CHAPTER 5

WIRELESS
COMMUNICATIONS

Introduction to Telecommunications
by Gokhale
 Introduction
• Wireless
– Communications system in which electromagnetic
waves carry a signal through atmospheric space
rather than along a wire
– Most systems use radio frequency (RF, which
ranges from 3 kHz to 300 GHz) or infrared (IR,
which ranges from 3 THz to 430 THz) waves
– IR products do not require any form of licensing
by the FCC
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Timeline of Major Developments
• Mobile Telephone System (MTS)
– Introduced in 1946
– Simplex (one-way transmission) and manual operation

• Improved Mobile Telephone System (IMTS)

– Introduced in 1969 using a 450 MHz band

• Advanced Mobile Phone Service (AMPS)

– Introduced in 1983
– First system to employ a “cellular” concept
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 Cellular Topology
• Cellular network:
– Series of overlapping hexagonal cells in a honeycomb
pattern

• Cellular network components

– Base Station:Transmitter, Receiver, Controller, Antenna
– Cell: Base station’s span of coverage
– Mobile Switching Center: Contains all of the control and
switching elements to connect the caller to the receiver,
even as the receiver moves from one cell to another
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 Personal Communications
Systems (PCS)
• PCS is also called Personal Communications
Networks (PCN)
• Goal of PCS is to provide integrated voice, data
and video communications
• Three categories of PCS:
– Broadband: cellular and cordless handsets
– Narrowband: enhanced paging functions
– Unlicensed: allows short distance operation
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 Hierarchical Cell Structure
• Key features of PCS
– Variable cell size
– Hierarchical cell
structure (picocell,
microcell, macrocell,
supermacrocell)

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Cells
 Analog Access
• Analog Cellular Systems
– First generation system
– Based on FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access),
where frequency band is divided into a number of channels.
Each channel carries only one voice conversation at a time.
– AMPS operates on 800 MHz or 1800 MHz
– Advantages:
• Widest coverage
– Limitations:
• Inadequate to satisfy the increasing demand
• Poor security
• Not optimized for data 8
FDMA

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 Digital Access
• D-AMPS (Digital-AMPS)
• TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access)
• CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)

Digital wireless technologies provide

greater system capacity.

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 TDMA
• TDMA
– Second generation system
– Enables users to access the whole channel
bandwidth for a fraction of the time, called slot,
on a periodic basis
– Has applications in satellite communications
– Advantages
• Improved capacity

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TDMA

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 CDMA
• CDMA
– Third generation system
– Separates users by assigning them digital codes
within a broad range of the radio frequency
– First technology to use soft-handoff
– Employs spread spectrum technique
– Advantages
• Improved capacity, coverage, voice quality, and
immunity from interference
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An Overview of Cellular
Technologies

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Spread Spectrum Technique: FHSS
• Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS)
– Resists interference by jumping rapidly from
frequency to frequency in a pseudo-random way
– Advantage
• Increases the total amount of available bandwidth
through the assignment of multiple hopping sequences
within the same physical area
• More flexible than DSSS
– Application
• In large facilities especially with multiple floors
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 Spread Spectrum Technique:
DSSS
• Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)
– Resists interference by mixing in a series of
pseudo-random bits with the actual data
– Advantage
• If bits are damaged in transmission, the original data can
be recovered as opposed to having to be retransmitted
– Application
• Is substituted for point-to-point or multi-point
connectivity to bridge LAN segments
– Limitation
• Roaming capabilities are less robust
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Spread Spectrum Technique: CDPD
• Cellular Digital Packet Data
– Allows for a packet of information to be
transmitted in between voice telephone calls
– Enables data specific technology to be tacked
onto existing cellular telephone infrastructure

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 Wireless Applications
• Cellular Phone
– High mobility and narrow bandwidth (20 to 30 kHz)
• Cordless Phone
– Low mobility and narrow bandwidth (20 to 30 kHz)
• Wireless LAN
– Low mobility and high bandwidth (typically 10 Mbps)
– Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a standard for
wireless data delivery, loading web pages, and navigation

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The Wireless Spectrum
 Narrowband, Broadband, and Spread
Spectrum Signals
• Narrowband - a transmitter concentrates the signal
energy at a single frequency or in a very small range of
frequencies.

• Broadband - a type of signaling that uses a relatively

wide band of the wireless spectrum.

• Spread spectrum - the use of multiple frequencies to

transmit a signal.
 Cellular Communications

• Mobile telephone service - a system for providing

telephone services to multiple, mobile receivers using two-
way radio communication over a limited number of
frequencies.

• Mobile wireless evolution:

– First generation
– Second generation
– Third generation
 Cellular Call Completion

• Components of a signal:
– Mobile Identification Number (MIN) - an enclosed
representation of the mobile telephone’s 10-digit
telephone number.
– Electronic Serial Number (ESN) - a fixed number
assigned to the telephone by the manufacturer.
– System Identification Number (SID) - a number
assigned to the particular wireless carrier to which the
telephone’s user has subscribed.
Cellular Call Completion
Call Completion
 Advanced Mobile Pone Service
(AMPS)

• A first generation
cellular technology
that encodes and
transmits speech as
analog signals.
Time Division Multiple Access
(TDMA)
 Code Division Multiple Access
(CDMA)
• Each voice signal is digitized
and assigned a unique code,
and then small components of
the signal are issued over
multiple frequencies using the
spread spectrum technique.
Global System for Mobile Communications
(GSM)
• A version of time division multiple access (TDMA) technology,
because it divides frequency bands into channels and assigns signals
time slots within each channel.

• Makes more efficient use of limited bandwidth than the IS-136 TDMA
standard common in the United States.

• Makes use of silences in a phone call to increase its signal

compression, leaving more open time slots in the channel.
Emerging Third Generation (3G)
Technologies
The promise of these technologies is that a user can
access all her telecommunication services from one
mobile phone.

• CDMA2000 - a packet switched version of CDMA.

• Wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) - based on

technology developed by Ericson, is also packet-
based and its maximum throughput is also 2.4 Mbps.
 Wireless Local Loop (WLL)

• A generic term that describes a wireless link used in the

PSTN to connect LEC central offices with subscribers.

• Acts the same as a copper local loop.

• Used to transmit both voice and data signals.

 Local Multipoint Distribution Service
(LMDS)
• A point-to-multipoint, fixed wireless technology that was
conceived to supply wireless local loop service in densely
populated urban areas and later on a trial basis to issue
television signals.

• A disadvantage is that its use of very high frequencies

limits its signal’s transmission distance to no more than
4km between antennas.
 Multipoint Multichannel Distribution
System (MMDS)
• Uses microwaves with frequencies in the 2.1 to 2.7 GHz
range of the wireless spectrum.

• One advantage is that because of its lower frequency

range, MMDS is less susceptible to interference.

• MMDS does not require a line-of-sight path between the

transmitter and receiver.