The Cellular Concept

System Design Fundamentals

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F7 F2 F6 F1
F1 F3

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The Cellular Concept
System Design Fundamentals
 Introduction
 Frequency Reuse
 Channel Assignment Strategies
 Handoff Strategies
 Interference and System Capacity
 Trunking and Grade of Service
 Improving Capacity in Cellular Systems
 Summary
Interference and System Capacity
 Interference is the major limiting factor in the
performance of cellular radio systems.
 Sources of interference
 another mobile in the same cell,
 a call in progress in a neighboring cell,
 other base stations operating in the same frequency band,
 any non-cellular system which inadvertently leaks energy
into the cellular frequency band,
 Interference is more severe in urban areas, due to the
greater RF noise floor and the large number of base
stations and mobiles.
 Interference has been recognized as a major bottleneck
in increasing capacity and is often responsible for
dropped calls.
Interference
 The two major types of system-generated cellular
interference are
 adjacent channel interference and
 co-channel interference.
Adjacent Channel Interference
Adjacent channel interference
 Interference resulting from signals which are adjacent in
frequency to the desired signal.
It can be minimized through careful filtering and
channel assignments.
 Some channel allocation schemes also prevent a
secondary source of adjacent channel interference
by avoiding the use of adjacent channels in
neighboring cell sites.
Co-channel Interference
 The interference between signals from co-channel cells
is called co-channel interference.
 Co-channel interference cannot be combated by simply
increasing the carrier power of a transmitter unlike
noise.
 This is because an increase in carrier transmit power
increases the interference to neighboring co-channel cells
 Co-channel cells must be physically separated by a
minimum distance to provide sufficient isolation due
to propagation.
 Co-channel Interference
First tier co-channel
Second tier co-channel Base Station
Base Station

R
D6
D5
D1

D4 Mobile Station
D2

D3

Serving Base Station

 Co-channel Interference
 Co-channel interference ratio is given by
C Carrier C
  M
 Ik
I Interference
k 1

where I is co-channel interference and M is the maximum

number of co-channel interfering cells.
C/I can be approximated by

C R  where  is the propagation path loss

 exponent and  = 2~5.
I MD 

C ( 3N )
q  D / R  3N  
I M
8
The Cellular Concept
System Design Fundamentals
 Introduction
 Frequency Reuse
 Channel Assignment Strategies
 Handoff Strategies
 Interference and System Capacity
 Improving Capacity in Cellular Systems
 Trunking and Grade of Service
 Summary
Capacity Improvement Techniques
Three popular capacity improvement techniques are used in
practice to expand the capacity of cellular systems.
 Cell splitting
 Cell splitting allows an orderly growth of the cellular
system.
 Sectoring
 Sectoring uses directional antennas to further control
the interference and frequency reuse of channels.
 Coverage zone approaches
 The zone microcell concept distributes the coverage of
a cell and extends the cell boundary to hard-to-reach
places.
 Cell Splitting
 Cell splitting is the process of subdividing a congested cell into
smaller cells (called microcells).
 Each microcell with its own base station and a corresponding
reduction in antenna height and transmitter power.
 Cell splitting increases the capacity of a cellular system since it
increases the number of times that channels are reused.
 Cell splitting achieves capacity improvement by essentially rescaling
the system.
Cell Splitting

Large cell
(low density)

Small cell
(high density)
Smaller cell
(higher density)

Depending on traffic patterns the smaller

cells may be activated/deactivated in
order to efficiently use cell resources.
 Cell Sectoring
 The SIR is improved using directional antennas.
 Directional antennas divide a hexagonal cell into
somewhat pie-shaped pieces and each piece “sees”
fewer interferers than the original omni-directional
antenna did.
 The technique for decreasing co-channel interference
and thus increasing system performance by using
directional antennas is called sectoring.
Cell Sectoring by Antenna Design
c
c
120o 120o
a
b a
b

