Overview Of Wireless Telephony

Wireless telephony is the technology that operates by transmission of information through space;
there is no physical or fixed connection in between sender and receiver devices. By using the
wireless telephony peoples can be transceivers the information from airplanes, driving cares,
swimming pools and while jogging in the park.
Wireless telephony come in two basic varieties:
1. Cordless phones (sometimes called portable telephone)
These are devices consisting of a base station and a handset sold as a set for use within the
home.These are never used for networking, because of its limited range; usually it’s expected range
up to the same building or some short distance from the base station. The base station attaches to
the telephone network the same way a corded telephone does.

2. Mobile phones (sometimes called cell phones).

It is one another generations of wireless telephony that can highly feasible to make and receive
calls over a radio frequency carrier while the mobile user is moving within a telephone service
area. The radio frequency is responsible to establish a connection to the switching systems of a
mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Most modern mobile telephone services use cellular network architecture, and therefore mobile
telephones are often also called cellular telephones or cell phones.

Features of wireless telephony:

As high acceptability of wireless telephony across world the wireless telephony require a different
set of features are as follows:

1. High Capacity Load Balancing:The origin of wireless telephony to cover the smartphones,
tablets, e-readers devices, etc. With the increased demand on the wireless telephony
infrastructure, it must require incorporate high capacity load balancing. The actual mean of
load balancing is that when one access point is overloaded or number of users reaches up to the
limit, the wireless telephony allows the system to actively shift wireless device users from one
access point to another depending on the capacity that is available.

2. Scalability: The growth rate in popularity of new wireless gadgets has will only continue to
grow. A wireless telephony needs to have the ability to start small if necessary, but expand in
terms of coverage and capacity as needed without having to overhaul or build an entirely new
Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur
 network.

3. Mobility:Wireless telephony is more popular for their mobility features that assigning and
controlling the wireless links for network connections. It provides the alerting function for
wireless telephony devices for data completion to a wireless terminal.

4. Centralized Management:In current high technology world wireless telephony are much more
complex and it may consist of hundreds or even thousands of access points. Therefore, wireless
telephony will require a smarter way of managing all the access points within specified
network that network is named as centralized management. Updates and configuration changes
should be made once and the system updates all access points across over wireless telephony
network.

5. Real Time Wireless Visibility:For all wireless telephony devices, administrator need to have
the ability to see the wireless telephony network users in real time, what type of device uses are
using, what type of coverage shows in that area, and the status of the different networking
components that may affect the use of that device et. The wireless telephony administrator
needs to be able to see what’s going on in order to address any issues.

6. Quality of Service/Application Prioritization:Quality of service simply means that wireless

telephony system should be able to determine what uses are most important to their network.

Applications of wireless telephony:

As the hugged amount of valuable features wireless telephony highly acceptable by industry and
common people in their daily life. Various real time application of wireless telephony are as
follow:
1. To provide wireless data communications:Wireless data communications are an essential
component of mobile computing. To achieve fast and secure data transmission with high speed
wireless telephony is highly advance technology. The various available technologies differ in
local availability, coverage range and performance, and in some circumstances, users must be
able to employ multiple connection types and switch between them.

2. To transfer wireless energy:Wireless telephony is applicable to wirelessly energy transfer

process, in this technology electrical energy is transmitted from a power source to an electrical
Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur
 load that does not have a built-in power source, without the use of interconnecting wires. There
are two different fundamental methods for wireless energy transfer are as follow:

 Far-field methods that involve beaming power/lasers.

 Near-field using induction that involves radio or microwaves transmissions.

Both methods utilize electromagnetism and magnetic fields.

3. To support wireless medical technologies:Latest wireless technologies of wireless telephony,

such as mobile body area networks (MBAN), have the capability to monitor blood pressure,
heart rate, oxygen level and body temperature. The MBAN works by sending low powered
wireless signals to receivers that feed into nursing stations or monitoring sites.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 GSM Channel Structure

Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) is the most popular technology for mobile . GSM a
standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Firstly it name
was the group special mobile (GSM) and later named as global system for mobile communications
(GSM). It is a digital mobile telephony system that is widely used.

