Cellular Wireless Networks

By

Dr. Malik Abdulrazzaq

 Cellular Networks
• Introduction
• Early mobile system objective was to achieve a
large coverage using single high power antenna
• Impossible to reuse the same frequencies in the
same coverage area.
• For example, Bell mobile system in 1970 could
support maximum of 12 simultaneous calls over a
thousand square mile.
• Became imperative to restructure the telephone
system to achieve high capacity with limited radio
spectrum.
 Cellular Networks
• A cellular network is a radio network made
up of a number of radio cells (or just cells)
each served by at least one fixed-location
transceiver known as a cell site or base
station.
• When joined together these cells provide
radio coverage over a wide geographic area.
 Cellular Networks
• Thus, instead of one base station covering an
entire city, the city was broken up into cells, or
smaller coverage areas
• Each of these smaller coverage areas had its
own lower-power base station
• User phones in one cell communicate with the
base station in that cell
 Cellular Geometries
• Cells:- A cell is the basic geographic unit of a
cellular system.
• Shape of the areas into which a coverage region
is divided.
• Cells are base stations transmitting over small
geographic areas that are represented as
hexagons.
• Each cell size varies depending on the landscape.
Because of constraints imposed by natural terrain
and man-made structures
 Cellular Geometries
• Why cells are hexagonal ?
• Some criteria for the cell shapes
1. Geometric shape
2. Area without overlap
3. Area of the cell
 Cellular Geometries
• Some eligible shapes:
• Square
• Equilateral triangle
• Circle
• Hexagon
 Cellular Geometries
• The hexagonal shape representing a cell is
conceptual and simplistic model of coverage.
• It might be natural to choose a circle to
represent coverage but adjacent circles cannot
be overlaid upon a map without leaving gaps
or creating overlapping.
Cellular Geometries
 Cellular Geometries
• Area comparisons
• The area of an equilateral triangle to a circle approx 17%
• The area of a square to a circle approx = 63.7%
• The area of a hexagon to a circle approx = 83%
• It means hexagon has the highest coverage area after a circle.
• Thus hexagon satisfies all the conditions which is why the shape of
a cell is hexagonal in cellular network.
Cellular Geometries
 Cellular Geometries
• With hexagonal coverage area, a cellular
network is drawn as:
 Frequency Reuse
• Clusters
• A CLUSTER is a group of adjacent cells, usually 7 cells; no. frequency reuse
is done within a cluster
• The frequency spectrum is divided into subbands and each subband is
used within one cell of the cluster
 Frequency Reuse
• Frequency Reuse
• Cellular phone networks use cellular
frequency reuse.
• In the cellular reuse concept, frequencies
allocated to the service are reused in a regular
pattern of areas, called "cells", each covered
by one base station.
 Frequency Reuse
• In mobile-telephone nets these cells are
usually hexagonal.
• Adjacent cells use different frequencies.
However in cells that are separated further
away, frequencies can be reused.
 Frequency Reuse
Principles of Cellular Frequency Reuse
• Typical frequency reuse plan for 7 different radio frequencies, based on
hexagonal cells.
• In fact some problems in cellular frequency
assignment are solved using map coloring theory.
 Frequency Reuse
• Frequency 're-use' distance is the closest distance between
the centers of two cells using the same frequency (in different
clusters) is determined by the choice of the cluster size and
the lay-out of the cell cluster.
Frequency Reuse
 Frequency Reuse
• The closest distance between the centres of
two cells using the same frequency is
determined by reuse distance.

