Wireless Spectrum (1)

Broadcast TV
• VHF: 54 to 88 MHz, 174 to 216 MHz
• UHF: 470 to 806 MHz

30 MHz 300 MHz 3 GHz 30 GHz

FM Radio
• 88 to 108 MHz

Digital TV
• 54 to 88 MHz, 174 to 216 MHz, 470 to 806 MHz

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 1

 Wireless Spectrum (2)

3G Broadband Wireless
• 746-794 MHz, 1.7-1.85 GHz,
2.5-2.7 GHz

30 MHz 300 MHz 3 GHz 30 GHz

Cellular Phone
• 800-900 MHz
Personal Communication Service (PCS)
• 1.85-1.99 GHz

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 2

 Wireless Spectrum (3)

Wireless LAN Wireless LAN

(IEEE 802.11b/g) (IEEE 802.11a)
• 2.4 GHz • 5 GHz

30 MHz 300 MHz 3 GHz 30 GHz

Bluetooth Local Multipoint Distribution

• 2.45 GHz Services (LMDS)
• 27.5-31.3 GHz

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 3

 Physical Impairments: Noise
● Unwanted signals added to the message signal
● May be due to signals generated by natural
phenomena such as lightning or man-made sources,
including transmitting and receiving equipment as
well as spark plugs in passing cars, wiring in
thermostats, etc.
● Sometimes modeled in the aggregate as a random
signal in which power is distributed uniformly across
all frequencies (white noise)
● Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) often used as a metric in
the assessment of channel quality

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 4

 Physical Impairments: Interference
● Signals generated by communications devices
operating at roughly the same frequencies may
interfere with one another
■ Example: IEEE 802.11b and Bluetooth devices, microwave
ovens, some cordless phones
■ CDMA systems (many of today’s mobile wireless systems)
are typically interference-constrained
● Signal to interference and noise ratio (SINR) is
another metric used in assessment of channel quality

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 5

 Effects of Mobility
wide area visited network
home network
network
1
2
mobile contacts
Figure from foreign agent contacts home foreign agent on
Kurose & Ross agent home: “this mobile is entering visited
resident in my network” network
● Destination address not equal to destination location
● Addressing and routing must be taken care of to
enable mobility
● Can be done automatically through handoff or may
require explicit registration by the mobile in the
visited network
● Resource management and QoS are directly affected
by route changes
Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 6
 Security
● Safeguards for physical
security must be even
greater in wireless
communications
● Encryption: intercepted
communications must not
be easily interpreted
● Authentication: is the node
who it claims to be?

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 7

 Evolution of Mobile Wireless (1)

Advance Mobile Phone Service (AMPS)

• FDMA
• 824-849 MHz (UL), 869-894 MHz (DL)
• U.S. (1983), So. America, Australia, China

European Total Access Communication System (E-TACS)

• FDMA
• 872-905 MHz (UL), 917-950 MHz (DL)
• Deployed throughout Europe

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 8

 Evolution of Mobile Wireless (2)

Global System for Mobile communications (GSM)

• TDMA
• Different frequency bands for cellular and PCS
• Developed in 1990, expected >1B subscriber by end of 2003

IS-95
• CDMA
• 800/1900 MHz – Cellular/PCS
• U.S., Europe, Asia

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 9

 Evolution of Mobile Wireless (3)

General Packet Radio Services (GPRS)

• Introduces packet switched data services for GSM
• Transmission rate up to 170 kbps
• Some support for QoS

Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE)

• Circuit-switched voice (at up to 43.5 kbps/slot)
• Packet-switched data (at up to 59.2 kbps/slot)
• Can achieve on the order of 475 kbps on the downlink,
by combining multiple slots

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 10

 Evolution of Mobile Wireless (4)

Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems (UMTS)

• Wideband DS-CDMA
• Bandwidth-on-demand, up to 2 Mbps
• Supports handoff from GSM/GPRS

IS2000
• CDMA2000: Multicarrier DS-CDMA
• Bandwidth on demand (different flavors, up to a few
Mbps)
• Supports handoff from/to IS-95

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 11

 QoS
● Substantial new requirements on the radio access
network
● Traffic classes
■ Conversational, streaming, interactive, background
● Ability to specify
■ Traffic handling priority
■ Allocation/retention priority
■ Error rates (bits and/ or SDUs)
■ Transfer delay
■ Data rates (maximum and guaranteed)
■ Deliver in order (Y/N)
 Wireless Mulipath Channel

Channel varies at two spatial scales:

large scale fading
small scale fading
 Large-scale fading
● In free space, received power attenuates like 1/r2.

● With reflections and obstructions, can attenuate even

more rapidly with distance. Detailed modelling
complicated.

● Time constants associated with variations are very

long as the mobile moves, many seconds or minutes.

● More important for cell site planning, less for

communication system design.
 Small-scale multipath fading
● Wireless communication typically happens at very
high carrier frequency. (eg. fc = 900 MHz or 1.9 GHz
for cellular)
● Multipath fading due to constructive and destructive
interference of the transmitted waves.
● Channel varies when mobile moves a distance of the
order of the carrier wavelength. This is 0.3 m for Ghz
cellular.
● For vehicular speeds, this translates to channel
variation of the order of 100 Hz.
● Primary driver behind wireless communication
system design.
 WHAT IS FADING ?
The communication between the base station and mobile station in
mobile systems is mostly non-LOS.
The LOS path between the transmitter and the receiver is affected by
terrain and obstructed by buildings and other objects.
The mobile station is also moving in different directions at different
speeds.
The RF signal from the transmitter is scattered by reflection and
diffraction and reaches the receiver through many non-LOS paths.
This non-LOS path causes long-term and short term fluctuations in the
form of log-normal fading and rayleigh and rician fading, which
degrades the performance of the RF channel.
 WHAT IS FADING ?

Signal Power (dBm)

Large scale fading component

Small scale fading

component
 LONG TERM FADING
Terrain configuration & man made environment causes long-term fading.
Due to various shadowing and terrain effects the signal level measured
on a circle around base station shows some random fluctuations
around the mean value of received signal strength.
The long-term fades in signal strength, r, caused by the terrain
configuration and man made environments form a log-normal
distribution, i.e the mean received signal strength, r, varies log-
normally in dB if the signal strength is measured over a distance of
at least 40λ .
Experimentally it has been determined that the standard deviation, σ , of
the mean received signal strength, r, lies between 8 to 12 dB with
the higher σ generally found in large urban areas.
 RAYLEIGH FADING
This phenomenon is due to multipath propagation of the signal.
The Rayleigh fading is applicable to obstructed propagation paths.
All the signals are NLOS signals and there is no dominant direct path.
Signals from all paths have comparable signal strengths.
The instantaneous received power seen by a moving antenna becomes a
random variable depending on the location of the antenna.
 RICEAN FADING
This phenomenon is due to multipath propagation of the signal.
In this case there is a partially scattered field.
One dominant signal.
Others are weaker.
 Diversity
● A diversity scheme extracts information from
multiple signals transmitted over different fading
paths
● Appropriate combining of these signals will reduce
severity of fading and improve reliability of
transmission
● In space diversity, antennas are separated by at least
half a wavelength
■ Other forms of diversity also possible
■ Polarization, frequency, time diversity

Wireless Environment and Wireless LANs 21