The following are the channel requirements -

1. Traffic Channels
2. Signalling Channels

Traffic Channel
The GSM channel structure includes following types of physical channel, called traffic channels
(TCH):
• TCH/F Full rate traffic channel (13 kbps speech channel)
• TCH/H Half rate traffic channel (7 kbps speech channel)

Signalling Channels

It consists of 3 types of channels

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 Dedicated Signalling Channels

1. SACCH (slow associated control channel) - This channel is used for call-associated signalling,
particularly measurement data needed for handover decisions . A TCH is always allocated with an
associated SACCH – The TCH plus SACCH combination is designated TACH
2. FACCH (fast associated control channel). – This indicates call establishment progress, authenticates
subscribers, and commands handovers, etc a nd makes use of a TCH , a "stealing flag" on the TCH
indicates whether it is being used for signalling, or for call transmission
3. SDCCH (stand alone dedicated control channel). This uses a TCH/8 channel, and is used solely for the
purpose of passing signalling information (e.g. location updating)

Broadcast Signalling Channels

FCCH (frequency correction channel) is used to identify a beacon frequency SCH (synchronisation
channel) follows each FCCH to obtain synchronization.

BCCH (broadcast control channel) is broadcast regularly and received by each mobile station while it
is in the idle mode. It gives information about the cell, such as which network the cell belongs to.

Common Signalling Channels

PAGCH(paging and access grant channel) is used to page a called mobile, and to allocate a channel
during call set-up. There may be a full rate PAGCH/F or a one-third rate PAGCH/T
RACH (random-access channel). The MS uses this channel to access the network. These may be
provided as a full rate RACH/F or a half rate RACH/H.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 HLR & VLR

The home location register (HLR) is a central database that contains details of each mobile phone
subscriber that is authorized to use the GSM core network. There can be several logical, and physical,
HLRs per public land mobile network (PLMN), though one international mobile subscriber
identity (IMSI)/MSISDN pair can be associated with only one logical HLR (which can span several
physical nodes) at a time.

The HLRs store details of every SIM card issued by the mobile phone operator. Each SIM has a
unique identifier called an IMSI which is the primary key to each HLR record.

Another important item of data associated with the SIM are the MSISDNs, which are the telephone
numbers used by mobile phones to make and receive calls. The primary MSISDN is the number used
for making and receiving voice calls and SMS, but it is possible for a SIM to have other secondary
MSISDNs associated with it for fax and data calls. Each MSISDN is also a primary key to the HLR
record. The HLR data is stored for as long as a subscriber remains with the mobile phone operator.

Examples of other data stored in the HLR against an IMSI record is:

 GSM services that the subscriber has requested or been given.

 GPRS settings to allow the subscriber to access packet services.
 Current location of subscriber (VLR and serving GPRS support node/SGSN).
 Call divert settings applicable for each associated MSISDN.

The HLR is a system which directly receives and processes MAP transactions and messages from
elements in the GSM network, for example, the location update messages received as mobile phones
roam around.

VLR:-

The Visitor Location Register (VLR) is a database of the subscribers who have roamed into the
jurisdiction of the MSC (Mobile Switching Center) which it serves. Each main base station in the
network is served by exactly one VLR (one BTS may be served by many MSCs in case of MSC in
pool), hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

The data stored in the VLR has either been received from the HLR, or collected from the MS (Mobile
station). In practice, for performance reasons, most vendors integrate the VLR directly to the V-MSC

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 and, where this is not done, the VLR is very tightly linked with the MSC via a proprietary interface.
Whenever an MSC detects a new MS in its network, in addition to creating a new record in the VLR,
it also updates the HLR of the mobile subscriber, apprising it of the new location of that MS. If VLR
data is corrupted it can lead to serious issues with text messaging and call services.

Data stored include:

 IMSI (the subscriber's identity number).

 Authentication data.
 MSISDN (the subscriber's phone number).
 GSM services that the subscriber is allowed to access.
 Access point (GPRS) subscribed.
 The HLR address of the subscriber.
 SCP Address (For Prepaid Subscriber).

