Eng’r. Gesilo P. Cimagala, Jr.

Global System for Mobile (GSM)

Um

BSS

Abis
BSC A
MS BTS

BSS NSS
Transport
Abis A MSC GMSC
PSTN
BSC
MS BTS

BSS

Abis
BSC A
MS BTS
GPRS/EDGE
MSC
PSTN

Third party
backhaul
MS BTS BSC

Private
IP
Backbone GGSN
Frame
Relay
Backbone
PCU SGSN

External
SGSN – Serving GPRS Support Node Packet Networks
PCU – Packet Control Unit Intranet, Internet
GGSN – Gateway GPRS Support Node

GPRS: General Packet Radio Systems; 2.5G; gives a permanent connection at about 50kbps to a mobile terminal.
EDGE: Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. EDGE offers bandwidth of up to 384kbps
The Future – the Need for Beyond 3G Systems
The SMS service was a forerunner of other data
services like mobile e-mail, mobile Web browsing,
mobile blogging, push-to-talk, mobile instant
messaging and many others. Such applications
became feasible with the introduction of packet-based
wireless networks that could carry IP data packets
and increasingly powerful mobile devices.
 Today, the capacity of current 3G and 3.5G
networks is still sufficient for the bandwidth
requirements of these applications and the number of
users. There are a number of trends, however, which
are already visible and will increase bandwidth
requirements in the future.
A number of wireless technologies are currently
under development or in the early rollout phase that
are designed to meet these future demands: 3GPP’s
Long Term Evolution (LTE), HSPA+ and WiMAX.
ITU
The body responsible for categorizing wireless
networks is the International Telecommunication Union
(ITU). The ITU categorizes International Mobile
Telecommunication (IMT) networks as follows:

IMT-2000 systems – this is what we know as 3G systems

today, for example UMTS and cdma2000. The list of all
ITU-2000 systems is given in ITU-R M.1457-6 [11].
 Enhanced IMT-2000 systems – the evolution of IMT-2000
systems, for example HSPA, CDMA 1xEvDo and future
evolutions of these systems.
 IMT-Advanced systems – systems in this category are
considered to be 4G systems.
 At this time, there is still no clear definition of
the characteristics of future IMT Advanced (4G)
systems. The ITU-R M.1645 recommendation gives
first hints but leaves the door wide open:

It is predicted that potential new radio

interface(s) will need to support data rates of up to
approximately 100 Mbit/s for high mobility such as
mobile access and up to approximately 1 Gbit/s for
low mobility such as nomadic/local wireless access,
by around the year 2010.
UMTS
Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
Two Parts of the Network
Radio Access Network (RAN) - handles all radio
related functionalities and the core network is
responsible of switching and routing calls and data
connections to external networks.
Core Network (CN) – divided into Packet Core
Network (PS) and Circuit Switched Network (CS).
Radio Interface
The base station and node B are used to
facilitate wireless communication between user
equipment (UE) and a network. Node B takes also
part in radio resource management.
Controllers
The base station controller (BSC) and radio
network controller (RNC) are the brains behind the
base stations. Normally a base station controller or a
radio network controller has tens or even hundreds of
base stations under its control. The BSC and RNC
have many different responsibilities and functions,
couple of those are the handling of radio resources
and controlling of handovers between BSC to BSC or
RNC to RNC.
Circuit Switched Core Network
Main network elements in the circuit switched
core network are mobile services switching
center/visitor location register (MSC/VLR), home
location register (HLR), media gateway (MGW).
These network elements provide circuit switched
connections like PSTN and ISDN.
Packet Switched Core Network
Serving GPRS support node (SGSN) and
gateway GPRS support node (GGSN) network
elements provide the packet data services in the
networks.
Home Location Register (HLR)
Database located in the subscriber’s home
system. HLR stores the master copy of user’s service
profile. Information about the subscriber and all
allowed services, forbidden roaming areas and
supplementary service information like call
forwarding status are stored to service profile. The
service profile is created when a new user joins to the
system.
Mobile services switching center/visitor
location register (MSC/VLR)
It is the switch (MSC) and database (VLR)
which serves the user equipment (UE) in its current
location for circuit switched services like speech.
Visitor location register holds a copy of visiting user’s
service profile and the location of the user equipment
inside the serving system.
Media Gateway (MGW)
The MGW can be used for transmitting and
converting the user plane traffic in both circuit-
switched core networks and IP multimedia core
network as a border element between different kinds
of networks.
Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN)
Serving GPRS support node (SGSN) main
responsibilities are the delivery of data packets from
and to the user equipments (UE) within its
geographical service area. Its other tasks include
packet routing and transfer, mobility management,
logical link management and authentication and
charging functions. Location information and user
profiles are stored in the location register of the
SGSN. All GPRS users registered with this SGSN.
Gateway GPRS support node
(GGSN)
The GGSN main responsibility is to handle the
interworking between the GPRS network and external
packet switched networks, like the Internet.
HSPA (3GPP R6)
High Speed Packet Downlink Access (HSDPA)
and Enhanced Uplink (EUL) (High Speed Uplink
Packet Access (HSUPA)) are the main improvements
in 3GPP release 6 to extend and improve the
performance of existing UMTS networks.

