CH-3

INTRODUCTION TO CELLULAR MOBILE

SYSTEMS
DR. K K SHARMA
INTRODUCTION TO CELLULAR MOBILE
SYSTEMS:
 Spectrum Allocation,
 basic Cellular Systems,
 performance Criteria,
 Operation of cellular systems,
 analog cellular systems,
 digital Cellular Systems.
Introduction to Cellular Concept
Spectrum Allocation
 Use of Radio Frequency bands of the EM spectrum is regulated by Govts
in most countries, in a process known as Frequency Allocation or
spectrum allocation.
 A numbers of forums and standards bodies work on standards of
frequency allocation,
 ITU (International Telecom Union)
 CEPT ( Conference of European the Post Telecom)
 ETSI (European Telecom Standard Institute)
 International Special Committee on Radio Interference
 ANSI ( American National Standard Institute)

In India frequency allocation is done by TRAI(Telephone Regulatory

Authority of India) through auction to different operators for different
purpose in coordination with International Authorities.
 A mobile telephone system would operate within a limited
assigned frequency band and would serve an almost
unlimited numbers of users in unlimited areas.
 Following are the major approaches in spectrum allocation:
 1. Single Side Band, which divides the allocated frequency
band in to maximum numbers of channels.
 2. Cellular, which reuses the allocated frequency in different
geographical areas.
 3. Spread spectrum of frequency hoped, which generates
many code over a wide frequency band.
Frequency Utilization Measurement
Factors
 In a cellular phone system, the frequency utilization
measurement (X), is defined as the maximum number of
customers that could be served by one channel at busy hour.

 X= Number of Customers/channel
Spectrum Efficiency
 The frequency spectrum is a limited resource, we should
utilize it very effectively.
 In order to approach this goal, spectrum efficiency should be
clearly defined from either a total system point of view or a
fixed point to point link.
 Number of Frequency Reuse cells K:
 K= √2/3. C/I
 C/I is Carrier to Interference ratio
 A higher required C/I ratio at the boundary of a cell results
in the need for more frequency reuse cells.
Number of Channels per cell
m= Bt / Bc .K
Where, Bt is Total BW (Transmitted/received)
Bc is channel BW
GSM SPECTRUM ALLOCATION IN INDIA
GSM-900:
 Uplink Frequency-890-915 MHz
 Downlink Frequency-935-960 MHz
 BW-25 MHz
 Carrier Frequencies= 25 MHz/200 KHz=125 channel
(Effectively-124 channels)
GSM-1800:
 Uplink Frequency-1710-1785 MHz
 Downlink Frequency-1805-1880 MHz
 BW-75 MHz
 Carrier Frequencies= 75 MHz/200 KHz=375
channels(effectively 374 channels)
 1920 - 2170 MHz
 Many GSM phones support three bands
(900/1,800/1,900 MHz or 850/1,800/1,900 MHz) or
 four bands (850/900/1,800/1,900 MHz), and are usually
referred to astri-band and quad-band phones, or world
phones; with such a phone one can travel internationally and
use the same handset.
Performance Criteria
Performance Criteria
Main components of Performance criteria are as follows:

 Voice Quality

 Data Quality

 Picture/Vision Quality

 Service Quality

 Special Features
Voice Quality
Voice quality is very hard to judge without subjective tests for users’ opinions. In
this technical area, engineers cannot decide how to build a system without
knowing the voice quality that will satisfy the users. In military communications,
the situation differs: armed forces personnel must use the assigned equipment.

 CM: For any given commercial communications system, the voice quality will

be based on the following criterion: a set value x at which y percent of

customers rate the system voice quality (from transmitter to receiver) as good
or excellent; the top two circuit merits (CM) of the five listed below.
CM Scores
Voice Quality
 MOS: As the percentage of customers choosing CM4 and CM5
increases, the cost of building the system rises.
 The average of the CM scores obtained from all the listeners is
called mean opinion score (MOS). Usually, the toll-quality voice is
around MOS ≥4.
 DRT (Diagnostic Rhyme Test): An ANSI standardized method
used for evaluation of intelligibility. It is a subjective test method.
Listeners are required to choose which word of a rhyming pair
they perceived. The words differ only in their leading consonant.
The word pairs have been chosen such that six binary attributes of
speech intelligibility are measured in their present and absent
states. This attribute profile provides a diagnostic capability to the
test. For details on the attributes evaluated by the DRT check
http://www.arcon.com/tests.htm
2. Data Quality: There are several ways to measure the data quality such as bit error
rate, chip error rate, symbol error rate, and frame error rate. The chip error rate and
symbol error rate are measuring the quality of data along the transmission path. The
frame error rate and the bit error rate are measuring the quality of data at the
throughput.