Essential parameters in the HLR are:

1. Phone number
2. Current network location
3. Supplementary Services
4. Number status (registered or deregistered)
5. Authentication key and AUC Functionality
6. Mobile subscriber roaming number

Essential parameters in the VLR are:

1. Location Area Identity (LAI)

2. Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity (TMSI)
3. Mobile Station Roaming Number (MSRN)
4. Mobile status

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 A visitor location register may also perform the following functions:

 Monitor the subscriber’s location within the VLR’s jurisdiction

 Determine whether a subscriber may access a particular service
 Allocate roaming numbers during incoming calls
 Delete the records of inactive subscribers
 Accept information passed to it by the HLR

Home Location Register (HLR)

Because cell phones, and their respective SIMs, are mostly mobile, the HLR serves as the main source
of recent location information. The HLR is updated each time the SIM transfers into another location
area. The HLR also plays a significant role in short message service (SMS) message sending. Before
the SMS company forwards the message to the intended recipient, it scans through the HLR to find
which mobile switching center (MSC) the recipient has recently used.

HLR & VLR

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 Handoff in Wireless Mobile Networks

Introduction

What is Handoff?

Handoff is a process of changing the channel (time slot, spreading code, frequency or combination of
them) which are associated with the current connection while a call is in progress. The handoff process
is initiated by issuing of the handoff request. When the power received by the MS from BS of
neighboring cell exceeds the power received from the BS of the current cell by a certain amount, this
is known as the handoff threshold and this is a fixed value. For successful handoff, handoff request
must be grabbed by a channel before the power received by the MS reaches the receiver’s threshold.
The area where the ratio of received power levels from the current and the target BS’s is between. The
handoff and the receiver threshold , is called handoff area.

Each handoff requires network resources to reroute the call to the new base station. Switching load can
be minimized by minimizing the expected number of handoffs. Another concern is delay; the Quality
of Service (QoS) may degrade below an acceptable level, if the handoff does not occur quickly.
Minimizing the delay also minimizes the co-channel interference. During handoff, there is brief
service interruption. The perceived QoS is reduced as the frequency of these interruptions increases.
The chance of dropping a call due to factors such as the not availability of channels, increases with the
number of handoff attempts. Handoff algorithms need to be enhanced, as the rate of handoff increases,
so that the perceived QoS does not degrade and the cost to cellular infrastructure does not increase.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

Why is Handoff required?

Handover of a call may be required in following situations:

a) When the received signal Strength is faded due to deep shadow (hole), then handover can be used to
stop the drop-out of the call, if the received signal strength of the neighbouring cell is good.

b) The call has to be permanently handed over, when the mobile reaches a cell boundary.

c) In the systems which are based on channel rearrangement, when it is necessary to use a forced
handover of an existing call to accommodate a new call or a handed over call.

Handoff Decisions

There are numerous methods for performing handoff, at least as many as the types of state information
that have been defined for MSs, as well as the types of network entities which maintain the state
information. The decision- making process of handoff may be centralized or decentralized (i.e., the
handoff decision may be made at the MS or network).

From the decision process point of view, there are three types of handoff decisions:

1) Network controlled handoff (MCHO)

2) Mobile assisted handoff (NCHO)

3) Network controlled handoff (MAHO)

Network-Controlled Handoff: In a network-controlled handoff protocol, handoff decisions are based

on the measurements of the MSs at a number of BSs and these decisions are made by the network.
Information about the signal quality for all users is available at a single point in the network that
facilitates appropriate resource allocation. In a network-controlled handover, connection rerouting is
performed by the network and network collects statistics related to signal strength, traffic load, and
other information to decide when to initiate a handover and which new BS is the target BS Network-
controlled handoff is used in first-generation analog systems such as AMPS (advanced mobile phone
system), TACS (total access communication system), and NMT.

