GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION (GSM)

NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
V.G.SABU
SUB DIVISIONAL ENGINEER REGIONAL TELECOM TRAINING CENTRE BSNL, TRIVANDRUM

GSM

Specifications - I

Frequency Bands GSM 900 Mhz GSM 1800 MHz

B T S

GSM

Specifications

GSM 900 Mhz

Mobile to Cell(UP-LINK) -890 to 915 MHz Cell to Mobile (DOWN -LINK) - 935 to 960 MHz

GSM 1800 Mhz

Mobile to Cell(UP-LINK) -1710 to 1785 MHz Cell to Mobile(DOWN -LINK) - 1805 to 1880 MHz Channel Bandwidth Access Method Modulation 200 KHz TDMA/FDMA GMSK

GSM - MULTIPLE ACCESS

GSM uses both FDMA & TDMA FDMA Access along Freq. axis

Each RF carrier 200khz apart Total 124 RF Channels available. One or more carrier assigned to each base station

123

...
Freq
890.2 890.4 890.6 890.8 891.0 915

Mhz.

GSM FDMA (Frequency Division Multiple Access)

890 25 MHz
0

915
1 2

935 25 MHz
0 1 Base to Mobile

960
2

Mobile to Base
890.2
890.4 890.6
(MHz)

935.2

935.4

935.6

200 kHz

45MHz

200 kHz

Channel layout and frequency bands of operation

5

GSM (900Mhz) 63,64,66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,7 7,79,80,81,86,87,110,111,112,114,115,11 6,117,118119,121,122,123 (Total-31)

GSM(1800 Mhz) 1775.0,.2,.4,.6,.8, 1776.0,.2,.4,.6 (Total9)

GSM TDMA
Typical TDMA/ FDMA frame structure
Amplitude

45 MHz
7 8 5 6 2 1 3 4 2 1 3 4 5 6 7 8

Frequency

F1 (Cell Rx)

F2

F1 F2 (Cell transmit)

GSM

Specifications 124

Number of Channels
Voice Channel Coding ( 13 Kbps)

- RPE-LTP
Long Term Prediction

RPE-LTP -Regular Pulse Excitation

FULL RATE - 13Kb/s ; HALF RATE - 6.5 Kb/s

GSM Typical GSM Architecture

Data

AUC VLR HLR MSC BTS BSC EIR PSTN PSPDN MSC
VLR Visited Location Register

MS

MS MSC BTS BSC

Mobile Station Mobile Switching Centre Base Transceiver Station Base Station Controller

HLR Home Location Register EIR Equipment Identity Register

AUC Authentication Centre

GSM
NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
OSS HLR

PSTN ISDN
SS#7

B T S

X.25

SS#7

B T S

BSC

SS#7

MSC VLR SS#7

Data Networks

B T S

MSC VLR

Air interface

A bis Interface

A Interface

GSM Network Overview

A Um
SIM
ME

Abis
BTS

BSC

HLR

VLR

OMC

MSC

BSC
BTS EIR AuC

PSTN ISDN PSPDN

Mobile Station

Base Station Subsystem

Network Switching Subsystem

Mobile Station
Mobile Station is really two distinct entities.

Mobile equipment or terminal.

SIM Card.
Mobile equipment, which is the actual Hardware, is anonymous.

SIM card, implemented as a smart card holds the subscriber information including a unique identifier called International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI).

MS=ME+SIM

SIM CARD

SIM provides personal mobility

SIM makes the terminal operational

GSM

Base Station Subsystem (BSS)

Base Station Subsystem (BSS) consists of

Base Station Controller (BSC) & Base Transceiver Station (BTS)

Base Station Subsystem(BSS)

BSS connects the MS and the NSS. Composed of two parts:
The Base Transceiver Station (BTS) also called Base Station. Base Station Controller (BSC).

BTS and BSC communicate across the standardised Abis interface..

GSM Base Transceiver Station (BTS)

BTS accommodates all radio transmission equipment for one antenna site along with the necessary monitoring equipment. One BTS can support several Trans-Receive Units (TRX).

