Cellular Mobile Communication

Systems (EE-463)

Dr. Waleed Tariq Sethi

Assistant Professor
Faculty of Electrical Engineering
GIK Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology
Email : wsethi@giki.edu.pk
Chapter:3 – The Cellular Concept

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Chapter Objectives
1. Cellular Structures
Frequency Re-use
Cell shapes
Examples
Channel Assignment Strategy
2. Handoff Strategies
3. System Interference
4. Trunking and Grade of Service
5. Cell splitting and Sectoring

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Cellular Concept-Why Needed?
• Early mobile radio systems: Achieve a large
coverage area
 High powered transmitter with an antenna
mounted on a tall tower.
 This approach achieved very good coverage.
 It was impossible to reuse those same
frequencies throughout the system.
• Bell mobile system in New York City in the
1970s could only support a maximum of
twelve simultaneous calls over a thousand
square miles.
• The government regulatory agencies could
not make spectrum allocations in proportion
to the increasing demand for mobile services.
• The cellular concept was a major
breakthrough in solving the problem of
spectral congestion and user capacity.

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Cellular Concept-Introduction
• Goals of a Cellular System
 High capacity (Number of users)
 Large coverage area (Geographical
area)
 Efficient use of limited spectrum
• Components of Cellular Systems
 Mobile station (MS): Users
 Base station (BS): Bridge between
the MS and the MSC
 Mobile Switching Center (MSC):
Bridge between the cellular
system and the PSTN

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Frequency Re-use
Cluster: set of neighboring cells that
use the available channels
distinctively and exhaustively.
Co-channel cells: cells in different
clusters that use the same group of
frequencies.
N = the cluster size (in cells); 4,7,12.
1/N = frequency re-use factor
(Fraction of channels used by each
cell).
R = cell radius (distance from
hexagon center to corner).
D = distance between centers of
nearest co-channel cells.
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Example 1
• Determine the number of channels per cell for the
following cellular system for N = 4 and N=7:
• – A total of 33 MHz bandwidth is allocated to the
system.
• – It is divided into 50-kHz (voice/control) channels.
• Solution:
• Total channel = 660
• N = 4 ; 165
• N = 7 ; 95
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Example 2
• If 20 MHz of total spectrum is allocated for a duplex
wireless cellular system and each simplex channel
has 25 kHz RF bandwidth, find:
• (a) the number of duplex channels.
• (b) the total number of channels per cell site, if N =
4 cell reuse is used.
• Solution:
• (a) = 400
• (b) = 100

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Motivation of Cellular Principle

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Motivation of Cellular Principle

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Example

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• LECTURE BREAK

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Co-Cell Neighbor

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Examples
v-axis

i=1
J=1 i=2
N=3 J=0 i=1
N=4 J=2
N=7
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Co-Channel Neighbor Example 2

i=3
J=2
N = 19

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Channel Assignment Strategies
• Objective: Efficient utilization of the radio spectrum
Increasing capacity.
Minimizing interference.

• Two main strategies:

• Fixed channel assignment strategy
• Dynamic channel assignment strategy

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Fixed channel assignment strategy
• Each cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice
channels.
• Any call attempt within the cell can only be served by
the unused channels in that particular cell.
• If all the channels in that cell are occupied, the call is
blocked and the subscriber does not receive service.
• Simple but Less efficient (higher blocking probability)
• Can be improved by implementing a borrowing
strategy.

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Dynamic channel assignment
strategy
• Voice channels are not allocated to different cells
permanently
• Each time a call request is made, the serving base
station requests a channel from the MSC.
• • The switch then allocates a channel to the
requested cell considering:
 – The likelihood of future blocking within the cell
– The frequency of use of the candidate channel
– The reuse distance of the channel

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Handoff
• Handoff: Passing an active call from one BS to another
without disconnection
• When a mobile moves into a different cell while a
conversation is in progress, the MSC automatically transfers
the call to a new channel belonging to the new base station.

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Types of Handoff
• Hard Handoff: First connection is broken during handoff and
when the car enters second BS ,a re-connection is made.
Cheap option.
• Soft Handoff: Two connections form two BS while moving
among them. Costly but naturally smooth.