(a). Omni (b). 120o sector (c). 120o sector (alternate)

d f
90o e 60o a
a
c
d b
b c

(d). 90o sector (e). 60o sector

 Sectoring Reduces Interference
 If omni-directional
antennas were used at
each base station, all six
co-channel cells would
interfere with the center
cell.
 In120 degree sectoring ,
the 6 co-channel cells in
the first tier, only two of
them interfere with the
center cell.
 Disadvantages
 One obvious cost is the increased complexity of the
system. We essentially have to replace each omni base
station with three co-located, sectored base stations.
This requires more antenna, radio, and network
equipment.
 The increased number of handoffs required when
sectoring is employed results in an increased load on
the switching and control link elements of the mobile
system.
 Decreases Trunking Efficiency
 This breaks up the available channel pool into several
smaller pools, and decreases trunking efficiency.
 Microcell Zone
 Reduce the increased number of handoffs required
when sectoring is employed.
 Multiple zones and a single base station make up a cell.
 As a mobile travels from one zone to another within the
cell, it retains the same channel, no handoff.
 This technique is particularly useful along highways or
along urban traffic corridors.
 The Microcell Concept
 In this scheme, each
of the three (or
possibly more) zone
sites (represented as
Tx/Rx in Figure) are
connected to a single
base station and share
the same radio
equipment.
Advantages
 The cell maintains a particular coverage radius,
 The co-channel interference in the cellular system is
reduced
 since a large central base station is replaced by several
lower powered transmitters (zone transmitters) on the
edges of the cell.
 Decreased co-channel interference improves the signal
quality and also leads to an increase in capacity without the
degradation in trunking efficiency caused by sectoring.
The Cellular Concept
System Design Fundamentals
 Introduction
 Frequency Reuse
 Channel Assignment Strategies
 Handoff Strategies
 Interference and System Capacity
 Improving Capacity in Cellular Systems
 Trunking and Grade of Service
 Summary
Trunking Theory
 Why need Trunking Theory?
 Here is a simple arithmetic! We get 3,200 calls in an eight-hour day.
That’s 400 calls an hour. Assumes that each call lasts three minutes,
so one line can handle 20 calls an hour. So we’ll only need 20 trunk
lines to handle the calls.
 It’s absolutely wrong in practice!
Trunking refers to sharing a fixed and small number of channels among
a large and random user community
 Each user demands access from a pool of channel infrequently & at
random times
 A channel is allocated on a per call basis and a channel is returned to
the pool up on termination of a call
 So a dedicated channel for each user is not required
 If U be number of users and C be number of channels, for any C <U,
possibility of more requests than channels
Trunking and Grade of Service
 Trunking exploits the statistical behavior of users
so that a fixed number of channels or circuits may
accommodate a large, random user community.
 There is a tradeoff between the number of
available telephone circuits and the likelihood of a
particular user finding that no circuits are available
during the peak calling time. (cost vs. quality)
 To design trunked radio systems that can handle a
specific capacity at a specific “grade of service”, it
is essential to understand trunking theory.
 Can accommodate large and random user
 by providing access to each user on demand from a
pool of available channels
 When a user requests service and if all channels are
in use
 The user is blocked, or denied access to the
system
 In some systems, a queue may be used to hold the
requesting users until a channel becomes available
 Upon termination of the call, the previously occupied
channel is immediately returned to the pool
 Terms in Trunking Theory
 Set-up Time: The time required to allocate a trunked radio channel
to a requesting user.
 Blocked Call: Call which cannot be completed at time of request, due to
congestion. Also referred to as a lost call.
 Holding Time: Average duration of a typical call. Denoted by H (in
seconds).
 Traffic Intensity: Measure of channel time utilization, which is the average
channel occupancy measured in Erlangs. This is a dimensionless quantity
and may be used to measure the time utilization of single or multiple
channels. Denoted by A.
 One Erlang represents the amount of traffic intensity carried by a
channel that is completely occupied.
 For example, a radio channel that is occupied for thirty minutes during
an hour carries 0.5 Erlangs of traffic.
 Load: Traffic intensity across the entire trunked radio system, measured in
Erlangs.
 Grade of Service (GOS): A measure of congestion which is specified as the
probability of a call being blocked (for Erlang B), or the probability of a call
being delayed beyond a certain amount of time (for Erlang C).
 Request Rate: The average number of call requests per unit time. Denoted
by λ per seconds.
 Grade of Service (GOS)
 GOS is a measure of the ability of a user to access a trunked
system during the busiest hour.
 GOS is typically given as the likelihood that a call is blocked,
or the likelihood of a call experiencing a delay greater than a
certain queuing time.
 The AMPS cellular system is designed for a GOS of 2%
blocking.
 This implies that the channel allocations for cell sites are designed so that
2 out of 100 calls will be blocked due to channel occupancy during the
busiest hour.
Traffic Intensity
 Each user generates a traffic intensity of Au Erlangs
given by Au = λH
 H is the average duration of a call,
 λ is the average number of call requests per unit time for
each user.
 For a system containing U users and C channels, the
traffic intensity per channel Ac , is given as
Ac= U Au / C
Trunking Systems
 Blocked Calls Cleared
 no queuing for call requests.
 That is, for every user who requests service, it is assumed
there is no setup time and the user is given immediate
access to a channel if one is available. If no channels are
available, the requesting user is blocked without access
and is free to try again later.
 Blocked Calls Delayed
 a queue is provided to hold calls which are blocked.
 If a channel is not available immediately, the call request
may be delayed until a channel becomes available.
Blocked Calls Cleared
 Assumes
 calls arrive as determined by a Poisson distribution.
 there are an infinite number of users
 there are memoryless arrivals of requests
 the probability of a user occupying a channel is exponentially
distributed
 there are a finite number of channels available in the trunking pool.
 This is known as an M/M/m/m queue. and leads to the derivation
of the Erlang B formula, also known as the blocked calls cleared
formula.
Erlang B & Erlang C
 Grade of Service:
 The probability that all servers will be busy when a call attempt is
made.
 Erlang B:
 The Easy One
 Servers, Traffic, and Grade of Service.
 Erlang C:
 More Difficult
 same three variables, plus the average length of each call, to
calculate the probability of being delayed and how long the delay is
likely to be
 Erlang B formula

