Cellular Networks

Concepts and Fundamentals

By
Waheed ur Rehman
Agenda
 Cellular Concept
 Frequency Reuse
 Channel Assignment Strategies
 Fixed
 Dynamic
 Handover or Handoff
 Handover Strategies
 Prioritizing HO
 Practical HO consideration
 Okumura propagation model
 HO types and considerations
Cellular Concept

 Coverage area is called a cell

 Breakthrough in solving of spectral
congestion and user capacity
 Single high power transmitter is replaced with
many lower power transmitters.
 Portion of total number of channels are
assigned to each cell
Cellular Concept (2)

 Can be reused as many times as needed as

long as co-channel interference is kept below
acceptable level.

 If demand for service increasenumber of

BSs increases + decrease of transmission
power.
Cellular Concept (3)

 Coverage area of a cell depends upon

 Transmit power of BS
 Transmit power of the MS
 Height of the BS antenna
 The topology of the landscape (terrain)
 Coverage can range from too few yards
to tens of kilometers
Cellular Concept (4)

 CDMA cell (“breathe”) don’t have

interference problem
 Under light load = large cell size, shrinks with
load increases ( due to growing noise)
 If more users are in a cell, the higher the
noise, higher the path loss and higher the
transmission error will be.
 Mobile users far away from BS are dropped
out.
Cellular : Advantages

 Higher Capacity
 Less Transmission Power
 Receiver away from BS require more power
 Local Interference only
 Robust
Cellular : Disadvantages

 Infrastructure Needed
 Handovers Needed
 Frequency Planning
 To Avoid Interference
Question : Why don’t we use SquareR
instead of Hexagon? 6
R

 Square 7 5
d
 4 cells apart d
1
 4 cells apart √2d
 √(d2 + d2) = √2d 2 4

3
 Hexagon
 Equidistant
 √3R
 R = √(a2 + (R/2)2) d
 Equidistance simplifies the
decision of when and which d d
antenna to choose in case of
HO
Frequency Reuse

 Adjacent cells have different channels

 The design process is called Frequency
Reuse or Frequency Planning
 Footprint : radio coverage area of the cell
 Hexagon are better than square of equilateral
triangle.
Frequency Reuse (2)
 Center excited cell: BS in the middle.
 Corner Excited Cell: BS on the vertices
 Practical consideration usually do no allow
BS to be placed exactly as they appear in
hexagon.
 Most system design permit BS to be
positioned upto one fourth of the cell radius
away from ideal location.
Cellular
system
Frequency Reuse (3)

 S = total duplex channels

 k= channels in each cell  k < S
 N= Total Number of cells
 S= kN
 The N cells which collectively use the complete set of
channels are called Clusters.
 If cluster is replicated M times then capacity C can be
 C = MkN = MS
 Capacity is directly proportional to cluster number
 N is the cluster size.
 Cell structure with microcells
Cluster
6

7 5

2 4

6 3 microcells

7 5 6

1 7 5

2 4 1

3 2 4

3 Reuse factor is 7
Increasing Cell Capacity

 Adding New Channels

 Frequency Borrowing
 Cell Splitting
 Cell Sectoring
 Microcells
 Repeater for range extension
Increasing Cell Capacity (2)

Macrocell Microcell
Cell Radius 1 to 20 km 0.1 to 1 km
Transmission Power 1 to 10W 0.1 to 1W
Average Delay Spread 0.1 to 10micSec 10 to100 ns
Maximum bit Rate 0.3 Mbps 1Mbps
Channel Assignment Strategies

 Fixed
 Dynamic
Channel Assignment Strategies (2)
Fixed
 Fix number of channels are assigned to the
cell
 Call can be blocked
 One variation is channel borrowing strategy.
 MSC supervises borrowing strategy.
 Fixed Channel Assignment is used by GSM
Channel Assignment Strategies (3)
Dynamic
 Channels are not allocated permanently
 When a call is made, serving BS request a
channel from MSC
 The channel is allocated following the
algorithm that takes into account parameters
like likelihood of future blocking, reuse
distance of the channel etc.
Channel Assignment Strategies (4)
Dynamic
 Require MSC to collect real-time collection of
data on channel occupancy, traffic
distribution, radio signal strength
indication(RSSI) on continuous basis.
 Increases the load and storage.
 Dynamic Channel Assignment is used by
DECT
Interference

 Co-Channel Interference
 Interference at same frequencies

 Adjacent Channel Interference

 Interference with the neighboring frequency

 HOW to Avoid ????

