Chapter 3

Cellular Concept and GSM

Abstract: This chapter is focused on the basic conceptual issues of wireless

cellular networks. The chapter starts with the rationale behind the
development of cellular system. The architecture of the cellular networks is
then described considering the most popular cellular GSM system.
Subsequently we go through the frequency reuse, channel assignment and
interference issues in cellular systems. Hand off management and location
tracking in cellular systems is then described. This section also includes the
discussion on a set models and engineering methods that are required to
design the infrastructure network for wireless voice services. The discussion
on this chapter considers only the wireless voice service.

Keywords: Please type some keywords

1. INTRODUCTION
Initially, the prime objective behind designing a wireless system for public
was obtaining a good coverage area for voice communication. This objective
was successfully achieved by the introduction of high powered wireless
transmitters and receivers. However, this technique had two inherent
problems:

1. The absence of large spectrum capacity was the major problem behind
supporting all wireless users under the same coverage area. Historically, the
Bell systems in New York City were capable to support only 12
simultaneous calls over 1000 sq. miles [11] when they implemented the
experimental service. Let us determine the number of wireless channels
required to introduce this system for New York City.
Example 3.1
Assume:
6 M people in the city
25 % penetration rate of wireless service
50 m Erlang traffic/user during the busy hour
30 KHz bandwidth of any one-way channel

Total busy-hour traffic = 6.106 X 0.25X50.10-3 = 75,000 Erlang

Assuming 90 % average occupancy of a channel, total bandwidth required
is: 75000 X 0.9 X 2 X 30.10 3 = 5GHz
It is impossible to get such a high spectrum to support the system.

2. The scheme was not capable to offer mobility among the users once they
move out of the single coverage area of the terminal. The reason behind it
lies in the limited transmission range of the hand-held, mobile terminals. The
power of radio waves emitted by the mobiles decreases with inverse squared
distance, even in the empty space. A portable battery powered terminal can
support wireless links that are only few miles from the TRX/RCV at the
best. So city wide coverage of both way communications is not possible.

This scarcity of spectrum and the increasing demand for mobile

communications compelled the regulatory agencies to wireless telephone
system for achieving better capacity and good coverage area, even with
limited wireless spectrum.

The advent of cellular concept was the first major breakthrough to deal with
this spectral scarcity, while providing the users a freedom of being mobile.
In order to cope up with the limited transmission range of the mobile
devices, the concept of a single, high power transmitter was replaced by a
large number of low power transmitters and receivers. These transmitters
and receivers are scattered over the entire coverage area, each covering only
a small zone, termed cell. This chapter deals with the underlying
architectural and operational concepts of the cellular networks with a focus
on the widely deployed GSM (Global System for Mobile communications).
GSM is the second generation mobile system (2G), based on digital cellular
technology. The first generation wireless systems like, North American
AMPS, were an analog cellular system that used analog mode of wireless
communications. Most of the analog mode systems in the world have been
replaced by 2G digital technology today. The prime objective of 2G system
is to provide reliable wireless voice service to user, thus most of the system
parameters are optimized for voice communications only in the 2G system.

Spectrum: During 1950s and early 1960s United States and other developed
countries started working on the design of their cellular network. AT&T
proposed the cellular network concept to FCC in 1968, but commercial
technology was not ready before late 1970s. In 1983 FCC first allocated 40
MHz frequency for cellular radio system in USA. Thus the first generation
analog cellular system started at different parts of the world as a local
experimental system without any global co-ordination. The first generation
wireless systems like, North American AMPS, were an analog cellular
system that used analog mode of wireless communications. Different
spectrum, channel and modulation techniques are used at different parts of
the world. Table~1 provides an overview of these different first generation
systems.

Table-1: Different Channel and Modulation Schemes

The second generation digital systems attempt to achieve a global seamless

operation. Initially three systems got introduced, namely, North American
TDMA, European GSM and Japan's JDC system. Although the North
American TDMA system was introduced in Canada/USA, the rapid success
of GSM through its partnership project made it the de-facto standards
outside the CDMA technology. Hence, most of the North American
technologies are either changed to GSM or in CDMA. By 2004 Number of
GSM subscriber’s world wide reached close to 1.6 billions GSM phones.
GSM is the second generation mobile system (2G), based on digital cellular
technology. Most of the analog mode systems in the world have been
replaced by 2G digital technology. The prime objective of 2G system is to
provide reliable wireless voice service to user, thus most of the system
parameters are obtained for voice communications only.
The Japan's JDC system is still in operation and Japan is fast migrating to
3G WCDMA standards. The Table~2 provides a brief comparison between
these three digital systems.

Table-2: Digital Systems of the World

Example 3.2: Find the total numbers of voice channels supported in the
2G European, North American and Japanese systems. Compute the total
amount of bits per second supported in three systems. What is the efficiency
of radio spectrum (bits/Hz) of these three systems?

Today most of the second generation systems are GSM (Global System for
Mobile communications); hence, we will consider GSM as typical cellular
system to illustrate the concept of Cellular working. This GSM system has
considerable impact on the implementation of the wireless Internet as circuit
switched GSM voice network will migrate to GPRS data network to provide
early version of wireless internet services. This chapter explains the working
of cellular voice networks and its analysis by assuming the GSM system
architecture. The prime objective of GSM 2G system is to provide reliable
wireless voice service to user, thus most of the system parameters are
optimized in GSM system for voice communications only.

The basic architecture of cellular networks is described in Section~ 2 : the

Architecture. Section~3 provides a discussion on wireless channel usage in
the cellular system. The important topics discussed in this section includes
the frequency reuse and channel assignment techniques. Subsequently, we
have taken a look into the associated radio interference issues in Section
~4. Section~ 5 deals with the mobility management of wireless user in the
cellular system. The important topics discussed in this section include the
management of hand off and location tracking in cellular system.

2. Cellular Architecture
A close look into the cellular systems, shown in Figure~1 reveals the
existence of different architectural components (sub-systems) in its internal
domain. The canonical architecture of cellular systems (GSM in particular)
consists of three major parts: the mobile terminal (MT), Base Station
Subsystem (BSS) and the Network and Switching Subsystem (NSS). The
most important component of BSS is Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and
for NSS the Mobile Switching Center (MSC) [24, 19, 32]. Apart from these
three components, the manufacturer specific Operation Sub-System (OSS) is
also an integral part of cellular networks. As shown in Figure~ 1, using a
wireless link, the MTs communicate with the BSS, which in turn contacts
the MSC to set up a connection with other MTs or external networks~[35].
The wireless link is a common resource shared by all the active MTs of a
cell. There are two types of wireless links:

Figure-1: Basic Cellular Concept

(1) the up-link or forward channel establishes one way wireless connection
from the MT to the BTS,

(2) the down-link or reverse channel establishes a one way connection from
BTS to MT.

We now provide a general idea of these functional sub-systems.

The Mobile Terminal (MT): Historically the mobile terminal (MT) or

Mobile Station (MS) is the first widely-deployed personal communication
device. It uses an in-built radio to access the cellular network through the
radio interface. It is also equipped with some kind of human interface like
speaker, microphone, key-pad and display. Additionally, most of the today's
MTs often contain a terminal interface to personal computers (PCs). In the
traditional telephony, the telephone is directly connected to the copper wire
that connects the telephone to the exchange. Hence, the identification of
telephone is readily obtained from the identity of the copper line. However,
in case of wireless, such relationship does not exist between MT and BTS.
To establish this relationship, it is necessary for each MT to establish its
identity first to get service from the network. Almost all the GSM-specific
MTs have another significant component:

SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) [32]. SIM is a removable smart card,

which is responsible for storing the subscriber information and
confidentiality. This SIM provides more flexibility and advantages to the
mobile subscriber. A subscriber can now get a new mobile terminal and still
use his old SIM taken from his own service provider. The separation of MT
from the SIM also has the potential for increasing the sale of mobile phones,
without any intervention of the service providers. Figure-1 shows how the
SIM creates the flexibility in the cellular system by separating the radio
interface function, common cellular service function of Mobile Equipment
(ME) and customer specific data services of the system. The intelligent
plastic card of SIM has Read only memory (ROM) of 406 KB, Random
access memory (RAM) of 256 bytes and NVM (Non Volatile memory) of 2-3
KB. The algorithms A3 and A8, (role of these will be explained in section-
xxx) are stored in the NVM. In addition SIM also stores the important
Cellular identifiers and parameters like

1. Ki : User authentication Key explained in section

2. IMSI: (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) 15 bit user’s
individual identification number consisting of country code,
network code, number. This is the identity of the Mobile to the
network and is assigned at the time of the terminal manufacture.
3. TMSI: (Temporary Mobile subscriber identity) assigned to the user
after registration to a VLR. By using the TMSI, the mobile is able
to move from one network to another without significant
messaging penalty.
4. LAI: Location area identifier. The concept of location area is
explained in section
5. PIN: 4-8 digit code identifying the user with respect to SIM. By
using this PIN, user can update the user information in the SIM
card by using the local controller.
6. Personal Phone book that stores the user personal phone numbers.
7. List of foreign networks where roaming is allowed.
8. Received short messages (SMS). The SMS services will be
explained in Chapter 4.

Figure-2: Relation of SIM to the different MT (MS) functions

2. The Base Station Sub-System (BSS): The MTs communicate directly with
the BSS through the wireless links. A group of BSSs are also connected to a
MSC through wire-lined connection. Thus, the prime role of BSS is to
connect the MTs with the MSC [35]. In most of the cellular systems
(including GSM), the BSS contains two components: the BTS (Base
Transceiver Station) and the BSC (Base Station Controller). Figure~ 2
shows a schematic diagram of the BSS with its different components. The
BTS is responsible for communicating with the MTs through the wireless
radio interface. Hence, it is comprised of antennas for transmission-reception
and signal processing capability. Typically BTS for GSM is capable of
maintaining 3-5 radio careers, carrying 20-40 simultaneous communications
[24]. In GSM standards, each radio carrier has 200 KHz bandwidth. This
bandwidth is split into 8 slots, and each slot can support single one way
communication. Thus effectively, GSM uses 25 KHz bandwidth for single
one way voice communication. As a part of the BTS, the GSM architecture
also includes a TRAU (Transcoder or Rate Adapter Unit) for speech
encoding, decoding and adaptation of data rate. The 25 KHz for single one
way voice communication is very limited bandwidth for traditional digital
voice channel rate of 6Kbps. So, in cellular system, traditional 64Kbps PCM
voice is further compressed to lower rate voice codes to fit into the 25 KHz
spectrum. This function is called speech coding and TRAU implements this
function. There are different speech coding standards that can be used in
GSM systems. BSC, the second component of the BSS takes care of the
radio interface management, allocation and release of radio channels and the
hand off management. The BSC is responsible to connect multiple (typically
l-10 for GSM) BTSs to a single MSC. GSM specifications also provide an
interface, called ``Abis'' interface between the BSC and MSC.

Figure-3: Components of BSS system

3. The Network and Switching Sub-System (NSS): The primary switching

functions of the cellular systems and databases required for maintaining
subscriber profile and mobility management is incorporated in the
NSS~[mall:pns88,mouly:cell92]. Its plays the most vital role in managing
the communication between GSM users and other network users. The
different components of this NSS are shown in Figure~3. Inside the NSS,
the MSC (Mobile Switch Center) performs the switching functions by
organizing call set-ups to and from the cellular GSM systems. An MSC is
capable of controlling a few BSCs and almost a million MTs. The MSC
provides the interconnection to land line switching centers by using the
traditional voice circuit trunks. In order to interconnect with certain external
data networks, like, PSPDN (Packet-Switched Public Data Network) or
CSPDN (Circuit-Switched Public Data Network), the MSCs of GSM
networks require a transmission and protocol adaptation equipment, broadly
known as Inter Working Functions (IWF). Apart from MSCs, the NSS also
consist of data bases required for basic mobility management. The main role
of the mobility management is to allow the mobile user from different
system

Figure-4: Components of NSS system

to get service from a foreign MSC. The information of the mobile terminal
(MT) relevant to the service provisioning, is stored in the HLR (Home
Location Register).This is completely independent of the MT's current
location. The HLR also needs to contain some information regarding the
MT's current location. It is completely devoid of any switching capability,
and acts as storage of thousands of subscriber information. The other
important database included in GSM is the VLR (Visiting Location
Register). It is linked to one or more MSCs and temporarily stores the
subscription information for the set of subscribers under the coverage area of
those MSCs. It also contains the precise location information of the MTs.
Besides these basic components NSS also contains a gateway switch, termed
as GMSC (Gateway MSC). During the call set-up for a GSM user, the call is
first routed to this GSMC. It is responsible for fetching of relevant location
information and routing of the incoming calls. Naturally, all GMSC needs to
have specific interface with the external network and the SS7 signaling
network for communicating with other NSS components.

