Wireless Data Communication Networks

Lecture 20: Introduction to GSM

Florida Institute of Technology ECE Department

 Outline

GSM logical channels

Radio resource management

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 GSM Logical Channels
GSM Logical
Channels
Logical channels
provide services to
CCH - Control Channel
upper layers of the
CBCH - Cell Broadcast Channel
TCH CCH CBCH protocol stack
They belong to
TCH/F TCH/H BCH CCCH DCCH different layers (1-3)
of the OSI model
FCCH PCH
ACCH SDCCH

SCH AGCH DCCH - Dedicated Control Channels

BCCH RACH
SACCH
TCH - Traffic Channel
TCH/F - Traffic Channel (Full Rate)
TCH/H - Traffic Channel (Half Rate)
BCH - Broadcast Channels
SDCCH - Stand-alone Dedicated
Control Channel
ACCH - Associated Control Channels
SACCH - Slow Associated Control
FACCH Channel
FACCH - Fast Associated Control
Channel
CCCH - Common Control Channels

FCCH - Frequency Correction Channel PCH - Paging Channel

SCH - Synchronization Channel AGCH - Access Grant Channel

BCCH - Broadcast Control Channel RACH - Random Access Channel

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 Traffic Channel (TCH)
Traffic channel carries speech and user data
in both directions Full Rate TCH can carry:
o Full rate ~ 33.85 Kb/sec Voice (13 Kb/sec)
o Half rate ~ 16.93 Kb/sec Data at rates:
o Full rate uses 1 slot in every frame -9.6 Kb/sec
o Half rate uses 1 slot in every other frame -4.8 Kb/sec
-2.4 Kb/sec
Data rates differ due to differences in Error
Control Coding
Half Rate TCH can carry:
Most contemporary GSM networks operate
Voice (6.5 Kb/sec)
AMR vo-coders
Date at rates:
-4.8 Kb/sec
Adaptive Multi-Rate Coder (AMR) -2.4 Kb/sec

Voice 12.2, 10.2, 7.95 and 7.40 in FR

Voice 6.7, 5.9, 5.15, 4.75 in HR

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 Control Channels

GSM Defines 3 types of Control Channels:

1. Broadcast Channels (BCH) CCH
Broadcast information that helps mobile
system acquisition, frame synchronization,
etc. They advertise properties and services
of the GSM network. BCH
Forward link only
2. Common Control Channels (CCCH)
Facilitate establishment of the link between CCCH
MS and system
Both forward and reverse link
3. Dedicated Control Channels (DCCH)
DCCH
Provide for exchange the control information
when the call is in progress
Both forward and reverse in band signaling

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 Broadcast Channels (BCH)
Three types of BCH:
1. Synchronization channel (SCH)
BCH
Provides a known sequence that helps
mobile synchronization
at the baseband
Communicates with S-burst
SCH
Broadcasts Base Station Identity Code
(BSIC)
2. Frequency Correction channel (FCH) FCH
Helps mobile tune its RF oscillator
Communicates with F-burst
3. Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH) BCCH
Provides mobile with various information
about network, its services, access
parameters, neighbor list, etc.

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 Common Control Channel (CCCH)

Three types of CCCH: CCCH

1. Random Access Channel (RACH)
Used by mobile to initialize
communication
Mobiles use slotted ALOHA RACH
Reverse link only
2. Paging Channel (PCH)
Used by the system to inform the mobile PCH
about an incoming call
Forward link only
GSM Supports DRX
3. Access Grant Channel (AGC) AGC
Used to send the response to the mobiles
request for DCCH
Forward link only

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 Dedicated Control Channels (DCCH)
Three types of DCCH:
1. Stand Alone Dedicated Control Channel DCCH
(SDCCH)
Used to exchange overhead information when
the call is not in progress SDCCH
2. Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH)
Used to exchange time delay tolerant
overhead SACCH
information when the call is in progress
3. Fast Associated Control Channel (FACCH)
Used to exchange time critical information
FACCH
when the call is in progress

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 Logical Channels - Summary

Channel UL DL UL/DL Point Broadcast Dedicated Shared

Only Only to
Point
BCCH X X X

FCCH X X X

SCH X X X

RACH X X X

PCH X X X

AGCH X X X

SDCCH X X X

SACCH X X X

FACCH X X X

TCH X X X

UL - Uplink DL - Downlink
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 GSM Radio Resource Management (RRM)

Time Advancement (TA)

Mobile Assisted Handoff (MAHO)
Dynamic Power Control (DPC)
Discontinuous Transmission (DTX)
Frequency Hopping (FH)

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 Time Advancement (TA)
d2, Slot 2
Mobiles randomly d1 > d2
distributed in space MS2

Timing advance
prevents burst collision d1, Slot 1
on the reverse link MS1
BTS
Maximum advancement
is 63 bits SLOT 0 SLOT 1 SLOT 2 SLOT 3 SLOT 4 SLOT 5 SLOT 6 SLOT 7

Collision

T1 - Delay of MS 1
T1 MS1 Signal

T2 - Delay of MS 2
T2 MS2 Signal
Maximum cell radius

1 8 m s
D max 3 10 63bit 3.693 10 6 35km
2 s bit
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 Mobile Assisted Handoff (MAHO)

Measurement Link Cell DTX Measurement GSM Implements

type Source
MAHO
RSL Downlink Serving Cell Full Set Mobile
In the process of
RSL Downlink Serving Cell Subset Mobile
evaluating handoff
RSL Downlink Neighbors N/A Mobile candidates, GSM
systems evaluate
Quality Downlink Serving Cell Full Set Mobile
measurements
Quality Downlink Serving Cell Subset Mobile
Evaluation done at BSC
RSL Uplink Serving Cell Full Set BTS
Three types of
RSL Uplink Serving Cell Subset BTS measurements
RSL Uplink Neighbors Full Set BTS Signal strength
RSL Uplink Neighbors Subset BTS
Signal quality
Quality Uplink Serving Cell Full Set BTS
Timing advance
Quality Uplink Serving Cell Subset BTS

