Traffic and Control Channels in GSM

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  The full rate traffic channels carry information (that includes the error control coding) at the
bit rate of 22.8 kbit/s, and the half rate traffic channels carry information at the bit rate of
11.4 kbit/s.
 When the half-rate speech coder is used in a GSM network, one speech channel can be
carried as a half rate traffic channel, and the system capacity can be approximately doubled.

In order to transmit signaling in parallel to the user data, which occupies a traffic channel, GSM
offers two possibilities.
 A traffic channel (TCH) is always allocated together with a signaling channel known as
slow-rate associated control channel - SACCH. When the TCH is mapped to frames and
multiframes, within a multiframe of 26 TDMA frames, only 24 TDMA frames carry TCH
frames. The 13th TDMA frame of each multiframe is reserved for SACCH.

SACCH can be used only for non-urgent signaling, such as measurements of the received signal
quality in the uplink and settings for power level and timing advance in the downlink.
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  For the fast associated signaling needs, the capacity of TCH
can temporarily be stolen for signaling.
 Thus, the Fast Associated Control Channel (FACCH) means
just a special usage of a TCH.
 FACCH is especially used for urgent handover signaling.

The fast and slow associated control channels are defined

separately for the cases when the TCH is a full rate channel and
when it is a half rate channel, so we have
 FACCH/F and FACCH/H as well as
 SACCH/TF and SACCH/TH.
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There is actually one more traffic channel called the TCH/8.
 TCH/8 is a channel with exactly one eighth of the gross bit
capacity of TCH/F.
 The TCH/8s are never used alone, but they are always
grouped to a group of 8 TCH/8s, which has the gross bit
capacity of TCH/F and is called SDCCH/8,
 or to a group of 4 TCH/8s, which has the gross bit capacity
of TCH/H and is called SDCCH/4.

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 The SDCCHs are used mainly during call setup for
registration, location updating, authentication, call setup etc.
 The use of SDCCH improves the system efficiency, because
the call setup signaling for 8 calls can be administered within
the capacity of a single TCH/F.
 The SDCCH/8 and SDCCH/4 have their own slow associated
control channels, SACCH/C8 and SACCH/C4.

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There are three types of common control channels.
 The paging channel (PCH) contains paging commands from the
BTS to the MSs in case of an incoming call. Naturally this channel
is only used for downlink.
 The random access channel (RACH) on the other hand is only used
in the uplink, when MSs are requesting the allocation of a free
channel for communication.
 The corresponding downlink channel is the access grant channel
(AGCH), through which the BTS signals to a MS the allocation of
a channel that MSs had requested via the RACH.
Even though the PCH, RACH and AGCH are common resources for
communication with all MSs, they normally are used to carry signaling
that is specific to a single MS. 7
The broadcast channels BCCH, FCCH and SCH are used in downlink only for signaling that is
intended for all MSs.
They all share the timeslot 0 on one of the frequency channels of the cell.

 The BCCH carries general information, such as location area identity, the identity of the
operator, frequencies of neighboring cells and access parameters.
 The function of the synchronization channel SCH is to enable frame synchronization of
MSs and provide the identification of the BTS.
 The FCCH is a special channel having a long sequence of zero symbols.
It creates a sinusoidal carrier that is slightly above the center of the frequency channel by a
fixed frequency offset. This sinusoidal signal can be used for carrier synchronization at the
receiver.

In every cell one FCCH and one SCH must be broadcast and in addition, every cell must have
at least one BCCH, AGCH and RACH to support the access from the MSs.
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 The total available bandwidth of the GSM system is 2 x 25 MHz.
 Since the outermost carrier frequencies are located 200 kHz away
from the band edges, this bandwidth corresponds to 124 frequency
channels with 200 kHz carrier spacing.
 Each individual frequency channel is divided among 8 users using
TDMA scheme. Thus, the basic physical resource for transmission of
data in the GSM system is one of 8 timeslots of a TDMA frame. The
duration of a time slot is approximately 0.577 ms.
 Uplink and downlink bursts of a mobile are separated in time by three
timeslots, so that the mobile station does not have to transmit and
receive simultaneously, which simplifies the MS hardware.