 where C is the number of trunked channels offered by a trunked radio

system and A is the total offered traffic.
 The Erlang B formula determines the probability that a call is
blocked.
 It is a measure of the GOS for a trunked system which provides no
queuing for blocked calls.
 Capacity of an Erlang B System
Number of Capacity (Erlangs) for GOS
Channels C = 0.01 = 0.005 = 0.002 = 0.001
2 0.153 0.105 0.065 0.046
4 0.869 0.701 0.535 0.439
5 1.36 1.13 0.900 0.762
10 4.46 3.96 3.43 3.09
20 12.0 11.1 10.1 9.41
24 15.3 14.2 13.0 12.2
40 29.0 27.3 25.7 24.5
70 56.1 53.7 51.0 49.2
100 84.1 80.9 77.4 75.2
 Trunking Efficiency
 It is a measure of the number of users which can be
offered a particular GOS with a particular configuration of
fixed channels.
 The way in which channels are grouped can substantially
alter the number of users handled by a trunked system.
 Clearly, 10 channels trunked together support 60% more
traffic at a specific GOS than do two five channel trunks!
Blocked Calls Delayed
 To find the GOS, it is first necessary to find the
likelihood that a call is initially denied access to the
system. The likelihood of a call not having immediate
access to a channel is determined by the Erlang C
formula
 where C is the number of trunked channels offered by a trunked radio
system and A is the total offered traffic.
 If no channels are immediately available the call is
delayed, and the probability that the delayed call is forced
to wait more than t seconds is given by the probability
that a call is delayed, multiplied by the conditional
probability that the delay is greater than t seconds.
 Blocked Calls Delayed
 Once it enters the queue, the probability that the delay is
greater than t(for t> 0) is given as

 The marginal (overall) probability that a call will be delayed

and experience a delay greater than t is then

 The average delay for all calls in a queued system

Summary
• The fundamental concepts of handoff, frequency reuse,
trunking efficiency, and frequency planning, Channel
Assignment Strategies have been presented.
 Handoff and Location Management.
 Cell splitting, sectoring, and the zone microcell
technique are all shown to improve capacity by
increasing SIR in some fashion.
 The capacity of a cellular system is a function of many
variables.