latency

Latency is the delay from input into a system to desired outcome; the term is
understood slightly differently in various contexts and latency issues also vary
from one system to another. Latency greatly affects how usable and enjoyable
electronic and mechanical devices as well as communications are.

Latency in communication is demonstrated in live transmissions from various

points on the earth as the communication hops between a ground transmitter
and a satellite and from a satellite to a receiver each take time. People
connecting from distances to these live events can be seen to have to wait for
responses. This latency is the wait time introduced by the signal travelling the
geographical distance as well as over the various pieces of communications
equipment. Even fiber optics are limited by more than just the speed of light,
as the refractive index of the cable and all repeaters or amplifiers along their
length introduce delays.

Types of latency
Network latency is an expression of how much time it takes for a packet of
data to get from one designated point to another. In some environments (for
example, AT&T), latency is measured by sending a packet that is returned to
the sender; the round-trip time is considered the latency. Ideally, latency is as
close to zero as possible.

The contributors to network latency include:

 Propagation: This is simply the time it takes for a packet to travel between
one place and another at the speed of light.

 Transmission: The medium itself (whether optical fiber, wireless, or some

other) introduces some delay, which varies from one medium to another.
The size of the packet introduces delay in a round trip since a larger packet
 will take longer to receive and return than a short one. Also, when signals
must be boosted by a repeater, this too introduces additional latency.

 Router and other processing: Each gateway node takes time to examine
and possibly change the header in a packet (for example, changing the
hop count in the time-to-live field).

 Other computer and storage delays: Within networks at each end of the
journey, a packet may be subject to storage and hard disk access delays
at intermediate devices such as switches and bridges. (In backbone
statistics, however, this kind of latency is probably not considered.)

Internet latency is just a special case of network latency - the Internet is a

very large wide-area network (WAN). The same factors as above determine
latency on the Internet. However, distances in the transmission medium, the
number of hops over equipment and servers are all greater than for smaller
networks. Internet latency measurement would generally start at the exit of a
network and end on the return of the requested data from an Internet
resource.

Interrupt latency is the length of time that it takes for a computer to act on
an interrupt, which is a signal telling the operating system to stop until it can
decide what it should do in response to some event.

WAN latency itself can be an important factor in determining Internet latency.

A WAN that is busy directing other traffic will produce a delay whether a
resource is being requested from a server on the LAN, another computer on
that network or elsewhere on the Internet. LAN users will also experience
delay when the WAN is busy. In either of these examples the delay would still
exist even if the rest of the hops --including the server where the desired data
was located -- were entirely free of traffic congestion.
Audio latency is the delay between sound being created and heard. In sound
created in the physical world, this delay is determined by the speed of sound,
which varies slightly depending on the medium the sound wave travels
through. Sound travels faster in denser mediums: It travels faster through
solids, less quickly through liquids and slowest through air. We generally refer
to the speed of sound as measured in dry air at room temperature, which is
796 miles-per-hour. In electronics, audio latency is the cumulative delay from
audio input to audio output. How long this delay is depends on the hardware
and even software used, such as the operating system and drivers used in
computer audio. Latencies of 30 milliseconds are generally noticed by an
individual as a separate production and arrival of sound to the ear.

See a video demonstration of how to measure audio latency on iOS devices:

Operational latency can be defined as the sum time of operations, when

performed in linear workflows. In parallel workflows, the latency is determined
by the slowest operation performed by a single task worker.

Mechanical latency is the delay from input into a mechanical system or

device to the desired output. This delay is determined by Newtonian physics-
based limits of the mechanism (excepting quantum mechanics). An example
would be the delay in time to shift a gear from the time the shift lever of a gear
box or bicycle shifter was actuated.

Computer and operating system latency is the combined delay between an

input or command and the desired output. In a computer system, latency is
often used to mean any delay or waiting that increases real or
perceived response time beyond what is desired. Specific contributors to
computer latency include mismatches in data speed between the
microprocessor and input/output devices, inadequate data buffers and the
performance of the hardware involved, as well as its drivers. The processing
load of the computer can also add significant latency.
From the user's perspective, latency issues are usually a perceived lag
between an action and a response to it. In 3D VR simulation, for example, in
using a helmet that provides stereoscopic vision and head tracking, latency is
the time between the computer’s detection of head motion to the time it
displays motion in the image. In multiplayer networked or Internet gaming, low
latency is critical for best gameplay and enjoyability. Control is difficult with
significant latency as the player is lagging behind the real-time events in the
game, due to delays in the information getting to their computer.