Mobile-Assisted Handoff : In a mobile-assisted handoff process, the network makes decisions and the
MS makes measurements. In the circuit- switched GSM (global system mobile), the BS controller
(BSC) is in charge of the radio interface management. This means allocation and release of radio

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 channels and handoff management. The handoff time between handoff decision and execution in such
a circuit-switched GSM is approximately 1 second. In a mobile-assisted handover, the MH monitors
the signal strength and the presence of neighbouring BSs and conveys this information to the network
controller. The network controller then uses this information to make handover decisions.

Mobile controlled handover: In mobile-controlled handoff, each MS is completely in control of the

handoff process and the MH is responsible for initiating a handover. This type of handoff has a short
reaction time (on the order of 0.1 second). MS measures the signal Strength from surrounding BSs and
interference levels on all channels. If the signal strength of the serving BS is lower than that of another
BS by a certain threshold, then handoff can be initiated. It does this by evaluating the signal strength
and traffic load conditions and detecting the presence of neighbouring BSs. When a MH decides to
initiate a handover, it sends an explicit message to a mobility management node residing in the
network.

TYPES OF HANDOFF: Handoffs are broadly classified into two categories- hard and soft handoffs.
They are also characterized by “make before break” and “break before make”. In the soft handoff,
during the handoff process, both existing and new resources are used but in hard handoff, current
resources are released before new sources are used.

1) HARD HANDOFF:- A hard handoff is essentially a “break before make” connection.

 In hard handoff, the link to the prior base station is terminated before or as the user is transferred to the
new cell’s base station, this means that the mobile station is linked to no more than one base station at
a given time.
 Under the control of the MSC, the BS hands off the MS’s call to another cell and then drop the call.
Hard handovers are intended to be instantaneous in order to minimize the disruption to the call.
Initiation of the handoff may begin when the signal strength at the mobile received from base station 2
is greater than that of base station 1.
 The signal strength measures are really signal levels averaged over a chosen amount of time. This
averaging is necessary because of the Rayleigh fading nature of the environment in which the cellular
network resides.
 A major problem with this approach to handoff decision is that the received signals of both base
stations often fluctuate. When the mobile is between the base stations, the effect is to cause the mobile

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 to wildly switch links with either base station. The base stations bounce the link with the mobile back
and forth. Hence the phenomenon is called ping- ponging. Besides ping ponging this simple approach
allows too many handoffs

Types of Hard Handover: There are two types of hard handover;

 Inter-cell Handover: The most basic form of handover is when a phone is redirected from its current
cell (source) to a new cell, while call in progress. In terrestrial networks, the source and the target cells
may be served from two different cell sites or from one and the same cell site. This type of handover,
in which the source and the target are different cells (even if they are on the same cell site), is called
inter-cell handover. So the purpose of inter-cell handover is to maintain the call as the subscriber is
moving out of the area covered by the source cell and entering the area of the target cell.

 Intra-cell Handover: In this handover, the source and the target are one and the cell is same and only
the used channel is changed during the handover. So in this handover, in which the cell is not changed,
is called intra-cell handover and the purpose of intra-cell handover is to change one channel, which
may be faded or interfered with a new clearer or less fading channel.

Advantages of Hard Handover:

i) An advantage of the hard handover is that at any moment in time one call uses only one
channel. The hard handover is usually not perceptible by the user and the event is indeed
very short.
ii) Another advantage of the hard handover is that it is cheaper and simpler because the
phone's hardware does not need to be capable of receiving two or more channels in parallel.

Disadvantage of Hard Handover: A disadvantage of hard handover is that if a handover fails the call
may be temporarily disrupted or even terminated abnormally.

2) SOFT HANDOFF:

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 Soft handoff (or handover) is a mobile cellular network technology commonly used in CDMA (Code-
division multiple access) systems that enables the overlapping of the repeater coverage zones, so that
every mobile station is always well within range of at least one of the base stations.
 A Soft handoff mechanism works by first switching and establishing connection with another base
station before disconnecting from the existing base station in the network, so it is also sometimes
referred to as “Make-before- Break” Handoff.
 The soft handoff technology has many advantages like since there is no change in frequency or timing
as a mobile set passes from one base station to another base station, so there are practically no dead
zones therefore the connections face negligible interruption and the dead zones are practically non
existent.
 If compared to hard handover, Soft handover offers more reliable access continuity in network
connection and less chances of a call termination during switching of base stations. This is due to it
inherent attribute to handle simultaneous frequency channels which rarely suffer from fading or
interference at the same time and together

