Wireless Networks

Book: (1st Chapter) T. S. Rappaport, Wireless Communications, 2nd Edition, Pearson.

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Evolution of Mobile Radio Communication

The Scottish theoretical physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879),

mathematically predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves of diverse
wavelengths.
The German physicist Heinrich Hertz showed experimentally, in 1888, the existence
of electromagnetic waves in free space.
In 1897, Guglielmo Marconi, demonstrated radio’s ability to communicate with
people on the move by providing continuous contact with ships sailing in English
channel.
Even before Marconi, in November 1894 (or 1895) public demonstration at Town
Hall of Kolkata, Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, ignited gunpowder and rang a
bell at a distance using millimetre range wavelength microwaves.

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Evolution of Mobile Radio Communication

The first hand-held cell phone was demonstrated by John F. Mitchell and Dr.
Martin Cooper of Motorola in 1973, using a handset weighing around 2kgs.
First commercial automated cellular network was launched in Japan in 1979.
The first analog cellular system deployed in North America was the Advanced
Mobile Phone System (AMPS), commercially introduced in America in Oct 1983,
Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987.
In 1990’s, the “second generation (2G)” emerged and two systems competed
globally: the European developed GSM standard and the U.S. developed CDMA
standard.
In 1991, the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in Finland.
In 2001, third generation (3G) was launched.

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Growth of mobile telephony as compared with other
popular inventions of the 20th century.

Figure shows that the first 35 years of mobile telephony saw little market penetration due to
high cost and technological challenges, however, in the past decade, it has been accepted by
consumers at the rate comparable to TV and video cassette recorder.

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Evolution of Mobile Radio Communication

By 1934, 194 municipal police radio systems and 58 state police stations had
adopted amplitude modulation (AM) mobile communication for public safety in
US.
An estimated 5000 radios were installed in mid 1930s and vehicle ignition noise
was a major problem.
In 1935, Edwin Armstrong demonstrated frequency modulation (FM), and since
the late 1930s, FM has been the primary modulation technique used worldwide.
The number of mobile users climbed from several 1000 in 1940’s to 86000 by
1948, 695000 by 1958 and 1.4 million users in 1962.
Research in 1991 estimated between 25 to 40 million cordless telephone were in
use in US.
The number of worldwide cellular telephone users grew from 25000 in 1984 to 25
million in 1993.
At the beginning of 21st century, over 1% of the worldwide wireless subscriber has
already abandoned wired telephony.

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Mobile Radiotelephony in US

During 1950s and and 1960s, AT&T Bell Lab and other telecom companies
throughout the world developed the theory and techniques of cellular
radiotelephony.
Concept of breaking a coverage zone into small cells each with reuse of the spectrum
to increase spectrum usages at the expense of greater system infrastructure.
AT&T proposed the concept of a cellular mobile system to the FCC in 1968,
although the technology was not available to implement cellular telephony until
the late 1970s.

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Mobile Radiotelephony in US

In 1983, FCC allocated 666 duplex channels for US Advanced Mobile Phone
System (AMPS).
40 MHz spectrum in the 800MHz band, each channel having a one-way bandwidth
of 30 kHz for a total spectrum occupancy of 60 kHz for each duplex channels.
Each city was only allowed two cellular radio system provider.
The radio channels were split equally between the two carriers.
AMPS was the 1st US cellular telephone system, and was deployed in late 1983 by
Ameritech in Chicago.
In 1989, FCC granted additional 166 channels (10 MHz) to US cellular service
providers to accommodate the rapid growth and demand.

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Mobile Radiotelephony in US
The figure illustrates the spectrum currently allocated for US cellular telephone use.

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Mobile Radiotelephony in US

In late 1991, 1st US Digital Cellular (USDC) system hardware was installed in
major US cities.
The USDC standard allowed cellular oprtator to replace some single-user analog
channels with digital channels which support 3 users in the same 30 kHz
bandwidth.
The capacity improvement by USDC is three times that of AMPS, because of
digital modulation, speech coding, and TDMA are used in-place of analog FM and
FDMA.