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 The duration of a "26 multiframe", which consists of 26
TDMA frames, is exactly 120 ms.
 Thus, the exact duration of a time slot is 120 / (26 x 8) =
15/26 ms. The cycle of 120 ms is needed for transmission of
slow-rate signaling in SACCH in parallel to traffic channels.
The SACCH is mapped to the 13th TDMA frame of the "26
multiframe" instead of a traffic channel.
 Similarly, the duration of a "51 multiframe" is approximately
51 x 8 x 0.577 ms ≈ 235.385 ms, this cycle time is needed for
transmission of slow-rate signaling in SACCH/C8 or
SACCH/C4 in parallel to SDCCH/8 or SDCCH/4.
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The superframe consists of 51 x 26 = 1326 TDMA frames, which
corresponds to either 51 "26 multiframes" or 26 "51 multiframes".
Its duration is 6.12 seconds, which is the smallest cycle for which
the organization of all channels is repeated, irrespective of whether
"26 multiframes" or "51 multiframes" are used.
The hyperframe consists of 2048 x 51 x 26 = 2715648 TDMA
frames. Its duration is 12 533.76 seconds or about three and a half
hours, which is a cycle required for ciphering.

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 Time slot represents just the allocation of time interval for
transmission, the contents of time slots are called bursts.
 The most important burst is the normal burst that is designed
to accommodate one TCH/F.
 The gross bit rate of TCH/F is 22.8 kbit/s. Within the 120 ms
duration of a "26 multiframe" there are 24 TDMA frames
available for traffic channels. Thus, there are 24 / (120/20) =
4 time slots available for each individual user within 20 ms,
which is the basic speech coding frame. As a consequence
there are 20 ms x 22.8 kbit/s / 4 = 114 information bits to be
transmitted in each normal burst. 13
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However, the information carrying capacity of the normal burst is
116 bits instead of 114 bits. The two extra bits (the bits closest to
the training sequence) are the stealing flags. These bits indicate to
the receiver, whether the received burst contains TCH or FACCH
signaling.
The 26-bit training sequence in a normal burst is used for frame
synchronization and equalizer training in the receiver, as described
earlier.

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The training sequence is located in the middle of the burst in order
to minimize the maximum distance between the training sequence
and data bits, i.e. in order to minimize the possible error in the
channel estimate computed from the training sequence, when
compared to the true state of the channel during data transmission.
The slight disadvantage of this middle location is that the first half
of the burst must be stored in memory before it can be equalized,
but this is not a major problem in practical implementation.

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Instead of using a single fixed training sequence, 8 different
training sequences are used in normal bursts. When different
training sequences are allocated for geographically adjacent users
of the same frequency channel, the effect of cochannel interference
in symbol synchronization and equalizer training can be minimized.
This naturally requires that the training sequences are chosen to
have very low cross-correlation between each other.

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The synchronization burst is used only in the downlink to carry
SCH logical channel. It has exactly the same length as the normal
burst, but its contents are different. Since the synchronization burst
is normally the first bursts that a MS demodulates, longer training
sequence of 64 bits is required to facilitate the initial symbol
synchronization and initial equalizer training. This training
sequence is unique for necessity, since a MS could have no way of
knowing which training sequence is used in the synchronization
burst before receiving it.

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The frequency correction burst is used only in the downlink to
carry FCCH logical channel. As explained earlier, the data part of
this burst is just a long sequence of zero symbols, which creates
after modulation a sinusoidal carrier, which can be used for carrier
synchronization at the receiver.
The access burst is used only in the uplink to carry RACH logical
channel. An extended training sequence of 41 bits is required in
access burst, since the situation is a lot more difficult to the
receiver than the receiving of normal burst. The access burst is the
first transmission of a MS in a cell, and the receiver of the BTS can
not know beforehand the expected level of received signal,
frequency error or exact timing within a time slot. 20
The MSs of GSM system are allowed to operate in a cell, when
their distance from the BTS is below 35 km. The maximum time
required for the radio wave to travel from BTS to MS and then
back from MS to BTS is thus 233.33 μ s . S i n c e t h e M S s l o c k t h e i r

t i m i n g t o t h e t i m i n g o f t h e r e c e i v e d f r a m e s f r o m B T S , t h i s t i m e i s

e x a c t l y t h e d u r a t i o n o f t h e w o r s t c a s e o v e r l a p b e t w e e n

t r a n s m i s s i o n s i n s u c c e s s i v e u p l i n k T D M A t i m e s l o t s . T o p r e v e n t

o v e r l a p b e t w e e n a c c e s s b u r s t s a g u a r d t i m e g r e a t e r t h a n 2 3 4 μ s i s

r e q u i r e d . T h e g u a r d t i m e t h a t i s c h o s e n i n G S M s t a n d a r d i z a t i o n i s

2 5 2 μ s = 6 8 . 2 5 s y m b o l d u r a t i o n s .