2.2 GSM Protocol Stacks

The most important component of cellular system architecture is the network
protocol that creates the complex intelligence layer to dynamically managing
the wireless and network resources to provide mobility. GSM control
channel protocols are extension of SS7 and ISDN protocol stack for
Mobility operation. Fogure-4 shows the different components of GSM
protocol stacks and the Interfaces that interconnects the different network
elements of a GSM network. At the Link layer ISDN LAPD protocol is
adopted with modification. Layer-2 supports two SAP (Service Access
Point) on one physical layer for Signaling and SMS (Short Messaging
Service) messages. The different message fields of layer-2 protocol is

Figure-5: GSM Protocol Stacks and Interfaces

is shown in Figure-5. The 184 bits of GSM message (section …. provides

details on this message size)
. is transmitted as payload conforming to LAPDm, the modified version of
LAPD. It checks address and sequence number for layer 3 and manages the
acknowledgement of transmission of packets. The 184 bits of signaling
protocol payload conforms to the LAPD protocol. The LAPDm have the
message format different from ISDN LAPD specification, though the
message lengths are same. The important differences are (a) the CRC and
synchronization field of LAPD are not used in GSM, as these functions are
implemented at the physical layer, (b) address and control fields are
optional, (c) the fill-in bits are all '1's. The format of messages on the
channels like PCH, AGCH and BCCH (details in section……) are all layer 2
messages with payload of 176 bits. Layer-3 field is 8 bit. The messages on
FACCH and SDCCH (details in section…..) are 160 bits long. The address,
control and length fields are each of 8 bits, thus keeping the total message
length of 184 bits. SACCH has message field of 144 bits with 16 bits for fill-
in bits. Figure~ 4 shows the end to end protocol view of GSM from Mobile
station to MSC interconnected through three interfaces namely Um, A.bis
and A. The layout of the Layer-3 message is shown in Figure~6. The
message categories on layer 3 are:

Figure-6: Layer-2 message format

1. RRM: Radio Resource Management:

Manages the quality of Radio Link, assigns the radio channels, perform
frequency hopping, performs handover procedure and power control of
mobile station. The Radio Resource (RR) session uses the signaling and
traffic resources between the mobile station and the Anchor MSC. Anchor
MSC is the MSC that a mobile station will use as the anchor point for its
connection, as it moves from one MSC to another MSC during the session.
Because of the differences in the protocols of Um, A.bis and A, the RR
session uses the SAPI0 Link, LAPD Connection and SCCP connection to
communicate between Mobile Station and Anchor MSC. \Figure~ {RR-
Session} shows this connection. Notice that according to the location of
TRAU (Transceiver unit), the bandwidth requirements for the connection
will be different. GSM voice packets are normally carried on 16 Kbps
bandwidth, so 4 GSM voice streams can be packed into one 64 Kbps PCM
stream. The transmission of the data traffic in GSM network can be ciphered
as explained in section,,,,,. It is possible to transfer data in non-ciphered
mode, as we have seen that the signaling messages are transferred in non-
ciphered mode called clear text mode. This change over from clear text
mode to cipher-mode is performed at MSC by the RRM function. The cipher
mode transmission provides the information security for the wireless link. In
addition, GSM system supports Discontinuous Mode (DTX) transfer of
voice packets. In DTX mode, during the silence period of speech signal, the
minimum amount of data is transferred to reduce the channel interference.
THE DTX transfer management is a function of RRM.

Figure-7: Layer-3 message fields

2. MM: Mobility Management:

Updates the location information of the mobile station as the mobile station
changes its location, performs the authentication procedure, assigns the
TMSI (Temporary Mobile System Identification) to the Mobile station, and
controls the attach and detach function. The more details of these functions
are given in section XXXX

3. CM: Connection Management:

Connection management function includes the set up and releases of the
circuit switched connections in mobile originating and terminating calls and
assistance to the SMS connection. The GSM directory number is called
MSISDN (Mobile System ISDN) and it is based on CCITT
Recommendation E.164. The routing in GSM is based on directory number
MSISDN, and MSRN (Mobile Station Roaming Number). MSRN is the
routing number used on second leg of the incoming call between GMSC and
MSC. MSRN is not visible to the mobile users. It is temporarily allocated to
the user session and used between the infrastructure machines and it is
integrated with the numbering plan of the fixed network. It also re-
establishes connection after connection disruption due to mobility related
causes.

If you notice the Figure~ 4 of GSM Protocol Structure, you will find that
RRM function is distributed between Base Station, BSC and MSC, where as
MSC controls all MM function. As in ISDN, Link Layer protocol LAPDm
terminates at the BSC. The A-interface communication is based on SS7
Signaling connection Control Part (SCCP) and Message Transfer Part
(MTP). Adopting the complete functionality of SS7 signaling from BSC
provides considerable signaling capability to the system, as it can handle
both signaling and message transaction functions.

3. Cell Layout
The cell layout of a cellular network is determined by the planning process
of the cells. Generally, a geometric map of the area to be covered is taken
and based on the demography of the different areas; the coverage area is
partitioned into different classes like down-town, urban, suburban, rural etc.
The traffic intensity at each area is defined to estimate the amount of
resources required for that area. Usually a radio designer use a radio network
design tools for planning to cover the area with grid, triangular or hexagonal
cells. The size of these cells is defined by the designer based on the radio
parameters assumed in the design. Based on these grid or hexagonal cells,
the potential cell sites are developed. Normally, this process in instantiated
at the known cell-site locations, so that, the existing facilities of the service
provider can be utilized in the design. The area covered by each type of
polygon used is different. As shown in Figure~ 7, the area covered by a
hexagonal polygon is greater than the other two polygons. Normally a
hexagonal polygon is chosen in the design. This reduces the number of cell-
sites for a given coverage area.

Figure-8: Coverage area of different cell configuration types.

Example 3.3: The 10KmX10Km coverage area is divided into grids of

of 10 meters apart on horizontal and vertical side. The square grids
are numbered as (i,j) where i= 1.....1000 and j=1...1000. The grids between
i= 500...600 and j=450....550 are high density grid and rest of the grids are
low density grid. The high density is 0.1 subscriber per m2 and low density
grids have 0.001 subscriber per m2. The traffic limited cells are limited to
1000 subscriber and coverage limited cells are of 1 KM. Find the optimum
number of cells for the coverage area.

Solution:
There are two type of grids
High density Grid: G (i, j ) for i = 500........600 and j = 450....550
Low density Grid: G (i, j ) for i = 1.....499,601........1000 and
j = 1.....449,551....1000
Number of subscriber in High density grid = 0.1X 10 X 10 = 10
Number of subscriber in low density grid 0.001X 10 X 10 = 0.1
Each point (i, j ) has a weight (10) or (0.1)
Use any clustering algorithm to create the cell from the grid data using the
following constraints
1. In a cell all grids should be adjacent
2. The total number of subscribers in a cell ≤ 1000 or the maximum
distance from the centroid of the cell to the boundary of a grid is
≤ 1000

The distance measurement of two cell sites is an important parameter to

estimate the radio frequency interferences. To simplify the calculations, the
co-ordinate system used for hexagonal grid is indeed at 600 angle as shown
in Figure~8. In this co-ordinate system, the distance between two points
(u1 , v1 ) and (u 2 , v 2 ) is given by,

D= (u1 − u 2 )2 + (v1 − v2 )2 + (u1 − u 2 )(v1 − v2 )

If we like to determine the distance from the center(0, 0) to a cell (u=i, v=j),
then,
D= (i 2
+ j 2 + ij )
= (i + j )2 − ij

Figure-9: Transform the axis for Hexagonal cells

In the cellular system, the same frequency can not be used in the adjacent
cells, as there will be co-channel interference. The hexagonal cell structure
actually creates a cluster of 7 cells. To eliminate the co-channel interference
the frequencies allocated to each cell will be different.

Figure-10: Frequency Reuse in cellular Systems

Let us consider a cell at distance (i,j) from the center (0, 0), to form the outer
cluster of the hexagon. In order to avoid the co-channel interference, the
radius of the outer cluster is given by

(
D 2 = 3R 2 i 2 + j 2 + ij )
Area of the outer cluster of radius D that surrounds the cluster of hexagonal
will be:

(
Aout = KD 2 = K .3R 2 i 2 + j 2 + ij )
Area of the cell at the center:

A = KR 2

The number of cells in the outer hexagon is 3N, where N is the number of
cells in a cluster. Hence,

Aout = 3N . A
Aout
= 3N
A
3KR 2 (i 2 + j 2 + ij )
= 3N
KR 2
N = (i 2 + j 2 + ij )
But

(i 2
+ j 2 + ij ) =
D2
3R 2
D2
N=
3R 2
D
= 3N
R
For hexagonal cell N = 7, then
D
= 4.6
R

D
This ratio is called channel reused ratio.
R
Example 3.4: The wireless system uses mobile terminal with 500 mw power
capacity and antenna gain of 3dB. The cell-site receiver sensitivity is
60dBm. The coverage are of the network is 20 KM square. Find the number
of hexagonal cell site required to cover the area. If the cell site antennas are
omni directional, what will be the reuse factor in this case using free space
propagation model and signal to noise separation of 12 dB. Determine the
minimum number of GSM frequencies required to build the coverage.

Solution

Figure- 11: Voice Coding and Sampling in GSM

2.3 GSM-voice
The second generation systems are designed to provide more system
capacity to the wireless spectrum and enhance the voice quality to close to
land-line voice quality. The use of voice decoding plays a major role in the
design and improving the voice capacity and quality of the cellular system.
To explain the cellular voice signal processing function we use the high
level functional scheme to generate the voice frames for the GSM system as
shown in Figure~ 10.

The analog voice signal is band-limited to 4 KHz by low-pass filters and

then sampled at Nyquest rate 8 KHz. Each sample is then converted to 13
bits. Thus, after A/D conversion, we have the data rate of 104 Kbps. This
data rate is then accumulated for 20 msec. The number of digitized samples
20.10 −3
in a block is = 160 samples of 13 bits each. These samples are used
125.10 −6
by the RPE-LTP (Regular Pulse Excited- Long Term Prediction) encoder,
and it generates a 260 bit sample, with three classes of bits. Class-1a
contains 50 most crucial bits, class-1b contains 132 bits of intermediate
value and class-2 contains 78 bits that can be errored without significant
deterioration in speech quality.

In GSM, the encoded voice samples are then protected by channel coding.
There are different channel coding schemes available. The errors in the 50
class-1a bits are protected by block polynomial coding, which takes
 Figure-12: Different types of voice bits in GSM

additional 3 priority bits also. On the receiving end, if the error is detected
then the whole 260 bits are ignored. The class-1b 132 bits are followed by 4
trail bits. Thus, including the parity and trail bits, the entire length of the
class-1 block becomes 189 bits. These 189 bits are convolution coded with
R=1/2 code of the constant length 5. Thus the total class-1 channel coded
frame length is 378 bits. These 378 bits are concatenated with 78 class-2
bits, and thus a channel coded GSM frame of voice is created with 456 bits
456.10 −3
at every 20 msec. The data rate of the GSM spectrum is = 22.8
20
Kbps. Figure~ 11 shows the schematic overview of this mechanism.

Figure- 13: Interleaving mechanism

The wireless channel encounters burst of errors due to fading and shadowing
as mentioned in Chapter-2. To protect against this burst error, interleaving is
applied. Interleaving breaks these 456 bits into 8 groups called D1-D8 of 57
bits each. A 40 msec segment of speech data is interleaved with a distance of
8 to combat errors in multipath fading. The GSM interleaving duration is 40
msec and the interleaving distance is 8. The frame length is theoretically
40
= 5 msec. The actual frame length of GSM system is 4.615 msec. In each
8
frame 57.2 = 114 bits of user data for speech transmission is transmitted. This
scheme of forming the 114 bits interleaved frame is shown in Figure~12.

