Telecom Network - Basics

R A H U L K A U N DA L

W W W. I T E LC OT E C H . C O M
TABLE OF CONTENTS
• Evolution of telecom technologies
• Standards & Specifications
• Telecom Network Architecture
• What is Telecom Mast
• Different Types of Masts/Cells
• Different Types of Antennas
• What is User Equipment
• Radio Access Network
• Transport Network
• Core Network
Evolution of Telecom Technologies

6G
5G
4G
2030
2020
3G
2010 1000Gbps
20Gbps
2G 1Gbps 0.1ms
2000
1ms
1990 42Mbps 10ms
- Immersive
Deployment date - Enhanced
384kbps 200ms comm.
mobile Integrated AI
- Fast
broadband
DL Speed mobile - Massive
600ms broadband
- Massive comm.
- Mobile IOT
Latency - NB-IOT - Hyper
broadband - Ultra low
- VoLTE reliable low
-Digital Voice - Voice latency latency
-Text -Multimedia
Services
-GPRS
Standards & Specifications
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)

define the overall concept for telecom

who produce the reports and
technology including technical,
specifications that define 3GPP technologies
performance, and service requirements

3GPP Specifications
• 3GPP keeps on releasing new specifications
quite often with new features and use cases

• 4G related specifications starts from Release 8

• 5G including Private Networks (Non-Public

Network) related specifications starts from
Release 15
Release
• 6G is expected to start from Release 20 20
LTE Advanced
LTE Advanced Pro
6G
Telecom Network Architecture
RAN Transport Core

MME HSS

CPRI SGW PGW

Backhaul (Fiber/Microwave)

IMS PCRF
What is Telecom Tower/Mast?

G
S
M Cell Area 1

G G
S S Cell Area 2
Cell Area 3 M M

BTS Location

It is the entity interfacing the user and allows the communication between users and Network
Different types of Masts/Cells

BTS
BTS

Macro Micro Pico Cell Small Cell BTS

b) Micro Cell: A microcell c) Pico cell: This has the

a) Macro Cell: A macro c) Small Cell: are low-
uses low antenna height. antennas inside a building.
cell is a traditional cell powered radio access
The antenna is mounted This indoor cell covers a
with the antenna above nodes that have a range
outdoors. The waves building or a part of a
the average obstacle up to few hundred
propagate between the building. This is the best
(building) height. This meters. They are "small"
buildings and not over the solution when high
gives a good outdoor compared to macro cell,
roof tops. The cell size is capacity and very good
coverage, and pretty which may have a range of
typically 150 to 200 indoor coverage is
good indoor coverage. a few tens of kilometers.
meters. required.
 Different types of Masts – Physical appearance

BTS site is a space where mobile tower is installed along with shelter room to in house base transreceiver station
equipment. A generator set is also placed for provision of power back up. The mobile tower has GSM and microwave
antennas mounted on top.

BTS Sites can be of different types depending upon installations:

Microwave
antennas

GSM antenna

Shelter

Roof Top Pole (RTP) Roof Top Tower (RTT) Ground Base Tower (GBT) Ground Base Pole (GBP)
Different types of Antennas
Antenna Types
GSM Antennas: These antennas are installed on tower / pole top
and are used to radiate RF signal.

These are available with multiple ports (2/4/6/8/10) to support High Gain Antenna
different frequency bands ( 900/1800/2100/2300 MHz). City Antenna IBS Antenna Microwave
(Rural / highway
(Urban) (Indoors) Antenna
Application)
For better indoor penetration and highway coverage –high gain
antennas are used.

Microwave Antennas: These antennas are installed on tower /

pole top and are used to provide connectivity between sites. .
Omni directional Directional
directional

IBS Antennas: These antennas are installed using DAS (

distributed antenna system) . These are used to provide RF
coverage for indoor purposes. Extensively used at corporate
locations, malls, enterprises , office locations for improving indoor
customer experience .

Advanced Antennas – Massive MIMO & Beamforming

32T antenna array constructed by stacking two subarrays vertically
and eight subarrays horizontally, where each subarray consists of
four dual-polarized antenna element pairs and has two radio chains
What is User Equipment (UE)?

Routers, Mesh

IOT devices
Evolution from basic mobile to smart phones

Basic mobile were Smart phones are equipped with

bulky, with black large, small screens with colored
white display and display.
were used only for Used extensively for pictures, gaming
voice communication and other multimedia functions.
Radio Access Network Baseband Unit
Core NW

Radio Units

CPRI (Common
RAN - Site
11 Public Radio

interface)
Transport Network
Source on which information flows from transmitter to receiver is called as “Transport Media”
Communication media refers to the means of delivering and receiving data or information. In telecommunication, these means are
transmission and storage tools or channels for data storage and transmission.

Transport Media can be of following types : Cell Site

•Microwave transmission ( IF)

Cell Site
•Communication satellites
•Fiber optics
MSC

RF Spectrum

BSC
Fiber

SGSN
Transport Network

MME HSS

Backhaul (Fiber/Microwave)
CPRI SGW PGW
100 Mbps – 1 Gbps
1 – 10 Gbps
IMS PCRF
Core Network
NAS Signaling User subscription data
Registration
Access Authentication
Authentication credentials
RRM Mobility management control Updates location register
Access
User/control
plane
Connection
setup
MME HSS

Record Billing
SGW PCRF Policy rules for data
rates ,QoS, quota

Packet routing & fwd.

Tx level Pkt marking (UL/DL)
Local mobility anchor (Inter eNB)

EUTRAN
PGW
Control Plane QoS handling
UE IP allocation
Mobility anchor Evolved Packet Core (EPC)
User Plane UL/DL charging

MME – Mobility Management Entity HSS – Home Subscriber Subsystem

PCRF – Policy & Charing Rule Function SGW – Serving Gateway
PGW – Packet Data Network Gateway