cell phone in car)

Portable: low speed motion (cordless phone in home, walki
ng)
Mobile Unit = subscriber unit = user communication device
Transmitter (Tx) and Receiver (Rx)
Base Station: Tx/Rx on tower at center of cell that provides
service to group of mobile users

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 Forward/Reverse Channels (a.k.a. downlink/uplink)
Forward: From base station to mobile
Reverse: From mobile to base station
Simplex (SX), Half Duplex (HDX), & Full Duplex (F
DX)
Frequency Division Duplexing (FDD) - Using two sep
arate frequency bands to provide both sides of the dupl
ex operation
Example: AMPS uses 824-849 MHz for reverse channel
and 869-894MHz for forward channel
PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network

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VII. Paging Systems

One-way communication (SX)

Send short message to mobile unit (pager)
Wide area coverage
Page broadcast from many base stations simultaneousl
y to remote units
no information as to user location
Reliable communication everywhere (need good Sign
al to Noise performance)
Requires large Tx power and low data rate (~ 2-8 kbps)
Noise has less of an effect when the data rate is lower.
Coverage needed even inside buildings w/ 20-30 dB signal at
tenuation
Needs an extensive network of transmitters to transmit the si
gnal everywhere

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VIII. Cordless Telephone Systems
Primarily in-home use
Use ISM bands 900 MHz most popular for a while, now 2
.4 GHz is common and 5.8 GHz is available.
Low power, limited range (~ 100 m) and coverage, and limi
ted mobility

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IX. Cellular Telephone Systems

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 Large geographic coverage
Limited frequency spectrum a surprisingly
low amount of spectrum has been allocated for
a service with such popularity.
High user mobility
High system capacity - Large # of simultaneous
users
obtained by limiting coverage of each base station
to small area (cell)
frequency spectrum can be reused by other non-
adjacent cells in network
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 Base station
serves mobile users in each cell

bridge between mobile unit and MSC

connected to MSC via phone line (for example,

T1 of 24 channels or T3 of 672 channels) or

Line of Sight microwave link

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 MSC: Mobile Switching Center
controls base stations, call initiation & routing, handoffs, etc.
connects cellular system to Public Switched Telephone
Network (PSTN)
cellular network brains:
call initiation/setup
base station handoffs
controlling power levels in mobile units
billing information
roaming user ID and verification
Typically handles 5000 simultaneous calls supporting
100,000 cellular subscribers (at most 5% of subscribers are
assumed to be active at anyone time)

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 Common Air Interface (CAI)
Standard mechanism used by all mobiles.
Defines 4 different channels to be used by a mobile
unit
Forward/reverse voice channels - FVC/RVC
Full Duplex communication
Forward/reverse control channels - FCC/RCC
call initiation & setup
makes up 5% of total # of available channels
One cell contains 10 to 60 voice channels and only
1 to 3 control channel pairs (F+R)
MSC broadcasts call request from PSTN over all
FCC's of all base stations to find the mobile user
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 There are two ways to keep mobiles connected to the
best base station

1. Mobile unit monitors FCC's looking for strongest base

station (closest) and incoming call
if FCC signal < acceptable level - mobile looks for
another base station
neighboring base stations must use same frequencies for
FCC/RCC
handoff from one base station to another occurs when
FCC signal is less than an acceptable level

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2. Base stations (current server + adjacent stations) monitor
RCC and report mobile unit signal strength to MSC
(analog AMPS system)
if RCC signal < acceptable level - MSC initiates handoff
to one of neighboring base stations
neighboring base stations must use different frequencies
for FCC/RCC

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 Cellular Phone Call Timing
Mobile Identification Number (MIN) is the subscrib
er's telephone number
Electronic Serial Number (ESN) is device identifier.
Station Class Mark (SCM) identifies the class of the
device, based on its maximum transmit power level.

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