GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

Unit - 2
Radio Link Features in GSM Systems
Interference:

Interference is the sum of all signal contributions that are neither noise nor the wanted signal.
Interference is anything which modifies, or disrupts a signal as it travels along a channel between
a source and a receiver.

Effects of Interference:

 Interference is a major limiting factor in the performance of cellular systems.

 It causes degradation of signal quality.
 It introduces bit errors in the received signal.
 Bit errors are partly recoverable by means of channel coding and error correction mechanisms.

Sources of Interference:

 Another mobile in the same cell.

 A call in progress in the neighboring cell.
 Other base stations operating on the same frequency.
 Any non-cellular system which leaks energy into the cellular frequency band.

Types of Interference:

1. Co-channel Interference

 CCI is crosstalk from two different radio transmitters using the same frequency
 This type of interference is the due to frequency reuse, i.e. several cells use the same set of
frequency.
 These cells are called co-channel cells.
 Co-channel interference cannot be combated by increasing the power of the transmitter. This
is because an increase in carrier transmit power increases the interference to neighboring co-
channel cells.
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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 To reduce co-channel interference, co-channel cells must be physically separated by a

minimum distance to provide sufficient isolation due to propagation or reduce the footprint
of the cell.
 Some factors other than reuse distance that influence co-channel interference are antenna
type, directionality, height, site position etc.

Fig 1: Distance maintained between the co-channels

2. Adjacent-Channel Interference
 ACI is interference caused by extraneous power from a signal in an adjacent channel.
 It is the interference resulting from signals which are adjacent in frequency to the desired
signal
 Adjacent channel interference results from imperfect receiver filters which allow nearby
frequencies to leak into the passband.
 Adjacent channel interference can be minimized through careful filtering and channel
assignments.

RADIO LINK MEASUREMENTS

BSIC:

 In GSM the MS uses the BS identity code (BSIC) to distinguish between neighboring BSs.
 The code is needed because it is possible that mobile stations receive the broadcast channel
of more than one base station on the same frequency. This is due to frequency re-use in a
cellular network.
 The BSIC is composed of a 3-bit Network Color Code (NCC) and a 3-bit Base station Color
Code (BCC).
 As long as base stations use different frequencies for their broadcasting channel, there is no
problem in using the same Base Station Identity Code.

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 Unique identification of a base station is especially important in border areas, where at both
sides of the border there is a different operator who might use the same broadcasting channel
on the same frequency.

Fig 2: GSM BSIC

Signal and quality levels in GSM:

 The signal level values (RXLEV) and signal quality level values (REXQUAL) used in GSM
are listed below.
 Handover or handoff refers to the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from
one channel connected to the core network to another channel.

Table 1: Signal values in GSM

dBm Watts
RXLEV
<-110 <1e-14
0
-110 to -109 1e-14 to 1.25e-14
1
-109 to -108 1.24e-14 to 1.58e-14
2
-108 to -107 1.58e-14 to 1.99e-14
3
 

 

-49 to -48 1.25e-8 to 1.58e-8
62
>-48 >1.58e-8
63

Table 2: Quality levels values in GSM

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 Intercell handover switches a call in progress from one cell to another cell.
 Intracell handover switches a call in progress from one physical channel of the cell to another
physical channel of the same cell.
 Intercell handover from one serving cell to a neighboring cell occurs when RXLEV is low
and RXQUAL is high on the serving cell and better on the neighboring cell
 Intracell handover from one channel/time slot to another channel/time slot in the same cell
occurs when RXLEV is high but RXQUAL is low.
 The MS monitors the signal strength of neighbor BSs and maintains a list of 6 strongest
nonserving BSs. A new BS is selected from the list if,
 The path loss criterion for the serving BS is not met for 5 seconds.
 The signaling link with the serving BS fails.
 The serving BS becomes barred.
 Nonserving cell access signal is greater than that of the serving BS for 5 seconds,
and by at least the CELL_RESELECT_HYTERSIS value in dB.

