Mobile Networks

Cellular Phone Networks

GSM, GPRS, UMTS Standards
3GPP

Kevin McDermott 1
 Mobile Networks
Kevin McDermott
Room U309
kmcdermott@ait.ie
Lectures 2 hours per week
Lab. 2 hours per week
www.moodle.ait.ie

Kevin McDermott 2
 Syllabus
• GSM:
– Radio Propagation: Reflection, Diffraction, Scattering
– Radio Interference: Path Loss, Shadowing, Multipath
Fading, Noise
– Cellular Concepts: Concept of a cell, Frequency Re-
use, Cell Clusters, Cell Sectoring, Cell Splitting
– Call Management: Call Handover Procedure(NCHO,
MAHO,MCHO), International Roaming, Paging,
Tracking

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 Syllabus
– GSM Network Architecture: Mobile Station (Terminal, SIMM),
Base Station Subsystem (BTS, BSC), Network & Switching
Subsystem (MSC, HLR, VLR, AuC, EIR), Operation & Support
Subsystem
– GSM Air Interface: Multiple Access (TDMA, FDMA, CDMA),
GSM Frame Structure (Physical Channel, Logical Channel) Channel
Coding, Interleaving, Modulation, Timing Advance, Adaptive Power
Control, Discontinuous Reception, Discontinuous Transmission
• GPRS
– GPRS System Architecture: GGSN, SGSN
– GPRS Multiple Access

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 Syllabus
• 3G Networks (UMTS)
– CDMA: Codes, Power Control, FDD/TDD
– UMTS Network Architecture: Core Network,
UMTS Radio Access Network, UTRA Air Interface
– Enhancements to UMTS: HSDPA/HSUPA, LTE
 Assessment

• Practical: 20%
• Continuous Assessment 30%
– End of Chapter Quiz 10%
– Assignment 20%
• Summer exam 50%
– Answer 3 questions out of 4

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 Relevant Texts
• Mobile Communication Systems Krzysztof Wiley 2001
• Wireless and Personal Communication Systems Garg &
Wilkes Prentice Hall1996
• Principles and Applications of GSMGarg & Wilkes
Prentice Hall 1999
• Cellular Radio Principles and Design Macario
MacMillan 1997
• Introduction to Wireless Systems Shankar Wiley 2001

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 Relevant Web sites
• The Telecoms Virtual Library about mobile communications.
You can find information about GSM but also about other
mobile commmunications systems.
http://www.analysys.co.uk/vlib/mobile.htm

An overview of the Global System for Mobile Communications

by John Scourias
http://ccnga.uwaterloo.ca/~jscouria/GSM/gsmreport.html

Very complete page about GSM, By Henrik Kaare Poulsen

http://www.geocities.com/henrik.kaare.poulsen/gsm.html

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 Week 1
• Introduction
• Syllabus 1G
2G
• Evolution of Cellular Systems 2.5G
4G

Reflection

• Radio Propagation Diffraction

Scattering

Path Loss
• Signal Loss Shadowing Antenna Diversity
Multipath Fading
Frequency Hopping
 First Generation Cellular System
• Analogue system
• Based on Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA)
• Modulation based on analogue Frequency Modulation (FM)

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 Second Generation Cellular System
• Digital Systems
• Based on TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) or
CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)
• Several digital modulation and coding schemes
• 9.6 kbits/s

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 2.5 Generation Cellular System
• High speed required for data and multimedia
services
• HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) gives GSM
users bit rates up to eight times higher
• GPRS (General Packet radio Service) provides up to
171 kbits/s in packet switch mode. User pays for
amount of data tx/rx not by time

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 3rd Generation Cellular System
• UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications
System) provide bit rates up to 2 Mbits/s
• Deal with the merger of internet and telecom market
• CDMA technology

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Radio Propagation
 Radio Propagation
• Radio signals propagate according to three
mechanisms,

- reflection
- diffraction
- scattering

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 Replec tion

D iffrac tion

D irec t
P ath

S c attering

R ad io P ro p agatio n
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 Radio Propagation
• As a result of the three mechanisms, mobile radio
propagation can be characterised by three phenomena,

- path loss, variation with distance

- shadowing, also called slow fading
- multi-path fading or fast fading

• When the performance of a mobile radio system is to

be analysed all three phenomena must be considered.

