Wireless Communication

system
Cellular system
 Definitions
•Base Station: A fixed station in a mobile radio system
used for radio comm. with mobile unit.
•Mobile station: A station in the cellular radio system
intended for use while in motion at
unspecified locations.

•Control Channel : radio channel used for transmission

of call setup, call request, call
initiation ect., for control purposes
•Forward channel: radio channel from base to mobile
•Reverse channel: Radio channel from mobile to base.
•Hand off: The process of transferring a mobile station
from one channel or base station to another.
 Definitions
Mobile switching : Switching center which
center coordinates the routing
of calls in a large service area.
Page: a brief message which is broadcast over
the entire service area, usually simulcast
fashion by many base stations at the same
time.
Roamer: A mobile station which operates in
service area other than that from which
service has been subscribed.
Call to a mobile

time
MSC
Call to a Mobile
Receives call
from PSTN,
sends the
requested MIN
to all base
stations
FCC Tx page MIN
Base
for the spec.
Station user
RCC

FCC Rx page
Mobile
MIN and
Matches the
MIN with its
own
RCC
Call from a mobile

time
FREQUENCY REUSE
 Cellular Concept
• The limited capacity of the first mobile radio-telephone
services was related to the spectrum used…not much
sharing and a lot of bandwidth dedicated to a single call.
– good coverage
– interference: impossible to reuse the same frequency
• The cellular concept addressed many of the
shortcomings of the first mobile telephones
– Frequency reuse
– Wasted spectrum allocated to a single user
• In 1968, Bell Labs proposed the cellular telephony
concept to the FCC
• It was approved and then the work began!
– FCC allocated spectrum (took away TV UHF channels 70-83) in
the 825-845 MHz and 870-890 MHz bands
– AT&T put up a developmental system in Chicago
Cellular Network Architecture

Mobile Public
Switching Telephone
Center network
and Internet

Mobile
Switching
Center
Wired network
 Cellular Concept
• developed by Bell Labs 1960’s-70’s
• areas divided into cells
• a system approach, no major technological changes
• a few hundred meters in some cities, 10s km at country
side
• each served by base station with lower power transmitter
• each gets portion of total number of channels
• neighboring cells assigned different groups of channels,
interference minimized
• hexagon geometry cell shape
Frequency reuse concept
 Frequency Reuse
• Adjacent cells assigned different frequencies
to avoid interference or crosstalk
• Objective is to reuse frequency in nearby
cells
– 10 to 50 frequencies assigned to each cell
– transmission power controlled to limit power at
that frequency escaping to adjacent cells
– the issue is to determine how many cells must
intervene between two cells using the same
frequency
 Frequency Reuse
• Total number of duplex channels S = kN
• each cell allocated a group k channels
– a cluster has N cells with unique and disjoint channel
groups, N typically 4, 7, 12
• Cluster repeated M times in a system
• Total number of channels that can be used (capacity)
– C = MkN = MS
• Smaller cells  higher M  higher C
+ Channel reuse  higher capacity
+ Lower power requirements for mobiles
– Additional base stations required
– More frequent handoffs
 Effect of cluster size N
• channels unique in same cluster, repeated over clusters
• keep cell size same
– large N : weaker interference, but lower capacity
– small N: higher capacity, more interference need to
maintain certain S/I level
• frequency reuse factor: 1/N
– each cell within a cluster assigned 1/N of the total
available channels
 Design of cluster size
• In order to connect without gaps between
adjacent cells
• N = i2 + ij + j2 where i and j are non-
negative integers
• Example i = 2, j = 1
– N = 22 + 2(1) + 12 = 4 + 2 + 1 = 7
 Co channel cells
• N=19
• (i=3, j=2)
Channel Assignment Strategies
• Fixed Channel Assignments
– Each cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice
channels.
– If all the channels in that cell are occupied, the call is
blocked, and the subscriber does not receive service.
– Variation includes a borrowing strategy: a cell is
allowed to borrow channels from a neighboring cell if
all its own channels are occupied.
– This is supervised by the Mobile Switch Center:
Connects cells to wide area network; Manages call
setup; Handles mobility
 Channel Assignment Strategies
• Dynamic Channel Assignments
– Voice channels are not allocated to different cells
permanently.
– Each time a call request is made, the serving base
station requests a channel from the MSC.
– The switch then allocates a channel to the requested
call based on a decision algorithm taking into account
different factors: frequency re-use of candidate
channel and cost factors.
– Dynamic channel assignment is more complex (real
time), but reduces likelihood of blocking
 Handover/handoff
• Reasons for handover
– Moving out of range
– Load balancing
• Cell, BSC (base station controller), MSC (mobile switching
center)
• Handover scenarios
– Intra-cell handover (e.g., change frequency due to
narrowband interference)
– Inter-cell, intra-BSC handover (e.g., movement across cells)
– Inter-BSC, intra-MSC handover (e.g., movement across
BSC)
– Inter MSC handover (e.g., movement across MSC)
Four Types of Handoff
1
2 3 4
MS MS MS MS