Frame Structure
Total GSM spectrum = 25 MHz,
Total number of GSM channels supported on this spectrum = 124
⎢ 25.10 6 ⎥
Bandwidth per channel = ⎢ ⎥ = 200 KHz
⎣ 124 ⎦

Figure-14: Frame Hierarchy in GSM Systems

The frame duration = 4.615 msec.
This duration is divided into 8-time slots. Each of these time slots is physical
channel and user will require acquiring one of these time slots to set-up
4.615
communications. Time duration of channel = = 0.577 msec.
8
Figure~ 13: frame-hierarchy provides the frame hierarchy of GSM. Table~
3 gives the time duration of different types of frames.

Example 3.5: The GSM data rate is 270.833 Kbps. What is the single bit
duration in GSM link? During the GSM time slot of 0.577 msec, a burst of
148 bits are transmitted. What is the length in bits of effective difference
between time slot time and burst time? This is called guard time.

Table-3: Time Duration of Different Frames

2.5 GSM Channels:

The logical channels of GSM are classified into two broad categories:

Traffic Channel: These channels are exclusively used to transfer voice

signal bits and data bits. There are two data rates supported in the traffic
channel. Full rate at 22.8 Kbps, and half rate at 11.4 Kbps. The Full rate
coder RPE-LTP explained early generates 260 bits of data at every 20msec.
Another Full Rate Coder EFR (enhanced Full Rate Coder).This uses speech
synthesis approach using code excited linear prediction (CELP) model. It
also generates 13 kbps signal like RPE-LTP. The voice quality of this coder
is significantly better than RPE-LTP. This coder is mostly used in PCS-1900
GSM system of North America. The Half-rate codec is different type called
VSELP and it analysis by speech synthesis the best code ward characterizing
the excitation signal for each 20 msec. It generates 120 bits on every 20
msec, i.e., 5.6 kbps.

Control Channels: These channels are used for signaling and control
functions of the system. The information content transferred through these
channels are very sensitive to channel error rate. In GSM system, the total
amount of bits transferred per frame in these channels are same as voice
frame, but the treatment of the bits of these channels are different from voice
channel, as it is shown in Figure- 14. To identify and correct the bit errors,
these channel use more complex set of parity bits and the complete frame is
half rate convolution coded to protect against bit failure.

Figure-15: Signaling frame creation for transmission

The signaling channels are subdivided into three broad categories,

1. Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH): These channels are uni-directional

from the Base station to the mobile and these channels are used to broadcast
the system information of the mobile's current cell and the neighboring cell.
BCCH also provides the signal so that mobile synchronize its clock to the
base station and is called synchronization channel (SCH) and frequency
correction signal, so that mobile take to frequency of the cell (FCCH).

2. Common Control Channel: These channel works for both Mobile to

Base Station direction and Base Station to mobile direction. To send any
signal to the Base Station, the Mobile will access this common channel
randomly (RACH), where as, Base Station will use this channel to page a
mobile (PCH) or send the control channel assignment (AGCH) information
to the mobile.

3. Dedicated Control Channel: The dedicated control channel can be either

stand-alone control channel (SDCCH) or slow associated control channel
(SACCH), assigned to a traffic channel or SDCCH. The SACCH is used for
a function that can be performed at a slower speed or with minimum amount
of data, like power and frame adjustment, control information and
measurement data. The data fast associated control channel (FACCH) is
implemented by frame stealing on Traffic channel, and the frame is
identified by a flag, known as stealing flag, used for hand-off operation.

Figure-16: Channel hierarchy of GSM

Figure~15 gives an overview of this channel hierarchy of GSM systems.

The traffic and Control Channels are handled on Normal Burst NB mode.
The normal burst mode uses 26 bits training sequence in the middle and two
sections of 57 bits of encrypted data and three zero trail bits (TB) at the
beginning and at the end of the burst. The 57 bit encrypted data contains one
bit Flag to indicate the user data or control logical channels (SACCH or
FACCH). Each burst is separated by guard period (GP) to allow the drifting
of the clocks of mobile and base station for some limited duration. There are
three other Burst mode in the system to handle three other type of
communication needs of GSM. Two of these Burst modes are created by the
Base stations

1. Frequency Correction Burst FB: Base station broadcast this burst

and Mobile Station uses it to synchronize its master clock. It has 142 zero
bits in between the two trail bit sequences.

2. Synchronization Burst SB: Base station broadcast it and Mobile station

uses it for three functions, (a) Training of equalizer, (b) learning of network
identity, and (c) synchronizes with the time slot. It has 64 extended training
sequences in the middle and two sections of encoded 39 bits on either side.

There is another burst type that is used by the Mobile station called Random
Access Burst (RAB) to register with the network so that it can communicate
with network without prior assignment of signaling channel by the network.
This burst mode has only 88 bits of data consisting of 41 synchronization
bits and 36 encrypted data bits. The front trail is extended to 8 bits
Figure~16 shows the format of these different burst types.

Figure-17: Formats of different Burst frames

Example 3.7: Find the extended Guard time of the Random Access Burst
Mode. Why this extended Guard Time is required.

Example 3.8: The Uplink and Downlink of a GSM system uses slot zero of
multi frame for control channel and broadcast channel with the following
pattern.
Uplink: 4D-2R-8A-23R-8D-2R-4D
Downlink:F-S-4B-4C-F-S-8C-F-S-8D-F-S-8D-F-S-8A-I
where : D=Dedicated Control Channel, R=Random Access Channel, A=
Associated Control Channel, F=Frequency broadcast channel, S=
synchronization channel, B= broadcast control channel, C= Common control
channel, I=idle. Determine the channel speeds in kbps for each channel type.

Timing Advance: The GSM is a time division multiplexing system, and

base station must receive the signal bursts from different mobile stations at a
time synchronous manner within the limit of the guard time. Due to
mobility, the location of the different mobiles will be different, as a result
the propagation delays are different. Figure~17 shows two mobile stations

Figure-18: Why Timing Advance

MS-1 and MS-2 at a distance d1 and d 2 from the base station. The two
adjacent slots are allocated to these two stations. If the base station slot time
started at τ , the two signals will arrive at the base station as follows:
2d 1
MS-1 signal will arrive at base station at time τ + and end at time
c
2d 1
τ +∆+
c
2d 2
MS-2 signal will arrive at base station at time τ + ∆ +
c
2d 2 2d 1
if < , there will be time when two signals will collide at the base
c c
station.

To synchronize the signals from different mobiles within the short guard
time of GSM system, the concept of Timing Advance is used. Timing
Advance is the mechanism to adjust the transmission time from the mobile
based on its propagation delay from the base station. Once the dedicated
connection is established with a mobile station, BTS continuously measures
the time offset between its own burst schedule and the burst reception
schedule of the mobile station. Based on these measurements, BTS can
determine the required Time Advance of the mobile station. BTS then sends
this Time Advance recommendation by using the SACCH at the rate of 2 per
second. The Timing Advance can take value between 0 to 233 micro second.
The actual time advance is n bit period where the value of n can be from 0 to
63. This value of time Advance allows GSM to operate within 35 Km of
radius. If the coverage is required more than 35 KM, the GSM guard time is
can be extended by using only alternate burst for traffic transfer. At initial
assignment or at handover between two cells which are not synchronized,
both mobile station and base station does not know the Timing Advance for
valid communication. In that situation, mobile station sends an access burst
with null Timing Advance. Base station receives this burst and that includes
double the propagation time. From this base station computes the Timing
Advance and transfers this using signaling channel. From these point on-
words, mobile station can start the normal burst for communication.
Figure~18 A shows this signaling scheme for initial Time advance set-up
From that point on-words, the S and BTS continuously exchange messages
by using the channels like PTCCH/U or PTCCH/D or piggy backing on
power control messages or using ACK/NACK messages to maintain the
Time advance information accurate.

Figure-19: Timing Advance

Example 3.9: The multiplexing of the uplink radio channel is obtained by

using this Timing Advance information at the base station as shown in
Figure-19. Three Mobile stations MS1, MS2 and MS3 are located at a
distance 1 KM, 2 KMs and 5 KMs from base station at time τ . The three
mobile stations are allocated slots 1, 2 and 3 for their communications from
the same GSM channel. By using the timing advance, all three mobile
stations will be able to communicate to the base station, if the transmission
of the mobiles are timed according to the timing advance value. In GSM
system, the clocks are synchronized between base station and Mobile. The
worst case Mobile at a distance 35 KM has time advance equals to zero. So
the bits transmitted by that mobile will take the time required by the radio
signal to travel 35 KM distance and that is time τ

4. Paging & Location Area:

The Mobility management in the GSM system is based on the concept of
Location Area. As the mobile moves from one cell to another cell, the
tracking of the mobile is done not based on cell area, but based on location
area. The coverage area of the Mobile network is divided into a number of
MSC coverage areas. Within a MSC coverage area, numbers of cell sites are
created so that the complete area is covered by the radio propagation of the
cell site antennas. Thus any user within the MSC coverage area can
communicate with the cellular network. The location area is a cluster of cells
and that cluster is viewed by network as the location ID of the user when the
user is located within the cell cluster. In worst case, this cluster can have
only one cell. In that case the cell area and location area will be identical.

Figure-20: MSC with Single location area (LA)

Assume there is only one location Area (LA) in a system with one MSC.
MSC receives 100K calls in BH and 50% of those calls are terminating
Mobile Calls. There are n cells in the system and all these cells are
connected to this MSC. Assume in our example the value of n=100. We are
interested to estimate the number of paging message created by this MSC
during BH.

100 X 10 3 X 0.5
Average number of calls per cell = = 500
100

Though the mobile that is receiving the terminating call will be at one
particular cell at that time, in this case, MSC does not know the location of
the mobile. So MSC can not page only the particular cell where mobile is
currently located. It will broadcast the page message to all the cells. Only
one of the cell will reply to this paging message. MSC then only knows the
location of the mobile.

Number of paging message per cell = 500 X 100 = 50000

The basic cellular architecture with major entities for location management
system, like, base station, MSC, HLR, VLR is described in Section~arch.
On the arrival of a call for a mobile terminal, the system initiates a search for
the target mobile. This search mechanism is called terminal paging, the
usual mechanism of which involves the broadcast of a page message from
the MSC via the base stations serving the set of cells where the mobile
terminal is likely to be present. The base stations broadcast the paging
request over one or more designated forward control channels called the
paging channels. The number and designation of the paging channels vary
between systems. All the mobile terminals listen to the page message and
only the target sends a response message back over a reverse control
channel. Once this is known, the network establishes the connection to
the Mobile using the cell-site antenna of that cell. Thus Location Area and
Paging is important concept for terminating a Mobile Call.

If there had been no information available about the mobile terminal,

the system has to page all the cells in a service area as we have shown
previously. Such an exhaustive search results in enormous signaling traffic
even for moderately large networks [38]. The limited number of paging
channels is bound to be congested with increasing number of calls. In order
to put an upper bound on this cost, a mobile terminal is made to report its
location from time to time. This reporting, called location update or
registration, effectively limits the search space for paging. The registration
mechanism involves acquisition of a dedicated or non-dedicated reverse
control channel by the mobile device followed by a two-way messaging that
successfully sends the update message from the terminal to the MSC/VLR.
Even here, the allocation of channels differs across various systems. The
higher amount of message exchange makes the cost of a registration remains
higher than that of a terminal paging. The boundary of this registration
function is determined by the location area.

Figure-21: MSC with 5 Location Areas (LA).

The challenge of the network designer is to find the optimum size of the
location area. There are two signaling function that are interrelated in this
process, namely the location management messages and paging messages.
The location messages are generated continuously whenever a mobile
crosses the location area boundary. This happens irrespective of whether the
mobile is in session or idle. So if the size of the location area is small.
the number of location tracking messages will higher, where as with large
location area sizes, the number of location tracking messages will be small.
On the other hand, the paging message is generated when there is a
terminating mobile call. For small location area, there are fewer cells in the
location area and number of paging message will be few. But if the location
area size is large, many cells will be part of the location area, and the number
of paging message will be very high. The dynamics of this trade-off
is shown in the Figure~{\Location Area} where in x-axis, the number of
cells per location area. The location area planning use two important
network data set, namely
1. Adjacent cell crossing data during BH: This is a nXn matrix with
non zero entries only for adjacent cells.
2. Busy hour terminating call data per cell: This is a n dimensional
vector.