Advantages of Soft Handover:

i) In soft handovers the connection to the source cell is broken only when a reliable
connection to the target cell has been established and therefore there are lower chances that
the call will be terminated abnormally due to failed handovers.
ii) Other advantage is that simultaneously channels in multiple cells are maintained and the
call could only fail if all of the channels are interfered or fade at the same time.

Disadvantage of Soft Handover: The main disadvantage of soft handovers is that it uses
several channels in the network to support just a single call. So the number of remaining
free channels is reduced and thus the capacity of the network also reduces.

Channel Allocation In Cellular System

One main issue in cellular system design reduces to one of economics. Essentially we have a limited
resource transmission spectrum, that must be shared by several users. Unlike wired communications
which benefits from isolation provided by cables, wireless users within close proximity of one another

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 can cause significant interference to one another. To address this issue, the concept of cellular
communications was introduced around in 1968 by researchers at AT&T Bell Labs. The basic concept
being that a given geography is divided into polygons called cells.

Each cell is allocated a portion of the total frequency spectrum. As users move into a given cell, they
are then permitted to utilize the channel allocated to that cell. The virtue of the cellular system is that
different cells can use the same channel given that the cells are separated by a minimum distance
according to the system propagation characteristics; otherwise, intercellular or co channel interference
occurs. The minimum distance necessary to reduce co channel interference is called the reuse distance.
The reuse distance is defined as the ratio of the distance, D, between cells that can use the same
channel without causing interference and the cell radius, R. Note that R is the distance from the center
of a cell to the outermost point of the cell in cases when the cells are not circular.

Channel allocation deals with the allocation of channels to cells in a cellular network. Once the
channels are allocated, cells may then allow users within the cell to communicate via the available
channels. Channels in a wireless communication system typically consist of time slots, frequency
bands and/or CDMA pseudo noise sequences, but in an abstract sense, they can represent any generic
transmission resource. There are three major categories for assigning these channels to cells (or base-
stations).

A given radio spectrum is to be divided into a set of disjointed channels that can be used
simultaneously while minimizing interference in adjacent channel by allocating channels appropriately
(especially for traffic channels).

In radio resource management for wireless and cellular networks, channel allocation schemes allocate
bandwidth and communication channels to base stations, access points and terminal equipment. The
objective is to achieve maximum system spectral efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site by means of frequency
reuse, but still assure a certain grade of service by avoiding co-channel interference and adjacent
channel interference among nearby cells or networks that share the bandwidth.

 Channel allocation schemes can be divided in general into

 Fixed Channel Allocation schemes (FCA schemes)
 Dynamic Channel Allocation schemes (DCA schemes)

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 DCA, dynamic channel allocation

DFS, dynamic frequency selection

Spread spectrum

 Hybrid Channel Allocation schemes (HCA schemes: combining both FCA and DCA techniques)

Fixed Channel Allocation (FCA)

Fixed Channel Allocation (FCA) systems allocate specific channels to specific cells. This allocation is
static and can not be changed. For efficient operation, FCA systems typically allocate channels in a
manner that maximizes frequency reuse. Thus, in a FCA system, the distance between cells using the
same channel is the minimum reuse distance for that system. The problem with FCA systems is quite
simple and occurs whenever the offered traffic to a network of base stations is not uniform. Consider a
case in which two adjacent cells are allocated N channels each. There clearly can be situations in
which one cell has a need for N+k channels while the adjacent cell only requires N-m channels (for
positive integers k and m). In such a case, k users in the first cell would be blocked from making calls
while m channels in the second cell would go unused. Clearly in this situation of non-uniform spatial
offered traffic, the available channels are not being used efficiently. FCA has been implemented on a
widespread level to date.

 In FCA schemes, a set of channels is permanently allocated to each cell in the network.

