CELLULAR NETWORKS

A cellular network or mobile network is a wireless network distributed over land areas
called cells, each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver, known as a cell site or
base station. In a cellular network, each cell uses a different set of frequencies from
neighboring cells, to avoid interference and provide guaranteed bandwidth within each cell.

When joined together these cells provide radio coverage over a wide geographic area. This
enables a large number of portable transceivers (e.g., mobile phones, pagers, etc.) to
communicate with each other and with fixed transceivers and telephones anywhere in the
network, via base stations, even if some of the transceivers are moving through more than
one cell during transmission.

Features:

More capacity than a single large transmitter, since the same frequency can be used
for multiple links as long as they are in different cells
Mobile devices use less power than with a single transmitter or satellite since the cell
towers are closer
Larger coverage area than a single terrestrial transmitter, since additional cell towers
can be added indefinitely and are not limited by the horizon

Major telecommunications providers have deployed voice and data cellular networks over
most of the inhabited land area of the Earth. This allows mobile phones and mobile
computing devices to be connected to the public switched telephone network and public
Internet. Private cellular networks can be used for research or for large organizations and
fleets, such as dispatch for local public safety agencies or a taxicab company.

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Broadcast messages and paging
Practically every cellular system has some kind of broadcast mechanism. This can be used
directly for distributing information to multiple mobiles. Commonly, for example in mobile
telephony systems, the most important use of broadcast information is to set up channels for
one to one communication between the mobile transceiver and the base station. This is called
paging. The three different paging procedures generally adopted are sequential, parallel and
selective paging.

The details of the process of paging vary somewhat from network to network, but normally
we know a limited number of cells where the phone is located (this group of cells is called a
Location Area in the GSM or UMTS system, or Routing Area if a data packet session is
involved; in LTE(Lond term Evolution), cells are grouped into Tracking Areas). Paging takes
place by sending the broadcast message to all of those cells. Paging messages can be used for
information transfer. This happens in pagers, in CDMA systems for sending SMS messages,
and in the UMTS system where it allows for low downlink latency in packet-based
connections.

Mobile phone network

The most common example of a cellular network is a mobile phone (cell phone) network. A
mobile phone is a portable telephone which receives or makes calls through a cell site (base
station), or transmitting tower. Radio waves are used to transfer signals to and from the cell
phone.

Modern mobile phone networks use cells because radio frequencies are a limited, shared
resource. Cell-sites and handsets change frequency under computer control and use low
power transmitters so that the usually limited number of radio frequencies can be
simultaneously used by many callers with less interference.

A cellular network is used by the mobile phone operator to achieve both coverage and
capacity for their subscribers. Large geographic areas are split into smaller cells to avoid
line-of-sight signal loss and to support a large number of active phones in that area.

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All of the cell sites are connected to telephone exchanges (or switches), which in turn
connect to the public telephone network.

In cities, each cell site may have a range of up to approximately 12 mile (0.80 km), while in
rural areas, the range could be as much as 5 miles (8.0 km). It is possible that in clear open
areas, a user may receive signals from a cell site 25 miles (40 km) away.

Since almost all mobile phones use cellular technology, including GSM(Global System for
Mobile Communication), CDMA, and AMPS(Advanced Mobile Phone System) . However,
satellite phones are mobile phones that do not communicate directly with a ground-based
cellular tower, but may do so indirectly by way of a satellite.

There are a number of different digital cellular technologies, including: Global System for
Mobile Communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), cdmaOne,
CDMA2000, Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO), Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution
(EDGE), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Digital Enhanced
Cordless Telecommunications (DECT), Digital AMPS (IS-136/TDMA), and Integrated
Digital Enhanced Network (iDEN).

GSM network architecture

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 Ad hoc Network
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The
network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre existing infrastructure, such as routers in
wired networks or access points in managed (infrastructure) wireless networks. Instead, each
node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes, so the determination of
which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity. In
addition to the classic routing, ad hoc networks can use flooding for forwarding data.

An ad hoc network typically refers to any set of networks where all devices have equal status
on a network and are free to associate with any other ad hoc network device in link range. Ad
hoc network often refers to a mode of operation of IEEE 802.11 wireless networks. It also
refers to a network device's ability to maintain link status information for any number of
devices in a 1-link (aka "hop") range, and thus, this is most often a Layer 2 activity. The
earliest wireless ad hoc networks were the "packet radio" (PRNETs) from the 1970s,
sponsored by DARPA after the ALOHAnet project.