3 Picture/Vision Quality

There are color acuity, depth perception, flicker perception, motion perception, noise
perception, and visual acuity. The percentage of pixel (picture element) loss rate can be
characterized in vertical resolution loss and horizontal resolution loss of a pixel.
4. Service Quality
Three items are required for service quality.
1. Coverage: The system should serve an area as large as possible. With radio
coverage, however, because of irregular terrain configurations, it is usually not practical
to cover 100 percent of the area for two reasons:
a. The transmitted power would have to be very high to illuminate weak spots with
sufficient reception, a significant added cost factor.

b. The higher the transmitted power, the harder it becomes to control interference.
Therefore, systems usually try to cover 90 percent of an area in flat terrain and 75
percent of an area in hilly terrain. The combined voice quality and coverage criteria in
AMPS
4. Service Quality Contd….
2. Required grade of service: For a normal start-up system, the grade of
service is specified for a blocking probability of .02 for initiating calls at the busy
hour. This is an average value. However, the blocking probability at each cell site
will be different. At the busy hour, near freeways, automobile traffic is usually
heavy, so the blocking probability at certain cell sites may be higher than 2 percent,
especially when car accidents occur. To decrease the blocking probability requires a
good system plan and a sufficient number of radio channels.
3. Number of dropped calls: During Q calls in an hour, if a call is dropped and
Q−1 calls are completed, then the call drop rate is 1/Q. This drop rate must be
kept low. A high drop rate could be caused by either coverage problems or handoff
problems related to inadequate channel availability or weak reception.
 5. Special Features
A system would like to provide as many special features as

 Call Forwarding  short message service (SMS)

 call waiting  multimedia service (MMS)

 voice stored (VSR) box  push-to-talk (PTT)

 automatic roaming  navigation services.

However sometimes the customers have to pay extra charges for these special services.
Basic Cellular Systems
 Basic cellular system of a cellular network is divided in three
parts:
 1. Base Station Subsystem(BSS)
 2. Network Switching Subsystem(NSS)
 3. Network Management Subsystem(NMS)

 Mobile Station & Subscriber Identity Module(SIM) are also

the part of cellular system
 GSM provides recommendations, not requirements. The
GSM specifications define the functions and interface
requirements in detail but do not address the hardware.
 The reason for this is to limit the designers as little as
possible but still to make it possible for the operators to buy
equipment from different suppliers.
 The GSM network is divided into three major systems:
 the switching system (SS),
 the base station system (BSS), and
 the operation and support system OSS/NMS. The basic GSM
network elements are shown in Figure 2.
A GSM NETWORK
Base Station System (BSS)
 The Base Station System (BSS):
 All radio-related functions are performed in the BSS, which
consists of
 1. Base station controllers (BSCs) and
 2. The base transceiver stations (BTSs)
BSS