 If the total number of available channels in the system S is divided into sets, the minimum number of
channel sets N required to serve the entire coverage area is related to the frequency reuse distance D as
follows:

N = D2 / 3R2

 Due to short term fluctuations in the traffic, FCA schemes are often not able to maintain high quality
of service and capacity attainable with static traffic demands. One approach to address this problem is
to borrow free channels from neighboring cells.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 Dynamic Channel Allocation

Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA) attempts to alleviate the problem mentioned for FCA systems
when offered traffic is non-uniform. In DCA systems, no set relationship exists between channels and
cells. Instead, channels are part of a pool of resources. Whenever a channel is needed by a cell, the
channel is allocated under the constraint that frequency reuse requirements can not be violated. There
are two problems that typically occur with DCA based systems.

 First, DCA methods typically have a degree of randomness associated with them and this leads to the
fact that frequency reuse is often not maximized unlike the case for FCA systems in which cells using
the same channel are separated by the minimum reuse distance.
 Secondly, DCA methods often involve complex algorithms for deciding which available channel is
most efficient. These algorithms can be very computationally intensive and may require large
computing resources in order to be real-time.

A more efficient way of channel allocation would be Dynamic Channel Allocation or Dynamic
Channel Assignment (DCA) in which voice channel are not allocated to cell permanently, instead for
every call request base station request channel from MSC. The channel is allocated following an
algorithm which accounts the following criteria:

 Future blocking probability in neighboring cells and Reuse distance

 Usage frequency of the candidate channel
 Average blocking probability of the overall system
 Instantaneous channel occupancy distribution

It requires the MSC to collect real time data on channel occupancy, traffic distribution and Received
Signal Strength Indications (RSSI). DCA schemes are suggested for TDMA/FDMA based cellular
systems such as GSM, but are currently not used in any products.[citation needed] OFDMA systems, such
as the downlink of 4G cellular systems, can be considered as carrying out DCA for each individual
sub-carrier as well as each timeslot.

DCA can be further classified into centralized and distributed. Some of the centralized DCA schemes
are:

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 First available (FA): the first available channel satisfying reuse distance requirement is assigned to the
call
 Locally optimized dynamic assignment (LODA): cost function is based on the future blocking
probability in the neighboring cells
 Selection with maximum usage on the reuse ring (RING): a candidate channel is selected which is in
use in the most cells in the co-channel set

DCA and DFS eliminate the tedious manual frequency planning work. DCA also handles bursty cell
traffic and utilizes the cellular radio resources more efficiently. DCA allows the number of channels in
a cell to vary with the traffic load, hence increasing channel capacity with little costs.

Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) may be applied in wireless networks with several adjacent non-
centrally controlled access points. The access points automatically select frequency channels with low
interference levels. DFS is supported by the IEEE 802.11h wireless local area network standard. DFS
is also mandated in the 5470-5725 MHz U-NII band for radar avoidance.[2]

Spread spectrum can be considered as an alternative to complex DCA algorithms. Spread spectrum
avoids co channel interference between adjacent cells, since the probability that users in nearby cells
use the same spreading code is insignificant. Thus the frequency channel allocation problem is relaxed
in cellular networks based on a combination of spread spectrum and FDMA, for example IS95 and 3G
systems. Spread spectrum also facilitate that centrally controlled base stations dynamically borrow
resources from each other depending on the traffic load, simply by increasing the maximum allowed
number of simultaneous users in one cell (the maximum allowed interference level from the users in
the cell), and decreasing it in an adjacent cell. Users in the overlap between the base station coverage
area can be transferred between the cells (called cell-breathing), or the traffic can be regulated by
admission control and traffic-shaping.

However, spread spectrum gives lower spectral efficiency than non-spread spectrum techniques, if the
channel allocation in the latter case is optimized by a good DCA scheme. Especially OFDM
modulation is an interesting alternative to spread spectrum because of its ability to combat multipath
propagation for wideband channels without complex equalization. OFDM can be extended with
OFDMA for uplink multiple access among users in the same cell. For avoidance of inter-cell

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 interference, FDMA with DCA or DFS is once again of interest. One example of this concept is the
above mentioned IEEE 802.11h standard. OFDM and OFDMA with DCA is often studied as an
alternative for 4G wireless systems.