RADIO LINK FEATURES OF GSM

1. Dynamic Power Control

 The GSM network is designed so that the MS is instructed to use only the minimum power
level necessary to achieve effective communication with the BTS

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 GSM defines eight power classes for the BTS transmitter to cover all 5 classes of MSs (0.8 to
20W)
Table 3: GSM BS Power Classes

 The MS measures the receive power level of the serving BS, the quality of receive signal, the
receive power level and ID codes for up to 6 neighbor BSs.
 The BS measures the receive power level and signal quality of each MS, the distance to the
MS and the transmit power of the MS and BS.
 Signal power level is determined by averaging the incoming signal level over a specified
period of time.
 The received power level in dBm is mapped to a value between 0 to 63.
 The value 0 corresponds to <-110 dBm. The Quality level is determined by computing BER.
The BER is mapped to 8 levels where 0 is the best quality.
 Once the BS determines the minimum required transmit power, it sends this information to
the MS.
2. Power control in GSM
 The term Power Control Points out the technique in which there is no more power is
transmitted than is required to maintain a connection with a certain quality.
 Power control is used to conserve battery life of a mobile device, and to allow maximum
reuse of the spectrum.
 Power control is used in both uplink (mobile station → Base Transceiver) and in downlink
(Base Transceiver Station →Mobile) mode used.

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 There are three network entities active in Power Control: MS, BTS and BSC
 Power control via mobile devices can be divided into different groups or classes.
 To ensure that the BTS to know what output to a mobile phone can be transmitted is assigned
to each MS a power class number
 Within GSM 900, they are set at 8, 5, 2 and 0.8 watts shown on the table below. In the past,
the first class consisted of a power of 20 Watt, but this has now been lost.
 The power classes are divided into power levels with each in increments of 2dB can be raised
to the peak power of that class or reduced to a minimum of 13 dBm or 20 mW.

Table 4: Power levels in GSM 900

MS maximum RF power (dBm) Power in Watts
Class
20
43
1
8
39
2
5
37
3
2
33
4
0.8
29
5

Operation:

In uplink mode, the quality and the strength of the signals originating from the mobile station at
regular intervals measured by the Base Transceiver, and this on the basis of Bit Error Ratio. This
information is also forwarded to the Base Station Controller, which will ultimately determine
whether the power level must be adjusted. The analysis of the BSC consists of averaging of the
measured values, and then the comparison with different reference values. From these equations
is then calculated how much power should be increased or decreased precisely. This is
performed by a power control command that is sent to the mobile station from the BSC via the
BTS. After a defined interval, the MS adjusts its power also effectively depending on the request
at a maximum rate of 2 dB for every 60 ms.

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

In downlink mode, Power Control is carried out in a similar way. The mobile station
measures the downlink signal, and the results are forwarded to the BSC. This will once again go
to analyze whether or not it is necessary to adjust the transmission power of the BTS. When a
change is needed is a power control command is sent to the BTS.

As per the context mentioned in the textbook,

 Both MS and BTS power control is performed in 2 dB steps, down from the level of the
power class to a minimum of 13 dBm.
 The power output level of the MS is controlled in a monotonic sequence of 15 steps of 2
dB on the command through SACCH (slow associated control channel)from the BTS.

Fig 3: Power control on GSM

 The use of minimum transmitting power to access the network helps to increase the
battery life of the mobile set and reduce interference.
 By carefully controlling the ramp up of the transmitter as well as the power level, the
spectral interference with other GSM equipment can be minimized.
3. Discontinuous Transmission (DTX)
 Discontinuous transmission (DTX) is a method of momentarily powering-down, or
muting, a mobile or portable wireless telephone set when there is no voice input to the
set. This optimizes the overall efficiency of a wireless voice communications system.

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 If we assume that the transmitter is active only for 50 percent of the time, then the
average interference can be reduced by 3 dB.

Table 5: GSM MS power classes and Power control (dBm)

 Another advantage of DTX is the reduction in the power consumption of the mobile
phone. This is especially important for the handheld unit.
 The drawback of DTX is the introduction of clipping to the speech due to imperfect
operation of the VAD (voice activity detector) which can sometimes fail to detect the
exact times of the start and end of the speech bursts.
 Another disadvantage of DTX is the noise contrast between the active and silent periods.
 The use of DTX is not possible on the downlink. Therefore it is potentially possible to
have more capacity on the uplink with the DTX than the downlink.
 Discontinuous transmission is a GSM feature in which speech is transmitted only when
there is speech available to transmit. This helps to reduce RF interference in MSs.
 A VAD is used to initiate the switching process.
 Comfort noise is introduced at the receiver to help to maintain a high level of
intelligibility during the intervals when the speech is cut. Comfort noise is the low level

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

background noise based on the statistics of the acoustic noise at the transmitter to assure
the listener that the radio link is still active.
 The use of DTX saves power and helps to provide a longer battery life.
 GSM transmission will cease 4 speech block periods after speech activity has stopped.
However the mobile will periodically send a signal called Silence Indicator (SID) every
480 ms to provide comfort noise level information to the BS so that the person on the far
end can hear some low level noise and not conclude that the link is down

