where we are

We are still focusing on taking a tour of a variety of communication systems We started with a look at radio We focused on digital radio and we saw that a number of developments are taking place We now move to mobile communications / cellular networks.
Linda Doyle Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering Trinity College, University of Dublin, Ireland

A Tour of Some Wireless and Mobile Communication Systems Cellular Networks

class exercise

break into groups sketch out what you know about any one mobile/cellular system

some basics

Sharing
When we go on to look at 1G, 2G and 3G systems a key issue is how the radios share the spectrum among themselves We use the term multiple access to describe the process of sharing
Frequency

1G Separate Frequencies
FDMA - Frequency Division Multiple Access

90 KHz 80 KHz 70 KHz 60 KHz 50 KHz 40 KHz 30 KHz 20 KHz

Multiple entities have access to the shared wireless medium How each system does multiple access is not the only defining feature of the system as we will see later. But it is a distinctive one.

2G
TDMA - Time Division Multiple Access
One timeslot = 0.577 ms One TDMA frame = 8 timeslots

2G & 3G
CDMA - Code Division Multiple Access

500 KHz

Spread spectrum modulation

originally developed for the military resists jamming and many kinds of interference coded modulation hidden from those w/o the code

Frequency

400 KHz 300 KHz 200 KHz

All users share same (large) block of spectrum

Time

one for one frequency reuse

spread spectrum
Traditional radio communications focussed on the use of narrow band signals FM radio etc. Spread spectrum works by taking a narrow band signal and using mathematical techniques to diffuse the signal power over a larger range of frequencies. Both the transmitter and receiver agree on the same technique, allowing the receiver to reconstitute the narrow band signal from the diffused signal. Looks like noise to narrow-band receivers Co-patented by Austrian-born actress Hedy Lamarr in 1942. Billed by Hollywoods Louis B. Mayer as the as the most beautiful woman in the world, the model for Catwoman in the original Batman comics and the first actress to appear nude on film in a German film, Extasy, in 1932

multi a - ccess radio techniques

Courtesy of Petri Possi, UMTS World

Courtesy of Suresh Goyal & Rich Howard

Courtesy of Suresh Goyal & Rich Howard

Courtesy of Suresh Goyal & Rich Howard

Courtesy of Suresh Goyal & Rich Howard

The Cellular Concept

The concept was developed in 1947 at AT&T Bell Laboratories. First tests were conducted in 1962 for commercial applications.

1G

FCC finally set aside new radio frequencies for land mobile communications in 1970. In 1970, AT&T proposed to build the first high capacity cellular phone system called Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS).

Some early visualisations of cellular networks, made by Motorola and AT&T at the time that they were trying to convince the FCC that mobile telephony was important. http://www.nearfield.org/2008/05/early-visualisations-of-cellular-networks

Some early visualisations of cellular networks, made by Motorola and AT&T at the time that they were trying to convince the FCC that mobile telephony was important. http://www.nearfield.org/2008/05/early-visualisations-of-cellular-networks

Cellular Concept
Instead of covering the whole area with one transmitter (base station) of high power the idea is to deploy multiple base stations of moderate (lower) power. Each base station covers some specific area. Each base station is assigned a portion of the total number of channels, while neighboring base stations are assigned different groups of channels so that the interference between base stations (and mobile users) is minimized. Spacing the base stations systematically and allocating the channels appropriately results in minimizing the co-channel interference.

what is a channel?
it is whatever the unit is with which you decide to share the medium (a frequency for 1G systems)

what is a co c annel interference? - h

when a basestation interferes with another basestation that is on the same frequency but in a DIFFERENT geographical area.

It also features rather nice footage and photos of early mobile phone prototypes from Motorola, that displayed many contemporary form factors such as sliders and flip-phones.

http://www.nearfield.org/2008/05/early-visualisations-of-cellular-networks

This is Marty Cooper he worked for Motorola and is considered the father of the mobile phone. The Motorola researcher made the first-ever wireless call from a busy New York street corner in April 1973,

nice article on the phone

Mobile phones began to proliferate through the 1980s.At this time analogue transmission was in use in all systems. They used FDMA.

