Brief Introduction to GSM

History of GSM

The development of GSM started in 1982, when the Conference of European Posts
and Telegraphs (CEPT) formed a study group called Group Special Mobile initially. The
group was to study and develop a pan-European public cellular system in the 900 MHz
range.
The basic criteria for their proposed system were:
• Good subjective speech quality
• Low terminal and service cost
• Support to international roaming
• Ability to support hand-held terminals
• Spectral efficiency
• ISDN compatibility
GSM had a huge success and by 1989, the European Telecommunication Standards
Institute (ETSI) assigned new words to the letters and thus giving it today's Global
Systems for Mobile Communications.

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 GSM Timeline

• 1982 The Groupe Spècial Mobile (GSM) is created

• 1987 The GSM MoU - Memorandum of Understanding - is created
• 1989 The responsibility over GSM is transferred to ETSI
• 1990 The phase 1 GSM900 specifications are finished. DCS1800 specification begin
• 1991 The first GSM networks are already active. DCS1800 specifications are finished
• 1992 13 networks in 7 countries
• 1993 The Roaming service begin. 32 networks in 18 countries
• 1994 Data services are offered. 69 networks in 43 countries
• 1995 156 GSM MoU members in 86 countries
• The GSM900 phase 2 specifications are finished
• The first GSM1900 network in US is active
• Nearly 50.000 GSM BTS are installed all over the world
• 1996 133 networks in 81 countries
• For full historic navigate to: www.gsmworld.com/about/history.shtml

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 OSI Layer Structure

Um “Radio” Interface Abis Interface A Interface

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 GSM Architecture

BSS = BSC + BTS

PSTN

MS
BTS

BTS Mobile
Base Station
MS Switching
BTS Controller
Centre
(BSC)
(MSC)
BTS
MS
BTS

BTS
Um Interface Abis Interface
Handles messages exchanges Handles messages exchanges
Between the MS and the BTS Between the BSC and the BTS
ISDN
A Interface
Handles messages exchanges
Between the MSC and the BTC

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 GSM Architecture - The “A” Interface

“A” transport over

packet backbone

BTS
TRAU

WAN WAN

MSC BSC BTS

“A” Interface

• Traffic Channels TCH:

– Transport user data at 64 Kbps PCM on E1 or T1 link
BTS
• Signaling Channels:
– 64 Kbps CCS SS7 over Time slot 16

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 GSM Architecture - The Abis Interface

A-bis transport over

packet backbone

BTS
TRAU

WAN WAN

MSC BSC BTS

• Traffic Channels TCH: BTS

– Transport user data at 8, 16 or 64 Kbps
• Signaling Channels:
– 16 Kbps (Sub-channel signaling) or 64 Kbps

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 GSM Architecture - The TRAU

Transcoder Rate Adapter Unit

GSM - FR @ 13.6 kbps or GSM - EFR @ 12.2kbps

Full Rate
Speech
Voice Compression TRAU
and Encoding Multiple channels
A-Law @ 16 Kbps
16 Kbps
64Kbps PCM Formatting
from Network to BTS
Data

Data Rate
Adaptation
2.4 or 3.8 Kbps
In Band Signaling

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 GSM Architecture - The Ater Interface

Ater transport over

packet backbone

BTS
TRAU

WAN WAN

MSC BSC BTS

+
TRAU Ater Interface

TRX Channels Processing: same as Abis

• Speech and data channels (16kbit/s)

BTS
• Ater interface links carry up to:
– 120 communications(E1), 4*30
– SS7 over TS 16 @ 64 Kbps

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 Global GSM Frequencies

GSM 900: Europe, Australia, China, Africa and Southeast Asia

80 80 80 80
GR D
EE AN
N ENL
70 LA 70 70 E 70
ND GR

60 60 60 60

E
50 50 50 R OP 50
EU
NORTH
40 AMERICA 40 40 ASIA 40
PACIFIC
A OCEAN
30
T 30 30 30
TROPIC OF CANCER L TROPIC OF CANCER
A
20
N 20 20
T
IC AFRICA
10 PACIFIC 10 10

EQUATOR INDIAN EQUATOR

O
C OCEAN
OCEAN SOUTH E10
10 10 A 10 10
AMERICA N
20 20 20 20 20
TROPIC OF CAPRICORN TROP OF CAPRICORN
AUSTRALIA
30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30

40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40

50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50

60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60

70 70 70 70 70 70
70 70
80 80 80 80 80
ANTARCTICA 80 80 80

PCS 1900: North and South America

DCS 1800: UK, Malaysia and Thailand
GSM 850: North, Central and South America

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 GSM Performance Characteristics

• Communication
– mobile, wireless communication; support for voice and data services
• Total mobility
– international access, chip-card enables use of access points of different
providers
• Worldwide connectivity
– one number, the network handles localization
• High capacity
– better frequency efficiency, smaller cells, more customers per cell
• High transmission quality
– high audio quality and reliability for wireless, uninterrupted phone calls at
higher speeds (e.g., from cars, trains)
• Security functions
– access control, authentication via chip-card and PIN

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 GPRS/EDGE/HSPA

General Packet Radio Service - GPRS

Offers 'always-on', higher capacity, Internet-based content and packet-based data services.
This enables services such as colour Internet browsing, e-mail on the move,
powerful visual communications, multimedia messages and location-based services.

Enhanced Data for Global Evolution - EDGE

A technology that gives GSM the capacity to handle services for the 3G of mobile telephony.
EDGE provides three times the data capacity of GPRS.
EDGE can handle three times more subscribers than GPRS or triple the data rate per subscriber.
EDGE uses the same TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) frame structure,
logic channel and 200kHz carrier bandwidth as today's GSM networks.

HSDPA / HSUPA
High-Speed Download Packet Access is a 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communication
protocol
in the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, which allows networks based on
Universal Mobile Communication system (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity.
Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.4 Mbps

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