FUNDAMENTALS OF GSM

RGMTTC, CHENNAI-27

GSM INTERFACES

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GSM Interfaces
Introduction The GSM network is shown in the figure with the major interfaces indicated as Um, Abis and A

Um The air interface is used for exchanges between a MS and a BSS. Abis This is a BSS internal interface linking the BSC and a BTS, and it has not been standardized. The A bis interface allows control of the radio equipment and radio frequency allocation in the BTS.(2M link)

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A A interface is between the BSS and the MSC. The A interface manages the allocation of suitable radio resources to the MSs and mobility management. (2M link CCS7) B The B interface is between the MSC and VLR. Most MSCs are associated with a VLR, making the B interface "internal". Whenever the MSC needs access to data regarding a MS located in its area, it interrogates the VLR. C The C interface is between the HLR and a GMSC or a SMS-G. Each call originating outside of GSM (i.e., a MS terminating call from the PSTN) has to go through a Gateway to obtain the routing information required to complete the call. (2M link CCS7) D The D interface is between the VLR and HLR, to exchange the data related to the location of the MS and to the management of the subscriber. (2M link CCS7) E The E interface interconnects two MSCs. The E interface exchanges data related to handover between the anchor and relay MSCs.(2M link CCS7) F The F interface connects the MSC to the EIR, to verify the status of the IMEI that the MSC has retrieved from the MS.(2M link CCS7) G The G interface interconnects two VLRs of different MSCs to transfer subscriber information, during e.g. a location update procedure. (2M link CCS7) H The H interface is between the MSC and the SMS-G, to support the transfer of short messages. (2M link CCS7)

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Um Interface It is the air interface between mobile and BTS. There are uplink and downlink frequency bands. The carriers are spaced at 200KHz. Each carrier is providing 8 timeslots.

Physical Channel and Logical Channel Physical Channel The carrier number and the repetitive time slot number determine Physical Channel (e.g.) time slot 3 on carrier number 4. The duration of timeslot in GSM is 577 micro secs (15/26 ms). The transmission is digital and is in bursts and hence in GSM, physical channel, timeslot and burst refer to the same. Logical Channel The content or message of physical channel is logical channel. One or more logical channels can be mapped to one physical channel. For example, on one of the physical channel used for traffic,traffic is sent by using TCH (traffic channel) message while a handover message is transmitted using FACCH (Fast Associated Control Channel message). Traffic channels TCH Broadcast channels BCH Common Control Channels CCCH. Dedicated Control Channels DCCH.

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Traffic Channels Traffic channels are used to send data or services. Once the call set up procedures are completed on the control channels, MS tunes to a traffic physical channel. It uses the Traffic Channel logical channel. Traffic channel carries speech or data traffic. Speech is encoded into 13Kbps digital stream by using a special algorithm called Regular Pulse Excited- Linear Predictive Coder with Long Predictor Loop. Basically information from previous samples which does not change very quickly is used to predict the current sample. The coefficients of linear combinations of previous samples, plus an encoded form of the residu al, the difference between the predicted and actual sample represent the signal. Traffic channels are classified into two types Full Rate TCH/F:It transmits full rate speech (13Kbps). A full rate TCH occupies one physical channel Half Rate TCH/H :It transmits half rate speech(6.5 Kbps). Two half rate TCHs can share one physical channel to double the capacity There are enhanced full rate coders, (12.2Kbps) which improve the speech quality but still occupy one full rate TCH. Data rates supported by speech coders: A full rate traffic channel can support data rate of 9.6Kbps and a half rate channel 4.8 Kbps. Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) Through the BCCH logical channel MS is informed about the system configuration parameters like Local Area Identity Cell Identity Identity of BCCH carrier frequencies of Neighbor cells. Max trans power of MS to access Configuration of control channels BCCH is also known as beacon. Each cell/sector will have one carrier frequency on which BCCH will be broadcasted.

