Global System For Mobile

Communications (GSM)
Prakash Patil
MCA Dept. BVBCET,Hubli
Global System For Mobile
Communications (GSM)
An extremely successful technology
Bearer of mobile communication system
Covers 70% of all digital wireless market
1982 – Conference of European Posts and
Telegraph (CEPT) formed a study group
called Group Special Mobile (GSM)
Later renamed as Global System for
Mobile Communication
GSM – Business Objectives
Support for international roaming
Good Speech quality
Ability to support handheld terminal
Low terminal and service cost
Spectral Efficiency
Support for a range of new services and
facility
ISDN compatibility
GSM - Technology
Uses a combination of FDMA and TDMA
Allocation of 50 MHz Bandwidth in 900 MHz
frequency band
890-915 MHz and 930-960 MHz
Using FDMA, Frequency band is divided into
125 channels of 200 KHz( 1 channel not used)
Using TDMA, each of these channels divided
into 8 time slots
Maximum of 992 to channels for Transmit and
Receive
Essential Characteristics of Cellular
Technology
Area to be covered is
subdivided into radio
zones or cells
Base Stations are
positioned at the center
of the cells.
Each cell receives the
subset of frequencies.
 Essential Characteristics of Cellular
Technology
 Only at a distance d
(Frequency Reuse
Distance) the same
frequency is reused
 When moving one cell to
another cell during ongoing
conversation an automatic
channel change occurs
 The regular repetition of
frequencies in cells result
in a clustering of cells
GSM Architecture
Structured in
hierarchical fashion
Consist of minimum
one administrative
region assigned to one
MSC (Mobile
Switching Centre)
Administrative region
commonly know as
Public Land Mobile
Network (PLMN)
GSM Architecture
Each administrative region
is sub divided into one /
many Location Area(LA)
LA consists of many cell
groups
Each cell group is
assigned to one BSC
Cells are formed by the
radio areas covered by
BTS ( Base Transceiver
Station)
GSM Architecture
 Several BTS are covered by
BSC.
 Subscriber registered with a
cellular network operator
 A service profile stored in HLR
 HLR contains name, address,
Mobile Subscriber ISDN,
Supplementary information
like call forwarding, Whether
roaming is allowed & Info.
Related to services like – voice
mail. Data fax etc.
 GSM Entities
 Four Main GSM entities
◦ Mobile Stations (MS) – Includes subscriber identity module
(SIM) and Mobile Equipment (ME)
◦ Base Station Subsystem (BSS) – Includes Base Transceiver
Station (BTS) and Base Station Controller (BSC)
◦ Network and Switching Subsystem (NSS) – includes
 Mobile Switching Center (MSC),
 Home Location Register(HLR) ,
 Visitors Location Register (VLR) ,
 Equipment Identity Register
 Authentication Center (AuC)
◦ Operation and Support Subsystem– includes
 Operation and Maintenance Center
GSM Arhitecture
System Architecture of GSM
Mobile Stations
Technical name for mobile or cellular
phone
SIM is installed in every GSM phone and
identifies the terminal.
SIM card are smart processor card posses
a processor and small memory.
By inserting SIM card into the terminal,
the user can have access to all subscriber
services.
Mobile Stations
 The SIM card contains International Mobile Subscriber
Identity (IMSI) used to identify the subscriber to the
system.
 SIM card is protected against unauthorized access by a
password . Persons Identity number (PIN)
 Part of memory in SIM card is available to user for
storing BOOK and SMS messages.
 Applications are developed & stored in a SIM cards
using SAT(SIMS application Tool Kit)
 Java cards are used in some mobiles.
 In Java card the applications are written using Java
Language.
Base Station Subsystem (BSS)
Connects Mobile Station and Network
Switching Subsystem(NSS)
BSS has two parts
BTS – Base Transceiver Station
BSC – Base Station Controller
Base Station Transceiver (BTS)
Includes the Transceivers and Antennas
used in each cell
Usually placed in the center of the cell
Its transmitting power defines the size of
the cell.