Latency issues are noticeable for an individual, generally increasing user

annoyance and impacting productivity as the level increases above 30ms. The
severity of the effect varies from one application to another, as do mitigating
tactics. However, games can often be enjoyable up to around 90ms latency.
In communications, delays can be a result of heavy traffic, hardware
problems, incorrect set up and/or configuration.

Latency testing:
Latency testing can vary from application to application. In some applications,
measuring latency requires special and complex equipment or knowledge of
special computer commands and programs; in other cases, latency can be
measured with a stop watch. In networking, an estimated latency to
equipment or servers can be determined by running a ping command;
information about latency through all the hops can be gathered with a trace
route command. High-speed cameras might be used to capture the minute
differences in response times for input to various mechanical and electronic
systems.

Reducing latency:
Reducing latency is a function of tuning, tweaking and upgrading both
computer hardware and software and mechanical systems. Within a
computer, latency can be removed or hidden by such techniques as
prefetching (anticipating the need for data input requests)
and multithreading or by using parallelism across multiple execution threads.
Other steps to reduce latency and increase performance include uninstalling
unnecessary programs, optimizing networking and software configurations
and upgrading or overclocking hardware.

2. The time delay between two things

A signals leaves the sender and arrives at the receiver 150ms later. That is latency.

Speed of light might be <1ms - the other 149 is the latency of software stacks, buffers,
processing etc etc

 In some contexts it relates to "effective speed".

 In some contexts it relates to quality (in voice latency it causes echos or those
annoying conversations when you both start talking at the same time because
the latency is interpreted as them waiting for you).
 It can have nasty interactions with packet throughput (eg when TCP/IP
interprets a delay as a lost packet and reduces rate)
 In some contexts it can mess up feedback loops (eg "motor-boating")

3. Latency essentially means delay. It could be in anything ,in fact it is present

everywhere.

You go to a restaurant and order your food, and then wait for it, that is latency.

You click on a video on YouTube and, what you see is the buffering sign, that is latency.

You call your friend via Whatsapp call and while talking, you feel that whatever you say
now, he can hear it after a second or so, that is latency.

In telecom, it’s the same, a signal is sent from one point to another and it arrives at the
destination t time later. That is latency.

Latency may be the same everywhere,but the reasons for the latency are different in
different cases. In case of Microwave Links, the causes of latency could be Link Errors,
Bandwidth congestion etc.
In the case of Optical fibers, the latency should be ideally zero, but it is not. It may be
optical communications, but the software processes taking care of that are not that fast
and there is some latency introduced in the system. In the case of satellite
communications the latency is higher compared to the other media.

Although, some amount of latency is acceptable in the Telecom networks. The higher
latency is essentially a trouble resulting in poor kpi’s. The amount of latency tolerable is
defined by the operators or the service providers, and is different in different cases.

4. The meaning of word "latency" differs in different situations. Latency is the delay from
input into a system to desired outcome; the term is understood slightly differently in various
contexts and latency issues also vary from one system to another. This link tells more about
"latency" in details.

5. BTS Components

BTS Room
A Base Transceiver StationOr BTS has many components{Indore components Ex:Main Distribution
Bord(MDB),Rectifier,Environment Monitoring Unite(EMU),DC Ventilation System(DVS),Air
conditioner,Generator,Battery Bank(BB),BTS cabinet or RBS,Transmit ion rack,Aviation light controller
Etc.Outdoor Ex:Stell Tower,Gsm Antena,RRU,Microwave Antena,TMA,TMB,Aviation Light & Optical
Fiber cable,Coxial super flex/flex 1/2,7/8,15/8 rms
Overview Of Base Transceiver Station
Components

A BTS in general has the following parts:

Transceiver (TRX):

Its function is transmission and reception of signals.