Figure-22: Dynamics of Location area size and messaging cost

In addition the network planner will need the cost of paging and cost of
location update message to determine optimal paging area. The optimization
can be done by using Graph coloring technique.

Example 3.9: A MSC has 100 cells. 50% of busy hour calls are terminating.
If the busy hour calling rate of the switch is 10K and it is uniformly
distributed over all the cells, find the total paging channel capacity of a cell,
in case of one location area and in case of 100 location area.
Assume each paging require 456 bits

Case-1: Each Cell a Location Area

0.5 X 10.10 3
Total Terminating call during BH in a cell = = 50
100
Paging traffic during BH = 456 X 50 = 22800 bits
22800
Average bandwidth required = = 6.3 bits per sec
3600

Case -2 : The Complete coverage area is a Location Area

 0.5 X 10.10 3
Total Terminating call during BH in a cell = = 50
100
Paging traffic during BH = 456 X 50 X 100 = 2280000 bits
2280000
Average bandwidth required = = 600.3 bits per sec
3600

4.2 Paging Policies

The naive approach to location tracking is to page the mobile simultaneously
either in the entire network, or within an LA as dictated by the last update
message. Even though paging must be completed within an allowable time
constraint, there exists the possibility of sequential zing the procedure.
On a call arrival, the cells are paged sequentially for the mobile terminal
following an ordering known as paging strategy. A very intuitive result in
[44, 46] states that, under a steady-state location probability distribution of a
mobile user, the optimal paging strategy (in terms of the mean cost of
paging) with no delay constraint should page the cells in strict order of
decreasing probability values. Clearly, a uniform distribution is the worst
adversary, because no additional improvement is obtainable by changing
paging strategy. An algorithm to find the optimal paging sequence under
given time constraints is also presented in [44]. However, the worst case
scenario still ends up with exhaustive paging and incurs very high cost.

Most paging algorithms proceed with a high reliance factor on the latest
update information. In the case of zone-based update, a blanket polling is
done over the last reported LA. The target's existence in one of the
constituent cells is guaranteed by the protocol. For the dynamic update
schemes, the last known position of the mobile terminal and its
neighborhood are considered to be the most probable position -- the
probability decreasing in an omni-directional way with increasing distance.
This is the underlying assumption for the popular cluster paging [36] and
selective paging [1, 3, 23]. The directional bias in user movement has mostly
been taken care of by associating a number of states for each cell under a
Markov model [7, 9]. Using user profiles either by querying the mobile
terminal or by retrieving from the billing database has also been considered
[40]. Profile-based paging on optimal LeZi-Update is also investigated. This
paging strategy initially uses the concept of PPM (prediction by partial
match) style blending mechanism to compute the residence probabilities of
the mobile user in deferent cells. It then polls the cells in decreasing order of
residence probabilities. Some recent paging strategies have been proposed
for multi-system location management. In such a heterogeneous system,
there exists both inter-system and intra-system paging. The overhead and
cost of inter-system paging can be effectively reduced by using the concept
of boundary location register [4]. Profile based active and idle paging
requests have also been recently proposed to minimize the paging cost [34]
in multi-system cellular networks.

5. Radio Interference
Interference: The major problem behind the performance improvement of
the cellular systems is interference [42]. Interference can occur from a
different mobile in the same or neighboring cell, other base stations
operating in the same frequency or any non-cellular system operating in the
same frequency domain. While interference in control channel results in call
blocking, it affects the performance of the voice channels by introducing un-
wanted cross talks. The greater noise and increased number of base stations
make the interference very severe in the dense urban (city) areas. This
interference is broadly classified into two types:

1. co-channel interference
2. adjacent channel interference

Co-channel Interference: The frequency reuse mechanism of cellular

system results in the use of same set of frequencies by a number of cells.
Such cells are termed as co-channel cells and interference arising from the
signals of these cells are termed as co-channel interference [54]. Increase in
transmission power increases this interference between co-channel cells. The
co-channel cells must be isolated by a minimum distance to bound this
interference into a tolerable amount. For a homogeneous cellular system, the
co-channel interference is a function of cell-radius r and distance d to the
d
nearest co-channel cell. The parameter Q = is often termed as
r
co-channel reuse ratio. From hexagonal geometry, we have derived early
that Q = 3N [42]. By increasing the value of Q it is possible to maintain
larger separation of co-channel cells, thus reducing the co-channel
interference. On the other hand, reduction of the value of Q is required to
increase system capacity for a given spectrum. The tradeoff between this two
orthogonal requirements is made by the designer of cellular systems. Let
nc represents the number of co-channel interfering cells. If, S is the signal
power and I i is the interference power generated by the ith interfering cell,
then the signal-to-interference ratio is given by:

S S
= nc
I
∑I
i =1
i

Now, if d i is the distance of the ith interferer, the received power at the
mobile is approximately proportional to d i− m , for 2 ≤ m ≤ 4 , m is known as
path-loss exponent. It has been shown in [42] that for homogeneous base
stations and path loss experiment,
m
⎛d ⎞
S
=
r −m
⎜ ⎟
=⎝ ⎠ =
r ( 3N )
n

n0
I i0 i0
∑d
i =1
i
−m

S
The above equation provides a relation between and N . However, it must
I
be noted that this equation is based on the hexagonal cellular geometry only,
with cellular equidistant interfering cells.

5.2 Adjacent Channel Interference: Adjacent channel Interference [42]

refers to the interference arising from the signals which have the frequency
close to the actual signal. The problem gets aggravated if two users in
adjacent channels use very close frequency bands. The base station often
face difficulty in discriminating the desired mobile from its counterpart
using a close channel. This event is commonly known as near-far effect.
Adjacent channel interference can be tackled by using efficient filters. An
easy technique to achieve this is to assign every cell a set of channels, whose
frequency are maximally separated. This can be performed by sequentially
assigning channel frequencies to different cells. Thus effectively, the
adjacent channels in a cell can be separated by N ,where N is the cluster-
size.

6. Basic GSM Services

The basic GSM voice services includes the following main services
 1. Power on Procedure of the Mobile
2. Mobile Registration and Authentication
3. Originating Voice Call
4. Terminating Voice Call
5. Hand-off
6. Location Update

In addition there are many highly complicated voice services available in a

current cellular phone. For simplicity, only these services are explained in
the following sections. The explanation is fairly at higher level, so that the
concept of service implementation can be understood by the readers. To
understand other services, readers can refer the GSM service specifications
[56].

6.1 'Power on' Procedure of Mobile: Once a Mobile switches to ‘Power-

on’ position, the first thing the mobile has to do is to identify the carrier
frequency used in the cell. To do that mobile measures the power of the all
124 carrier frequencies of the GSM system and determines the strongest
carrier signal. The carrier containing the broadcast channel is transmitted at
higher power level in a cell. So mobile station can easily identify the carrier
on which the broadcast control channel is transmitted. Then mobile station
finds the FCCH to identify the zero time slot. Once this is determined,
mobile station adjusts its clock to get it adjusted to that frequency. Once it
adjusted the frequency, it can start getting the other control channels. In the
next synchronization channel frame it gets the information from the
synchronization channel. The type of information mobile station extracts are
(a) Base Station identification code, (b) up to 16 carriers of neighboring
cells, (c) Cell Global Identity: a sequence of country code, mobile network
code, location area code, cell identity, (d) other parameters like maximum
and minimum power level, hysterics parameter for handover. At this point
mobile is ready to register to the network.

6.2 Mobile Registration: In mobile communication registration and

authentication are very important functions of the system to exclude the
users of terminals who are not valid customers of a network. Because
of the mobility and the easy accessibility of the wireless channels by any
mobile device with the GSM functions, any GSM terminals will read the
channels and get the network information. To do the registration, the mobile
station requests a dedicated control channel assignment from the base station
by using RACH. The base station controller, on receiving this request,
assigns a free slow dedicated control channel (SDCCH) to the mobile station
and transfers this information using Associated Grant Control Channel
(AGCH). Mobile station send the response that includes the TMSI
and LAI that was last stored in the mobile using SDCCH to the base station.
This information is transmitted by base station controller to the MSC and
VLR. VLR checks the database of the mobile to confirm that the TMSI is
valid. If it is valid, it updates the location information of the mobile. If the
VLR data does not have the TMSI record of the mobile, it use LAI to
determine the previous VLR where the mobile was registered. MSC/VLR
then requests the previous VLR to transfer the mobiles data. If the previous
VLR responds to the request by transferring the data, the current VLR
updates its database with those information. In both cases, this will
ensure the authentication of the mobile station. On the other hand, if
the previous VLR also is not able to provide any data of the mobile,
MSC/VLR sends a message to BSC to get IMSI from the Mobile station.
This request is sent to the mobile station by base station using SDCCH.
Mobile station sends the IMSI to the base station by using SDCCH, and this
is restricted to only one attempt. Base station sends the IMSI information to
the MSC/VLR. VLR decodes from IMSI the HLR location of the Mobile
station. HLR transfers the mobile stations information to the VLR.
At this stage the network will initiate the authentication of the mobile
station. The sequence of signaling of this procedure is shown in Figure
Registration Procedure

Figure-23: Registration Service

6.3 Mobile Authentication: As we mentioned earlier that the SIM card

provides the capability to use sophisticated algorithm in the GSM system for
Authentication and encryption of data. Network sends a 128 bit
pseudorandom number RAND to the Mobile station. This is transmitted
through the assigned SDCCH to the Mobile station. Mobile station in the
SIM use this as input and the stored key K i to its A3 authentication
algorithm and calculates the 32 bit electronic signature (SRES). This
 Figure- 24: Mobile Authentication Process

SRES is transferred to the network using SDCCH. Network compares this

received SRES to its own calculated SRES. If there is agreement, the
authentication is successful. Figure- XXX shows this inter working between
the Mobile station and the wireless network. VLR then assigns the TMSI
and LAI to the mobile station and transmits these data in encrypted form
using SDCCH channel. Mobile station, on receiving these data stores the
information in NVM of the SIM card. After completion of Authentication,
the Ciphering Process is started. As we mentioned early, SIM card also
stores A8 algorithm in the NVM. Every Mobile equipment vendor stores the
A5 Encryption Algorithm within the Mobile equipment. Within the SIM
card RAND and key K i is used in conjunction with the A8 algorithm to
generate the Encryption Key K c . The Mobile TDMA frame number is used
along with this Key K c and the Encryption Algorithm A5 to create the bit
string for encryption. This bit string and the data string are added by
Modulo2 addition to generate the encrypted data. Figure~Ciphering Process
shows the pictorial view of this process. Figure~ XXXX the schematic view
of how these ciphering as applied to the voice packets.

Figure- 25 Ciphering Process

6.4 Mobile Call Origination: Figure~Mobile Call Origination shows the

different messages interchanged between the different subsystems of GSM
to set-up a mobile originating call. Mobile first sends a request for Channel
by using Random Access Channel(RACH). BSC selects an idle SDCCH for
the mobile and sends the response with channel assignment by using the
Access Grant Channel (AGCH).Mobile sends the call request by using the
SDCCH. The mobile goes through authentication and ciphering process, if
this is not completed earlier, as explained in the mobile 'Power-on' process.
After this sequence, mobile sends the destination number in MSISDN from
in SET-UP message to MSC. MSC use the SET-UP message information to
to form IAM (Initial Address Message} for the destination and transfers it
using SS7 network. When MSC receives the ACM (Acknowledgement)
response from the destination, MSC sends {\bf Alerting} message to the
Mobile and allocates the Access traffic channel. MSC receives the SS7 ANS
(Answer) signal from destination and then sends CONNECT message to
Mobile station using FACCH to reduce delay in answering. With CONNECT
message, the mobile switch through the TCH channel to transfer
the voice packets. At then end of conversation, when mobile originating
party send END signal, it is detected by the MSC. It frees the TCH, makes
the originating mobile station idle and send a RELEASE SS7 message to the
destination switch to release the other party.