1G

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/2007/3/2007_3_20.shtml

These systems later became known as first generation mobile phones.

In September 1981 the first cell phone network with automatic roaming was started in Saudi Arabia; it was an Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) system. One month later the Nordic countries started an NMT network with automatic roaming between countries

Second Generation 2G
digital systems leverage technology to increase capacity
Speech compression; digital signal processing

2G GSM

utilize/extend Intelligent Network concepts improve fraud prevention add new services whole range of standards most successful GSM (TDMA based) other US versions (CDMA based)

GSM
GSM = Global System for Mobile Communications Originally, the acronym GSM stood for Groupe Spcial Mobile, a group formed by the Conference of European Posts and Telegraphs (CEPT) in 1982 to research the merits of a European standard for mobile telecommunications. GSM was taken over in 1989 by the ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) and they finalized the GSM standard in 1990. Commercial service using the GSM system did not start until 1991. GSM cellular phones use a combination of Time and Frequency Division Multiple Access.

From GSM World

Terrestrial GSM networks now cover more than 80% of the worlds population. GSM satellite roaming has also extended service access to areas where terrestrial coverage is not available.

mobile phone usage in the UK as an example

http://www.gsmworld.com/technology/gsm/index.htm

Frequencies
GSM operates in the 900MHz and 1.8GHz bands in Europe. The and the 1.9GHz and the 850MHz band is used in the US. The 850MHz band is also used for GSM and 3G in Australia, Canada and many South American countries. By having harmonised spectrum across most of the globe, GSMs international roaming capability allows users to access the same services when travelling abroad as at home.

Basic GSM
For 1G phones people were not thinking data. GSM supports voice calls and data transfer speeds of up to 9.6 kbit/s, together with the transmission of SMS (Short Message Service). SMS became a surprise killer application.

System Architecture

 The next four or five slides are from http://www.mobilemastinfo.com/information/masts.htm

Basestations
Radio base stations are sites that enable mobile phones to work. They can be big or small and have transmitters and receivers in a cabin or cabinet connected to antennas. They can be mounted on a large mast or tower, an existing building, rooftops or street furniture such as street lamps. Without base stations, mobiles will not work. At the start of 2009 there were approximately 51,300 base station sites in the UK, and this figure could rise to approximately 52,500 by the end of 2009.

Macrocells
A macrocell provides the main coverage in a mobile network. The antennas for macrocells are mounted on groundbased masts, rooftops and other existing structures. They must be positioned at a height that is not obstructed by surrounding buildings and terrain. Macrocell base stations have a typical power output of tens of watts. A macrocell tends to have a range from 3-35 km.

Microcells
Microcells provide infill radio coverage and additional capacity where there are high numbers of users within macrocells. The antennas for microcells are mounted at street level, typically on the external walls of existing structures, lamp posts and other street furniture. The antennas are smaller than macro cell antennas and, when mounted on existing structures, often blend in with building features to minimise visual impact. Typically, microcells provide radio coverage across smaller distances and are placed 300m-1000m apart. They have lower outputs than macrocells, usually a few watts.

Picocells
A picocell provides more localised coverage than a microcell. They are normally found inside buildings where coverage is poor or where there are a high number of users, such as airport terminals, train stations or shopping centres.