Base Station Controller(BSC)

BSC manages the radio resources for one or a group of BTSs. Handles radio-channel setup, handovers, and control of the RF power levels. Establishes connection between the mobile station and the MSC..

GSM

Base Station Controller (BSC)

BSC is connected via interfaces to MSC, OMC and BTS. Its duties are -Radio Channel Management -Sending fault alarms to OMC. -Handling of handover of a mobile station changing a radio cell -Connectivity to BTSs..

Network & Switching Subsystem(NSS)

Manages the communication between the mobile users and other users. Provides all the functionality needed to handle a mobile subscriber such as: Registration Authentication Handovers and Routing to roaming subscribers.

Network & Switching Subsystem Central component is the MSC (Mobile Services Switching Centre). It performs the switching functions of the network. Gateway Mobile Services Switching Centre interfaces between the mobile network and PSTN..

Network & Switching Subsystem Mobile Switching Center (MSC) provides the services in conjunction with four intelligent databases.

Home Location Register (HLR) Visitor Location Register (VLR) Equipment Identity Register (EIR) Authentication Centre (AuC)..

GSM

Home Location Register

Contains all administrative information of each subscriber registered in an GSM network.

Logically there is one HLR per GSM network.

Visitor Location Register.

VLR Contains selected administrative information from HLR needed for call control and provision of subscribed services for each mobile located in the geographical area controlled by it.

GSM

Visitor Location Register.

The mobile subscriber data is loaded in the VLR after the mobile subscriber has moved into the area controlled by the VLR. The mobile subscriber data is deleted when the subscriber has moved into another VLR area..

GSM

Authentication Centre

The authentication center (AuC) stores the keys required for checking whether a mobile subscriber is authorized to access the PLMN. -Used for security purposes. -Subscriber authentication data ie.Authentication Keys Ki -Encryption data.

GSM Equipment Identity Register..

The equipment identity register (EIR) contains a database consisting of three lists classifying the international mobile equipment identities (IMEI) of all mobile equipment in the GSM network.

GSM

Equipment Identity Register

The white list contains all approved mobile equipment. The grey list contains suspicious mobile equipment which needs observation. The black list contains all mobile equipment which is not allowed in the network.

The three lists are interrogated to determine the status of the mobile equipment: white listed, grey listed, black listed.

GSM Voice Encoding In the case of full rate encoding, 8 voice circuits are provided whereas in half rate encoding 16 voice circuits are possible. -Voice encoding at 13 kbps

GSM Digital Voice Transmission-I

-The voice signal is initially converted to a 13 kbps bit stream by a voice encoding process i.e. Regular Pulse Excited- Long Term Prediction (RPE-LTP). -To improve the voice immunity of the information to be transmitted, the channel coding provides data error control with which the transmitted information can be reconstructed at the receiver even if the transmission path is disturbed.This increases the bit rate to 22.8 kbps

GSM Speech to Radio waves

Analog
Analog

Speech Coding Channel Coding

Speech Decoding Channel Decoding

Interleaving Burst formatting

De-interleaving Burst formatting

Ciphering
Modulation
200kHz BW

Deciphering
Demodulation
200kHz BW

Other optional network elements

Billing Centre-Each MSC writes call accounting records to local disk memory.It periodically polls the disk records of each MSC to collect the billing data for the PLMN.

GSM Network Structure

-GSM Service Area -PLMN Service Area -MSC Service Area -Location Area -Cells

GSM- NETWORK STRUCTURE

CELL Location Area MSC Area PLMN Area

Questions ?

Question-1
What are the up-link & down-link frequencies in GSM 900 Mhz Band?

Answer
Up-Link -890 to 915 Mhz Down-Link-935 to 960 Mhz

Question-2
What are the main H/W entities in BSS?

Answer
BSC &

BTS

Question-3
Name the interface between BSC & MSC

Answer
A- interface

Question-4
Which database stores the subscriber related data permanently?

Answer
HLR

Question-5
In EIR which list contains IMEIs that are assigned to valid MSs ?

Answer
White List

THANK YOU