Timing Advance Uplink Serving Cell N/A BTS

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 MAHO - Signal Strength Measurements
Measurements of the neighbors are performed on
Performed on uplink and
the BCCH channels not affected by the DTX
downlink
Reported as a quantized value Measurements on the serving channel affected
RXLEV: by the DTX.
RXLEV = RSL[dBm] + 110 Perform over a subset of SACCH that guarantees
transmission even in the case of active DTX
Minimum RXLEV:
Before processing, the RXLEV measurements are
-110, MAX RXLEV = -47
filtered to prevent unnecessary handoffs
On the downlink, measurement
performed for both serving cell
and up to 32 neighbors
Up to 6 strongest neighbors are
reported back to BTS through
SACCH

Example MAHO
measurements

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 MAHO Signal Quality Measurements
Performed on uplink and
downlink
Only on the serving channel
Reported as a quantized
value RXQUAL
For a good quality call
RXQUAL < 3
Measurements are averaged
before the handoff processing
If DTX is active, the
measurements are performed Mapping between RxQUAL and BER
over the subset of SACCH
that guarantees transmission

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 Discontinuous Transmission (DTX)
Idea: No voice no need for transmission
Benefits of DTX
o Uplink:
System interference reduction
Lower battery consumption
o Downlink
System interference reduction
Reduction of the inter-modulation products
Lower power consumptions

Downsides of DTX usage:

o MAHO measurements are less accurate
o Voice quality is degraded due to slowness of VAD
Implemented both for BTS and MS
Uses Voice Activity Detection (VAD) to detect periods of silence
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 Dynamic Power Control (DPC)
Three reasons
o Elimination of near-far problem
o Reduction of system interference
o Improvement of MS battery life
DPC for MS
o Depending on its power class, MS
can adjust its power between the max
and min value in 2dB steps
o MS can perform 13 adjustments
every SACCH period, i.e., 480ms
o Large adjustments > 24 dB will not be
completed before the arrival of new
command
o Commonly implemented as BSC
feature. Many vendors are moving it GSM power classes for some
at the BTS level popular bands
DPC for BTS
o Vendor specific
o Based on MAHO reports

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 Frequency hopping (FH)

FH - multiple carriers used over the

course of radio transmission
Two kinds of FH:
o Slow Hopping change of carrier
frequency happens at the rate
slower than the symbol rate
o Fast Hoping carrier frequency
changes faster than the symbol rate
GSM implements slow FH Scheme
Carrier frequency is changed once per
time slot
Two reasons for FH
o Frequency diversity
o Interference avoidance

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 Frequency Diversity of FH

Mobile environment is
characterized with small
scale fading
The depth of signal fade is
a function frequency
If two signals are
sufficiently separated in
frequency domain they
fade independently
Frequency diversity gain
diminishes for fast moving
mobiles

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 Interference avoidance of FH

FH averages interference
Allows for tighter reuse of frequencies
Increases the capacity of the system

f1 f1 f4 f3 f2
User 1 T 2T 3T 4T 5T

f2 f1 f1 f4 f3
User 2 T 2T 3T 4T 5T

f3 f2 f1 f1 f4
User 3 2T 3T 4T 5T
T

f4 f3 f2 f1 f1
User 4 2T 3T 4T 5T
T

f1 f4 f3 f2 f1
User 5 2T 3T 4T 5T
T

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 Synthesized FH in GSM

Each radio is hopping in an

independent way

Carrier
Radios retune real time
1 TX/RX Freuqnacy
f0,f 1,...,f m

Carrier Broadband
2 TX/RX Freuqnacy
f0,f 1,...,f m Combiner

Carrier
n TX/RX Freuqnacy
f0,f 1,...,f m

Synthesized hopping
o The hopping frequencies assigned in an arbitrary way
o Needs relatively expensive broadband combiners

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 FH Algorithms

Cyclic hopping
o Frequencies are used in consecutive order
o If the radio is performing cyclic FH the order of frequencies in the
sequence goes from the lowest ARFCN to the highest ARFCN

f1 , f 2 , f 3 , f 4 , f1 , f 2 , f 3 ,
Random hopping
o Implemented in a pseudo-random way
o Uses one of 63 available PN sequences
o The actual frequency obtained through module operation with the total
number of frequencies in the mobile allocation list

f1 , f 2 , f 4 , f 4 , f 3 , f 2 , f 3 ,

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 Frequency Planning and Reuse Strategies
BCCH Channels fixed assignment
100
TCH Channels n=3
n = 3.5
o Fixed, or

Size of the Cluster (N)

n=4

n = 4.5
o Frequency hopping
n=5

Frequency plan is critical for GSM 10

performance
Used plans: 7/21, 4/12 or 3/9
Frequency plan determines the
1
amount of interference in the system 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Required C/I [dB]
GSM requires at least 9dB of C/I
Relationship between
Modern GSM systems implement ad-
cluster size and C/I
hock frequency planning obtained
from AFP tools

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 Review questions

What is the difference between How often does GSM mobile adjust
TCH/FR and TCH/HR? its power?
What is the BCCH channel? What is the power adjustment step
What is TCH? for the mobile?

Why is time advancing necessary What is frequency hopping?

in GSM? Can frequency hopping be used on
What is MAHO? BCHH?

What is RxLev? What are the advantages of FH?

What is RxQual? What are typical reuse schemes for

BCCH in GSM?
What are advantages of DTX?
Can DTX be used on the BCCH?

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