Architecture of Cellular

Networks
Ramkumar Gowrishankar
EE668
 Overview of the Presentation
• Background
• Generations of Cellular Systems
• Architecture of AMPS system
• Architecture of GSM
• Communication between various components
• Future architectures
• Multi Hop Architecture
• Hierarchical Architecture
• Conclusion
• References

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 Background
• Wireless communications gained
popularity in 1930’s and after WWII
• Mainly used for public safety by police and
other government organizations
• Vast majority not connected to the PSTN
• First public mobile telephone service
started in 1946 in 25 major American cities
• Used a single high power transmitter and
large tower to cover an area of 50 km
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 • Research in 1960’s and 1970’s
at Bell Labs led to the concept
of “cells”
• Basic concept of frequency re-
use applied in a smaller area
by the use of several low
power transmitters instead of a
single high power transmitter
• Each transmission range
called a CELL
• A set of cells that do not share
the frequency form a “cluster”
• The cluster is then replicated
throughout the desired
communication area

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 Capacity Improvement
• Let the total number of radio channels be S
• S=k*N
– k: Number of channels allocated to a cell
– N: Number of cells forming a cluster
• Total Capacity C=M*k*N
– M: Number of times the cluster is repeated
• Further capacity improvement possible using
– Cell splitting
– Sectorization
– Repeaters
– Microcell zone concept

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Generations of Cellular systems
• Evolution can be divided into 1G, 2G, 2.5G, 3G and 4G
• 1G systems
– Goal: To develop a working system that could provide basic
voice service
– Time frame: 1970-1990
– Technology: FDMA/FDD
– Systems:
• Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS-USA)
• Total Access Communication System (TACS-UK)
• Nippon Telephone and Telegraph (NTT-Japan)
• Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT-Europe)
– Use of macro cells
– Incompatible analog systems

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• 2G systems
– Goal: Digital voice service with improved quality and also provide
better data services
– Time Frame: 1990- 2000
– Technology: TDMA/TDD, CDMA
– Systems:
• Global System for Mobile (GSM-Europe)
• IS-136(North American Digital Cellular)
• Pacific Digital Cellular (Japan)
• IS-95 (CDMAOne)
• 2.5 G systems
– Goal: To provide better data rates and wider range of data
services and also act as a transition to 3G
– Time frame: 2000-2002
– Systems:
• IS-95B
• High Speed Circuit Switched Data (HSCSD)
• General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
• Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE)

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• 3G systems
– Goal: High speed wireless data access and unified
universal standard
– Time frame: 2002-
– Two competing standards
– One based on GSM, IS-136 and PDC known as
3GPP
– Other based on IS-95 named 3GPP2
– Move from circuit switching to packet switching
– Enhanced data rates of 2-20Mbps
• 4G systems
– Term used to denote all future systems
– Goal: High mobility, High data rate, IP based network
– Hybrid network that can interoperate with other
networks

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 2G systems
1G systems

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 AMPS system
• 1G system developed by Bell Labs for
deployment in America
• Analog system used FDMA/FDD
• Frequency Range-800-900Mhz
• Originally only 2 carriers allowed
• Each carrier allocated 20 Mhz
• 30Khz uplink and downlink channel
separated by 45 Mhz
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 Basic Architecture of AMPS
BTS

Public BTS
Switched
Telephone MTSO
Network
BTS

BTS

MTSO: Mobile Telecommunication Switching Office

Also known as MSC (Mobile Switching Center)
BTS: Base Transceiver Station

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 Call handling in AMPS
BTS

Public BTS
Switched
Paging
Telephone MTSOmessage
Network
BTS

BTS

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• Call from conventional telephone
– Call arrives at MSC via the PSTN
– MSC then sends out a paging message via all BTS
on the FCC (Forward Control Channel).
– The paging message contains subscriber’s Mobile
Identification Number (MIN)
– The mobile unit responds with an acknowledgement
on the RCC (Reverse Control Channel)
– MSC directs BS to assign FVC (Forward Voice
Channel) and RVC (Reverse Voice Channel)
– BS also assigns a SAT tone (Supervisory Audio Tone)
and the VMAC (Voice Mobile Attenuation Code)

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• Call from mobile unit
– Subscriber unit transmits an origination
message on the RCC
– Origination message contains
• MIN
• Electronic Serial Number
• Station Class Mark
• Destination phone number
– If BTS receives it correctly then it is passed on
to MSC
– MSC validates the information and connects
the call
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 Global System for Mobile
• 2G European system based on TDMA/TDD
• Developed to solve the fragmentation problems
in Europe
• World’s first cellular system to specify digital
modulation and network level architectures and
services
• Concept of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)
introduced
• On-air privacy by digital encryption

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 Architecture of GSM
• GSM system consists of three major
interconnected sub systems
– Base station Subsystem
• Mobile station (MS)
• Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
• Base Station Controllers (BSC)
– Network Switching Subsystem
• Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
• Home Location Register (HLR)
• Visitor Location Register (VLR)
• Authentication center (AU)
– Operation Support Subsystem
• Operation Maintenance Centers
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 BTS
BTS
BTS BSC