Figure-26: Message flow for Call origination

Figure-27: The complete processing on speech signal

In GSM system, the original speech signal goes through a number of

processing steps before it is delivered in the wireless channel. This various
processing functions on the speech signal make it robust, efficient for
wireless communication and secured for personal information. This complex
processing scheme makes the current wireless system highly secured
communication system.
6.5 Mobile Terminating Call: In the mobile terminating call, the number
used by the calling party does not represent any telephone exchange location
or a physical line in a network. This represents a data location in the HLR
that maintains the actual network identity of the called number. Normally the
first few digits uniquely identify the GSM number and the operator of the
network where this number is subscribed. For example in UK +44 385
indicates that the subscriber belongs to Vodafone, or in Finland +358 40
indicates the GSM customer of Telecom Finland. The local PSTN switch
very quickly translates the first few digits and route the call to a {\bf
GMSC} (Gateway MSC). GMSC has the access to the HLR of this
company. By using SS7 network it enquires the HLR by using directory
number of the mobile user, and receives the routing number. By using the
routing number GMSC routes the call to the current MSC location of the
mobile user. GMSC requires only switching function and toll switching
software, it does not need and radio function. As we mentioned that GMSC
uses the routing number to route the call not the dialed number, this routing
number is MSRN as we mentioned earlier. If the number of MSRN
is limited, HLR can not assign MSRN to every user within its record. In that
case, when GMSC requests the routing information, HLR, based on
MSISDN, gets the VLR number of the MSC and sends a request message
with IMSI to VLR to get the MSRN. On receipt of this MSRN, HLR
forwards the MSRN routing information to GMSC. Figure~{\MSRN
provision} shows how this messaging is done in the system. Once the call
has reached the destination MSC there are number of messages are
transferred between MSC and the BSC to terminate the
Figure~{\Terminating Call Procedure} shows the message sequences to
terminate the call. On receiving the call, VMSC (Visiting MSC) sends an
enquiry to VLR to get the LA information. VMSC, knowing the LA
information generates the broadcast paging messages and transfer those
messages to the BSCs. BSC on receipt of this message, identifies the
Base stations that will send the paging message and transfer the paging
message to the Base stations. Each Base station page the mobile user by
using PCH channel. The mobile user, on identifying this page message, send
the page response using RACH. Base station on receiving the page response,
sends the message to MSC. MSC then authenticates the user by assigning
SDCCH. After authentication, a FACCH is used to assign the traffic channel
TCH and the Mobile is alerted by ringing. At the same time, MSC sends the
Ringing message by using SS7 network to the originating end-office. On
receipt of answer signal from the terminating mobile user, the Answer
message is transferred to the originating office and voice path is cut-through.

Figure-28: Terminating Mobile Call set-up.

7. Mobility Management
The mobile terminal needs to be continuously tracked by the system to
satisfy the seamless connectivity to the network irrespective of the state of
the mobile phone. This tracking mechanism is known as mobility
management. Depending on the user's status of communication, the mobility
management has two flavors. The mechanism by which an on-going call is
kept alive when the mobile user moves from one cell to another (or from one
sector to another) by changing the base station is known as in-session
mobility management or hand off management [39]. On the other hand
tracking the mobile user in a stand by mode is known as location
management. Location management is necessary for incoming calls. These
calls are routed to the mobile within a precise time frame (Grade of Service)
to avoid service failure and customer satisfaction.

6.1 Hand-off Management

As the mobile changes its cell while in conversation, the call is transferred to
a new channel of a new base station. The procedure involves identifying a
new base station and subsequently transferring the control and voice signals
to that new channel [39, 42]. Figure~\ref{handoff} demonstrates the hand
off of the mobile from cell1 to cell2. In order to provide the users a feeling
of un-interrupted connectivity, the hand off needs to be processed
efficiently, such that it seems imperceptible to the user. The possible signal
strength of the signals transmitted by the antenna of Cell-1(mobile phone’s
current cell) and cell-2 9mobile phones new cell) is shown in

Figure-29: Hand Off in cellular Systems

Figure~\{Handoff Threshold} You notice, as the mobile is moving away

from the antenna-1, the signal strength received by the mobile station from
antenna-1 is decreasing. On the other hand, as it is moving closer to antenna-
2, the signal strength of antenna-2 is improving. And there is a cross over
point, where the signal strength of antenna-2 will be better than signal
strength of antenna-1. The hand-off procedure is a complex control function
that involves interchange of multiple messages and to execute that function,
it requires finite amount of time. In order to ensure that the hand-off function
is initiated at adequate signal level with antenna-1, so that by the time hand-
off is completed the signal strength of antenna-2 is adequate to support the
communication, a hand-off trigger threshold is defined. This is an optimal
signal level to initiate this hand off. This optimal signal level must be higher
than minimum usable signal acceptable for voice quality. If the signal level
for initiating hand off is pretty low, then the on-going session might be lost.
On the other hand a very large signal for initiating hand offs might lead to
un-necessary hand offs, thus increasing the burden and complexity of the
system. Current GSM system specifies this minimum usable signal as
between -90 dBm and -100 dBm [35]. The entire process of identifying the
cell, transferring the on going session to the base station of that cell is
controlled and managed by the MSC. Also, the base stations needs to
monitor the signal strength for some specific duration to ensure that

Figure-30: Hand-off threshold

the decrease in signal strength is not arising from temporary fading, thereby
assuring that the mobile is actually moving far away from the coverage area
of the serving base stations. The running average of signal strength thus
needs to be estimated for avoiding un-wanted hand offs. Intuitively, the time
span needed to decide whether a hand off is actually necessary is dependent
on the movement speed of the mobile. The time over which a call is
maintained without hand off is known as dwell time [41]. This dwell time is
dependent on the time varying effects of radio propagation, interference,
channel fading and distance between mobile and the base station.
Unfortunately, the variance of dwell time is quiet un-predictable. While
large and less populated coverage areas have random dwell time
concentrated around its mean, dense city areas possess dwell time widely
varying from its mean. Broadly, the hand off mechanisms of cellular
networks can be classified into two distinct types: system assisted hand off
and mobile assisted hand off.

7.2 System Initiated Hand Off: In the first generation cellular systems, the
hand off mechanism was almost entirely performed by the system [39, 42].
The base stations used to continuously monitor and measure the signal
strengths. Estimating the signal strength of every mobile it used to determine
the relative location of the mobile under its own coverage area. Moreover, a
spare locator receiver in each base station was used to monitor the signal
strengths of the mobiles in its neighboring cells which have high probability
of hand off. The entire process is controlled and managed by the MSC,
which decides whether a hand off is actually necessary or not.

Figure-31: Hand-off Messaging

7.3 Mobile Initiated Hand Off: The hand off decision in second generation
cellular systems, which use digital TDMA technology (e.g. GSM), is mobile
assisted [35, 39, 42]. Every mobile continuously measures the signal
strengths of the base stations and reports these measurements to its serving
base station. When the mobile obtains a higher signal strength from a
different base station, than its serving base station, for a certain period of
time, the hand off is initiated. This mechanism improves the performance
and latency of the hand off, since the MSC no longer needs to constantly
monitor the signal strengths. This mobile initiated hand off is suited for
micro cellular environments which require frequent hand offs. The GSM
mobile initiated hand-off messaging sequence is shown in Figure~\(GSM
HO Procedure}. The Mobile station is connected to BTS-1, but it is
continuously monitoring the BCCH of the BTS-1 and its neighboring BTSs.
It sends the RSSI report to BTS-1 based on these measurements using
SACCH channel of the TCH it is using. Base station, on getting the RSSI
measurements, decide the Hand-off trigger point and request a Hand-off
initiation to BSC and MSC. MSC based on RSSI measurement, decides the
BTS that will receive this call after HO, and send a HO request to BSC and
BTS-2. The free TCH is reserved for this call at the BTS-2. BSC and BTS-2
acknowledge this request and bridge the connection to the existing call. BSC
at the same time initiate the Hand-off command to BTS-1 by using the
SACCH. BTS-1, on receiving the Hand-off Command, tune the RF
frequency to the new channel of BTS-2, and send the Hand-off completion
message to BTS-2 using the SACCH of the TCH allocated from BTS-2. The
BTS sends this message to BSC and MSC to cut through the bridged
connection. At this stage the voice packets are received from both antenna to
the system. MSC finally sends the Release HO Channel
message to BTS-1 through BSC. BTS-1 send this message to Mobile using
SACCH of the TCH for BTS-1. Mobile terminal removes the connection to
TCH from BTS-1. Now the voice packets are received from BTS-2 antenna
only. BTS-1 also send the Release HO channel confirmation message to
BSC and MSC to free up the TCH allocated in BTS for the call. This Hand-
off procedure also will work for the case when the BTS-2 is located to a
different BSC controlled by the same MSC. Figure~\{Hand-off Switching
Points} shows the different switching points possible in the hand-off. When
the Mobile station moves from the coverage area of one MSC to another
MSC more complex messaging is required to complete the hand-off. This is
explained in next section.

Example 3.10 Assume that SACCH takes 40 msec to transfer messages to

Mobile station and 40 msec to receive message from Mobile station. Also
assume that each message processing time is average 5 msec at Mobile
Station, BTS, BSC and MSC. Determine the duration when both TCH are
simultaneously busy. If the occupancy of the controllers processing
messages at BTS, BSC and MSC is 80%, what will be the impact on TCH
capacity of the system?

7.4 Inter-System Hand Off: Apart from these two basic types of hand offs,
a different scenario arises when a mobile moves away from one system to
another, controlled by a different MSC. Such a hand off is termed as inter
system hand off [42, 33]. An MSC realizes an inter-system hand off when it
finds the mobile's signal to be very weak, but can not find another cell within
its coverage area to transfer the on-going call. Figure~\{Inter System HO}
shows the messaging for this case. The concept of Anchor MSC is used in
this case. Anchor MSC is the MSC that remains as a fixed connection point
of the call during the complete call session. With the concept of Anchor
MSC, the call can move over large areas with multiple MSCs and still
maintain its connection valid for the network. Figure~\{Anchor MSC}
shows how the call leg from one MSC to another MSC can be changed
without effecting the end to end connectivity. As shown in Figure~\{Inter
System HO}, The old BSC sends Hand-off required message to old MSC.
old MSC transform this message to MAP format and send to Anchor MSC.
Anchor MSC sends the Hand-off perform message to New MSC. New MSC
sends the Hand-off request message to New BSC. On reverse direction New
BSC sends the Acknowledgement back to New MSC, which in turn sends
the Hand-off Perform Acknowledgement message to Anchor MSC. Anchor
MSC sends this to old MSC. Old MSC now sends the Hand-off Command to
Old BSC. The new BSC will receive HO Complete from its BTS and sends
this message to New MSC. New MSC send the End Signal Result to Anchor
MSC which will transfer that to old MSC. Old MS will send the clear
command to old BSC and the channel will be released in the same sequence
as we have seen in intra system hand-off.

7.5 Prioritizing Hand Offs and its Challenges: Generally, from the user
perspective, the maintenance of an on-going session is more important than a
new session arrival. In order to improve the quality of service (QoS) during
the hand off, various research proposals are provided to give the hand off
calls more priority over any incoming voice calls [43]. One way to prioritize
the hand off calls is to reserve a fraction of total available channels
exclusively for hand off requests from the on-going sessions. This scheme is
known as guard channel concept [43]. However, this scheme lacks from low
traffic utilization. Different dynamic channel assignment strategies are
proposed to optimize the number of guard channels by using demand based
frequency allocation. Another way to deal with hand off sessions is queuing
of hand off requests [47]. The queuing of on-going sessions decrease the
session blocking probability. Since, there is a significant difference between
the hand off request time and session blocking time, it is wise to queue the
hand off requests and provide the system some time to process the queued
requests.

Challenges in hand off often arise due to the wide variety of speeds between
different users. While the users in high speed vehicles cross the cell
boundaries in a few seconds, the pedestrians are often confined within a
single cell. The problem is solved by introducing the concept of co-located
``large'' and ``small'' cells [29]. Different power levels and different antennas
are used to manage these two distinct types of cells. This concept is
popularly known as umbrella cell [29], where the large coverage area is
provided for high-speed users and smaller coverage is given to low speed
users. This reduces the number of hand offs for the high-speed users and
also provide good coverage areas for slower pedestrian users. A hand off
from a large umbrella cell to a small micro cell occurs when a high speed
user slows down its speed (getting down from a car).