 Handoff/Handover
 Ability of the subscriber to maintain a call while moving within the
network

 Handoff can be between

 Two frequencies (interference)

 Two sectors on the same BS

 Between BS

 Between BSC

 Between MSC belonging to the same operators

 Even between two different networks (normally not supported because of

billing reasons)
Handoff/Handover (2)
 Handoff : Reasons
 Two basic reasons ( more than 40 identified by GSM standard)

 Signal Strength or SNR

 Load Balancing
 Handoff Types
 Soft Handover
 Hard Handover
 Softer Handover

 Horizontal HO
 Vertical HO

 Upward and Downward HO

 Handoff Approaches

 Four approaches for handoff

 Network Controlled HO  1G

 Network measure the signal strength

 In case of weak signal than HO to the near by cell
 Mobile assisted HO ->2G
 Signal measurements sent by mobile station.
 Network Assisted HO

 Mobile Controlled HO
Handoff Strategies

 There should be some threshold value.

 Should be carefully selected to minimize the
ping pong effect.
 As infrequent as possible
 Δ = Pr handoff – Pr Min usable
 Δ should not be too big or too small
Handoff Strategies (2)

 In 1G MSC was responsible for HO

 Locator Receiver were used at BS for
measuring signal strength and reporting it to
MSC.
 NCHO
Handoff Strategies (3)
 In 2G MAHO strategy was used.
 Less burden on MSC and improved HO
 Intersystem HO: from one MSC to another
MSC

 HO should be given more priority over

originating call.
 HO should be as lossless as possible.
Prioritizing Handover

 Guard channel capacity: some channels are

reserved for HO.
 Disadv: reducing the total carried traffic
 Efficient spectrum utilization in case of
dynamic channel allocation strategy.
 Queuing of HO request is another strategy.
Practical HO Considerations

 User mobility considerations

 High speed vs low speed users
 Umbrella cell approach
 Cell dragging problem in microcells
 HO thresholds and radio coverage parameters
must be adjusted carefully.
Practical HO Considerations (2)

 1G required 10 sec for HO

 Value of Δ was about 6dB to 12 dB
 2G require 1 to 2 sec
 Value of Δ was about 0 to 6dB
 Newer cellular system consider more
matrices for HO decision making the process
complex
Handover types and recent
Considerations
 Hard handover
 GSM
 Soft handover
 IS-95
 Softer handover
 IS-95
 MCHO and NAHO
Mobile Radio Propagation Models

 Okumura Model that is refined my Hata.

 Original details analysis of the Tokyo area
 For Urban environment, predicted path loss is

LdB = 69.55 + 26.16 log fc – 13.82 log ht – A(hr)

+ (44.9 – 6.55loght) log d
Mobile Radio Propagation Models
(2)
LdB = 69.55 + 26.16 log fc – 13.82 log ht – A(hr)
+ (44.9 – 6.55loght) log d

 fc = Carrier frequency in MHz from 150 to 1500 MHz

 ht = Height of transmitting antenna(BS) in m, from 30 t0 300 m
 hr =Height of receiving antenna(MS) in m, from 1 t0 10 m
 d = Propagation distance between antennas in km, from 1 to
20 km.
 A(hr)= correction factor for mobile unit antenna height
Mobile Radio Propagation Models
(3)a small or medium size city, the correction factor is given by
For

A(hr) = (1.1 log fc – 0.7) hr – (1.56 log fc – 0.8) dB

And for a larger city

A(hr) = 8.29[log(1.54hr)]2 -1.1 dB for fc<= 300MHz

A(hr) = 3.2[log(11.75hr)]2 -4.97 dB for fc>= 300MHz

For suburban area

LdB (suburban) = LdB(urban) – 2[log (fc/28)]2 – 5.4

And the path loss in open areas is

LdB (open) = LdB(urban) – 4.78(log (fc)]2 – 18.733(log (fc) – 40.98

Discussion
 Differentiate between co-channel interference
and adjacent channel interference
 What are the different techniques for
improving coverage and capacity in cellular
systems.
 Considering duplex channels, what are the
alternatives for implementation in wireless
networks? What about typical wired
networks?
 FDD and TDD ?
What have you learnt now?

 Cell and cellular concepts

 Frequency reuse, cluster, sectorization etc.
 Channel Assignment Strategies including
fixed and dynamic allocation
 Handover concepts and strategies like Mobile
and Network assisted etc.
 Practical HO considerations
References
 “Wireless Communication”, Theodore S
Rappaport, second Edition, chapter 3

 “Mobile Communication”, Jochen H. Schiller,

2001. Chapter 2 ,4

 “3G Wireless Networks” ,Clint Smith and

Daniel Collins, McGraw Hill Telecom 2002
chapter 1,2,3