GSM

Mobile Computing
IT644
 GSM System Architecture

Network Subsystem
MSC ??
Radio Subsystem
BTS, BSC
Operation Support Subsystem
 GSM System Hieararchy
GSM Network

MSC Region MSC R.

.
Location Area .
Location Area
BSC BSC .
..
... .
.
Location . Area
MSC R.
 Operations and Maintenance Centre
OMC
G MSC

BTS BSC MSC

HLR Home Location Register

BSC
VLR Visitor Location Register
BTS
EIR Equipment Identity Register
MS BTS
AVC Authentication centre
MS
 The Mobile Station (MS)
Comprises :
– Mobile Equipment
– SIM (Subscriber Identity Module ??)

Other Identification :
• International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI)
• International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI)
• Mobile Subscriber ISDN Number (Mobile Telephone No.)
 Radio Network
Base Subsystem Controller ? (BSC)
- Handles essential control and protocol intelligence.
- Handover is executed at the BSC.

Base Transceiver System ? (BTS)

- Is a high frequency Transmitter/Receiver.
- Handles error protection; coding/decoding for the radio
channel.
 Frequency Channels in GSM

• Uplink frequency band : 890 - 915 MHz

• Downlink frequency band : 935 - 960 MHz
• 124 channels (of 200 kHz each) in each band. ??
• Each channels has a TDMA structure with 8 timeslots.
( => upto 8 users per freq. channel )

960 Mhz
124
•

•
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
•
•
TDMA structure of
2
each channel
1
935 Mhz
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Downlink

Delay

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Uplink

So the MS does not have to Transmit and

Receive at the same time instance!
 Logical Channels

Traffic Channels (TCH)

Signaling Channels
• Broadcast Channel (BCH)
• Common Control Channel (CCH)
• Dedicated/Associated Control Channel (DCCH/ACCH)

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Signalling channel contd. ....

BCH :
• Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH)
• Frequency Correction Channel (FCCH)
• Synchronization Channel (SCH)

CCH :
• Random Access Channel (RACH)
• Paging Channel (PCH)

D/ACCH
• Stand-alone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH)
• Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH)
 Traffic channel structure for full rate coding

TDMA
slots 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 • • 26

TDMA Frames
on a given channel
Traffic

Signaling (S)

S-contains information about the signal strength in neighboring cells

Traffic channel structure for half rate coding

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

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 • • 26

Burst for one user

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 • • • • • • • • 26

Burst for another user

 Why 26 burst Traffic Channel?
• Mobile needs to send information about signal
strength from surrounding cells to the network.
• Capacity required to send measurement info is
1/24 the capacity required to send voice!

Signaling Channel – Control Channel

Associated Control Channel
Slow Associated Control Channel
 Adaptive Frame Synchronization

Timing Advance:
• MS advances its burst transmission by a time corresponding
to round trip time.
• The delay is quantiled as a 6 bit number.
=> 64 steps (0-63); each step advances the Timing by one
bit duration ie 3.7 µ s.
• 64 steps allows compensation over a maximum propagation
time of 31.5 bit periods ie 113.3 µ s ( => a maximum distance
of ~ 35 km)
 Timing Advance : How it works.
(Sent by BS on
down link)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
| |
| | | | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
| | | |
One way | | | | |
Two way propagation (received by BS on
Propagation || | | |
delay |
delay up link)
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 (received by MS on
down link)
|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
| 8

| (Sent by MS on up link)
 Transmission Bursts
• Normal Burst
• Synchronization Burst
• Frequency Correction Burst
• Dummy Burst
• Access Burst
 Control Channel

Functions:
• To help the MS find the control channels. ??
• To provide information about
- voice and control channel repetition cycle.
- parameters in the cell.
- surrounding cells.
- paging.
• To allow random access attempts by the MS.
 The Downlink Control Channel

• 51 cycle burst (2x26 -1)

• Third burst on the control channel provides content
information.
• Basic structure of control channel :
FSxxx xxxxx FSxxx xxxxx FSxxx xxxx ....

F: Frequency Correction Channel

(occurs every 10th burst)
S: Synchronization Channel
 TDMA Bursts in GSM
FB 3 142 fixed bits 3 8.25

SB 39 64 bit 39
3 3 8.25
data Training seq data

Dummy 3 26 bit
3 8.25
Burst Training seq

Acce 41 bit
8 36 data 3 68.25
ss Training seq

Burst
 Normal Burst
Tail bit

57 26 bit 57 8.25
3 3
Data bits Training seq Data bits Bit GP

Stealing Flags

Fig.
 Frequency
F S B B B synchronization

Time
F S B B B
synchronizatio
n
F S B B B BCCH

Request
R R R R (Random access)

C C C C Grant

D D D
 Full Rate Speech Coding
• Coder for 20ms segments - 120 bits at the
output.
• 13 Kbps.
•Unequal error protection:
Out of 260 bits
- 182 bits are protected.
- 78 bits are not protected.
 Error Coding

Class 1a - 3 parity bits from 50 bits.

Class 1b - 132 bits are not parity checked,
but fed to convolutional encoder.
Class 2 - 78 bits are not protected.

78 182
 A Block Encoder (53, 50)

G(D) = 1 + D+ D3
SW

D + D D +
First 50 bits
data

Last 3 parity bits

1 - 50 clock cycles, SW closed

51 - 53 clock cycles, SW open
 Convolutional Encoder
K- constraint length k=5
R- rate of code r=2/1

K – storage location

G0 = d4 + d3 + 1
G1 = d4 + d3 + d + 1
 Class 1a Class 1b Class 2
Parity 50 bits 132 bits 78 bits
bits Tail bits

50 3 132 4 78

R=1/2 k=5; 378 78

456 bits

456 bits in 20 ms ~ 456/0.02 = 22.8 kbps

 Interleaving

1. Block Interleaving:
Code words are written line by line to a matrix
and read column by column.??
8 (col) * 57 (row) matrix

2. Diagonal Interleaving
1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8
 Discontinuous Transmission
• On an average speech actually lasts only 50% of the
time.
• So transmitter is kept off whenever there is no
speech.
• This reduces co-channel interference and saves
battery power.
• Voice Activity Detector (VAD) is used at the
transmitter, and Comfort Noise Generation (CNG)
is used at the receiver.
VAD
• Background noise is stationary over relatively long periods.
• Measure the deviations from the spectral characteristics of
the background noise.

CNG
• Comfort noise characteristics are matched to the transmitted
noise.