 Power amplifier (PA):

It amplifies the receiving signal.

Combiner:

Its combines receiving signals so that they could be sent out through a single antenna for a
reduction in the number of antenna used.

Duplexer:

It separates sending and receiving signals to/from antenna. It helps to send and receive
signals through the same antenna ports.

Antenna:

Used to transmit signals to another entity.

Alarm extension system:

It collects working status alarms of various units in the BTS and extends them to operations
and maintenance (O&M) monitoring stations.

Control function:

It controls and manages the various units of BTS, including any software. It helps in On-the-
spot configurations, status changes; software upgrades, etc. are done through the control
function.

Baseband receiver unit (BBxx):

Frequency hopping, signal DSP, etc.

6. Telecom Interview Preparation

Que. :- Explain the structure of entire GSM.
Ans :- The gsm techlogy is divided in two parts.
1.BSS which consist
BTS
BSC
TRAU
2.NSS
MSC
HLR
VLR
EIR
AUC
one or more numer of MS( Mobile stations are connected from
one BSC and the interface between MS and BTS is air or Um
interface,one or more bts is connected from one bsc and the
interface is A-bis,one or more BSC and TRAU is connected by
one.The interface between MSC and BSC is called Air
interface and the interface between MSC and Trau is called
Ater interface.
MSc is connected from the HLR,VLR,EIR,Auc,GMSC,PSTN.

Que. :- What is the function of Duplexer?

Ans :- Duplexer unit perform duplex operation of TX and RX signals
through a common antenna and filters and amplifies main and
diversity received signals before they pass through the
Multi coupler unit to the TRx unit.
It contains a variable-gain LNA for optimal amplification of
the received signal.

Que. :- What is the function of TRAU?

Ans :- TRAU, compress/decompress voice data 64kb data into 16kb
and vice-versa. so that we can trasport traffic of 4 calls
in 1 single 64kbs Time Slot(E1/T1 carrier).

Trau converts a 16kbps speech data into 64 kbps data on

ater interface.

TRAU Means the Transmission Rate Adaptation

Unit.Actually,it is a Transcoder unit(XCDR).it uses as an
interface B/W BSC & MSC.

Que. :- What is MTU?

Ans :- In computer networking, the term Maximum Transmission Unit

(MTU) refers to the size (in bytes) of the largest packet

that a given layer of a communications protocol can pass
onwards. MTU parameters usually appear in association with a
communications interface (NIC, serial port, etc.). The MTU
may be fixed by standards (as is the case with Ethernet) or
decided at connect time (as is usually the case with
point-to-point serial links). A higher MTU brings higher
bandwidth efficiency. However large packets can block up a
slow interface for some time, increasing the lag on other
packets. For example a 1500 byte packet, the largest allowed
by Ethernet (and hence most of the Internet), would block up
a 14.4k modem for about one second.

Que. :- What is the function of BOI card?

Ans :- BOIA (Base Operation and Interface unit)

It handles the control functions common among other units in

the BTS. BOIA Card is like Brain of BTS. These functions include:

1-BTS initialisation and self-testing

2- Configuration .
3- O&M signalling.
4- software download .
5- Main clock functions.
6- Timing functions .
7- Collection and management of external and internal alarms
8- Message delivery to the BSC(Through FXC unit), and
9- Cabinet control

Que. :- which slot is reserve for GPRS ?

Ans :- Total time slots= 0 to 31= 32 slots. In which 27,28,29 & 30
are reserved for GPRS. Each time slot is of 64kbps and total
is 64*4=256kbps. Thats why we are getting 256kbps when
connecting to internet through mobile. This is standard in
GSM/Edge BTS. We can also reduce the speed to 64, 128 or 192
by changing the time slot.

Que. :- what are the function of BB2F card?

Ans :- The main purpose for BB2F/A is to perform the DSP(digital
signal processing) and frequency hopping. base band dual frame basically used for
reception purpose.

Que. :- How many types of Transmission cards are in Flexi BTS?