Fig 4: DTX in GSM

4. Slow Frequency Hopping (SFH)
 In frequency hopping systems, the transmitter changes the carrier frequency according to a
certain "hopping" pattern.
 The advantage is that the signal sees a different channel and a different set of interfering
signals during each hop.
 When using frequency hopping the actual carrier frequency used by TRX changes on frame
(8 frames). The frequency follows either sequential or pseudo random pattern.
 One frame is 4.6ms long.
 Rate of hopping = (1/4.6ms) =217 hops/sec.
 A mobile transmits at one frequency during a time slot and hops to a different frequency
before the next time slot.
 This is known as Slow Frequency Hopping (SFH) and it is implemented in all GSM
terminals.
 The mobile radio channel is a frequency selective fading channel. Fades occur when there is
a loss in signal power due to variations in terrains such as valleys or hills or due to objects
such as buildings or even large metal objects such as air craft interfering with the signal
path, causing the original signal to be attenuated or cancelled out.

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

 When the mobile passes through areas of fade and poor reception, there is less chance of
losing the radio link in these areas by invoking SFH.
 This is especially important while performing a handover to another cell.
 GSM uses SFH to improve signal quality. In SFH the hop rate is less than the message bit
rate, whereas in fast hop system, FH occurs at a rate that is much higher than the message
bitrate.
 In wireless telecommunications, multipath is the propagation phenomenon that results in
radio signals reaching the receiving antenna by two or more paths. Causes of multipath
include atmospheric ducting, ionospheric reflection and refraction, and reflection from water
bodies and terrestrial objects such as mountains and buildings.
 The effects of multipath include constructive and destructive interference, and phase shifting
of the signal. Destructive interference causes fading. Where the magnitudes of the signals
arriving by the various paths have a distribution known as the Rayleigh distribution, this is
known as Rayleigh fading.
 FH provides frequency diversity to overcome Rayleigh fading due to multipath propagation.
Rayleigh fading may cause fades of 40 to 50 dB deep on the received signal, and the radio
link may be lost.
 FH allows the maintenance of the radio link by shifting onto another frequency before the
link is totally lost.

Types of SFH implementations:

The 2 different implementations schemes of SFH are used in BSs. They are:

1. RF hopping
 The RF hopping needs agile (easily movable) transceivers, as in the MS, except that 2 or 3
synthesizers are often are being used. The tuning time for reach individual synthesizer is a
minimum of one time slot.
 The main disadvantage of the RF hopping is that a hybrid combiner must be used since there
needs to be non-frequency-selective signal combining.
 RF hopping is suitable for BTS configurations with 2 or 3 transceivers.

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

Fig 5: RF hopping
2. Baseband hopping
 The baseband hopping is suitable when a large number of transceivers are used in one
BTS.
 It uses fixed frequency transceiver and multiplexes a number of baseband processing
systems to use the appropriate transmitter for the defined hopping sequence.
 Baseband hopping avoids the wideband combiner because the resulting frequency of each
transceiver is fixed, so a selective combiner can be used.
 Baseband hopping requires one transceiver to be allocated for one frequency. This
implementation is cost effective in large systems that already have a number of
transceivers at the BTS.

Fig 6: Baseband Frequency Hopping implementation

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GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

3. Hybrid hopping:
 It is a combination and compromise of the 2 implementation schemes.
 For the receive path, RF hopping is used because the need for wideband filters over the
GSM frequency range does not present a problem for the selectivity of the BTS.
 Baseband hopping is used for the transmit path to reduce the output losses.
 The intermodulation requirements are met by providing extra selectivity by selection
combiners.

GSM allows 64xNf different FH sequences that are generated that are generated for N f
different frequencies. Two parameters – mobile allocation index offset (MAIO) and
hopping sequence number (HSN) are used to describe them. The MAIO takes as many
values as the number of frequencies in the set. Its value lies in between 0 to N-1. This
determines the next frequency where the mobile will hop. The HSN is 0 HSN 63.

Fig 7 shows the SFH on three different frequencies for GSM. The hopping sequences are C 0
to C2, C2 to C1 and C1 to C0.