Application
The decentralized nature of wireless ad-hoc networks makes them suitable for a variety of
applications where central nodes can't be relied on and may improve the scalability of
networks compared to wireless managed networks, though theoretical and practical limits to
the overall capacity of such networks have been identified.

Minimal configuration and quick deployment make ad hoc networks suitable for emergency
situations like natural disasters or military conflicts. The presence of dynamic and adaptive
routing protocols enables ad hoc networks to be formed quickly.

Wireless ad-hoc networks can be further classified by their application:

Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET)

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An ad hoc network is made up of multiple nodes connected by links.Links are influenced
by the node's resources (e.g., transmitter power, computing power and memory) and
behavioral properties (e.g., reliability), as well as link properties (e.g. length-of-link and
signal loss, interference and noise). Since links can be connected or disconnected at any time,
a functioning network must be able to cope with this dynamic restructuring, preferably in a
way that is timely, efficient, reliable, robust, and scalable.

The network must allow any two nodes to communicate by relaying the information via other
nodes. A path is a series of links that connects two nodes. Various routing methods use one
or two paths between any two nodes; flooding methods use all or most of the available
paths.[5]

In most wireless ad hoc networks, the nodes compete for access to shared wireless medium,
often resulting in collisions (interference). Using cooperative wireless communications
improves immunity to interference by having the destination node combine self-interference
and other-node interference to improve decoding of the desired signal.

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 Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is one which as an autonomous system of mobile

hosts (MHs) connected by wireless links, the union of which forms a communication
network modeled in the form of an arbitrary communication graph.In a MANET, no such
infrastructure exists and the network topology may dynamically change in an unpredictable
manner since nodes are free to move.

Important characteristics of a MANET :

Dynamic Topologies Nodes are free to move arbitrarily with different speeds; thus, the
network topology may change randomly and at unpredictable times. Some or all of the nodes
in an ad hoc network may rely on batteries or other exhaustible means for their energy. For
these nodes, the most important system design optimization criteria may be energy
conservation.
Limited Bandwidth:
Wireless links continue to have significantly lower capacity than infra structured networks.
In addition, the realized throughput of wireless communications - after accounting for the
effects of multiple access, fading, noise, and interference conditions, etc., is often much less
than a radio's maximum transmission rate
Security Threats:
Mobile wireless networks are generally more prone to physical security threats than fixed-
cable nets. The increased possibility of eavesdropping, spoofing, and minimization of denial-
of service type attacks should be carefully considered.

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Applications of MANETs

Collaborative Work - For some business scenarios, the need for collaborative computing
might be more important outside office environments than inside a building.

Crisis-management Applications - These arise, for example, as a result of natural disasters

where the entire communications infrastructure is in disarray (for example, Tsunamis,
hurricanes, etc.). Restoring communications quickly is essential. By using ad hoc networks, an
infrastructure could be set up in hours instead of days/weeks required for wire-line
communications;

Personal Area Networking - A personal area network (PAN) is a short-range, localized network
where nodes are usually associated with a given person. These nodes could be attached to
someone's cell phone, pulse watch, belt, and so on. When interaction among several PANs is
necessary, illustrating the case where, for instance, people meet in real life. Bluetooth
[Haarstenl998] is an example of a technology aimed at, among other things, supporting PANs by
eliminating the need of wires between devices such as printers, cell phones, PDAs, laptop
computers, headsets, and so on, and is discussed later in this book. Other standards under the
IEEE 802.15 working group for wireless PANs are also described.

Classification of routing protocols

Ad-hoc Routing protocols can be categorized as table-driven or source initiated.

Table-driven or proactive, routing protocols finds routes to all possible destinations ahead of
time. The routes are recorded in the nodes routing tables and are updated within the predefined
intervals. Proactive routing protocols are faster in decision making, but cause problems if the
topology of the network continually changes.These protocols require every node to maintain one
or more tables to store updated routing information from every node to all other nodes.