2 3 1 4 2 5 3 1 4 2 5 7 6 7 2 6 1 5

Nothing Stands Still

7 2 3 6 4 7 5 3 1

GPRS A very widely deployed wireless data service, available now with most GSM networks EDGE GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology provides up to three times the data capacity of GPRS

GPRS
GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) is a very widely deployed wireless data service, available now with most GSM networks. In other words it is a means for the GSM network to deal with DATA. As we all known DATA has become so important and taken over from VOICE. GPRS offers throughput rates of up to 40 kbit/s, so that users have a similar access speed to a dial-up modem,.
ntrg.cs.tcd.ie/undergrad/4ba2.01/group1/gprs2.htm

EDGE
Further enhancements to GSM networks are provided by Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) technology, which provides up to three times the data capacity of GPRS. Using EDGE, operators can handle three times more subscribers than GPRS, triple their data rate per subscriber, or add extra capacity to their voice communications. EDGE allows the delivery of advanced mobile services such as the downloading of video and music clips, multimedia messaging, highspeed Internet access and e-mail on the move. Simple upgrade EDGE uses the same structure, as today's GSM networks, which allows it to be overlaid directly onto an existing GSM network. For many existing GSM/GPRS networks, EDGE is a simple softwareupgrade. .
http://irshadwap.com/web/archives/7

GSM Operators in Ireland

Meteor GSM Coverage

Vodafone 02 Meteor

some points

emphasis now hugely on mobility (roaming) all operations are using licensed spectrum very regulated standards everywhere very successful market

3G
Developed by the global GSM community as its chosen path for 3G evolution, WCDMA is the air interface for

where we are now

one of the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU's) family of third-generation mobile communications systems.
We are now in the era of 3G cellular networks 3G/WCDMA (Third Generation / Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) enables the continued support of voice, text and MMS services in addition to richer mobile multimedia services such as In Europe we call 3G systems UMTS UMTS offers data speeds up to 384kb/s along with voice services.

IMT 2 Terrestrial Radio Interfaces - 000 i.e. 3G

wcdma and cdma200

WCDMA is an evolution of GSM, while CDMA2000 is an evolution of CDMA. WCDMA uses a broader spectrum and the signalling is based on GSM. CDMA's signalling is somewhat related to TDMA signalling. Both use Code Division to get the packets in sequence and both offer similar data speed and voice capabilities. WCDMA handsets use an extended SIM, called a USIM (UMTS Subscriber Information Module) which contains additional WCDMA information.

(voice side)

(data /GPRS side)

HSPA (high speed packet access)

HSPA is the set of technologies that defines the migration path for 3G/WCDMA operators worldwide. It includes HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), HSUPA (High Speed Uplink Packet Access) and HSPA Evolved.

but nothing stands still!!!!!

In most HSPA networks, the end-user can expect to enjoy speeds of at least 1Mbps upwards, depending upon the peak speed of the network (anywhere from 1.8Mbps to 14.4 Mbps) with peak uplink speeds of up to 5.7Mbps. HSPA Evolved HSPA Evolved introduces MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output) capabilities and higher order modulation (64QAM), enabling greater throughput speeds and higher performance.

mimo?

02 only dark pink is 3G rest is GSM

3 Network

but nothing stands still!!!!!

femtocells

some interesting comments

Marty Cooper: The wireless capacity has doubled every 30 months over the last 104 years. Approximately million-fold capacity increase since 1957:

the latest buzz word!!!

25x improvement from using wider spectrum 5x improvement from reducing channel sizes 5x improvement from improved modulation 1600x improvement from reduced cell sizes and transmit distance

M.S Alouini and A.J. Goldsmith, Area Spectral Efficiency of Cellular Mobile Radio Systems, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 1047 1066, July 1999.

Femtocells are low-power wireless access points that operate in licensed spectrum to connect standard mobile devices to a mobile operators network using residential DSL or cable broadband connections.

http://www.femtoforum.org/femto/index.php?id=46

but nothing stands still!!!!!

LTE

or you get these kinds of diagrams

http://www.nsma.org/Presentations2008.htm

note

we are back to OFDM again OFDM good for high speed and large throughputs OFDM good for multipath OFDM dominating in the wireless world

http://www.nsma.org/Presentations2008.htm

some questions
can you follow the evolution of mobile communications systems? what is a circuit switched network? what is a packet switched network? what contributed to the success of GSM? do you think 3G is successful? are you aware whether you are using 3G or not on your phone.