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Handoff Strategies
• Handoff operation involves:
 Identifying a new base station,
The voice and control signals has to be allocated to
channels associated with the new base station.
• Many handoff strategies prioritize handoff requests
over call initiation requests when allocating unused
channels in a cell site.
• The criterion for handoff is based primarily on the
(inferred from the reverse channel measurement).
Received Signal Strength Information (RSSI)

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Received Signal Strength
Information (RSSI)

• RSSI is an estimated measure of power level that an RF client device is

receiving from an access point or router.
• At larger distances, the signal gets weaker and the wireless data rates get
slower, leading to a lower overall data throughput.
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Handoff Margin
Minimum useable signal level:
• – The lowest acceptable voice quality
• – Call is dropped if below this level
• – Specified by system designers
• – Typical values−90 to −100 dBm

Handoff Threshold: The signal strength at which handoff occurs;

Handoff margin

 Carefully selected
 too large Δ unnecessary handoff MSC loaded down
 too small Δ not enough time to transfer call dropped!
 The time over which a call may be maintained within a cell, without
handoff, is called the dwell time.

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Handoff Examples
• Received Signal Strength Information (RSSI) in 1G
• Mobile Assisted Hand off (MAHO) in 2G

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Prioritizing Handoffs
• 1. Guard Channel Concept:
• In this strategy, each cell of the system reserves few channels for handoffs that
are never used for initiating a call. When an handoff becomes necessary to a
particular cell, it uses one of these reserved channels for the handoff as long as
one of them is still available. If none of them are available but there are other
free channels in the cell, a handoff can still take place using one of these
channel. However, if all the channels of the cell are fully occupied including the
reserved channel, the handoff fails and the call is dropped. The reservation of
few channels for handoff reduces the system capacity because of the possibility
of all cell channels being occupied while the reserved channels being free but
they cannot be used because they are reserved for handoffs.

• 2. Queuing of Handoff requests: in this strategy, once the received signal power
drops below the handoff threshold, a handoff request is initiated. If an available
channel exists, the handoff is completed. If there are no available channels, the
call is queued waiting for a channel of the system to become free. If a channel
becomes available before the signal power drops below the minimum power
needed to maintain a call, the handoff is completed. If, however, no channel
becomes available before the power level drops significantly, the call gets
dropped.

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Practical Issues: False Handoffs
Problem:
• Sometimes the drop in signal
level is momentary (fading)
and does not require
handoff.
Solution:
• Monitor the signal level for
some time to detect moving-
away pattern.
• Averaging the measurements
over some period may be
useful as well.

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Practical Issues: High Speed Users
• Problem:
Frequent handoffs.
• Solution: Umbrella cell
Large and Small cells co-
located.
High-speed users are
served by umbrella cell,
while slow users are
served by the microcells.
Sophisticated algorithms
are used to evaluate and
partition users according
to their speeds

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Practical Issues: Cell Dragging
• Problem:
The signal stays strong even
outside cell boarders.
Creates potential interference and
management problems.
• Solution:
 Handoff thresholds and coverage
parameters must be adjusted.
 Note: Handoff is not required to
rescue calls only. It is also required
for proper overall system
operation.

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Handoff Terms
• Intra-system: A handoff between BS’s
that are controlled by the same MSC.
• Inter-system: A handoff between BS’s
controlled by different MSCs.
• Analog cellular (1st generation)
• – threshold margin 6 to 12 dB
• – total time to complete handoff 8 to
10 sec

• Digital cellular (2nd generation)

• – total time to complete handoff 1 to
2 sec
• – lower necessary threshold margin
0 to 6 dB
• – enabled by mobile assisted handoff

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• LECTURE BREAK

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Dwell time

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Power Log Model
• Propagation measurements in a mobile radio
channel show that the average received signal
strength at any point decays as a power law of the
distance of separation between a transmitter and
receiver.

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Example

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Interference
• Interference is the major
limiting factor in the
performance of cellular
radio systems.
• Sources of interference:
 – Another mobile in the
same cell
 – A call in progress in a
neighboring cell
 – Other base stations
operating in the same
frequency band
 – Any noncellular system
which inadvertently leaks
energy into the cellular
frequency band.

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Effects of the interference
• Voice channel: causes cross talk
The subscriber hears interference in the background due to
an undesired transmission.
• Control channels: leads to missed and blocked calls
Due to errors in the digital signaling.
Interference is more severe in urban areas – Due to the
greater RF noise floor and the large number of base stations
and mobiles.
• Interference has been recognized as a major bottleneck
in increasing capacity and is often responsible for
dropped calls.

