Wireless Network Technologies

Tutorial 2: GSM and GPRS

Part 1: GSM Network Coverage Planning and Traffic Dimensioning
1. A telecom company aims to set up a GSM network in a small city and ask
you to carry out the network planning and dimensioning process.
All parameters related to the system are summarised below:
-

Total coverage area: 10,000 km2

Average active subscribers during busy hour: 4 users/km2 (assume
uniformly distributed)
Average call duration 110s during busy hour
Maximum Tx Power: 20W
Receiver sensitivity: -103 dBm
Pathloss (L) is given by:
L = 119+ 31.8 log(dkm)
Fading margin: 5dB
Others loss : 5 dB
Transmit antenna gain: 15dBi
Thermal noise: -108dBm
Minimum GoS guarantee during busy hour: 0.02
Control channels per cell: 2 timeslots

4.1 Compute the number of GSM cells to cover the city.

4.2 Compute the number of TRXs required in each cell.

Wireless Network Technologies

Part 2: GPRS Network Dimensioning

The telecom company has decided to extend GSM network to support GPRS
whose users requirements are given in Table below.

Packet Switched Traffic during GPRS Peak Hour

(Assume 85% channel occupancy for GPRS channels)

Mean data
rate (kbps)

Average
session/ hour

Online radio

32

0.1

Average
duration per
session (s)
300

Video

128

0.1

320

4096

Web browsing

64

0.2

450

5760

Total

Amount of
Data/h
(kbits)
960

10.8Mbits

20% of GSM users subscribe GPRS services. During the GPRS peak hour, 25%
of GPRS users and 50% of GSM users are active, respectively.

2.1 Determine if the existing network configuration (i.e. number of TRXs per
cell) is sufficient to support additional GPRS requirements as shown in Table
above.
2.2 Determine the maximum packet switched traffic in kbps that the existing
network configuration can support during GSM busy hour.
2.3 The GSM busy hour and GPRS peak hour in a cell in this GSM/GPRS
network occur at the same time. Prove if this requirement is achievable based
on the existing configuration. Provide suggestions for network upgrade if
applicable.

d) Determine the number of timeslots that are available for GPRS traffic
using information in table below.

Wireless Network Technologies

Appendix:
Erlang Table and Worked Examples
Erlang B Table

Wireless Network Technologies

#Channels
(TRX,
timeslots)
Erlang formula needs two of
these parameters as the inputs
Erlang
(Erl.)

xErlangs =

(calls per hour )(averageconversationtime)

3600 Seconds

Blocking
probability
(%)

Wireless Network Technologies