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Frequency Correction Channel-FCCH The logical Channel contains no information (continuous zeros) but pure carrier is transmitted so that the mobile can tune itself and synchronise with the frequency. FCCH will be transmitted in the same beacon carrier as BCCH. Synchronisation Channel-SCH This logical channel transmits information about TDMA frame structure in a cell /sector (frame number) and Base Station Identity Code which can be decoded only if the BTS belongs to the network for which the MS has subscribed. SCH will also be transmitted in the same carrier of FCCH and BCCH. Cell Broadcast Channel- CBCH This logical channel contains messages that can be received by all mobiles. These messages are sent by using dedicated channels and come under the category of short messages. However, they are considered as common channels since all mobiles can receive them. Common Control Channels (CCCH) They operate either in up link or down link directions and are point-to-poin t simplex channels. Types of Common Control Channels PCH-Paging Channel AGCH-Access GrantChannel RACH- Random Access Channel Paging Channel- PCH It is logical channel in the downlink direction and it is point-to-point type. It comprises of a paging message to indicate an incoming call or short message. The paging message consists of the identity of mobile the network wants to contact. Access Grant Channel-AGCH It is a point-to-point logical channel in the downlink direction. It informs the mobile about the assignment of signaling channel for call set-up i.e. SDCCH.

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Random Access Channel (RACH) It is a point-to-point logical channel in the uplink direction. It is sent by the mobile as a request for making a call or as a response to a paging to the mobile. It consists of the identity of the mobile and location area details as available in SIM. Dedicated Control Channel (DCCH) These are the logical channels, which are point-to-point, duplex and available in uplink and downlink directions. Types of DCCH SDCCH-Standalone Dedicated Control Channel SACCH-Slow Associated Control Channel FACCH-Fast Associated Control Channel SDCCH-Standalone Dedicated Control Channel It is the logical channel for exchange of information between BTS and MS when no TCH is allotted. It also used to send SMS (Short Message Service).It is used for services like Subscriber authentication Ciphering Initiation Equipment validation Assignment of a TCH Call Setup Location Updates SACCH-Slow Associated Control Channel This logical channel is used for non-urgent information exchange between mobile and BTS. It can be associated either with SDCCH or TCH. In the uplink direction it is used to send averaged measurement of signal strength and quality of the present serving BTS and neighbouring BTSs. In the downlink direction it is used to transmit power control and timing advance data to the mobile. SACCH is used even when calls are in progress

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FACCH-Fast Associated Channel. This logical channel is used to exchange some urgent information like handover commands, call release instructions, etc. While calls are in progress it is transmitted by stealing the bits from TCH, which is known as PRE-EMPTION.

Logical Channel Summary

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GSM Frame Structure and Burst Types: GSM, one time slot duration is 0.577ms(15/26ms). One TDMA frame carries 8 timeslots and hence duration of one frame is 4.612ms. Separate multiframes are defined for traffic and control signals. A 26-frame TDMA multiframe is defined for carrying TCH, SACCH and FACCH. Duration of this multiframe is 4.612x26=120ms(15/26x8x26). A 51-frame TDMA multiframe is defined for control multiframe for carrying BCCH, CCCH, SDCCH and its associated SACCH. The duration of such multiframe is 4.612x51=235ms. A super frame is defined which consists of 51 traffic multiframes or 26 control multiframes and duration of super frame is 6.312s.It represents smallest cycle for which the organization of all channels is repeated. A hyper frame is defined which consists of 2048 super frames. The duration of such frame is 3Hrs 28mts 53 secs and 760 msecs (2715648 frames). This represents the smallest cycle for frequency hopping and ciphering. GSM Frame Structure

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Traffic Multiframe Traffic Multiframe is defined with 26 frames. The length of a 26-Multiframe is 120 ms. Of the 26 frames, 24 are used for traffic, 1 is used for the Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH), and 1 is unused in case of full rate channel deployment.In case half rate channels are used the frame 25 is used for SACCH for the second set of calls. If FACCH is to be sent then pre-emption of traffic channel is employed. Hence the logical channel combinations that are allowed can be either

TCH/F+SACCH/F+FACCH/F or TCH/H+SACCH/H+FACCH/H.

Traffic Multiframe

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Control Multiframe They are defined for 51 TDMA frames. The combinations can be as follows.