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Mobile Radiotelephony in US

A cellular system based on CDMA has been developed by Qualcomm, Inc. and
standarised by Telecommunication Industry Association (TIA) as an Interim
Standard (IS-95).
It supported variable number of users in 1.25MHz wide channels using direct
sequence spread spectrum.
CDMA system can operate at much larger interference levels because of their
inherent interference resistance properties.
Allows CDMA to be use the same set of frequencies in every cell.
Personal Communication Service (PCS) licenses in the 1800/1900 MHz band were
auctioned by the US Govt. to wireless providers in early 1995.

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Mobile Radio Systems Arround the World

Many mobile radio standards have been developed for wireless systems throughout
the world.
World’s most common paging standard is “Post Office Code Standard Advisory
Group (POCSAG)”, by British Post Office, in late 1970s.
More newer paging systems are FLEX and ERMES.
CT2 and Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT) standards developed in
Europe are the two most popular cordless telephone standards throughout Europe
and Asia.
The CT2 makes use of microcell covering small distances (about 100m), using BSs
with antennas mounted on street lights or on sides of buildings.
Handoffs between BSs are not supported in CT2, providing short range access to
PSTN.
DECT system allows data and voice transmission for office and business users.
In US, the PACS standard, developed by Bellcore and Motorola, is likely to be used
inside office buildings as a wireless voice and data telephone system.

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Mobile Radio Systems Arround the World

World’s first cellular system was implemented by Nippon Telephone and Telegraph
company (NTT) in Japan. The system, deployed in 1979, uses 600 FM duplex
channels (25 kHz each one-way link) in the 800 MHz band.
In Europe, the Nordic Mobile Telephone system (NMT 450) was developed in 1981
for 450 MHz band and uses 25 kHz channels.
European Total Access Cellular System (ETACS) was deployed in 1985 and is
virtually similar to US AMPS.
In Germany, a cellular standard called C-450 was introduced in 1985.
The 1st genetation European cellular systems are generally incompatible with one
another because of different frequencies and communication protocols used.
These systems are now being replaced by Pan European digital cellular standard
GSM which was developed in 1990 in a new 900 MHz band.

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Mobile Radio Systems Arround the World

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Common Terms in Wireless Systems

The term “mobile” has been historically used to classify any radio terminal that
could be moved during operation. It can also be used to describe a radio terminal
that is attached to a high speed mobile platform (e.g., a cellular telephone in a
fast moving vehicle).
The term “subscriber” describes a mobile or portable user. User’s communication
device is called a “subscriber unit”
The mobiles communicates to fixed “base station” which are connected to a
commercial power source and a fixed “backbone network”.

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Common Terms in Wireless Systems

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Simplex, Half Duplex and Full Duplex Wireless Systems

Mobile radio transmission systems may be classified as:

Simplex: Communication is possible in one direction. E.g., Paging system, in which
messages are received by not acknowledged.
Half Duplex: Allows two-way communication but uses the same radio channel for
both transmission and reception.
Full Duplex: Allows simultaneous transmission and reception, by providing two
simultaneous but separate channels or adjacent time slots on a single radio channel.

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FDD and TDD in Wireless Communication Systems

Frequency division duplexing (FDD) provides simultaneous radio transmission

channels for the subscriber and the BS.
At the BS, separate antennas are used to accommodate the two separate channels.
At the subscriber unit, a single antenna is used for both transmission and reception
and a device called a duplexer is used inside the subscriber unit to enable the same
antenna for both transmission and reception.
In FDD, a pair of simplex channels with a fixed and known frequency separation is
used to define a specific radio channel in the system.
In AMPS standard, the reverse channel has a frequency which is exactly 45 MHz
lower that the forward channel.
Time division duplexing (TDD) uses the fact that it is possible to share a single
radio channel in time, so that a portion of the time is used to transmit form the
BS to the mobile and the remaining time is used to transmit from the mobile to
the BS.
TDD is only possible with digital transmission formats and digital modulation, and
very sensitive to timing.

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Paging Systems

Paging systems send brief messages to a subscriber.

Depending on the type of service, the message can be either a numeric message,
an alphanumeric message or a voice message.
In modern paging systems, news headlines, stock quotations, etc.
A message is sent to a subscriber via the paging system access number with a
telephone keypad or modem.
The paging system then transmits the message (page) throughout the service area
using BSs which broadcast the page on a radio carrier.
Though the paging receivers are simple and inexpensive, the transmission system
required is quite sophisticated.
Simple paging systems may cover a limited range of 2 to 5 Kms or within a
building.
A wide area paging systems can provide world coverage and may consists of a
network of telephone lines, many BS transmitters and large radio towers.