TC-TRANSCODER
BTS
BSC TC MSC

BTS

BTS-BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION

BSC-BASE STATION CONTROLLER
TC-TRANSCODER
FUNCTIONS OF BSS
 1. RADIO PATH CONTROL: Allocation of radio channel &
quality connection.
 2. Air & A Interface Signaling: In order to establish a call, the
MS must have connection through BSS.
 Air Interface: It is between mobile station and BTS mean
radio link.
 Abis Interface: Between BTS & BSC (2nd Interface)
 Ater Interface: Between BSC & TC (3rd Interface)
 A Interface: Between TC & MSC (part of NSS)
 These above interfaces may physical connections like, optical,
coaxial or radio link.
BASE STATION CONTROLLER
• BSC—The BSC provides all the control functions and physical
links between the MSC and BTS.
It is a high-capacity switch that provides functions such as
handover, cell configuration data, and control of radio
frequency (RF) power levels in base transceiver stations.
A number of BSCs are served by an MSC.
FUNCTIONS OF BSC
 1. Call Establishment: All calls to and fro , the MS are
connected through the switching functionability of the BSC.
 Mobility Management: Keeping records of MS movements,
BSC does not have any data base to keep records.
 Statistical Raw Data Collection:
It is also responsible to collect information from the BTS, TC
and forward it to NSM. Statistical data consists number of
drop calls, call congestion etc.
Inside the BSS, all the BTS and TC are connected to BSC and
controlled by BSC only.
BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION
 • BTS—The BTS handles the radio interface to the mobile
station.
 The BTS is the radio equipment (transceivers and antennas)
needed to service each cell in the network. A group of BTSs
are controlled by a BSC.
FUNCTIONS OF BTS
 1. Ciphering: Both BTS and MS must be able to cipher.
 2. Speech Processing: Speech coding, channel coding, secure
transmission and burst information.
 Modulation/Demod: In GSM, the modulation used is
Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK).
 Antenna may be omni-directional or sectored as per
requirements.
 One Transceiver support only one pair of frequencies.
 One BTS cabinet may support one TRU to 12 TRU.
TRANSCODER
 Signal compressing is done by MS to BTS in the Air Interface,
in terms of 13kbps, 5.6kpbs,12.2kbps…
NETWORK SWITCHING SUBSYSTEM
 NSS is a cabinet which consist MSC, GMSC, VLR, HLR, AC
& EIR.
 The main function of NSS are:
 1. Call Control
 2. Charging
 3. Mobility Management
 4. Signaling-Interface with BSS & PSTN
 5. Subscriber Data Handling- This is the permanent data
storage in HLR (Home Location Register) and temporary
storage of a relevant data in the VLR (Visitor Location
Register)
NETWORK SWITCHING SUBSYSTEM
 The Switching System The switching system (SS) is
responsible for performing call processing and subscriber-
related functions. The switching system includes the
following functional units:
 • Home location register (HLR)—The HLR is a
database used for storage and management of subscriptions.
The HLR is considered the most important database, as it
stores permanent data about subscribers, including a
subscriber's service profile, location information, and activity
status. When an individual buys a subscription from one of
the PCS operators, he or she is registered in the HLR of that
operator.
 Mobile services switching center (MSC)—The MSC performs
the telephony switching functions of the system. It controls calls to and
from other telephone and data systems. It also performs such functions
as toll ticketing, network interfacing, common channel signaling, and
others.
 Main functions of MSC:
 1. Call Control
 2. Initiating of Paging-Paging is a process of locating a particular mobile
station subscriber in case of a mobile terminated call.
 3. Charging Data Collection
 4. VLR
 5. HLR
 6. Authentication Centre
 7. Equipment identity Register
Visitor location register (VLR)
 Visitor location register (VLR)—The VLR is a database that
contains temporary information about subscribers that is needed
by the MSC in order to service visiting subscribers. The VLR is
always integrated with the MSC. When a mobile station roams into
a new MSC area, the VLR connected to that MSC will request data
about the mobile station from the HLR. Later, if the mobile
station makes a call, the VLR will have the information needed for
call setup without having to interrogate the HLR each time.
 • Authentication center (AUC)—A unit called the AUC provides
authentication and encryption parameters that verify the user's identity
and ensure the confidentiality of each call. The AUC protects network
operators from different types of fraud found in today's cellular world.
 • Equipment identity register (EIR)—The EIR is a database that
contains information about the identity of mobile equipment that
prevents calls from stolen, unauthorized, or defective mobile stations.
The AUC and EIR are implemented as stand-alone nodes or as a
combined AUC/EIR node.
The Operation and Support System
 The operations and maintenance center (OMC) is connected to all
equipment in the switching system and to the BSC. The implementation
of OMC is called the operation and support system (OSS). The OSS is
the functional entity from which the network operator monitors and
controls the system. The purpose of OSS is to offer the customer cost-
effective support for centralized, regional, and local operational and
maintenance activities that are required for a GSM network.