High Speed Packet Downlink Access (HSDPA)

improves theoretical down-link performance of up to
14 Mbit/s. High Speed Uplink Packet Access
(HSUPA) improves up-link performance theoretically
up to 5.8 Mbit/s.
Evolved HSPA (HSPA+) (3GPP R7)
In release 7 new
improvements were brought to
HSPA by 3GPP. Main
improvements were multiple
input/ multiple output (MIMO)
antenna capability and 16QAM
(Uplink) / 64QAM (Downlink)
modulation. With help of these
improvements HSPA+ Uplink
speed is increased to 11Mbps
and downlink speed to 42Mbps.
Direct Tunneling
When using so-
called direct tunnel
solution user plane
will bypass SGSN. This
will increase the
flexibility in network
topology and allows
the SGSN node to be
optimized for control
plane.
Internet-HSPA (I-HSPA)
I-HSPA is designed for
heavy data users over the
wireless network. Data in I-
HSPA bypasses the radio
network controller (RNC) and
the SGSN, and offloads data
directly to the Internet via
GGSN. This reduces the
capacity bottlenecks in critical
network elements like RNC
and SGSN.
LTE (3GPP R8)
The 3GPP evolution for the 3G mobile system
defined the UTRAN Long Term Evolution (LTE) and
System Architecture Evolution (SAE) network. These
standards define an all-IP network as a base for the
LTE/SAE. The LTE/SAE does not have separate packet
switched data traffic and circuit switched voice
network. Both data and user plane communicates
over the same network, which is called Evolved
Packet System (EPS) network.
The target downlink is 1Gbps for static and
100Mbps for nomadic. Uplink is 50Mbps.
LTE Architecture