BTS BTS BTS BTS

BSC BSC BSC

MSC MSC
 Handoffs
• important task in any cellular radio system
• must be performed successfully,
infrequently, and imperceptible to users.
• identify a new base station
• channel allocation in new base station
• high priority than initiation request (block
new calls rather than drop existing calls)
 Handoff
 =handoff threshold -
Minimum acceptable
signal to maintain the call
  too small:
– Insufficient time
to complete handoff
before call is lost
– More call losses
  too large:
– Too many handoffs
– Burden for MSC
 Styles of Handoff
• Network Controlled Handoff (NCHO)
– in first generation cellular system, each base station constantly
monitors signal strength from mobiles in its cell
– based on the measures, MSC decides if handoff necessary
– mobile plays passive role in process
– burden on MSC
• Mobile Assisted Handoff (MAHO)
– present in second generation systems
– mobile measures received power from surrounding base stations
and report to serving base station
– handoff initiated when power received from a neighboring cell
exceeds current value by a certain level or for a certain period of
time
– faster since measurements made by mobiles, MSC don’t need
monitor signal strength
 Types of Handoff
• Hard handoff - (break before make)
– FDMA, TDMA
– mobile has radio link with only one BS at anytime
– old BS connection is terminated before new BS
connection is made.
 Types of Handoff
• Soft handoff (make before break)
– CDMA systems
– mobile has simultaneous radio link with more than
one BS at any time
– new BS connection is made before old BS connection
is broken
– mobile unit remains in this state until one base station
clearly predominates
 Prioritizing handoff
• Dropping a call is more annoying than line busy
• Guard channel concept
– Reserve some channels for handoffs
– Waste of bandwidth
– But can be dynamically predicted
• Queuing of handoff requests
– There is a gap between time for handoff and time to drop.
– Better tradeoff between dropping call probability and network
traffic.
• Reduce the burden for handoff
– Cell dragging
– Umbrella cell
Umbrella Cell
 Interference and System Capacity
• major limiting factor in performance of cellular radio systems
• sources of interference:
– other mobiles in same cell
– a call in progress in a neighboring cell
– other base stations operating in the same frequency band
– Non-cellular system leaking energy into the cellular frequency
band
• effect of interference:
– voice channel: cross talk
– control channel: missed or blocked calls
• two main types:
– co-channel interference
– adjacent channel interference
 Co-Channel Interference
• cells that use the same set of frequencies are called co-
channel cells.
• Interference between the cells is called co-channel
interference.
• Co-channel reuse ratio: Q = D/R=sqrt(3N)
– R: radius of cell
– D: distance between nearest co-channel cells
• Small Q  small cluster size N  large capacity
• large Q  good transmission quality
• tradeoff must be made in actual cellular design
Co-channel Reuse Ratio


d 
Pr  Pt  
S S
 i0
 d0 
I
   Ii
2
d 
i 1 Pr (dBm)  Pt (dBm)  10 log 
 d0 
Interference and System Capacity
Pr = Power received at a distance d
Pt = power transmitted from the base station
do = reference distance
= path loss exponent , 2,4,6 ….
S = signal power
I = Interference power
I0 = number of interfering cells
R: radius of cell
D: distance between nearest co-channel cells
S/I =S / (I1 +I2 +I3 +…..+ I6)

S S
 i0
I
 2   Ii
i 1

S/I = Po / (P0 (D1/R) - ) + (P0 (D2/R) - ) + …….. (P0 (D6/R) - )

Cochannel Interference

S R  ( D / R ) ( 3 N )
 i0
 
I i0 i0
 i
( D
i 1
) 
 Worst Case Interference
• S/I ~ R-4 /[2(D-R)-4 + 2(D+R)-4 + 2D-4]
 Adjacent Channel Interference
• Interference resulting from signals where are
adjacent in frequency to the desired signal.
• Due to imperfect receiver filters that allow
nearby frequencies to leak into pass band.
• Can be minimized by careful filtering and
assignments, and by keeping frequency
separation between channel in a given cell as
large as possible, the adjacent channel
interference may be reduced considerably .
 Problems
1.1)Total band width =40MHZ
Each simplex channel : 20Khz
Find number of channel available per cells
under N=4,7,12.
 Solution
• Channel bandwidth for duplex comm.=
40KHz
Total available channels = 40,000/40 =1000
Case 1. N=4
number of channels in each cell = 1000/4 = 250 channels
Case 2 N=7
number of channels in each cell = 1000/7 = 142channels
Case 2 N=12
number of channels in each cell = 1000/12 = 83channels
 problem
• 1.2 AMPS example
 =4, S/I=18dB, Find N

Solution
18 dB =77.6 W
S R  ( D / R ) ( 3 N )
 i0
  77.6 = (3xN)2 /6
I i0 i0
 (D
i 1
i ) 

– N needs to be larger
than 6.49.
– Reuse factor 1/N small