 An important function of OSS is to provide a network overview and
support the maintenance activities of different operation and
maintenance organizations.
Additional Functional Elements Other
functional elements
 Additional Functional Elements Other functional elements shown
in Figure 2 are as follows:
 • Message center (MXE)—The MXE is a node that provides
integrated voice, fax, and data messaging. Specifically, the MXE
handles short message service, cell broadcast, voice mail, fax mail,
email, and notification.
 • Mobile service node (MSN)—The MSN is the node that handles
the mobile intelligent network (IN) services.
 • Gateway mobile services switching center (GMSC)—A gateway is a
node used to interconnect two networks. The gateway is often
implemented in an MSC. The MSC is then referred to as the GMSC.
 • GSM interworking unit (GIWU)—The GIWU consists of both
hardware and software that provides an interface to various networks for
data communications. Through the GIWU, users can alternate between
speech and data during the same call. The GIWU hardware equipment is
physically located at the MSC/VLR.
OPERATION OF CELLULAR
SYSTEMS
 Operation of cellular system is fully automated and no
manual actions require rather than calling and answering.
 There are various types of channel for various purposes
between mobile phone and network which are use for call
conversation or for data transmission.
 Basically Channels are divided into TWO parts:
 1. Physical Channel
 2. Logical Channel
 TDMA time slots are called physical channel, as they are used to
physically move information from one place to another place. And
for the purpose time slots(physical Channel) used in network
called Logical Channel. Total 8 time slots- First slot for common
channel & rest 7 for traffic channels.
 The Physical channels are determined by the timeslot, whereas the
logical channels are determined by the information carried within
the physical channel.
 It can be further summarized by saying that several recurring
timeslots on a carrier constitute a physical channel.
 These are then used by different logical channels to transfer
information. These channels may either be used for user data
(payload) or signaling to enable the system to operate correctly.
LOGICAL CHANNELS
 In cellular network logical channels are divided in two types:
 1. Dedicated Channels
 2. Common Channels
Dedicated channels are allocated to mobile phone for call conversation,
data transmission and if it is allocated once then it can not be share with
another mobile phone subscriber until mobile phone terminate its call.
While Common Channels used for keeping record of subscriber
position, authentication , searching for subscriber.
 Common and dedicated channels
 The forward common channels are used for paging to inform a mobile of an incoming
call, responding to channel requests, and broadcasting bulletin board information.
 The return common channel is a random access channel used by the mobile to request
channel resources before timing information is conveyed by the BSS.
 The dedicated channels are of two main types:
. Used for signaling, and used for traffic.
The signaling channels are used for maintenance of the call and for enabling call set up,
providing facilities such as handover when the call is in progress, and finally terminating
the call.
The traffic channels handle the actual payload.
 The following logical channels are defined in GSM:
 TCHf - Full rate traffic channel.
 TCH h - Half rate traffic channel.
 BCCH - Broadcast Network information, e.g. for describing the current control channel structure.
The BCCH is a point-to-multipoint channel (BSS-to-MS).
 SCH - Synchronisation of the MSs.
 FCHMS - frequency correction.
 AGCH - Acknowledge channel requests from MS and allocate a SDCCH.
 PCHMS - terminating call announcement.
 RACHMS - access requests, response to call announcement, location update, etc.
 FACCHt - For time critical signalling over the TCH (e.g. for handover signalling). Traffic burst is
stolen for a full signalling burst.
 SACCHt - TCH in-band signalling, e.g. for link monitoring.
 SDCCH - For signalling exchanges, e.g. during call setup, registration /
location updates.
 FACCHs - FACCH for the SDCCH. The SDCCH burst is stolen for a
full signalling burst. Function not clear in the present version of GSM
(could be used for e.g. handover of an eight-rate channel, i.e. using a
"SDCCH-like" channel for other purposes than signalling).
 SACCHs - SDCCH in-band signalling, e.g. for link monitoring.
ANALOG CELLULAR SYSTEM
 Analog Cellular system - Ist Generation (1G)
 First 1G system-Advanced Mobile Phone Service(AMPS)
developed by AT&T.
 Used in North America, South America, China, Australia
etc..
 AMPS in General
 AMPS: Advanced Mobile Phone System
 Known as First Generation Wireless
 Analog channels of 30 KHz.
 Uses Frequency Division Multiple Access
 Uses frequency reuse – people in other cells can use your frequency
without interference.
 Very susceptible to static.
 Very easy to ease drop.
 Introduced in 1983.
 Must be supported by every wireless carrier until February, 2008.
 OnStar still uses AMPS.
 In 2005, 15% of Alltel’s customers were still using AMPS.
 Replaced by TDMA and now CDMA (all digital) technologies.
AMPS Review
 Uses 4 frequencies to make a phone call.
 2 for control, 2 for voice.
 Channels are 30 KHz wide.
 Operates in the 800 MHz band.
 The voice is analog.
 Every carrier must support until February of 2008.