Fig 7: SFH for GSM with three different Frequencies

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

The algorithm used in GSM (see Figure 8) requires input parameters MA (actual allocation
of frequencies 1 Nf 64 to mobile), MAIO, HSN, FN(T1), FN(T9),and FN(T3). The values
of FNs are received over the SCH. If ..HSN = 0, the algorithm chooses a cyclic hopping path
and the mobile allocation index (MAI) is calculated as

MAI = (FN + MAIO) modN

If HSN is not equal to 0, M, M', and T' are calculated. If M' Nf the intermediate parameter
S is set to M', otherwise S = (M' + T') mod N. Finally, MAI is calculated (see Figure 8). The
same hopping sequence is used in both uplink and downlink.

Fig 8: Hopping Algorithm in GSM

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

FUTURE TECHNIQUES TO REDUCE INTERFERENCE IN GSM

The demand for spectrum to serve mobile users has rapidly increased. The techniques that can
enhance system capacity are,

1. Channel borrowing or effective channel enhancement

2. Advanced antenna technology
1. Channel borrowing

The channel borrowing schemes are: Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA), Hybrid Channel
Assignment (HCA) & Channel Borrowing without Locking (CBWL).

 In DCA, a central pool of all channels is used. A channel is borrowed from the pool by a BS
for use on a call.
 When the call is completed the channel is returned to the pool.
 The basic DCA has a self-organizing channel assignment algorithm based on dynamic real-
time measurements of interference levels.
 All BSs radios have access to the whole channel set, even if each BS is equipped with a
number of transceivers less than the number of channels.
 In the call setup phase, the BS assignment is done on the strongest signal from neighboring
BSs.
 The channel assignment is based on interference consideration. The interference level of the
idle channel is measured and by means of the signal level from the preferred BS, the
resulting S/I ratio is estimated. If the S/I ratio exceeds the selected threshold value, the
channel is considered a suitable channel.
 Different DCA algorithms differ in the selection of the preferred channel among the suitable
channels. If the suitable channel set is found empty, the system looks for a new BS, received
with a sufficient signal level, and searches for a good-quality channel. If no suitable channel
is found, the call is blocked.
 During the call, the system monitors the quality of channel under use by measuring BER. If the
quality threshold is exceeded, a handover request is initiated. A suitable channel is searched
for among the channels of the current BS that show a better quality. This is a typical DCA

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

operation, namely an intracell handover. If no channel is found, an intercell handover is used,

searching again for a channel with suitable quality. If even this does not work, the call is
forced to terminate.
 In Hybrid Channel Allocation (HCA), some channels are permanently assigned to each
BS as in FCA, and others are kept in a central pool for borrowing as in DCA. This is called
Channel locking and it is used to prevent an increase in co-channel interference; that is, BSs
within the required minimum channel reuse distance from a BS that borrows a channel
cannot use the same channel.
 Channel locking has some disadvantages.
 The number of channels available for lending to a BS is limited, since the channel can
be borrowed by a BS only when it is idle in all of the BSs within the required chan nel
reuse distance of the borrowing BS.
 The difficulty in maintaining co-channel reuse distance at the minimum
required value everywhere in the system. Because of this difficulty, DCA and HCA
generally perform less satisfactorily than FCA under high loads.
 Their other disadvantages relate to physical complexity. The transmitter of each BS
must be able to transmit not only on the channel allocated permanently to that BS, but
also on any of the channels that belong to the central pool.
 The Channel Borrowing without Locking (CBWL) proposed in has most of the
advantages of other channel borrowing schemes and overcomes their disadvantages.
 In the CBWL, each BS is allocated channels as in FCA. If all channels of the BS
are occupied and a new call arrives, channel borrowing is used. A channel can be
borrowed only from an adjacent BS. The borrowed channel cannot be used by the
original lending BS but can still he used in any nearby co-channel BSs. Thus, there
is no channel locking.
 To prevent the increase of co-channel interference, borrowed channels are used with
reduced transmitted power. Therefore, they can be accessed only in part of the
borrowing cell. To determine whether a mobile is in the region that can be served by a
borrowed channel, each BS transmits a signal with the same reduced power as that on
a borrowed channel. The signal is called borrowed channel sensing signal

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

(BCSS). If the BCSS is not above some suitable threshold at an MS, a

borrowed channel cannot be used.