7.6 Hard and Soft Hand Off: The cellular systems (like GSM) assign
different radio channels for hand off. This is known as hard hand off. On the
other hand, in IS-95 code division multiple access (CDMA), no physical
change in the assigned channel actually occurs. Instead the MSC
simultaneously evaluates the received signal from single user at several
neighboring base stations. It then make a ``soft'' decision to choose a version
of the user's signal to pass at a particular instance [37]. This procedure is
known as soft hand off. A wide variety of research works exist in literature
which propose to improve these soft and hard hand off strategies. The
concept of primary virtual circuit (PVC) and switched virtual circuit (SVC)
is used to improve the hand off latency in mobile wireless ATM networks
[12]. Recent researches have also revealed that end-to-end solutions for
smooth hand offs are required for transmission of streaming multimedia in
wireless networks. These include integration of adaptive channel allocation
strategies and predictive reservation of wireless bandwidth [13] for assuring
stringent QoS guarantee.

8. Location Registration:
Registrations caused by location update schemes have two major categories
in [7], namely, static and dynamic update schemes. The static schemes are
characterized by the fact that there are only certain fixed cells at which a
mobile terminal registers to send an update message. Under the dynamic
schemes, however, a mobile terminal can register in any cell---the decision
is solely based on the user's activity.

8.1 Static Update Schemes: These are also called global schemes in the
sense that the cells at which all or at least a group of mobile terminals
initiate update messaging are set globally for the whole network. Following
are the two most prominent static location update schemes that have been
proposed in the literature:

Figure- 32: Location update procedure

8.2 Zone based update: The update scheme most widely adopted by the
current cellular system (such as IS-41, IS-95 and GSM) [10, 20, 44]
partitions the service area under an MSC into a number of zones formed by a
non-overlapped grouping of neighboring cells. These zones are often called
location areas (LA) or paging areas (PA). A mobile terminal must update
whenever it crosses an LA boundary. The base stations must broadcast the
LA-ID in addition to the cell-ID to assist the mobile devices in following the
update protocol. Consequently, an LA assignment is globally induced for all
subscribers. The search space for a mobile terminal's location under this
protocol is limited to the set of cells in the current LA. Figure~\{Location
Update Procedure} shows how the location is updated in a GSM system
where Zone based update scheme is used. Mobile station at the time of first
registration gets the list of cells based on location area definition, when
mobile should register to the system. When ever Mobile finds that the new
base station ID on which it is located is one of that list of base stations, it
uses RACH to send a Registration Request message to the base station. Base
station sends this message to its BSC at the same time allocates SDCCH and
communicates that acceptance to Mobile by using AGCH. BSC sends this
information to MSC/VLR. VLR has the record of all home and visiting
customers like IMSI. If this customer's record already exists in the VLR, it
updates the entry with this new location data. It then sends the location
update accepted message to Mobile. If VLR/MSC finds that this is a new
customer, and no location data in its data base, it determines the location of
its HLR from the IMSI that came along with the request. It then sends the
Registration request to the HLR. HLR, using the user IMSI can find out the
location data of the user and from that determines the old MSC/VLR
identity. HLR then sends a message to old MSC/VLR to remove this user
from its data base. Old MSC/VLR removes the location record of the user
from its database and send the Acknowledgement to the HLR. HLR then
sends the Registration Accepted message to new MSC/VLR. The new
MSC/VLR, then starts the registration process by doing Authentication and
ciphering using the SDCCH and allocates the TMSI to the user. In GSM
system, there is another concept of Attach/Detach to track whether a
registered user is attached to the network or not. There is one bit that is kept
to record this information. Once a mobile user is registered to the network,
periodically it sends the Attach message to indicate that it is still alive in the
network. If for certain time duration, attach message is not received by the
base station from a mobile, base station sets the mobile to detach state. This
indicates to the network that the mobile is not alive in this network. This
single bit of information avoids routing of calls to destination system for a
mobile, which is at power-off state. The network can easily route those calls
to announcement and voice mail service without wasting useful network
resources.

8.3 Reporting center based update: An obvious drawback of the zone

based update scheme is that the update traffic originates only in the
boundary cells of the LAs, thereby overloading the reverse control channel
used by the mobile devices for contention based channel access. An
alternative approach suggested in [6] is to designate some cells as reporting
centers where the mobiles must update upon entering. On arrival of a call,
the mobile must be paged in the vicinity of the reporting cell at which it has
last updated.

Performance of the static update schemes depend on the global design

choices. Choosing an optimal set of reporting cells for a general cellular
network has been shown to be NP-complete, although optimal or near-
optimal solutions for special types of cellular topologies (e.g., tree, ring and
grid), and an approximate solution for general graphs have been shown to
exist [7].

8.4 Dynamic Update Schemes: These are also called local schemes as
mobile terminals can make the decision whether to update or not without any
global or design specific knowledge about cell planning. Three major
schemes fall under the dynamic category---named by the kind of threshold
they use to trigger an update:

8.4.1 Distance-based update: Under this scheme provided only in the IS-95
standard [7, 20, 23, 31, 35], the mobile terminal is required to track the (BS
to BS) Euclidean distance from the location of the previous update and
initiates an update if the distance crosses a specified threshold d. Although
the distance would ideally be specified in terms of a unit such as mile or
kilometer, it can also be specified in terms of the node distance metric
defined over a graph that represents the cell geometry. One can think of
these cells effectively forming a dynamic LA centered on the last known
position of the device. Paging can thus be limited to all cells in this dynamic
LA. Implementing a distance-based update, however, calls for some
information about the relative distances of the base stations to be uploaded
onto the mobile device.

8.4.2 Movement-based update: This scheme [3, 7] is essentially a way of

over-estimating the Euclidean distance b traversed distance. The distance
here is considered only in terms of the number of cells crossed, which needs
to be counted by the mobile device until it reaches a certain threshold $m$,
when an update is triggered. However, there is a penalty paid in an increased
number of updates that it triggers counting local movements between
different cells, even though the distance threshold is not being crossed.
Considering the worst case of movement away from the last known cell, a
paging technique identical to the distance-based scheme can be deployed.

8.4.3 Time-based update: Under this scheme [7, 45], the mobile sends
periodic updates to the system. The period or time threshold t can easily be
programmed into the mobile using a hardware or software timer. While this
makes it a truly local and attractive solution for implementation, one has to
accommodate the cost due to redundant updates made by devices that are not
mobile. For paging, the search space for the target device can be limited by
all possible cells reachable by the user within the elapsed time from the last
known cell.

Performance of dynamic update schemes depend on the choice of the

threshold parameters. Considering the evolution of the system between call
arrivals under a memory less movement model, an iterative algorithm based
on dynamic programming is used to compute the optimal threshold distance
[31]. A similar approach in [23] computes hat{h} under a two-dimensional
random walk model for user mobility over hexagonal cell geometry. All the
three dynamic update schemes have been compared in [7] in terms of the
paging cost with varying update rates. Using two types of user movement
models, namely memory less and Markovian, on a ring cellular topology, it
has been observed that the distance-based scheme performs the best
consistently.

8.5 Hybrid Schemes: Several hybrid schemes, too, have been proposed in
the literature. For example, a dynamic variant of the zone-based update
scheme proposed in [53] allows different LA assignments for different
mobile terminals based on individual call arrival and mobility patterns. This
alleviates the localization problem of the registration traffic to some extent,
although at the cost of choosing, maintaining and uploading a wide range of
LA maps to mobile devices. In [27], the dynamism has been taken further by
optimizing on the signaling costs that reflects the user's direction of
movement and regional cell characteristics.

The basic drawbacks of a static or global scheme, even if reduced by such

approaches, still lingers. For example, a user can generate uninformative
update messages by crossing LA boundaries or hopping in and out of
reporting centers. As suggested in [48], considering per-user mobility is a
first step towards dealing with these problems. Following the spirit of
reporting center selection, they propose a selective update scheme tuned to
individual users over an LA-based cellular network.

8.6 Optimal Location Update: The mobility of the user generates an

uncertainty of location. Any location management strategy will be optimal if
this uncertainty is minimized. From the perspective of information theory,
entropy provides the most fair measure of this uncertainty. The role of the
optimal update scheme is to minimize this entropy and aid the paging
mechanism with optimal information. There exists no update strategy which
can work with information exchange any less than entropy. This scheme is
quite analogous to a set of universal data compression algorithms which
provide optimal data compression with information rate asymptotically
equal to entropy. Since, there exists no popular, universal mobility model,
the most generalized way is to assume that the user's movement profiles
contain some patterns representing his/her life-style. Such patterns can be
learned and predicted in an online fashion. Based on this motivation, LeZi-
Update [8] offers an optimal location update strategy. Using symbolic
location representation strategy, it captures the location information as a set
of symbols (sequence of strings). Whenever, the mobile changes its cell, the
scheme checks whether the string has been encountered before. If so, it does
not issue and actual update; otherwise it reports the new string to the
associated VLR and MSC in a compressed form. The frequency of every
symbol is incremented for every prefix of every suffix of each phrase [8]. The
incremental parsing accumulates larger and larger phrases in the dictionary,
thereby accruing estimate of entropy of all possible orders. Essentially, the
algorithm approaches optimality for stationary, ergodic sources.

8.6 Inter-System Location Update: Some recent researches has reported on

the problem of location management in a multi-system environment,
although chiefly for the non-overlapping scenario. Both [4, 52] show that an
integrated location management strategy can significantly outperform an
independent operation of each sub-system's location management algorithm.
For managing transitions across different sub-network domains, [4] presents
the concept of boundary location registers, which help to migrate the MT's
location information from one sub-system to another. At a protocol level,
[50] proposes to extend Mobile IP functionality to support movement across
multiple access networks. However, the problem of integrated location
tracking in a generic multi-system environment is not effectively addressed
by these works. In particular, a solution must consider both the non-zero
probability that an $MT$ is out of the coverage area of one or more sub-
networks, and the possibility that an $MT$ might have different sessions
(calling) activity states in each sub-network. Based on this motivation,
optimal, topology-independent, centralized and distributed location
management schemes have been recently proposed [34].

9. Cellular Traffic
Traffic intensity is the measurement of traffic generated by an user during
the busy hour. There are two types of traffic measured in cellular systems:

Voice Traffic: The total number of voice calls originated or terminated in a

mobile during the busy hour (BH) is called voice traffic arrival rate. Each
voice call is held for certain duration. The average duration of all voice calls
is called holding time of a call. If λ represents the arrival rate of voice calls
during a BH (call/sec), and T represents average holding time of a call (sec),
then total BH voice traffic is given by λT . Voice traffic is generally
represented by the unit called Erlang. Erlang is defined as a voice call of one
λT
hour duration. Hence, BH voice traffic can be given by: Erlangs. In
3600
cellular system per user BH voice traffic varies from 25mE (mill Erlang) to
100 mE. This number changes with customer penetration and new service
offerings.

Control Traffic: Control Traffic is only measured by the rate of arrival of

the control messages and determined by the systems design parameters,
which is not dependent on the user only. The protocol of the system and the
network control architecture determines the control messages based on the
implementation of the services.

9.1 Cell Traffic Analysis: The design of a cellular system depends upon the
accurate estimation and forecast of the traffic generated in a cell. The main
parameters in this estimate are:

1. Total number of users in a cell coverage area.

2. Percentage of users that can be captured in the network and its

forecast.

3. Average traffic intensity of the user during the BH and Peak hour.
 4. Percentage of active users in a cell during BH and Peak hour.

