GSM to UMTS Voice Capacity

Peter Rysavy
http://www.rysavy.com

Copyright 2002 Rysavy Research

Overview
! GSM the most spectrally efficient voice system available Research using data from:
AT&T Wireless, Cingular Wireless, Ericsson, Lucent, Motorola, Nokia, Nortel, Siemens Timo Halonen, Javier Romero, Juan Melero, GSM, GPRS and EDGE Performance - GSM Evolution towards 3G/UMTS, May 13, 2002

Efficiency comes from a variety of sophisticated mechanisms GSM voice capacity matches or exceeds CDMA2000 1XRTT Further gains with EDGE and UMTS/WCDMA
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Summary of Mechanisms
Evolution Stage
Earliest Current base line

Capacity Improvement Method

Basic time-division multiplexing Frequency hopping Tighter frequency re-use patterns Power control Discontinuous transmission Re-use partitioning Adaptive Multi-rate speech transcoding Dynamic Frequency and Channel Allocation (DFCA) Single Antenna Interference Cancellation (SAIC) 8-PSK voice

Current advanced methods Emerging and proven Under development

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Frequency Hopping
Interference and fading is frequency specific Frequency hopping provides frequency diversity and mitigates against interference Can enable tighter re-use (all the way to 1/1) BCCH (Broadcast Control Channel) generally implemented on a non-hopping layer Frequency hopping employed on higher capacity layers Can hop over the entire available spectrum Effectiveness increases with increased spectrum
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Re-use Patterns

4/12 Re-use. 4 cell sites each with three sectors. 12 groups of radio channels.

1/1 Re-use. Each sector uses the same pool of radio channels.

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Adaptive Multi-rate Speech Transcoding

22.8 Kbit/sec 12.2 Kbit/sec 10.2 Kbit/sec Full-rate Mode Depicted 7.95 Kbit/sec 7.4 Kbit/sec 6.7 Kbit/sec 5.9 Kbit/sec 5.15 Kbit/sec 4.75 Kbit/sec Error control Error control Error control Error control Error control Error control Error control Error control
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AMR can increase voice capacity by 150% Dynamically allocates bandwidth to voice or error control Enables other methods such as frequency hopping and higher fractional loading Provides better voice quality at cell edges and inside buildings Allows toll-quality voice in half-rate mode

Capacity Comparison
180 Erlangs per Sector in 10 MHz 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Analog TDMA GSM Enhanced GSM Adaptive Full Rate Multi-rate GSM AMR, DFCA 1XRTT 9 37 67 142 170 156

Assumptions: 4/12 re-use for BCCH channels and 1/1 re-use on the hopping layer, a fractional frequency load of 25% with EFR and 52% with AMR, a grade of service with 2% blocking, 95% of the speech samples have a FER better than 2.5%, and there is an SDCCH every fourth carrier. The average GSM AMR coder rate is greater than 8 Kbit/s, making it comparable to 1XRTT EVRC 8 Kbit/s. A 200 kHz guard band is also assumed. Copyright 2002 Rysavy Research

Capacity Comparison
Data is based on infrastructure-vendor-agreed numbers that can be met in a realistic environment AMR provides dramatic performance improvement 16 times AMPS improvement 4 times TDMA improvement With Dynamic Frequency and Channel Allocation (DFCA), GSM exceeds 1XRTT voice capacity Further gains with Single-Antenna Interference Cancellation (SAIC)

Copyright 2002 Rysavy Research

EDGE and UMTS

EDGE Adds 8-PSK modulation and flexible error management Significantly enhances data capabilities Voice capacity improvement of 15 to 20% through use of halfrate mode Allows 10.2 Kbit/s and 12.2 Kbit/s codecs (not available with GMSK) UMTS Further increase in voice capacity Much greater flexibility in managing data/voice resources Spectrally more efficient than 1XRTT/1XEVDO Unused voice capacity on 1XRTT channel not available for high speed data Unused data capacity on 1XEVDO channel not available for voice Multi-radio network allows common core to support GSM, GPRS, EDGE and UMTS access networks
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UMTS Radio Link

Medium Bandwidth Data User Power (Code Space)

Medium Bandwidth Data User

Higher Bandwidth Data User

Higher Bandwidth Data User

Voice User Voice User Voice User Voice User 10 msec Voice User Voice User Voice User 10 msec Time

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Conclusion
Constant innovation with GSM White paper describes eight methods of increasing spectral efficiency No significant increase in terminal prices GSM matches or exceeds 1XRTT in capability, spectral efficiency and sophistication UMTS Multi-radio network provides smooth migration path and flexible network deployment options GSM has huge market advantage due to global coverage and economies of scale

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Copyright 2002 Rysavy Research