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Source-nitiated routing protocols:
Source-initiated, or reactive, routing protocols are on-demand procedures and create routes
only when requested to do so by source nodes. A route request initiates a route-discover process
in the network and is completed once a route is discovered. If it exists, at the time of request, a
route is maintained by a route-maintenance procedure until either the destination node becomes
irrelevant to the source or the route is no longer needed.Control overhead of packets is smaller
than of proactive protocols.

Wireless routing protocol [WRP]

WRP is also based on table driven approach this protocol makes use of 4 tables
1. Distance table :- Which contains information like destination, next hop, distance
2. Routing table: - Which contains routing information.
3. Link cost table:- Which contains cost information to each neighbor
4. Message retransmission list table: - this table provides sequence number of the message, a
retransmission counter, acknowledgements and list of updates sent in update message.

Whenever there is a change in the network an update will be made which will be broadcasted to
other nodes.Other nodes upon receiving the updated information will make an update in their
table. If there is no update in the network a hello message should be sent.

Security in adhoc networks

The following are the security threat in adhoc network.

1. Limited computational capabilities : the nodes in the mobile adhoc network are modular,
independent and will have limited computational capability.It becomes a source of
vulnerability when they handle public key cryptography.
2. Limited power supply : since nodes have limited power supply attacker can exhaust
batteries by giving excessive computations to be carried out.
3. Challenging key management : the key management becomes extremely difficult as the
mobile devices will be under movement.

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Types of attack in adhoc network
The attacks can be classified into 2 types.They are
1. Passive
2. Active

In passive attack, the normal operation of routing protocol is not interrupted. The attacker just
tries to gather the information
In active attack, the attacker can insert some arbitrary packets and therefore might affect the
normal operation of network
Attack can also be one of the following types
1. Pin attack : with the pin attack, an unauthorized node pretends to have shortest path to the
destination The attacker can listen to path setup phase and become the part of network.
2. Location disclosure attack : by knowing the locations of intermediate nodes, the attacker
can find out the location of target node
3. Routing table overflow: the attacker can create some routes whose destination does not
exist. It will have major impact on proactive based routing
4. Energy exhaustion attack : the attacker tries to forward unwanted packets or send unwanted
requests which can conserve the battery of the nodes

Criteria for a secure routing protocol

The attack in adhoc network can be prevented by using a securing routing protocol. It should
have following properties
1. Authenticity: when a routing table is updated, it must verify whether updates were provided
by authenticated node.
2. Integrity of information : when a routing table is updated the information must be verified
whether it is modified or not
3. In order updates: sequence numbers or some mechanism must be used to maintain updates
in order.
4. Maximum update time: updates in routing table must be done as quickly as possible.
5. Authorization: only authorized nodes must be able to send update packets.

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Wireless Sensor Network

WSNs, which can be considered as a special case of ad hoc networks with reduced or no
mobility, are expected to find increasing deployment in coming years, as they enable reliable
monitoring and analysis of unknown and untested environments. These networks are "data
centric", i.e., unlike traditional ad hoc networks where data is requested from a specific node,
data is requested based on certain attributes such as,"which area has temperature over 35C or
95F". Therefore a large number of sensors need to be deployed to accurately reflect the physical
attribute in a given area. Routing protocol design for WSNs is heavily influenced by many
challenging factors, which must be overcome before efficient communication can be achieved.
These challenges can be summarized as follows:

Ad hoc deployment - Sensor nodes are randomly deployed which requires that the system be
able to cope up with the resultant distribution and form connections between the nodes. In
addition, the system should be adaptive to changes in network connectivity as a result of node
failure.

Computational capabilities - Sensor nodes have limited computing power and therefore may
not be able to run sophisticated network protocols leading to light weighted and simple versions
of routing protocols.

Energy consumption without losing accuracy - Sensor nodes can use up their limited energy
supply carrying out computations and transmitting information in a wireless environment. As
such, energyconserving forms of communication and computation are crucial as the node
lifetime shows a strong dependence on the battery lifetime.

Scalability - The number of sensor nodes deployed in the sensing area may be in the order of
hundreds, thousands, or more. Any routing scheme must be scalable enough to respond to events
and capable of operating with such large number of sensor nodes.