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A guard time greater than 234 μ s t a k e s o v e r 4 0 % o f t h e w h o l e 5 7 7

μ s g u a r d t i m e d u r a t i o n o f a t i m e s l o t , w h i c h w o u l d b e t o t a l l y

u n a c c e p t a b l e i n n o r m a l o p e r a t i o n . T h e c o n s i d e r a b l y s h o r t e r g u a r d

period of other bursts is possible since timing advance can be used

in uplink transmission of other bursts. By using the 41-bit training
sequence of the access burst the BTS can measure the delay of the
received signal relative to a MS at zero distance. This delay is
transmitted to the MS, which advances the starting time of all
subsequent transmissions by this amount of time with respect to
the timing of the received frames from BTS. Thus, when the uplink
signal reaches the BTS it is nicely fitted within the correct time slot
even with the reduced guard time of only 30.5 μ s ( 8 . 2 5 b i t s ) .

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Speech Channel
The speech coding algorithm for TCH/FS channel of GSM is the
Regular Pulse Excitation with Long Term Prediction linear
predictive coder (RPELTP). It is a hybrid coder based on linear
predictive coding with separate pitch filter (LTP) and improved
coding for the excitation signal (RPE).
The bit rate of the codec is 260 bit / 20 ms = 13 kbit/s, where 20
ms is the duration of the basic analysis frame of the coder. RPE-
LTP algorithm can produce near toll quality speech for moderate
levels of bit error rates.
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The transmitted parameters for every 20 ms speech frame are:

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The bits within 260-bit block are divided into three classes according to
significance to the subjective quality of the output speech. There are 50 bits
in the most important class Ia, 132 bits in the class Ib and 78 bits in the least
important class II. For class Ia bits error detection by using a (53, 50) block
code is used (i.e. 3-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) for error detection
are added). After that the resulting 53 class Ia bits are combined with 132
class Ib bits and 4 tail bits (for Viterbi decoder of the convolutional code)
for rate 1/2 convolutional encoding. Thus, the output of the convolutional
encoder contains 2 x (50 + 3 + 132 + 4) = 378 bits. The class II bits are
transmitted as they are without any error protection, and the total length of
the output block from channel coding is 378 + 78 = 456 bits, which
corresponds to bit rate 456 bit / 20 ms = 22.8 kbit/s.

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The block of 456 bits is divided into eight 57-bit subblocks for
interleaving. After interleaving we have four 114-bit blocks, each
of which can be assembled to the data part of a single normal burst
together with two stealing flag bits. However, before burst
assembling, each 114-bit block is encrypted to provide
confidentiality to user data.
The following figure shows the block diagram of the transmission
of TCH/FS logical channel.

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After RF processing the first operation in the receiver is the
equalization of the received signal. After this the receiver executes
exactly the inverse operations to the receiver: burst disassembly,
decryption, deinterleaving, convolutional decoding, error detection
and speech decoding.
The convolutional code is used to correct as many bit errors for
class I bits as possible. If the 3 CRC bits still indicate errors within
the class Ia bits after convolutional decoding, the speech frame is
replaced by the previous valid speech frame, which is attenuated
for the output. In the case of multiple successive erroneous speech
frames, the output is gradually attenuated more and more to avoid
annoying sounds at the output. 27
It should be noted that in extreme conditions, when BER ≈ 50%,
the probability that bit errors change the CRC to indicate valid
frame, even though the frame contains bit errors, is 0.53 = 12.5%.
Thus, if a call is continued outside the acceptable coverage area
without handover, the output of the speech decoder will contain
relatively large amount of disturbance due to undetected erroneous
speech frames. The block diagram of the transmission of TCH/FS
logical channel includes two special blocks: the Voice Activity
Detection (VAD) and the comfort noise generation.

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The purpose of these blocks is to improve the GSM system
efficiency by decreasing interference level through discontinuous
transmission of speech. When the speaker is not active, the VAD
informs the burst assembly and the RF transmitter, and the normal
transmission is replaced by pause in transmission broken
periodically (every 480 ms) by the transmission of special bursts
that inform the receiver about voice inactivity condition. In order
to not produce annoying disturbances to a human listener when
transfer of speech is switched on and off, the receiver must replace
the speech output by "comfort noise" during speech inactivity
periods.
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When we take into account the fact that a burst may also have
stolen for FACCH signaling, which is indicated by the stealing
flags, the complete rules for the speech decoding are as follows if
((stealing flags indicate FACCH signaling) or (CRC indicates
errors within class Ia bits)) substitute attenuated previous valid
speech frame for output else if (pause in discontinuous
transmission) generate comfort noise for output else decode the
current speech frame for output end.