At a high level, the network is comprised of the

CN (EPC) and the access network E-UTRAN. While
the CN consists of many logical nodes, the access
network is made up of essentially just one node, the
evolved NodeB (eNodeB), which connects to the UEs.
The Core Network
The core network (called EPC in SAE) is
responsible for the overall control of the UE and
establishment of the bearers. The main logical nodes
of the EPC are:
PDN Gateway (P-GW)
Serving Gateway (S-GW)
Mobility Management Entity (MME)
PCRF
The Policy Control and Charging Rules
Function is responsible for policy control decision-
making, as well as for controlling the flow-based
charging functionalities in the Policy Control
Enforcement Function (PCEF), which resides in the P-
GW. The PCRF provides the QoS authorization (QoS
class identifier [QCI] and bit rates) that decides how a
certain data flow will be treated in the PCEF and
ensures that this is in accordance with the user’s
subscription profile.
HSS
The Home Subscriber Server contains users’
SAE subscription data such as the EPS-subscribed
QoS profile and any access restrictions for roaming. It
also holds information about the PDNs to which the
user can connect.
In addition the HSS holds dynamic information
such as the identity of the MME to which the user is
currently attached or registered. The HSS may also
integrate the authentication center (AUC), which
generates the vectors for authentication and security
keys.
P-GW
The PDN Gateway is responsible for IP address
allocation for the UE, as well as QoS enforcement and
flow-based charging according to rules from the PCRF.
It is responsible for the filtering of downlink user IP
packets into the different QoS-based bearers. This is
performed based on Traffic Flow Templates (TFTs).
The P-GW performs QoS enforcement for guaranteed
bit rate (GBR) bearers. It also serves as the mobility
anchor for interworking with non-3GPP technologies
such as CDMA2000 and WiMAX® networks.
S-GW
All user IP packets are transferred through the Serving
Gateway, which serves as the local mobility anchor for the
data bearers when the UE moves between eNodeBs. It also
retains the information about the bearers when the UE is in
the idle state (known as “EPS Connection Management —
IDLE” [ECM-IDLE]) and temporarily buffers downlink data
while the MME initiates paging of the UE to reestablish the
bearers. In addition, the S-GW performs some
administrative functions in the visited network such as
collecting information for charging (for example, the
volume of data sent to or received from the user) and lawful
interception. It also serves as the mobility anchor for
interworking with other 3GPP technologies such as general
packet radio service (GPRS) and UMTS.
MME
The Mobility Management Entity (MME) is the
control node that processes the signaling between the
UE and the CN. The protocols running between the
UE and the CN are known as the Non Access Stratum
(NAS) protocols.
MME
The main functions supported by the MME can
be classified as:
 Functions related to bearer management – This
includes the establishment, maintenance and release
of the bearers and is handled by the session
management layer in the NAS protocol.
Functions related to connection management – This
includes the establishment of the connection and
security between the network and UE and is handled
by the connection or mobility management layer in
the NAS protocol layer.
The Access Network
Consists of a network of eNodeBs
There is no centralized controller
in E-UTRAN
eNodeBs are normally
interconnected with each other by
means of an interface known as
“X2” and to the EPC by means of
the S1 interface — more
specifically, to the MME by means
of the S1-MME interface and to the
S-GW by means of the S1-U
interface
The protocols that run between the
eNodeBs and the UE are known as
the “AS protocols”
E-UTRAN
The E-UTRAN is responsible for all radio-related
functions, which can be summarized briefly as:
 Radio resource management (RRM) – This covers all functions
related to the radio bearers, such as radio bearer control, radio
admission control, radio mobility control, scheduling and
dynamic allocation of resources to UEs in both uplink and
downlink.
 Header Compression – This helps to ensure efficient use of the
radio interface by compressing the IP packet headers that could
otherwise represent a significant overhead, especially for small
packets such as VoIP.
Security – All data sent over the radio interface is encrypted.
Connectivity to the EPC – This consists of the signaling toward
MME and the bearer path toward the S-GW.
Interworking with Other Networks
Wi-MAX (802.16)
Another successor to current 3.5G wireless
network technologies is WiMAX, a system based on
the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers) 802.16 air interface standard.
Wi-MAX Architecture
 The overall network may be logically divided
into three parts:
Mobile Stations (MS) used by the end user to access
the network.
The access service network (ASN), which comprises
one or more base stations and one or more ASN
gateways that form the radio access network at the
edge.
Connectivity service network (CSN), which provides
IP connectivity and all the IP core network functions.
The Access Service Network
Gateway (ASNGW)
In WiMAX networks, the gateway between the
radio network and the core network is referred to as the
Access Service Network Gateway. In principle, it is
responsible for the same tasks as the Access Gateway
(AGW) in LTE. These are:
 subscriber management tasks such as authentication and
subscription management;