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Paging Systems

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cordless Telephone Systems

Cordless telephone systems is a full duplex communication systems that uses radio
to connect a portable handset to a dedicated base station, which is then connected
to a dedicated telephone line with a specific telephone number on the PSTN.
In first generation cordless telephone systems (manufactured in 1980s), the
portable unit communicates only to the dedicated base unit and only over a
distance of a few tens of meters.
The second generation cordless telephones allow subscribers to use their handsets
at many outdoor locations within urban centers such as London or Hong Kong.
Provides the user with limited range and mobility, as it is not possible to maintain
a call if a user moves outside the range of a BS.

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cordless Telephone Systems

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems

Provides wireless connection to the PSTN for any user location within the radio
range of the system.
Can accommodate large number of users within a limited frequency spectrum.
Provides high quality service, comparable to that of the landline telephony.
High capacity is achieved by limiting the coverage of each BS to a small
geographic area called cell so that the same radio channels may be reused by
another BS located some distance away.
A switching technique called a handoff enables a call to proceed uninterrupted
when the user moves from one cell to another.
A mobile switching center (MSC), sometimes called a mobile telephone switching
office (MTSO), since it is responsible for connecting all mobile users to PSTN in a
cellular system.

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems

The BSs consists of several transmitters and receivers which simultaneously handle
full duplex communications.
MSC coordinates the activities of all BSs and connects the entire cellular system to
PSTN.
A typical MSC can handle 5000 simultaneous conversations at a time and
accommodate all billing and system maintenance functions.
Communication between the BS and the mobiles is defined by a standard common
air interface (CAI) with four different channels:
Forward voice channels (FVC): channels used for voice transmission from the BS to
mobiles.
Reverse voice channels (RVC): channels used for voice transmission from the
mobiles to the BS.
Forward control channels (FCC) & Reverse control channels (RCC) are used for
initiating mobile calls. These control channels are often called setup channels.
Control channels carry call initiation and service requests, and are monitored by
mobiles when they do not have a call in progress.

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems – How a Cellular Telephone Call is Made

When a cellular phone is turned on, but not engaged in a call, it first scans the
group of forward control channels (FCC) to determine the one with the strongest
signal, and then monitors the channel until the signal drops below a usable level.
The control channels are defined and standardized over the entire geographical
region and typically made up of about 5% of the total channels available (rest 95%
is for voice and data traffic).

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems – How a Cellular Telephone Call is Made

When a telephone call is placed to a mobile user, the MSC dispatches the request
to all BSs in the system.
The mobile identification number (MIN), i.e. the subscriber’s telephone number, is
then broadcast as a paging message over all FCCs throughout the cellular system.
The mobile receives the paging message from the BS it monitors, and responds by
identifying itself over the RCC.
The BS relays the ACK sent by the mobile and informs MSC about the handshake.
Then, the MSC instructs the BS to move to the call to an unused voice channel
within the cell.
The BS signals the mobile to change frequencies to an unused forward and reverse
voice channel pair, at this point another data message (called an alert) is
transmitted over the forward voice channel to instruct the mobile telephone to ring.
Once the call is in progress, MSC adjusts the transmitted power of the mobile and
changes channel of the mobile unit and BS to maintain call quality as the
subscriber moves in and out of range of the BS - called handoff.

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Cellular Telephone Call to a Mobile user

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Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
Cellular Telephone Systems – Mobile user originating a call.

When a mobile originates a call, the request is sent on the RCC.

In this request, the mobile unit transmits its telephone number (MIN), electronic
serial number (ESN), and the telephone number of the called party. The mobile
also transmits a station class mark (SCM), which indicated the maximum
transmitter power level is for the particular user.
The BS receives this data and sends it to the MSC, which validates the requests,
makes connection the the called party through PSTN and instructs the BS and
mobile to move to an unused voice channel.

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Mobile user originating a call.

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Comparison of Common Wireless Communication Systems

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Comparison of Common Wireless Communication Systems

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