Mobile Communications

Chapter 1: Introduction to cellular communications

A. SAMHAT

Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Outline

❑ Introduction
▪Standardization bodies
▪Standardization process
❑ Cellular concept
▪Hexagonal cell geometry
▪Co-channel interference ratio
▪Radio propagation environment
❑ Mobile networks architecture
▪Evolution of the system architecture

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Introduction

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Standardization bodies
❑ ITU (International Telecommunication Union):
▪Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, I
▪International organization within the United Nations,
▪Governments and the private sector coordinate global telecom networks
and services.
▪ITU-T : standards covering all the fields of telecommunications.
❑ ETSI (European Telecommunication Standard Institute):
▪Responsible for the development of the specifications for the GSM.
▪Play an important role in the development of third-generation mobile
systems.
▪Telecommunication standards throughout Europe and beyond.
❑ ARIB (Alliance of Radio Industries and Business):
▪Australasian region
▪Role in the development of third-generation mobile systems.
▪standards developing organization for radio technology.
A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX
 Standardization bodies
❑ ANSI (American National Standards Institute):
▪ANSI currently provides a forum for over 270 ANSI-accredited
standards developers
▪Representing approximately 200 distinct organizations in the private
and public sectors.
▪This body has been responsible for the standards development for the
American networks.
❑ 3GPP (Third Generation Partnership Project):
▪This body was created to maintain overall control of the specification
design and process for third-generation networks.
▪The result of the 3GPP work is a complete set of specifications that will
maintain the global nature of the 3G networks.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Standardization process
❑ The standardization process is different in the different
forums, but typically includes the four phases

❑ These phases are overlapping and iterative.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Wireless standards

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 3GPP standards (Specification Releases)

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 3GPP standards (Specification Releases)

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ Efficient use of available channels
▪by employing low-power transmitters
▪to allow frequency reuse at much smaller distances
❑ Cellular systems are designed to operate with groups of low-
power radios spread out over the geographical service area.
▪Each group of radios serves mobile stations located near them.
▪The area served by each group of radios is called a cell.
▪Each cell has an appropriate number of low-power radios to communicate
within the cell itself
▪The exact coverage of the cell depends on the terrain and many other
factors.
▪Coverage areas are regular polygons (approximation)

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ Cluster Size N
▪(motif / reuse factor)

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ Distance D between two centers of the hexagonal cells

❑ Dnorm = (i2+j2+ij)1/2

❑ R is the center-to-vertex distance

Center-to-center distance (D)
between two adjacent
hexagonal cells is 2Rcos30 = R

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ N is the cluster size or reuse factor and q is the reuse ratio

D
= q = 3N
R

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ Let Ik be the interference due to the kth interferer and NI be the
number of interfering cells in the first tier. SIR at the desired
mobile receiver is given as:
S
SIR = NI

I
k =1
k

1
SIR = 6
Dk − n
 (
k =1 R
)

If we assume Dk is the same for the six interfering

1 qn
cells for simplification, or D =Dk, then the = 6
SIRequation =
Dk − n

6
becomes ( )
k =1 R
A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX
 Cellular concept
❑ WORST CASE SCENARIO

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ TRI-SECTORIAL

R−n
SIR = − n
D + ( D + 0.7 R) − n

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Cellular concept
❑ Adjacent channel interference
▪Signals which are adjacent in frequency to the desired signal cause
adjacent channel interference.
▪Imperfect receiver filters which allow nearby frequencies to move into the
pass band, and nonlinearity of the amplifiers.
❑ The ACI can be reduced by:
▪using modulation schemes which have low out-of-band radiation;
▪carefully designing the bandpass filter at the receiver front end; and
▪Assigning adjacent channels to different cells in order to keep the
frequency separation between each channel in a given cell as large as
possible.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Radio propagation environment
❑ Radio propagation environment is typically divided into the
following major classes:
▪urban, suburban and rural
❑ Ground occupation rate (or GOR)
▪defines the ratio between the area covered by the buildings and the
total area.
▪urban environments are characterized by a GOR > 1;
▪suburban environments are characterized by a GOR around 0.4,
▪rural environments are characterized by a GOR < 0.1.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Radio propagation environment
❑ The cells (sites) that are constructed in these areas can be
classified as outdoor and indoor cells.
❑ Outdoor cells can be further classified as
▪macro-cellular: base station antennas are placed above the average
roof-top level. A macro-cell range may vary from a couple of
kilometres to 35 km.
▪micro-cellular: base station antennas are below the average roof-top
level. The range of micro-cells is from a few hundred metres to a
couple of kilometres
▪pico-cellular: Pico-cells are defined as the same layer as micro-cells
and are usually used for indoor coverage.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Radio propagation environment
❑ The parameters defining the characteristics of radio wave
propagation in the different environments includes:
▪Delay spread: known from the previous course.
▪Doppler spread: known from the previous course.
▪Fast and slow fading properties: known from the previous course.
▪Path loss: Path loss according to the environment (known from the
previous course).
▪Angular spread: Angular spread describes the deviation of the signal
incident angle. Usually we are interested in the signal coming to the
base station antenna.

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Radio propagation environment
❑ Typical values for the different environments of the radio
channel characteristics at 900 MHz

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Mobile network architecture
❑ A mobile phone network is officially known as a public land
mobile network (PLMN)
▪run by a network operator
▪GSM UMTS

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX

 Evolution of the system architecture
from GSM and UMTS to LTE

A. Samhat Lebanese University – Faculty of Engineering III, Semester IX