Busy Hour (BH): The cellular traffic is a random process; hence for
performing any engineering estimate, a reference time period is required to
measure the random process. Traditionally, telephone companies use the BH
traffic as the reference traffic and the busiest hour as the reference time-
period. This busiest hour is determined by a measurement methods of 60
consecutive days in the busy season of the year as suggested by the Bell
System of USA or 15 consecutive days of the busy-season of the year as
recommended by the ITU. In any case, the determination of the BH fixes the
measurement time and average traffic during this measurements are called
BH-traffic. Peak BH-traffic can be 3 highest days' average as in case of ITU
or 10 highest days' average as recommended by Bell Systems as 10 HDBH
(10 High Day Busy Hour) traffic. In addition if EVE (Extreme Value
Engineering) is used, similar statistical parameters can be determined by
using extreme value statistical method. In that case, the concept of BH is no
longer valid. The arrival rate and the holding time, as described in the
previous discussion are random variables. In most of the engineering
analysis, the arrival process of calls or control messages are considered as
Poisson process. The measurement of the holding time of the voice
conversation has confirmed that the random distribution of the holding times
of voice calls can be approximated by the negative exponential distribution.
1
Thus, if λ and µ = ( T is the holding time) represents the arrival and
T
departure rate of the voice calls, then

inter-arrival time distribution of wireless voice calls: 1 − e − λt

and departure time distributions of voice calls: 1 − e − µt

Example 3.11 In a cellular system, the measurements of arrival rate data

during BH is found 200 calls per second. The average holding time of the
call is measured at 180 seconds. Find the estimated traffic in Erlang and the
departure rate per second for the system.
λ = 200
T = 180 sec
λT 200 X 180
Traffic = = = 10
3600 3600
1 1
µ= = = 0.0055
T 180

Grade of Service (GOS):

The design of the wireless network resources is based on the concept of
Grade of Service. This parameters indicate the quality of service provided by
the network and includes parameters like

Probability of blocking: This is the probability that all resources of the

network is found busy or not working, when the network received a service
request from an user that will require that resource. Example (a) probability
of blocking of all radio channels in a cell, (b) probability of blocking of all
interconnect trunks in a wireless switch for inter MSC call.

Average Delay: This grade of service is mostly used in wireless control

function and indicates how the control resources are used for the services.
The delay for waiting for paging channel or random access control channel
are example of this service quality.

Delay Variation: This quality of service becomes important for services

where the synchronization of the bit streams are important like voice packets
received through a data network. This is also called Jitter quality of service.

Different standard bodies like ITU or IETF or organization like Bell System
defined these parameters to design the network. Most of the wireless
network providers use either Bell System recommended GOS parameters
provided in the document LSSGR or use ITU recommendations.

Following are few important GOS specifications from LSSGR and ITU
documents that are useful for the design of wireless network.

Example 3.12 In a cell, the average arrival rate is λ = 0.1 voice calls per
1
second and the average holding time is = 100 second. Determine the
µ
blocking probability of the GSM system if only one GSM channel is used
for voice traffic. If you like to restrict the blocking probability to 1%, how
many GSM channels are required.

Solution: (Erlang-B formula's derivation).

The traffic channels in a cell can be used at full rate or at half rate. As the
physical resource is provided at full rate, with half-rate user, more customers
can be potentially supported in the system, than the full-rate.

Example 3.13 In a cellular system, in a cell, only one TRX is used. Out of 8
available time slots (channels), 7 channels are used for voice traffic and 1
is used for control channel. Both the full and half rates are used by the user
for voice traffic. If he probability of the half rate user is γ what is the
blocking probability of the system, with arrival rate λ and holding
1
time .
µ

Solution:
Arrival rate of half-rate user = γλ
Arrival rate of the full-rate user (1 − γ )λ
The states of the birth and death process is represented by (i, j ) , where i and
j respectively represents the number of half and full rate users in the
system.
The Figure-XXX shows the birth and death process of the system for the
state (i, j ) . At state (i, j ) following events can occur to make transition to
other 4 neighboring states

Figure-33: State (i, j ) transitions for 2-dimensional birth-death process

1. A half rate call arrived at state (i, j ) will take the system to state
(i + 1, j ) . The rate of this transition is = γλ .
2. A full rate call arrived at state (i, j ) will take the system to state
(i, j + 1) . The rate of this transition is (1 − γ )λ .
3. A half rate call departed from the state (i, j ) will take the system to
state (i − 1, j ) . The rate of this transition is iµ .
 4. A full rate call departed from the state (i, j ) will take the system to
state (i, j − 1) . The rate of this transition is jµ
Similar transitions will occur to bring the system from the neighboring
states to state (i, j ) . By using the birth-death Markov process, we derive the
following steady state balance equation for probability of states.

p(0,0) = p(0,1)µ + p(1,0)µ

p(i, j ) = p(i − 1, j )γλ + p(i + 1, j )(i + 1)µ + p(i, j − 1)(1 − γ )λ + p(i, j + 1)( j + 1)µ

Assume the solution of this state equation, based on our understanding of

product form solution, it can be shown that the solution of these balance
equations is the product from solution. So the probability of the state (i, j ) is
given as follows

1 ⎛ γλ ⎞ 1 ⎡ (1 − γ )λ ⎤
i j

p(i, j ) = ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ⎢ p(0,0)
i! ⎝ µ ⎠ j! ⎣ µ ⎥⎦

To determine the value of p(0,0) , we assumed the normalizing equations.

The half-rate state variable i can be 0 ≤ i ≤ 2 N and full-rate variable
j can be 0 ≤ j ≤ N . For j full-rate users in the system, maximum half-rate
users can be served are [2 N − 2 j ] .

−1
⎡ N 1 ⎛ (1 − γ )λ ⎞ j 2 N − 2 j 1 ⎛ γλ ⎞ i ⎤
p(0,0 ) = ⎢∑ ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ∑ ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ ⎥
⎢⎣ j =0 j! ⎝ µ ⎠ i =0 i! ⎝ µ ⎠ ⎥⎦

The half-rate blocking ( BHR ) occurs when the full-rate and half-rate has used
all the half-rate time slots. However, in addition, the full-rate blocking ( BFR )
occurs when only one half-rate slot is free in the system, i.e.,
N
B HR = ∑ p (2 N − 2 j , j )
j =0

Similarly
N −1
B FR = ∑ p(2 N − 1 − 2 j , j ) + B HR
j =0

9.2 Engineering Guard Channel for HO: A cell handles two types of
traffic, the new originating/terminating calls of a cell and the calls that are
handed-off from the neighboring cells to a cell. The requirements of these
two calls are different. The call that is handed -off from the neighboring
cells to a cell is an existing call. Due to resource limitations, if this type of
call is blocked, that will cause the disconnection of the existing call. On the
other hand, if a new originating or terminating call is blocked in a cell, this
will cause the network busy signal to the user. It was noticed that customers
are more annoyed when an existing call is disconnected than getting the
network busy signal. To accommodate this condition, normally, the hand-off
calls are given higher priority over the newly originating calls in a cell
during the resource blocking. This is achieved by providing a set of
resources reserved for the hand-off calls in the resource pool of the cell. This
is called the guard channel. Figure~XXX: HO Guard Channel shows that in
the cell out total N resources, the newly originating/terminating calls can
only use M resources where M < N. But hand-off calls can use all N
resources, thus N-M resources are reserved for hand-off calls.

Figure-34: HO Guard Channel mechanism

The determination of the system performance for this type of allocation

scheme is done by using Birth and Death model. The arrival rate λ H is for
the hand-off traffic from the neighboring cells. The arrival rate λO is for the
new originating or terminating traffic. Assume the holding time of the call in
the cell for both hand-off traffic and the new originating traffic are same and
1
equals to . We will use the birth and death equation to solve this
µ
engineering problem. The state transition of this system is shown in the
Figure- XXX. The state S 0 is the condition when there is no call in the
channels. State S N is the system busy state. State S M indicates the point at
which all new originating/terminating calls are blocked. If a new hand-off
call arrives to the system and the system is in state S N , the hand-off call will
be blocked. The probability of the state- i defined as p(i )

(λ H + λO )i
p(i ) = p(0) for 0≤i≤M
i! µi

and
 (λ H + λO )M λ H i − M
p(i ) = p(0) for M <i≤ N
i! µ
i

Figure-35: Birth and death state transition of HO Guard Channel Model

−1
⎡ M (λ + λ )i N
(λ + λO )M λ H i − M ⎤
p(0 ) = ⎢∑ H i O + ∑ H ⎥
⎣⎢ i =0 i! µ i = M +1 i! µ i ⎥⎦

The blocking probability of originating/terminating calls

N
Bo = ∑ p(i )
i=M

The blocking Probability of Hand-off Calls

−1
(λ + λO )M λ H N − M ⎡ M (λ H + λO )i N
(λ H + λO )M λ H i − M ⎤
BH = p( N ) = H ⎢∑ + ∑ ⎥
N!µ N i! µ i
⎢⎣ i =0 i = M +1 i! µ i ⎥⎦

10. Capacity Expansion technique:

In a cellular system, the capacity of cells required to meet the user demand is
a continuously changing process. The early introduction of cellular system in
USA has shown the that initial cellular capacity deployment in most cells
were erroneous. There are 20% − 25% of cells having tremendous short-fall of
capacity from the very early stage of network deployment. On the other
hand, there are many cells where the deployed capacity is not fully used.
Also, the capacity required in a cell continuously changes because of the
dynamics of the coverage area. These dynamics include user growth rate,
changes in area's usage partition (like new business parks, shopping malls
residential sub-divisions etc.) and changes in vehicular traffic pattern due to
the introduction of new highways and expressways.

The capacity expansion is a continuous process in a cellular network. There

are three different methods for in the expansion of capacity in a cellular
network.
10.1 Addition of new channels in the cell-site: This is a very limited
method, as most of the cellular networks are spectrum-limited. So, in most
cases, additional channels are not available. Also, getting additional
spectrum is very expensive. In USA, the PCS band provided additional
spectrum in late 1990s, but it was very expensive for the service providers to
get additional band from the spectrum auction. More than 20 billions of
dollars were spent by the US wireless carriers to get an additional spectrum
at 1.9 GHz frequency. Thus the old 900 MHz band and the 1.9 GHz band are
two different frequencies with different system parameters. This capacity
expansion of existing 900MHz cell by the 1.9 GHz spectrum is a very
complex and expensive process.

10.2 Changing Frequency Plan: This is another technique that can provide
relief to capacity constraints of some cells. The original frequency plan is
changed by its new traffic characteristics, and also new channel allocation
strategies. The Changing frequency plan is often associated with other
capacity growth measures. This is required to increase the utilization of the
spectrum.

Figure-36: Different Secterization of cells in Cellular Network

10.3 Sectorization: The third alternative is to change the architecture of the

network by methods like sectorization, cell-splitting and multiple re-use
factors. These methods are normally used by the wireless carriers in the
early phase of capacity expansion, as the techniques are mostly related to the
cell hardware changes without major impact on the over-all system control
and messaging.

10.3.1 Directional Antennas: Generally, the service in a cell is started by

erecting one omni-directional antenna at the center of a hexagonal site. As
the traffic increases, the omni-directional antenna is changed by 3, 1200
directional antennas, to increase the capacity of the cell coverage area. This
new cell is called sectored cell with three sectors. When a mobile during
conversation moves from one sector to another, the call is handed over to the
next sector. Because of the directional nature of the antenna, the same
frequency can be used in the other sectors without interferences. The
sectorization increases the control traffic as there are more handovers in
the system. Figure~ XXX gives a schematic diagram of this cell-
sectorization. In down town area, where traffic demand is very high six or
higher ordered sector cells are used to increase traffic capacity.

Example: In a GSM system, a OMNI cell is using one TRX. 7 channels are
used for traffic and 1 channel for control traffic. Due to increase in
traffic, company planned to use 1200, 3 directional antennas to create a 3-
sectored cell. Because, the sectorization increased the control traffic,
estimates showed that 2 channels out of 8 channels of TRX are required for
control traffic. Assume that GOS used in the design is 1\% blocking. All
users are full-rate users. What is the capacity increased due to this
sectorization ?

[Solve using Erlang-B formula]

Example: The current OMNI cell uses one channel for control traffic. The
current hand-off rate is λ and s % of control channel traffic is due to hand-
off traffic. The cell is changed to 3-sectored cell. If the movement of the user
is uniform in all directions, what will be the increase of hand-off traffic ?

Solution: Assume that on each face of the hexagonal cell $\alpha$ calls are
handed off to the neighboring cell. Also, α calls are received by that
cell from its neighboring cell. Total hand-off messages in BH
= 6(α + α ) = 12α .

Figure-37:Handoff with Sectorization of Cells

As shown in Figure~\ref{handoff-prob}, each sector has 4 boundaries: As

the user movement is uniform within the coverage area, hand-off
message/sector in BH = 4(α + α ) = 8α =. Hence, total hand-off message in he
sectored-cell = 3.8α = 24α .