Base Station Controller (BSC)
Connection between the BTS and MSC
BSC manages the radio resources for one
or more BTS.
It handles handovers, Radio Channel
setup, Controls the radio frequency Power
level of BTS and Frequency Hopping.
Network and Switching Subsystem
(NSS)
 Acts like normal switching node
◦ For Mobile subscribers of the same node (connection
between mobiles within same network)
◦ For PSTN fixed Telephone ( Connection between
mobile and Fixed Telephone)
◦ For ISDN
◦ Provides functionality for subscriber registration,
authentication, location update, handover and call
routing.
◦ Includes the databases in order to store the information
to manage the mobility of roaming subscribers.
MSC, HLR & VLR
MSC. HLR & VLR together provide the call
routing and roaming capabilities to GSM
Network
HLR – Home Location Register
◦ Always fixed and stored in home network
◦ Stores information about subscribers
◦ Contains all administrative information of each
subscriber such as – Current location of mobile,
Service provisioning information and authentication
data.
◦ HLR is a persistent storage.
MSC, HLR & VLR
VLR – Visitor Location Register
◦ VLR contains selected administrative
information borrowed from HLR.
◦ Can be considered as temporary copy of some
of the important information stored in HLR
◦ VLR logically moves with the subscriber
GMSC- Gateway MSC
A gateway is a node interconnecting two
networks
Interface between the mobile cellular
network and PSTN.
Route calls from the fixed network
towards GSM users vice versa.
Operation and Support Subsystem (OSS)
Controls & Monitors the GSM system
Connects to the different components of NSS and BSC
Controls the traffic load of BSC
Provisioning information for different services is managed
in this layer
Equipment Identity Register (EIR)
◦ Contains the list of all valid mobile equipment within the network
◦ Each MS identified by IMEI (International Mobile Equipment
Identity)
◦ IMEI is marked as invalid if it is reported as stolen.
◦ EIR allows MSC to forbid calls from stolen or unauthorized
mobile
Authentication Center
Responsible for the authentication of
subscribers
This is a protected database & stores a
copy of secret key stored in each
subscribers SIM card
The data stored in AUC helps to verify
the users identity.
Message Centre
Short Message (SMS) is one of the most
popular service within GSM.
SMS is a data service.
Allows user to enter text message up to
◦ 160 characters in length when 7 bits English
characters are used.
◦ 140 characters in length when 8 bit non-latin
alphabets are used.
◦ 70 characters of 16 bits unicode.
Message Centre
SMS is a proactive bearer and it is always ON
network.
Message center is also referred as Service
Centre (SC) or SMS Controller (SC)
Two types of SMS
◦ SMMT – Short Message Mobile Terminated Point-
to-Point
 Incoming messages from network and terminated at MS
◦ SMMO- Short Messages and Mobile Originated
 Outgoing messages – Originated in MS – Forwarded to
network for delivery.
Call Routing in GSM
Human interface is analog
Digitizer Source Coding
◦ User speech is digitized at 8 KHz sampling
rate using RPE-LPC(Regular Pulse Excited –
Linear Predictive Coder)
◦ Digitized Data is Passed to the coder with
frames of 160 samples.
◦ Encoder compresses these samples in 160 bits.
Call Routing in GSM
Channel Coding
◦ Introduces redundancy information in to the
data for error detection and correction
◦ Gross bit rate after channel coding is 22.8
Kbps ( 456 bits every 20 ms)
◦ 456 bits are divided into eight-57-bit blocks
◦ Result in interleaved amongst 8 successive
time slot burst for protection against burst
transmission errors.
Sequence of operation from speech to radio wave
Sequence of operation from speech to
radio wave
Interleaving
◦ Rearranges a group of bits in a particular way to improve
the error correction mechanism
Ciphering
◦ Encrypts block of data using asymmetric key shared by the
MS and BTS
Burst Formatting
◦ Adds some binary information to the ciphered block
◦ Used for synchronization and equivelization of received data
Modulation
GSM uses Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK)
Topics for Self Study
◦ Mobility Management and Roaming in GSM