 mobility management to redirect the connection from
one cell to another when the user is moving;
 to actively support the handover procedure in case the R8
reference point between two base stations is missing.
The Connectivity Service Network
(CSN)
The CSN provides connectivity to the Internet,
ASP, other public networks, and corporate networks.
The CSN is owned by the NSP and includes AAA
servers that support authentication for the devices,
users, and specific services. The CSN also provides per
user policy management of QoS and security. The
CSN is also responsible for IP address management,
support for roaming between different NSPs, location
management between ASNs, and mobility and
roaming between ASNs.
HA
Instead of relying on a proprietary protocol such as GTP, it
was decided to use Proxy Mobile IP (ProxyMIP), an already
existing IP-basedmobility management standard. In
principle, ProxyMIP works as follows: when a device
requests access to the network, the ASN-GWrequests an IP
address for the device from the Mobile IP Home Agent. The
HA has a pool of IP addresses it is responsible for and all
packets arriving from the Internet destined to these IP
addresses are always routed to the HA. From this pool, one
IP address is assigned to the device and returned to the
ASN-GW. The HA notes the IP address of the ASN-GW.
Technical Comparison
Overview
 Glossary of Terms
1G First generation wireless: analogue cell phones.
2G Second generation wireless: digital cell phones.
2.5G 2G plus faster data services, also known as GPRS 
3G Stands for "third generation" or "3rd generation", generally applied to advanced and high-speed mobile services and
applications.  
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project, set up to expedite the development of open globally-accepted technical
specifications for 3G. 
3GPP2 The Third Generation Partnership Project 2 is a collaborative Third Generation (3G) telecommunications specification-
setting project comprising North American and Asian interests on the development of the next generation cdma2000 wireless
communications.
3GSP Stands for 3G service provider. It is mobile operators that have 3G license to provide 3G services to customers.
802.11 IEEE standards for wireless LANs with specs for 1-2, 11 and 24 Mbps with access points typically covering 50-100 meters
each.
Air Interface In mobile phones, the 'air interface' denotes the specification of the radio transmission between base station and
mobile phone. It defines the frequency use (frequencies), the bandwidth of the individual radio channels (channels), the
encoding methods used (W-CDMA, TD-CDMA, cdma2000) and other quantities used by the radio technology.
AMPS Advanced Mobile Phone System. North American analogue cellular phone system. Operates in the 800 MHz frequency
band. AMPs is used in South America and Asia Pacific. It has not been deployed in Eastern Europe.
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode. A high bandwidth, controlled-delay fixed-size packet switching and transmission system.
Uses fixed-size packets also known as "cells"; ATM is often referred to as "cell relay." ATM will provide the basis for future
broadband ISDN standards.
ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode A type of networking that supports high bandwidth throughput and simultaneous transfer of
voice, video and data. It is a form of packet transmission using fixed-size packets, called cells. ATM transfers a cell to the
network only when data to be transmitted actually exists.
BTS Base Transceiver Station. Technical term for a mobile phone base station. A BTS contains the transmit and receive
technology and also the antennas to supply a radio cell. Several BTSs are administered by a BSC (Base Station Controller),
which is in turn under an MSC (Mobile Switching Centre).
CDMA Code Division Multiple Access. The code division technology was originally developed for military use over 30 years ago.
CDMA is a multiple access technique, which uses code sequences as traffic channels within common radio channels - used
for CDMA One (IS-95) air interface.
CDMAOne (IS-95) CDMAOne is a digital mobile phone standard based on the CDMA principle, which is used in North America,
Korea and Japan. CDMAOne uses frequency ranges around 800MHz and 1900MHz. For migration to third generation mobile
telephony, CDMAOne networks can be upgraded to the cdma2000 broadband standard.
CDMA2000 Common name for the IMT-2000 3G standard CDMA Multi-Carrier.
CDMA2000 1X RTT A 3G standard and the first step in the evolution of CDMA2000 often referred to as cdma2000 1X, which
improves packet data transmission capabilities and speeds in the network, and also boosts voice capacity by nearly two times
over today's CDMA capacities. Speed of 144kbps and greater.
CDMA2000 1XEV (or CDMA2000 1XEVDO) A 3G standard for data only that represents the second step in the evolution of
CDMA2000 and will bring data rates of up to 2.4Mbits/s to the network on a single 1.25Mhz carrier. 
CDMA2000 1XEVDV A 3G standard for data and voice on a single carrier that represents the third step in the evolution of
CDMA2000 and will bring data rates up to 5Mbits/s
CDMA2000 3X 3G technology which offers voice and data on a 5MHz carrier (or 3 times [3X] the 1.25 MHz carrier). 
D-AMPS D-AMPS has been renamed TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access). TDMA is a digital mobile phone network that
operates in the US, Latin America, New Zealand, parts of Russia and Asia Pacific.
E-GPRS Enhanced GPRS, another term for EDGE.