Hybrid Channel Allocation Schemes

The third category of channel allocation methods includes all systems that are hybrids of fixed and
dynamic channel allocation systems. Several methods have been presented that fall within this
category and in addition, a great deal of comparison has been made with corresponding simulations
and analyses [Cox, Elnoubi, Jiang, Katzela, Yue, Zhang]. We will present several of the more
developed hybrid methods below.

Channel Borrowing is one of the most straightforward hybrid allocation schemes. Here, channels are
assigned to cells just as in fixed allocation schemes. If a cell needs a channel in excess of the channels
previously assigned to it, that cell may borrow a channel from one of its neighboring cells given that a
channel is available and use of this channel won't violate frequency reuse requirements. Note that
since every channel has a predetermined relationship with a specific cell, channel borrowing (without
the extensions mentioned below) is often categorized as a subclass of fixed allocation schemes. The
major problem with channel borrowing is that when a cell borrows a channel from a neighboring cell,
other nearby cells are prohibited from using the borrowed channel because of co-channel interference.
This can lead to increased call blocking over time. To reduce this call blocking penalty, algorithms are
necessary to ensure that the channels are borrowed from the most available neighboring cells; i.e., the
neighboring cells with the most unassigned channels.

Two extensions of the channel borrowing approach are Borrowing with Channel Ordering (BCO) and
Borrowing with Directional Channel Locking (BDCL).

 Borrowing with Channel Locking was designed as an improvement over the simpler Channel
Borrowing approach as described above [Elnoubi]. BCO systems have two distinctive characteristics
[Elnoubi]:
1. The ratio of fixed to dynamic channels varies with traffic load.
2. Nominal channels are ordered such that the first nominal channel of a cell has the highest priority of
being applied to a call within the cell.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 The last nominal channel is most likely to be borrowed by neighboring channels. Once a channel is
borrowed, that channel is locked in the co-channel cells within the reuse distance of the cell in
question. To be "locked" means that a channel can not be used or borrowed. Zhang and Yum [Zhang]
presented the BDCL scheme as an improvement over the BCO method. From a frequency reuse
standpoint, in a BCO system, a channel may be borrowed only if it is free in the neighboring
cochannel cells. This criteria is often too strict.

 In Borrowing with Directional Channel Locking, borrowed channels are only locked in nearby cells
that are affected by the borrowing. This differs from the BCO scheme in which a borrowed channel is
locked in every cell within the reuse distance. The benefit of BDCL is that more channels are available
in the presence of borrowing and subsequent call blocking is reduced. A disadvantage of BDCL is that
the statement "borrowed channels are only locked in nearby cells that are affected by the borrowing"
requires a clear understanding of the term "affected." This may require microscopic analysis of the
area in which the cellular system will be located. Ideally, a system can be general enough that detailed
analysis of specific propagation measurements is not necessary for implementation.

Dynamic Channel Reassignment

Similar to the goals of dynamic channel assignment is the process of Dynamic Channel Reassignment
(DCR). Whereas a DCA scheme allocates a channel to an initial call or handover, a DCR system
switches a cell's channel (that is currently being used) to another channel which is closer to the
optimum according to frequency reuse or other cost criteria. Thus, for example, a user communicating
with channel n may be switched to channel m during the middle of her/his call if channel m is a more
efficient use of the available bandwidth from a frequency reuse point of view. Philosophically, DCR is
equivalent to DCA.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur

 References

1. T. S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice, 2nd ed. Singapore: Pearson
Education, Inc., 2002.

2. K. Feher, Wireless Digital Communications: Modulation and Spread Spectrum Applications. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1995.

3. J. G. Proakis, Digital Communications, 4th ed. NY: McGraw Hill, 2000.

4. G. R. Cooper and C. D. McGillem, Modern Communications and Spread Spec-trum, NY: McGraw
Hill, 1986.

Faculty: Ms. Vimal Gaur