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Communication range - The bandwidth of the wireless links connecting sensor nodes is often
limited, hence constraining inter sensor communication. Moreover, limitations on energy forces
sensor nodes to have short transmission ranges. Therefore, it is likely that a path from a source to
a destination consists of multiple wireless hops

Fault tolerance - Some sensor nodes may fail or be blocked due to lack of power, physical
damage, or environmental interference. If many nodes fail, MAC and routing protocols must
accommodate formation of new links and routes to the data collection BSs.
Connectivity - High node density in sensor networks precludes them from being completely
isolated from each other. Therefore, sensor nodes are expected to be highly connected.
Transmission media - In a multi-hop sensor network, communicating nodes are linked by a
wireless medium. Therefore, the traditional problems associated with a wireless channel (e.g.,
fading, high error rate) also affect the operation of the sensor network. In general, bandwidth
requirements of sensor applications will be low, in the order of 1-100 kb/s.
QoS - In some applications (e.g., some military applications), the data should be delivered within
a certain period of time from the moment it is sensed, otherwise the data will be useless.
Therefore, bounded latency for data delivery is another condition for time constrained
applications.
Control Overhead - When the number of retransmissions in wireless medium increases due to
collisions, the latency and energy consumption also increases. Hence, control packet overhead
increases linearly with the node density. As a result, tradeoffs between energy conservation, self-
configuration, and latency may exist.
Security - Security is an important issue which does not mean physical security, but it implies
that both authentication and encryption should be feasible. But, with limited resources,
implementation of any complex algorithm needs to be avoided. Thus, a tradeoff exists between
the security level and energy consumption in a WSN.

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Protocol stack for sensor network
The protocol stack of sensor network combines power efficiency and least cost path routing. The
architecture consists of 5 layers.They are

1. Physical layer
2. Data link layer
3. Network layer
4. Transport layer
5. Application layer
All these layers are backed by management plane, mobility management plane and task
management plane.
Physical layer is responsible for transmitting and receiving signals.
The data link layer consists of medium access control [MAC] which is used to prevent
packet collision.
The network layer is responsible for routing the packets
The application layer is used for creation of packets by making use of software.
The power management plane monitors the sensors power level among sensor node.

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The sensor node consists of a
1. sensing unit
2. processing unit
3. memory unit
4. self power unit
5. wireless transreceiver

Sensing unit: it consists of a sensor and analog to digital converter [ADC]. the analog signal
produced by sensor is converted to digital and is fed into processing unit. The sensing unit is
responsible for collecting the data externally and interacts with central processor

Processing and memory unit: the processing unit is responsible for performing some
computations it executes some instructions which is responsible for setting up the connection
with another node. The memory unit is used for storing the data.

Self power unit: it is responsible for powering the node and keeping it alive. The main task of
the sensor node is to identify events , to process data , and then to transmit the data. The power
of a node is consumed mainly in the transmitter and receiver unit. The sensor node can be
supplied by a self-power unit, self-power unit battery, or solar cells.

Routing protocol in sensor network:

In sensor network the routing of information can happen within a cluster or between nodes of
different clusters.
If the routing is happening within a cluster. Then the protocol is called as intra cluster routing.
If the routing is happening between the nodes of different clusters it is called as inter cluster
routing.

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Zigbee technology
ZigBee is one of the newest technologies enabling Wireless Personal Area Networks
(WPAN).
ZigBee is an established set of specifications for wireless personal area networking (WPAN),
i.e. digital radio connections between computers and related devices.
WPAN Low Rate or ZigBee provides specifications for devices that have low data rates,
consume very low power and are thus characterized by long battery life. ZigBee makes
possible completely networked homes where all devices are able to communicate and be
controlled by a single unit.
The IEEE 802.15.4 standard and Zigbee wireless technology are designed to satisfy the
market's need for a low-cost, standard-based and flexible wireless network technology, which
offers low power consumption, reliability, interoperability and security for control and
monitoring applications with low to moderate data rates.

The data which gets transmitted includes temperature reading on or off state of a switch
keystroke of a keyboard etc.
The Bluetooth technology which is used in mobile phones, laptops, runs on zigbee. Zigbee is
an IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Zigbee operates in a frequency range 900MHz- 2.5 GHz.
The technology can be used for transmitting the data within the range of 20mts.
It can also be used for transmission of data within a range greater than 20mts. This is possible
through the intermediate nodes.

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