EDGE Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution. EDGE has been developed for those networks that didn't buy a UMTS license and
while it promises only about a third of the bandwidth, most UMTS services will also have a form using EDGE. Speed of up to
184kbps will be possible.
FDD Frequency Division Duplex is the first variation of W-CDMA to be standardized
GPRS General Packet Radio Systems. GPRS is 2.5G and will give a permanent connection at about 50kbps or so to a mobile
phone.
GSM Short for Global system for Mobile Communications, it is the mobile phone platform used in Europe and much of the rest of
the world.
IMT-2000 International Mobile Telecommunications 2000. The ITU initiative for a service that will provide radio access to the
global telecommunications infrastructure, through both satellite and terrestrial systems, serving fixed and mobile users in
public and private networks. In other words, third-generation services.
IS-41 Inter-network connection protocol for connecting systems based on both analogue and digital US standards.
IS-54 First-generation TDMA in 1991.
IS-95 First-generation CDMA (CDMAOne).
IS-136 Second-generation TDMA in 1994. Also called "Digital AMPS" or "D-AMPS."
Location-based Applications Location-based applications allow end users to find community services near their location such
as hotels, restaurants, pharmacies, banks, gas stations, and many other neighbourhood services. These applications are
effective in both consumer and business markets.
Location-based Service A service that tracks a cellular phone user's location within the mobile network and provides a variety of
additional services: E911 service automatically notifies an emergency centre of a user's location when he/she is in an urgent
situation. Location Based Billing Service provides a discount rate when calling and receiving at a specific area. Tracking
service grasps and manages the location of a person and an object. Location Based Information Service provides local
information on the area near subscribers. All these services are made possible by a wide range of technology; GPS + Cell
based (location)Tracking, Measuring Signal Attenuation (between a subscriber's hardware and a base station), Server Aided
GPS System, Assisted GPS Tracking made of DSP Software based device and TOA(Time Of Arrival)/TDOA(Time Difference
Of Arrival) Tracking. Server Aided GPS System was developed by SnapTrack, tested and verified at CDMA, GSM networks
and is now under commercialisation.
PCS Personal Communications Services. Any of several types of wireless, voice and/or data communications systems, typically
incorporating digital technology. PCS licenses are most often used to provide services similar to advanced cellular mobile or
paging services. However, PCS can also be used to provide other wireless communications services, including services that
allow people to place and receive communications while away from their home or office, as well as wireless communications
to homes, office buildings and other fixed locations.
Pico Cell Very small cell in a mobile network for boosting capacity within buildings.
PSD Packet Switched Data is a technology where the communication “pipe” is shared by several users, thus making it very
efficient. The data is sent to a specific address with a short delay. This delay depends on how many users are using the pipe at
any one time as well as the level of priority requested for your information. Charging is made according to the volume of data
and not the duration of the connection. PSD is the technology used for data communication across the internet and because
it maximizes the use of the network, this type of communication will eventually be used even for voice communication, with
a high level of priority assigned to that form of traffic.
Radio interface System enabling a mobile terminal to communicate with the network. Numerous discussions were held within
ETSI in 1997 on the standardization of a radio interface for UMTS. On 29 January 1998 the SMG committee adopted the
UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access standard (UTRA). UTRA was adopted by the ITU in March 1999 as a radio interface standard
for IMT 2000.
SIM Subscriber Identity Module 
SMS Short Message Service. Popularly known as "text messages". Analysis said it will be the main revenue generator for 3G
operators.
TDMA (ANSI-136) "TDMA" is the new name for the "Digital AMPS" (D-AMPS) mobile standard, now called ANSI-136, used in the
Americas, Asia Pacific and other areas. TDMA services can be delivered in the 800 MHz and 1900 MHz frequency bands.
UMTS Universal Mobile Telephony System. This is almost universally subscribed to standard for the third generation and is
generally based on W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) telephony students. UMTS will launch in 2002, but
full services for the general public will not arrive until around 2005. It promises a permanent internet connection of at least
384kbps and up to about 2mbps, combined with highly integrated devices and a super-fast back end.
UTRA UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access. A term use for UMTS radio access solution, applied to W-CDMA and TD-CDMA .
W-CDMA Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, one of two 3G standards that makes use of a wider spectrum than CDMA
and therefore can transmit and receive information for faster and more efficiently. Co-developed by NTT DoCoMo, it is being
backed by most European mobile operators and is expected to compete with cdma2000 to be the de facto 3G standard.
Thank You!