Advantages of CBWL:

In CBWL, only a fraction of the total channels of the system need to be accessible at each BS.
Without channel locking, channel reuse distance is always kept at a desired minimum. The
CBWL exhibits better performance in light as well as in heavy traffic loads. In CBWL, channel
borrowing at a BS does not require global information about channel usage in the system, so the
control and management tasks are simplified. In CBWL, by appropriately organizing lending
channel groups, it is possible to avoid using adjacent channels in the same BS, even with
channel borrowing allowed. In comparison with generalized FCA, CBWL ensures good
quality for borrowed and regular channels without increasing co-channel interference. In
CBWL, a user can borrow channels from any of the adjacent BSs. There are six of these in the
standard hexagonal layout geometry. The greater the number of channels that are
potentially available to an arriving call, the more superior the performance.

The CBWL can be employed in existing cellular systems without additional infrastructure cost.
Unlike cell splitting, CBWL does not require new BSs and additional antenna towers to
increase system capacity. Simulations show that CBWL, provides better channel utilization
than a conventional cellular system with FCA, DCA, or HCA.

2. Smart Antenna

 Another way to reduce interference is to use a smart or intelligent antenna. A smart or

intelligent antenna refers to a group of core RF technologies that control directional antenna
arrays by means of sophisticated digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms.
 A smart antenna evaluates signal conditions continuously of each signal that is
transmitted or received. The smart antenna then uses this information to determine how to
manipulate the incoming signals to maximize performance.
 The smart antenna constructs a composite signal from multiple antenna feeds by
optimizing signal characteristics. The optimization is accomplished by assigning specific

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

weight to each of the incoming signals. A smart antenna functions autonomously and
automatically and makes complex decisions in real time N.

Smart antennas belong to two basic classes: switched beam and adaptive.

 A switched beam antenna combines signals according to a fixed number of beam patterns.
One of the patterns will be considered a best fit for the signal on an individual channel at a
given instance. Pattern characteristics may be selected, but a beam may not be steered or
swept on a continuous basis. For such a system to operate, signal processing occurs
simultaneously over each of the hundreds of radio channels in a network. Such processing
requires a powerful DSP engine, which must analyze the antenna signal across the entire
frequency band occupied by the network, identify individual channels, and then apply
appropriate processing.
 The adaptive antenna essentially picks out the desired signal amid a field of interfering
signals and thermal noise and self-regulates its performance to satisfy some pre assigned
criterion or criteria. Such criteria may include periodicity of switching and beam traversal.
The adaptive array antenna effectively creates new spatial channels, forming areas of high
signal gain while reducing the sensitivity in the direction of the desired signal, while
reducing the sensitivity in certain angular directions corresponding to interfering signals.
The adaptive antenna adjusts its directional beam pattern by using spatial filtering and
internal feedback control, thereby maximizing S/I ratio.
 The adaptive array antenna consists of a linear or rectangular array of M homogeneous
radiating elements. These elements are coupled together via some type of amplitude control
and phase shifting mechanism to from a single output. The amplitude and phase control
involve a set of complex weights.
The total array output in direction is given as:

( )
( ) ∑

where; = complex weight applied to the output of the th element and = frequency.

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in
GSM – 10EC843 Unit - 2

With a suitable choice of weights, the array can be made to accept a desired signal from a
direction and nullify interference signals originated for . The weighting mechanism
is optimized to steer the beam in a specific direction or directions.

The use of adaptive antennas would be considerably beneficial in the following areas:

1. Coverage: Adaptive beam forming can increase the cell coverage area substantially due to
antenna gain and interference rejection. In a noise-limited environment, the cell coverage area is
improved by a factor of M1/γ , where M is the number of antenna elements in the array and γ is
the propagation loss exponent.
2. Capacity: Transmission bit rate is increased due to improvement in the S/I ratio at the output
of the adaptive beam former. In a noise-limited environment, the minimum rate improvement in
S/I ratio that can be achieved is 10logM dB. In addition, adaptive antenna technology provides
the flexibility that allows a reuse factor of one; that is, a single frequency can be used in all cells.
This is accomplished with centralized DCA. Also, the same channel, time slot, and frequency
can be reused in the same sector.
3. Signal quality: In a noise-limited environment, minimum receiver thresholds are reduced by
10logM dB on average. In an interference-limited environment, an additional improvement in
tolerable S/I ratio at a single element is achieved due to interference rejection afforded against
directional interferers.
4. Portable terminal transmit power: If adaptive antennas were implemented in a system
without changing other parameters such as cell size, the transmission power levels required for
portable terminals would be reduced on average by at least 10logM dB. The reduction in
transmission power level, which results due to increase in antenna gain at the BS, improves the
battery life. Another relevant consideration is increased fade margin for improved signal quality.

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Shwetha M, Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, Sai Vidya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru – 560 064
m.shwetha@saividya.ac.in