FCCH+SCH+BCCH+CCCH FCCH+SCH+BCCH+CCCH+SDCCH/4+SACCH/4 CCCH+BCCH SDCCH/8+SACCH/8

FCCH+SCH+BCCH+CCCH

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SDCCH/8+SACCH/8

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FCCH+SCH+BCCH+CCCH+SDCCH/4+SACCH/4

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GSM Bursts Burst is the content of the timeslot. The duration of timeslot is 577 micro secs. It consists of usable bits and guard period. The burst are classified into.

Normal Burst Dummy Burst Frequency Control Burst(F-Burst) Sync Burst(S-Burst) Access Burst

F-Burst is associated with FCCH, S-burst with SCH and Access Burst with RACH. All other logical channels use normal burst. Dummy Burst is used to fill the empty physical channel in TS0 in BCCH carrier, if necessary. Normal Bursts It consists of 148 usable bits and guard period corresponding to 8.25 bits.(30.5 micro secs). Burst period= time slot duration- guard period= 577-30.5 =546.5 micro secs.

It consists of three tail bits each at the beginning and end, encrypted data bits 57 each as two blocks and a midamble of 26 bits as training sequence, a known pattern used for adoptive equalization at BTS and MS. The flag bits are used to indicate whether the particular block of 57 bits belong to TCH or FACCH during pre-emption.

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Dummy Bursts It is transmitted in Idle time slots on the BCCH Crrier,which ensures that the BCCH Carrier is always present and MS is able to find it easily and carry out the assessment of signal level.This helps in Mobile Assisted Hand Over(MAHO)

Frequency Correction Burst F-burst It is associated with FCCH and transmitted in TS0 in frames 0,10,20,30,and 40 th frames in a control multiframe. This burst also consists of three tail bits each at the beginning and end, guard period of 8.25 bits with a string of 142 zeros (3+142+3+8.25=156.25). Since the information is only zeros, after modulation pure carrier is transmitted.

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Sync Bursts(S-Burst) It is associated with SCH and is transmitted in TS0 of frames 1,11,21,31 and 41 th frames in a control multiframe. This burst consists of three tail bits each at the start and end, guard period of 8.25 bits with two blocks of 39 bits of information and a training sequence of 64 bits sand witched in between them. This is the first burst in the downlink direction to be processed by the MS.The longer training sequence helps the MS to effectively demodulate the signal from BTS

Access Burst It is used by MS for RACH. It consists of 36 nos of encrypted bits with 8 tail bits in the beginning, three tail bits at the end and a training sequence of 41 bits. The remaining period is guard period. This is the Short burst used by MS in the Uplink direction at an initial phase of a call when the propagation delay between MS and BTS is not known yet neither as the frequency error and reception level. It provides a longer 41 bits TSC in order to facilitate the initial demodulation for the BTS more successful.

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Different Modes of Operation The different logical channels are used to take MS from Off modeto Idle mode and then to Dedicated mode. OFF MODE MS is in the Switched Of condition.It cannot receive incoming paging messages or cannot make outgoing call and No dedicated channel is associated with it. Idle Mode MS Switched On and it is attached to the network and can receive incoming paging messages, can make outgoing call, but there is no dedicated channel associated with it Dedicated Mode MS is in conversation and a dedicated channel is associated with it. Abis Interface It is connectivity between BSC to BTS and 2 Mbps link is established for this purpose. Every timeslot of 64Kbps can be sub divided into four.16 Kbps and the traffic of 13Kbps from BTS with the associated signaling information is multiplexed as 16Kbps and inserted in the timeslots. Hence each timeslot on 2Mbps Abis can accommodate four physical channels of Um. For one carrier we need two slots. Additionally we require exclusive timeslots for signaling purposes related to the transceivers of each sector (TRX) and for O andM purposes. Consider a BTS with three sectors with 4 Carriers in each sector (4/4/4), then the timeslot calculations are as follows: In each sector each TRX needs 2 slots. Hence four TRXs need 8 slots. We need one slot for TRXs signaling purposes and one for O and M purposes in that sector. Therefore total slots needed per sector= 8+1+1=10 Three sectors need 30 slots and TS0 is reserved for FAW and the total comes 31. With one spare timeslot added it tallies to 32 slots of 2Mbps link. Hence one 2Mbps link to BTS can take a maximum load until the BTS reaches a configuration 4/4/4

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