• where R is the cell radius and N is the number

of cells per cluster.
Frequency Reuse
 Handoffs
• Handoffs
• Mobile phone users are by definition mobile, i.e.,
they move around while using the phone
• Thus, the network should be able to give them
continuous access as they move
• This is not a problem when users move within
the same cell
• When they move from one cell to another, a
handoff is needed
 Handoffs
• In a cellular system, as the distributed mobile
transceivers move from cell to cell during an
ongoing continuous communication, switching
from one cell frequency to a different cell
frequency is done electronically without
interruption, This is called the handover or
handoff.
 Handoffs
• Handoff types
1. Hard handoff
• The hard handoff term is used when the
communication channel is released first and the new
channel is acquired later from the neighboring cell.
• Thus, there is a service interruption when the handoff
occurs reducing the quality of service.
• Hard handoff is used by the systems which use time
division multiple access (TDMA) and frequency division
multiple access (FDMA) such as GSM and General
Packet Radio Service (GPRS).
 Handoffs
2. Soft handoff
• The soft handoff term is used when the is
acquired first new channel and the
communication channel is released later from
the neighboring cell.
• A soft handoff can establish multiple connections
with neighboring cells.
• Soft handoff is used by the code division multiple
access (CDMA) systems where the cells use same
frequency band using different code words.
Handoffs

handoff
Handoffs
The Capacity of Cellular Network
 Why do we need more capacity?

Reach more users at the same time

Share more information throughout the network.

New technologies will require more complex

solutions and these solutions can be achieved
with maximum space available.
The Capacity of Cellular Network
(con’t)
 The capacity of cellular systems can be
increased by;

Frequency borrowing

Cell splitting

Cell sectoring

Microcells
 Frequency Borrowing
 RF bandwidth is the most important constraint
in wireless systems.
 So to increase the capacity, frequency of
Radio Signals and wireless systems shall be
increased.
 To do this, frequencies are taken from adjacent
cells by congested cells.
Cell Splitting
 The unit area of RF coverage for cellular
network is called a cell.
 In each cell, a base station transmits from a
fixed cell site location, which is often centrally
located in the cell.
 In base stations where the usage of cellular
network is high, these cells are split into
smaller cells.
 Cell Splitting (con’t)
 The radio frequencies are reassigned, and
transmission power is reduced.

 A new cell site must be constructed when a cell is

split

 Cell splitting is one of the easy and less costly

solution when increasing the capacity of cellular
network.

 Splitting the cells into smaller ones also lead to a

new solution called cell sectoring.
 Cell Sectoring
 Sectorization consists of dividing an
omnidirectional (360 degree) view from the cell
site into non-overlapping slices called sectors.
 When combined, sectors provide the same
coverage but they are considered to be
separate cells.
 Also considered as one of easy and
inexpensive capacity increasing solution.
 Sectoring
 In basic form, antennas are omnidirectional
 Replacing a single omni-directional antenna at base station
with several directional antennas, each radiating within a
specified sector.
 achieves capacity improvement by essentially rescaling the
system.
 less co-channel interference, number of cells in a cluster can
be reduced
 Larger frequency reuse factor, larger capacity
Sectoring methods
 Sectoring Examples

 Only two cochannel cell

 S/I improvement 7.2dB
 Capacity 12/7
 First type handoff
 Trunking efficiency low
 Urban area not good
 Example 3.9
 Repeater

 Extend coverage range

 Directional antenna or distributed antenna
systems

DAYANANDA SAGAR
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,
BANGALORE
Microcells
 As the splitting of cell idea evolves, the usage
of smaller cells become efficient and it leads
the creation of microcells.

 The aim of creating microcells are increasing

the capacity of cellular network in areas where
population is high.
 Microcells (con’t(
 Typical comparison can be made like this;

Cells typically range in size from two to twenty

kilometers in diameter.

Microcells range from about a hundred meters to a

kilometer in diameter.
 Micro Cell Zone Concept
 Large control base station is replaced by
several lower powered transmitters on the
edge of the cell.
 The mobile retains the same channel and the
base station simply switches the channel to a
different zone site and the mobile moves from
zone to zone.
 Since a given channel is active only in a
particular zone in which mobile is traveling,
base station radiation is localized and
interference is reduced.
 Micro Cell Zone
 Superior to sectoring, any base
station channel may be assigned to
any zone by the base station
 Same channel
 No handoff
 Only the active zone
 Example

2.33 times
capacity gain

DAYANANDA SAGAR
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING,
BANGALORE
Cellular Networks