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Types of system-generated
cellular interference
• Co-channel interference: from users in other cells
operating at the same frequency.

• Adjacent-channel interference: from users within

cell.

• Even though interfering signals are often generated

within the cellular system, they are difficult to
control in practice due to the random propagation
effects.

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Co-channel Interference

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Co-channel reuse ratio

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Signal to interference Ratio,
S/I or SIR

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Signal to interference Ratio,
S/I or SIR

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Worst case…Mobile at Edge

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How Interference Looks

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Example
• Example 4. Consider interference in the U.S. AMPS cellular system
which uses FM and 30 kHz channels. The six closest cells are close
enough to create significant interference and they are all approximately
equal distance from the desired base station. With the minimum cluster
size (N=4 and 7) find that the acceptable voice quality is attained when
SIR is greater than or equal to 18 dB. Assume a path loss exponent n = 4.

• Solution:

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Adjacent Channel Interference

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Adjacent Channel Interference

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Minimization of ACI & Power
control

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ACI-Design Rule

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• LECTURE BREAK

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Trunking and Grade of Service (GoS)
• A large numbers of users to share small number of channels in a cell by providing
access to each user, on demand, from a pool of available channels.
• Each user is allocated a channel on a per call basis, and upon termination of the
call, the previously occupied channel is immediately returned back to the pool.
• Trunking exploits the statistics of call-request distribution
• If no channel avaible upon request, blockage of call happens.
• Trunking theory (developed by Erlang) is used to design trunked radio system of
specified capacity and specified user blocking probability or GoS.

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Grade of Service (GoS)

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Some Terminologies for Trunking
• Set-up time: Time required to allocate a trunked channel to
a requesting user.
• Blocked call (or Lost call): Call which cannot be completed
at time of request, due to congestion.
• Holding time (H): Average duration of a typical call.
• Traffic Intensity (A): Average channel occupancy (per unit
time), measured in Erlangs.
• Grade of service (GoS): Probability of a call being blocked
(for Erlang B models), or probability of a call being delayed
beyond a certain amount of time (for Erlang C models).
• Erlang: A channel kept busy for one hour.
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Traffic Quantities
• Arrival (or Request) rate (per sec.): Average number of call
requests per unit time (per user).
• Load: traffic intensity across the entire trunked radio
system, measured in Erlangs. .

Traffic intensity/channel

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Types of Trunked Systems
1. Blocked Calls Cleared.
2. Blocked Calls Delayed systems.

1. Can be written as Probability of blocked calls also

known as Erlang B.
2. Can be written as Probability of Queuing calls also
known as Erlang C.

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Erlang B (Pb of blocked calls)
• This is modeled as an M/M/m/m queue, and leads
to the derivation of the Erlang B formula (or
blocked calls cleared formula):

• M=arrival distribution, M=departure distribution, m=# of

servers, m=max. # of users at any time.

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Example 3.4
• A cellular system is designed for GoS of 0.5% blocking.
How many users can be supported by the system, if
blocked calls are cleared, for the following numbers of
channels: (a) 5, (b) 10, (c) 20, (d) 100. Assume that each
user generates 0.1 Erlangs of traffic.

• Solution:
• C = 5, U = 11 users
• C= 10, U = 39 users
• C= 20, U = 110 users
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Example

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 Example
Probability
GOS

U =A/Au
Channels Traffic intensity A
C = 5, U = 11 users
C= 10, U = 39 users
C= 20, U = 110
users

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Self Study
• Erlang C similar to Erlang B with queueing involved.

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Self Study-Erlang C

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Improving Coverage and
Capacity in Cellular Systems
• Three techniques:
1. Cell splitting
2. Sectoring
3. Microzones Coverage

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Cell Splitting

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Cell Splitting

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Sectoring
• Replace omni-directional antennas at base station
with several directional antennas
• » 3 sectors ®3 @ 120° antennas
• » 6 sectors ®6 @ 60° antennas
• • Cell channels broken down into sectored groups

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Sectoring

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Microcell Zone Concept
Antenna placement leads to hard-to-reach areas. Three cells are
operated by a single BS.

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Example
• A cellular system uses a frequency reuse factor N =
4 (i = 0, j = 2). If the path loss exponent n = 4 and
cell radius R = 5 km, find the following quantities in
decibels:
• (a) The SIR for the system with no cell sectoring
• (b) The SIR for the system when 120° cell sectoring
• (c) The SIR for the system when 60° cell sectoring is

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