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 Path Loss
2
 c 
• Free Space Path Loss P r  Pt G t G r 
 4d 
– effective isotropically radiated power (EIRP)
Pt G t
• Calculation of the path loss in typical environments can be
based on
– Empirical
– Diffraction
– or Ray Tracing Models

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 Path Loss Calculations
2
 c 
Pr  Pt  
 4d 
where Pt is the transmitted power and c the
wavelength.

c = c/f;

f = the transmission frequency in Hz

c = 3x108 m/s and is the speed of radio waves in
free space
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 Path Loss Calculations
This can be expressed in logarithmic terms or dB’s
as follows,
2
 c 
10 log 10 Pr  10 log 10 Pt  
 4d 
 c 
 Pr [ dB]  10 log 10 Pt  20 log 10  
 4d 
 c 
 Pr [ dB]  Pt [ dB]  20 log 10  
Kevin McDermott
 4d  20
 If a directional transmitting and receiving antenna are used with a
power gain factor of Gt and Gr then the formula becomes,

2
 c 
Pr  Pt G t G r  
 4d 
or in dB' s as
 c 
Pr [ dB]  Pt [ dB]  20 log 10    G t  G r in dB' s
 4d 

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 Problem

Consider a base station BS transmitting a 1.5

GHz signal to a mobile station (MS) 8000m
away. The BS uses a directional antenna with a
gain of 20dB and transmits 10W of power.
Calculate,
1) The BS EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power)
2) The wavelength of the transmitted signal.
3) The received signal power at the MS receiver antenna
if the antenna has a gain of 3dB.

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 Path Loss
• Path loss, undesirable in most radio communication
systems, is essential for cellular systems as it facilitates
frequency reuse. The higher the frequency the
(shorter wavelength) the higher the path loss.
• Over relatively short distances it can be shown that the
path loss is independent of frequency and just
dependant on the height of the base station and
mobile station antenna and the distance of the MS
from the base station, as shown be the following
formula,

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 Multipath Fading

• Multipath or fast fading

– Constructive and destructive addition of incident wave
components
– Doppler shift due to moving receiver
• Major cause of transmission error in mobile radio
systems
• Three main types of multipath fading
– Rayleigh fading
– Ricean fading
– Nakagami fading

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 Multipath Fading

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 Multipath Fading Solutions

• Antenna Diversity
• Frequency Hopping

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 Multipath Fading Solutions
Example:
For a mobile station operating at a frequency of 900MHz what distance is required
between diverse antenna to give full decorrelation of the received signal.
The antenna should be positioned half a wavelength apart.

8
c 3x10
c   6
 0.33m  33cm
f 900 x10
ie. they should be separated by 16.5cm

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 Frequency hopping
• In frequency hopping a mobile moves from frequency to
frequency while it is transmitting
• A mobile actually transmits in short bursts
• Each burst uses a different frequency from a set of say, around
20
• Other mobiles in the cell are also hopping from frequency to
frequency and the sequence that each uses is carefully
designed so that all the frequencies in the cell are always in
use but no two mobiles ever use the same frequency at the
same time.

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 Frequency hopping
• Frequency hopping brings two key
advantages:

– it helps overcome fading and

– it reduces interference.

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 Overcome Fading
• If the mobile hops from frequency to frequency, then it may
be that at one frequency it is in a fade and loses the entire
signal.
• However, this will only last for 4 ms by which time it will be
receiving on a frequency that is probably not in a fade.
• Typically, only 1 in the 20 frequencies will be in a fade at one
point and hence only 1 in 20 of the bursts will be in error.
• This might result in a slight degradation in the speech, but at
least the call would not be dropped

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 Reducing interference
• Consider the diagram below, which shows two mobiles using
the same frequencies in cells that are some distance apart.
• In the best case, the mobiles are much further apart than in
the worst case and hence will suffer less interference.
• When designing a system without frequency hopping, the
designer must space cells using the same frequencies further
apart than if the average case was assumed
• By employing frequency hopping there is a smaller chance
that mobiles in the worst case scenario are using the same
frequency simultaneously.

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 Bes t C as e Interferenc e
(M obiles as far aw ay as pos s ible)

W ors t Cas e Interferenc e

Kevin McDermott (M o biles as c los e togeth er as pos s ible) 32
 Inter Symbol Interference
• If the delay of the reflected signal is greater than the
time taken to transmit a bit of information, then
when the reflected signal finally arrives it is carrying
different information to the direct signal.
• The result of this is that the previous bit transmitted
interferes with the current bit, causing a phenomena
known as inter symbol interference (ISI).

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 Shadowing
• Field strength loss caused by major obstacles in the
propagation path
• Caused partly by diffraction at obstacles

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