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In internetworking to other networks, the MSC is connected to
PSTN by using standard PCM techniques. Thus, in the network
side the input/output speech is not an analog signal but a digital
PCM signal. Correspondingly the encoding/decoding process is
actually a transcoding from or to digital 64 kbit/s PCM. In most
network implementations the transcoding takes place in the BTS,
but the GSM standards also allow the transcoding to take place in
the BSC or in the MSC.
Now, we can consider how the capacity of TCH/FS channel is
actually used. The modulation bit rate of GSM is 270.833 kbit/s
per 8-TDMA channel. Thus, the effective bit rate per user is
approximately 33.85 kbit/s, which consists of the following
components 31
Thus, the bit rate of the speech codec 13 kbit/s is less than 40 % of
the total required bit rate of 33.85 kbit/s.

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Half-Rate and Enhanced Full-Rate Speech Codecs

As mentioned earlier while discussing speech coding in general, a

speech codec for mobile communications should simultaneously
meet the objectives of high speech quality and low bit rate, even
though these objectives are inconsistent. To solve this dilemma,
GSM speech coding has evolved separately into two different
directions: half-rate coding for enhanced capacity and enhanced
full-rate coding for improved speech quality.

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Half-Rate Speech Codec

The half-rate speech coding algorithm GSM is the Vector Sum

Excited Linear Prediction (VSELP) coder. It is a hybrid coder
based on code-excited linear prediction (CELP) coding, where four
different excitation modes with separated codebooks are used for
modeling the excitation signal. The halfrate codec can provide
speech quality that is near the quality of the full-rate RPE-LTP
codec. The transmitted parameters for every 20 ms VSELP speech
frame are:
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Hence, the bit rate at the output of the codec is 112 bit / 20 ms = 5.6
kbit/s. These 112 bits are divided into 95 more perceptually important
class I bits and 17 less important class II bits. A 3-bit CRC is computed
for the 22 most sensitive class I bits. After that the 3 CRC bits, the 95
class I bits and 6 tail bits are encoded with a rate 1/3 convolutional code.
Thus, the output of the convolutional encoder contains 3 x (95 + 3 + 6) =
312 bits. However, 101 coded bits corresponding to the class I bits and
tail bits are punctured, so that only 211 bits remain. The class II bits are
transmitted without any error protection, and the total length of the
output block from channel coding is 211 + 17 = 228 bits, which
corresponds to bit rate 228 bit / 20 ms = 11.4 kbit/s, which is exactly the
capacity of the half-rate traffic channel TCH/HS.
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Enhanced Full-Rate Speech Codec
The enhanced full-rate (EFR) speech coding algorithm GSM is the
Algebraic Code-Excited Linear Prediction (ACELP) coder, which
is also a hybrid coder based on CELP coding. The excitation
vectors in the ACELP codebook are algebraic codes, which has
several advantages: no storage is required (since excitation vectors
can be computed during the codebook search), excitation vectors
are robust against transmission error, and – most importantly – the
codebook can be searched very efficiently. The 20 ms speech
frame is divided into four 5 ms subframes, and an optimum
excitation vector is searched from the codebook separately for each
subframe. The enhanced full-rate codec can provide speech quality
that indistinguishable from 64 kbit/s PCM quality. The transmitted
parameters for every 20 ms ACELP speech frame are: 37
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Hence, the bit rate at the output of the codec is 244 bit / 20 ms =
12.2 kbit/s, which is different from the 13 kbit/s rate of the
standard RPE-LTP full-rate speech codec. A modified
convolutional coding is used with EFR to accommodate it into the
22.8 kbit/s TCH/FS channel: an 8-bit CRC and rate ½
convolutional coding are used to protect the 65 most sensitive bits;
117 moderately important bits are protected by convolutional
coding only; and the remaining bits are transmitted without any
error protection. The EFR speech codec has been designed
specifically for improved speech quality, but an additional
advantage of the improved coding algorithm is that it also has
higher tolerance to interference that the RPE-LTP codec. This
improved interference tolerance allows higher network loading
without degrading the overall speech quality. 39