Ans:- There are seven transmission modules and they are:
FEIA = 8 E1's
FIPA = 8 E1's
FIFA = 16 E1's
FIQA = 4 E1's + 1 Ethernet
FIYA = 4 E1's + 1 Ethernet
FIQB = 4 E1's + 1 Ethernet
FIYB = 4 E1's + 1 Ethernet

Que. :- How many maximum TRX capacity of Nokia Flexi BSC?

Ans:- 4200 TRXs support a nokia flexi BSC & Voice: 25,200 erlangs , Data: 30,720 (E)GPRS 16 kbit/s channels.

Que. :- BCSU card in BSC can support how many TRXs?

Ans:- Depends on the version of the BSC.

S12 BSC BCSU will Support 200 TRX,
Flexi BSC BCSU will Support 500 TRX

Que. :- Why we are using -48v in equipments?

Ans:- when we have +ve voltage we cannot transmit for long distance cause that will come to 0 volt or voltage
get attenuated but if we have -48 volt that voltage lower to ground potential losses will be very less cause
always energy flows from higher potential to lower so so -48 lower potential simply never come to ground
potential.

Que. :- What is the full form of EDGE?

Ans:- Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution.

Que. :- What is the function of BTS?

Ans:- BTS has a set of transceivers to communicate with mobiles in it’s area. One BTS covers one cell. BTS
transmits a BCH signal on one of the channels, on time slot 0. The BCH helps mobiles to identify the network.
The capacity of a cell depends upon the no of channels loaded on BTS. Each RF channel is shared by 8 users in
TDMA mode. A BTS connects to BSC through Abis interface, which is a 2 MB/s link. A data rate at GSM air
interface is 13KB/s. 4 channels of 13 KB/s map into a 64 KB/s channel before fitting into 2 MB/s data frame
on Abis interface.
it is the interface between mobile station and BSC. from MS to BTS is radio link and from BTS to BSC is abis
interface through e1 lines.

Que. :- What is VSWR?

Ans:- Standing wave ratio (SWR) is the ratio of the amplitude of a partial standing wave at an antinodes
(maximum) to the amplitude at an adjacent node (minimum), in an electrical transmission line. The SWR is
usually defined as a voltage ratio called the VSWR, for voltage standing wave ratio.

VSWR=Vmax/Vmin

Que. :- What does Base Station Controller (BSC) mean?

Ans:- A base station controller (BSC) is a critical mobile network component that controls one or more
base transceiver stations (BTS), also known as base stations or cell sites. Key BSC functions include
radio network management (such as radio frequency control), BTS handover management and call
setup.

A BSC works with a mobile switching center (MSC) component that is external to the BTS, enabling it to
provide full mobile telephony and fulfill capacity requirements. Base stations must communicate with the
MSC and data must be managed as information overflow, impacting MSC efficiency. A BSC eliminates
MSC base station activity management requirements, allowing the MSC to handle critical tasks, such as
traffic balancing and database management.

Que. :- What is the function of BSC Signalling Unit (BCSU)?

Ans:- The BSC Signalling Unit (BCSU) performs those BSC functions that are highly dependent on the
volume of traffic. The BCSU is housed in a cartridge of its own. It consists of two parts, which correspond
to the A and Abis interfaces. The second optional Packet Control Unit (PCU) is included in each BCSU.

The A interface part of the BCSU is responsible for the following tasks:
· performing the distributed functions of the Message Transfer Part (MTP) and the Signalling Connection
Control Part (SCCP) of SS7
· controlling the mobile and base station signalling (Base Station Subsystem Application Part, BSSAP)
· performing all message handling and processing functions of the signalling channels connected to it.

The Abis interface part of the BCSU controls the Radio interface channels associated with transceivers
(TRXs) and Abis signalling channels. Every speech circuit on the Abis interface is mapped one-to-one to
a GSM-specific speech/data channel on the Radio interface. The handover and power control algorithms
reside in this functional unit.
The hardware of the BCSU consists of the following modules:
· a microcomputer
· an SS7 (Signalling System No. 7) interface
· a LAPD (Link Access Protocol on the D-Channel) interface
· a LAPD interface for control of the ET
· the Message Bus interface
· the Packet Control Unit