BTS

BTS

BTS
BSC
BTS

BTS
Base Station Subsystem
•The BTS provides last mile connection to the MS
and communication is between the BTS and MS
•BSCs connect the MS to the NSS
•Handover between BTS within same BSC is handled by the BSC 18
 Network Switching Subsystem

BTS HLR VLR AUC

BTS
BTS BSC

BTS
MSC Public Networks
BTS

BTS
BSC
BTS

BTS
Base Station Subsystem
•MSC is Central Unit that controls all the traffic
•Home Location Register: Contains information of all users local to the MSC
•Visitor Location Register: Stores information pertaining to roaming Mobile Station currently in
this MSC 19
•Authentication Center: Stores all the encryption keys
 Network Switching Subsystem

BTS HLR VLR AUC

BTS
BTS BSC

BTS
MSC Public Networks
BTS

BTS
BSC OMC
BTS
Operation Support Subsystem
BTS •OSS consists of the Operation Management Centers
•Monitors and maintains the performance of each MS,BS,BSC and
Base Station Subsystem MSC within a GSM system
•Functions are
•Maintain all Telecommunication hardware and network
operations
•Manage all charging and billing operations
•Manage all mobile equipment
20
 Communication Between Various
Components

• Till mid 80’s most analog landline telephone links sent signaling information
along same trunked lines as the traffic
• During the mid 1980s the PSTN network was split into two parallel networks
– One dedicated to user traffic
– One dedicated to call signaling traffic
• This technique is called Common Channel Signaling
• First generation cellular systems common signaling channels were not used
• Signaling data was sent on the same trunked channel as user voice

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• By early 90’s cellular systems started to adopt separate channels for
signaling and voice
• MSCs were interconnected by dedicated lines
• SS7 signaling system was universally adopted for interconnecting MSCs
• SS7 system facilitated introduction of roaming
• The 2G systems further improved quality by introducing the concept of
BSCs
• Introduction of BSC reduced the load on MSC significantly making the
network more efficient
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 Future Architectures
• Current research focused on finding an
architecture suitable for providing high speed
voice and data transmission
• It should also be scalable to fit future growth and
also provide adequate security
• Additionally it should also be backward
compatible with existing networks
• Two interesting ideas
– Multihop Cellular Network
– Hierarchical Cellular Architecture

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 Multihop Cellular Network
• Proposed by Ying-Dar Lin and Yu-Ching Hsu
• Hybrid architecture combining concepts of
traditional Single hop Cellular Network and
multihop ad-hoc networks
• Leverages advantage of both concepts
– Reduced infrastructure leads to reduced cost
– Stability increased due to reduced vulnerability of
paths
• Uses traditional protocols for communication
between mobile station and base station and
802.11 based protocol for MS-MS
communication
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 Hierarchical Cellular Architecture
• Based on division of cells into Picocell, Microcell, Macrocell and Satellite
beam
• Picocell
– Suited for Indoor wireless communications
– Radius of 10-200m
– Channel very sensitive to changes in environment
• Microcell
– Used in areas with high traffic density
– Radius:200m-2km
– Hard to plan due to difficulty in predicting traffic
• Macrocell
– Used to cover large areas with low traffic density
– Radius: 1-20km
– Frequency planning lot easier
• Satellite beam:
– GEO and LEO satellite based communication
– Ideal for long distance communication

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 Hierarchical Cellular Architecture
• Larger cells serve users with lower number of handoff
but the capacity is also reduced
• Smaller cells lead to increase in capacity but also
increase handoffs
• If a hierarchical architecture is used proper cell
assignment can lead to increased capacity

•A MS is assigned to a layer
based on its mobility
•MS can move between
hierarchies based on which fits
it best and also which layer has
available spectrum to allocate
•Algorithms to efficiently control
movement between layers
being developed
 Conclusion
• The goal for cellular systems keeps evolving as can be
seen in the goals of each generation
• AMPS had a simple architecture but was plagued with
quality problems
• Second generation GSM/CDMA technologies introduced
the concept of a BSC and also started using SS7 system
• New architectures are being developed to sustain the
growth of cellular systems
• MCN combines traditional cellular architecture with ad-
hoc networks
• Hierarchical architecture is a promising concept that can
reduce both handoffs and also call drops
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 References
• Theodore S. Rappaport, “ Wireless Communications
Principles and Practice” Prentice Hall

• http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~dtipper/2720_Slides5.pdf

• http://www.suntraining.co.kr/jsp/faq/pdf/market.pdf

• http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~jain/cis777-
98/ftp/g_fwmt.pdf

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 References
• Ying-Dar Lin, Yu-Ching Hsu, “Multihop Cellular: A new
architecture for wireless communications” in
INFOCOM2000 IEEE

• Xiaoxin Wu, Biswanath Mukherjee, Dipak Ghosal,

“Hierarchical Architectures in Third Generation Cellular
Network”, IEEE Wireless Communications, June 2004

• http://www.gsmfavorites.com/cat_cellgsm/cellular/

• http://www.csee.wvu.edu/~mvalenti/documents/chandran
2001a.pdf
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