By increasing the reuse, sectorization also helps to reduce S/I ratio. In

analog systems for effective communication a S/I = 18db is required. Cell
cluster of 7 cells are not sufficient with OMNI antenna to achieve this
objective. A minimum cluster of 12 cells is needed. Because of directional
antenna, with 3-sectored cell, the S/I improves by 7 db. So, cluster can be
reduced to N=7 or even N=4. This improves the capacity of the cell even
further.

Example: In a 25MHz GSM system with uniform frequency planning, the

cluster size is N=12 when OMNI antenna is used. The system is changed to
3-sectored design with N=4. Assume that each TRX with OMNI antenna
needs 1 control channel and with 3-sectored antenna needs 2 control
channels. Find the capacity gain by changing to 3-sectored antenna.

Solution:
25 MHz GSM system has 124 channels.
Case-1:OMNI Cell
The cluster reuse for N=12
124
Number of channels/cell = ≈ 10
12
Total traffic channels = 10(8 − 1) = 70
70
A
Traffic capacity with 1 % blocking 0.01 = 70 −1
Ai
70!! ∑
i =0 i!
The Traffic Capacity A= 56.1 Erlang

Case-2: 3-sectored
124
Number of channels/cell = = 31
4
Total traffic channels = 31(8 − 2) = 186
Traffic capacity with 1 % blocking A ≈ 165 Erlang
165
Capacity Improvement = ≈3
56.1

Figure- 38 Cell Tearing in Cellular Systems

10.4 Cell Tearing: In this technique, the cell coverage area is spitted into
two areas as shown in Figure~\ref{tiering}. The zone covered by the smaller
hexagon in the cell is served by channels that transmit signals at a lower
power. In this case, the channels allocated into a cell are divided into two
groups: (1) the channels that handle traffic of the smaller cell at lower power
level and (2) the channels that handle traffic of the outer regions at a higher
power level. because of the reduction of power in the smaller cell and the
larger separation between the small cells, the reuse pattern of the smaller
cells can be much less than the reuse pattern of the original (outer) cells. A
reuse pattern of N=3 is possible to be achieved in this cell tiering concept,
thus the outer cell might be served at reuse pattern of N=7 and the inner
cell at N=3. If the inner cell is reduced to R/2, the coverage area of the
th
1
inner cell will be of the total coverage area.
4
Let, ρ represents the uniform traffic intensity in the cell coverage area.
Also, let, AL and AS represents the areas of the larger and smaller cell
respectively.
Thus,
traffic in larger cell = ( AL − AS )ρ
traffic in smaller cell = AS ρ

If the Probability of blocking GOS used for the cell is b

Channels required in larger cells E [( AL − AS )ρ , b] = K L

Channels required in smaller cells E [AS ρ , b] = K S

Assume total channels in the system = C

Assume reuse factor of larger and smaller cell area: = N L and N S
respectively
Assume fraction of total channel C assigned to smaller cell = γ
Total channels assigned to the cell = ⎢ +
⎡ γ (1 − γ )⎤
⎥C
⎣ NS NL ⎦
Solve for γ from the following equation

⎡ γ
+
(1 − γ )⎤C = K + K
⎢ ⎥ L S
⎣ NS NL ⎦
(K + K S )N S N L − N S C
γ = L
C (N L − N S )
 C NS NL
Equivalent reuse factor = =
⎛ γ (1 − γ ) ⎞⎟ γN L + (1 − γ )N S
C ⎜⎜ +
⎝ NS N L ⎟⎠

(K L + K S )N S N L − N S C
Fraction of channels assigned to small cell =
(N L − N S )
The one complexity of this scheme is frequent hand-off within a cell, as
mobile moves from smaller cells to the outer parts of the cells. This
increases control traffic and complexity of hand-off. Also, because the
splitting of channels the traffic efficiency decreases. One possible solution to
improve this traffic efficiency is to consider the channels of the outer cell as
an overflow traffic group for the channels of the inner cell. If λ1 , λ 2 , n1 and
n 2 represent the arrival rates and number of channels in the inner and outer
cells as shown in Figure XXXX, then the overall blocking of the system can
be determined by using the Equivalent random theory of Wilkinson.

1
Assume is the average holding time of the channels in both inner and
µ
outer cells and are equal in both cases.
λ1
Traffic offered in the inner cell A1 =
µ
λ
Traffic offered in the outer cell A2 = 2
µ

Figure-39: Overflow traffic model of Tiered Cell

The average blocking of the inner cell traffic, if n1 channels are provided
A1n1
b1 = n1 −1
A1i
n1!∑
i =0 i!
The mean traffic over flow from the inner cell to outer cell channels
= m1 = b1 A1
The variance of the overflow traffic from inner cell to outer channels
⎡ A1 ⎤
= v1 = m1 ⎢1 − m1 + ⎥
⎣ n1 + 1 − A1 + m1 ⎦
The mean and variance of the outer cell Poisson traffic
= m2 = A2
= v 2 = A2
The total traffic offered to the outer cell channels is represented by mean
(M ) and Variance (V ) as follows. Z is called peaked ness factor and for
Poisson traffic it is equal to 1. This is a good indicator of the traffic
characteristic. If it is less than 1, the traffic is called smooth traffic and the
resources required to handle smooth traffic is less than the Poisson traffic.
On the other hand, resources required for peaked traffic is more than Poisson
traffic.

M = m1 + m2
V = v1 + v 2
V
Z=
M
The Equivalent Random theory provides the technique to determine the
number of channels required to provide the GoS, where the offered traffic is
not Poisson (thus Eralag Equations are not valid). This finds out the mean
and variance of the hypothetical Poisson traffic (AHypoth ) that is offered to a
hypothetical channel group (N Hypoth ) . Find N Hypoth by equating these mean and
variance to the mean and variance of the offered traffic on the outer cell
channel.

AHypoth = V + 3Z (Z − 1)
⎛ M +Z ⎞
N Hypoth = AHypoth ⎜ − M − 1⎟
⎝ M + Z −1 ⎠

Use Earlang equation to determine the number of channels (N Total ) required

to maintain the GoS (b ) .

NTotal
AHypoth
b=
n1 −1 i
AHypoth
N Total !∑
i =0 i!

The total channels required on the outer cell is then given by the following
equation:
 n2 = N Total − N Hypoth

Micro Cell: The heterogeneous traffic demand on the cellular coverage area
has forced the cellular providers to innovate more diverse method of cellular
coverage design. One of the very popular concept is the deployment of
micro cell at the traffic Hot Spot or cold spot.

Hot Spot Micro Cell: In this application, within a macro cell coverage area,
the cellular providers identify the Hot Spots of traffic. To handle the Hot
Spot traffic, cellular providers introduce Micro Cell with much lower
antenna height and power of the transmission. This is very much like cell
Tearing, the only difference is the micro cell location can be at any location
of the cell coverage area.

Cold spot Micro Cell: In this application, cellular provider identifies

coverage gaps within a macro cell coverage area. A micro cell with much
lower power is installed within this cold spot to provide the cellular
coverage.

Figure-XXX shows the location of the Micro Cell area within a Macro Cell
coverage area. Note that the signal strength on certain part of the micro cell
coverage area facing the antenna of the macro cell can be higher. Thus the
Directed retry technique is used to lock to micro cell even when the macro
cell signal strength is higher than the micro cell.

Figure-40: Micro Cell coverage within macro cell area

Directed Retry: This is the method to underlay micro cells within a macro
cell and assign traffic to the micro cell. Within a coverage area as the power
of the macro cell is generally higher than the micro cell, mobile generally
tunes to the macro cell, even though the mobile within the coverage range of
the micro cell. The macro cell in that case sends the list of micro cells that
are closed to the mobile. Mobile finds out the strongest micro cell signal and
tunes to that micro cell. This is called directed retry.
Directed Hand-down (DHD): In this case, the mobile finds the signal
strength of the macro cell much better than the micro cell, though the mobile
is within the coverage area of the micro cell. Macro cell accepts the call and
set up the connection. Then within five seconds, it hand-over the call to
micro cell.

BER Hand up: In this case, if the micro cell finds that the BER of the call is
not satisfactory, and there are spare channels available in the macro cell, it
hand-up the call to the macro cell. This ensures the voice quality.

Example: In a cellular network system, the total number of channels

available is 400. The design uses 7-3 macro cell design with 1200 sectored
cell. Each sector has one micro cell with 3 reuse factor. Find the optimum
traffic and the allocation of channels to macro cell and micro cell when the
micro cell traffic is 30%. If the micro cell traffic increase to 60^, what will
be the change in the channel allocation.

Frequency Reuse: The frequency reuse mechanism needs to be smart

enough to make efficient use of radio spectrum, which is required for
satisfying the demand of increasing capacity and low interference. In a
cellular network, the number of radio channels required for each cell is
developed by using similar calculations for each cell. The channel
assignment strategy is to develop the plan for minimum set of frequencies
that can be deployed to meet the capacity requirements of each cell without
interference. A large number of channel assignment strategies are proposed
to fulfill these objectives. These strategies have great influence on the
performance of the cellular system when a MT is handed off from one cell to
the [49, 51]. Broadly, the channel allocation strategies are classified into two
groups: fixed (FCA) and dynamic (DCA). The entire radio spectrum is first
partitioned into a number of channel-sets. In the fixed channel assignment
strategy, every cell is assigned a pre-determined channel-set. Graph coloring
technique is used to perform these channel assignment strategies with the
reuse distance constraint [22]. A call within a cell can only be serviced by
the unused channels of that particular cell. Subsequently, a call is blocked if
all the channels of the cell are currently occupied.

The fixed channel allocation is suitable for stationary traffic in a cell.

However, in reality, the cell traffic in a cellular network is not homogeneous
and non-stationary. According to flow of people in a city, the morning, the
day-time and the evening traffic demands of cells often vary. If FCA is used,
under these circumstances, the resources required for the network will be
significantly more. On the other hand, if resources can be shared between the
cells, there is significant reduction of resources. The following example
illustrates this phenomenon:

Example: The number of active users in 3 adjacent cells is shown in

Table~\ref{active}. Find the total number channels required, if FCA is used.
Assume traffic per active user is 50m Erlang and GOS is 1\% blocking. Find
the total number of channels required, if the cells can dynamically share the
channels.

\begin{table}[!httb]
\caption{\footnotesize{}}
\label{active}
\begin{center}
\begin{footnotesize}
\begin{tabular}{||c|c|c|c||} \hline \hline
Cell & M & D & E \\ \hline
A & $40$ & $80$ & $120$ \\ \hline
B & $10$ & $200$ & $50$ \\ \hline
C & $100$ & $20$ & $120$ \\ \hline \hline
\end{tabular}
\end{footnotesize}
\end{center}
\vspace{-0.1in}
\end{table}
On the other hand in dynamic channel allocation (DCA) strategy [5, 14, 15],
the channels are not permanently assigned to a particular cell. During a call
set-up, upon request of a channel from the base station, the MSC allocates
any free channel available in the originating cell's interference region. The
allocation procedure takes into account the probability of blocking in near
future, channel frequency and reuse distance. Since a wide number of
channels are now available to the cells, dynamic channel allocation scheme
reduces the possibility of channel blocking and increases the channel
utilization and system capacity. However, this is achieved at the cost of
increased computational complexity and storage of the system.
A plethora of variations of these two basic channel allocation strategies exist
in literature. The concept of channel ordering and channel reassignment [16]
was proposed to achieve a good channel usage. In another approach the base
stations are allowed to borrow a channel from its neighboring cell, if it has
no channels available to use. This scheme, known as channel borrowing [18]
also aids in load balancing in cellular systems [17]. However, it has been
shown that the channel borrowing scheme leads to performance degradation
and bottle-necks in high traffic load conditions. In order to tackle this
situation, hybrid channel assignment [26, 21] strategy is also proposed. In
this scheme, a set of channels assigned to each cells are divided into two
groups. While the first group of channels is kept for the cell's own use only,
the second group of cells is lent to the neighboring cells, as and when
required. The ratio of these two groups of cells is determined a priori and the
optimality of the ratio is dependent on the traffic load. A wide variation of
dynamic channel allocation strategies exist, which include various
combinations of permanent channel assignment, channel borrowing, shared
channel-pools, channel ordering and channel reassignments [16].
Indeed, the performance of these channel assignment strategies are measured
in terms of channel blocking probability and/or worst-case number of
channels required to accommodate a specific number of calls [25].

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