GSM: GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR

MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

Prepared By: SHASHANK UPADHYAY

GSM: PROPERTIES
PROVIDERS IN GERMANY
GSM: STRUCTURE
 GSM: STRUCTURE

Operation and Maintenance Centre (OMC)

• logical, central structure with HLR, AuC und EIR
Authentication Centre (AuC)
• authentication, storage of symmetrical keys, generation of
encryption keys
Equipment Identity Register (EIR)
• storage of device attributes of allowed, faulty and jammed
devices (white, grey, black list)
Mobile Switching Centre (MSC)
• arrangement centre, partial as gateways to other nets, assigned
to one VLR each
Base Station Subsystem (BSS): technical radio centre
• Base Station Controller (BSC): control centre
• Base Transceiver Station (BTS): radio tower / antenna
RADIO TECHNICAL STRUCTURE
GSM: PROTOCOLS, INCOMING CALL
CONT…..
CONT…..
 GSM: CHANNEL STRUCTURE

Traffic Channel
• speech- / data channel (13 kbit/s brutto; differential encoding)
• units of 26 TDMA - Frames
• Half-rate traffic channel: for more efficient speech encoding with
7 kbit/s
Control Channel
• Signal information
• Monitoring of the BSCs for reconnaissance of Handover
Broadcast Control Channel
• BSC to MS (identity, frequency order etc.)
Random Access Channel
• Steering of channel entry with Aloha-procedure
Paging Channel
• signalize incoming calls
 DATABASES

Home Location Register (HLR), stores data of participants, which

are reported in an HLR-area
– Semi-permanent data:
• Call number (Mobile Subscriber International ISDN Number) - MSISDN,
e.g. +49/171/333 4444 (country, net, call number)
• identity (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) - IMSI: MCC = Mobile
Country Code (262 for .de) + MNC = Mobile Network Code (01-D1, 02-
Vodafone-D2, 03-eplus, 07-O2) + MSIN = Mobile Subscriber
Identification Number
• Personal data (name, address, mode of payment)
• Service profile ( call transfer, Roaming-limits etc.)
– Temporary data:
• MSRN (Mobile Subscriber Roaming Number) (country, net, MSC)
• VLR-address, MSC-address
• Authentication Sets of AuC (RAND (128 Bit), SRES (128 Bit), KC
(64Bit))
• charge data
 DATABASES

Visitor Location Register (VLR)

• local database of each MSC with following data:
– IMSI, MSISDN
– service profile
– accounting information
– TMSI (Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity) - pseudonym for data
security
– MSRN
– LAI (Location Area Identity)
– MSC-address, HLR-address
 DATA TRANSMISSION

• each GSM-channel configurable as a data channel; similar structure like ISDN-B and -
D-channels
• data rates up to 9600 bit/s now
• delay approximately 200 ms
• speech channels have as a rule higher priority as data channels
• kinds of channels:
• transparent (without error correction; however FEC; fixed data rate; error rate 10-3 up to 10-
4)

• non-transparent (repeat of faulty data frames; very low error rate, but also less throughput)
• Short-Message-Service (SMS)
• connectionless transmission (up to 160 Byte) on signal channel
• Cell Broadcast (CB)
• connectionless transmission (up to 80 Byte) on signal channel to all participants, e.g. one cell
DATA TRANSMISSION - STRUCTURE
 SECURITY ASPECTS: SUBSCRIBER
IDENTITY MODULE (SIM)

Chip-card (Smart Cart) to personalize a mobile

subscriber (MS):
• IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity)
• participant special symmetric key Ki, stored also at AuC
• algorithm “A3” for Challenge-Response-Authentication
• algorithm “A8” for key generation of Kc for content data
• PIN (Personal Identification Number) for entry control
Temporary data:
• TMSI (Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity)
• LAI (Location Area Identification)
• Encryption key Kc
 SECURITY IN GSM-NETWORKS

SIM
• Entry control and cryptographic algorithms
Single-sided authentication (participant against network)
• Challenge-Response-method (cryptographic algorithm:
A3)
Pseudonyms of participants at the Radio interface
• Temporary Mobile Subscriber Identity (TMSI)
Connection encoding on the Radio interface
• Key generation: A8
• Encryption: A5
SECURITY ASPECTS: AUTHENTICATION
SECURITY ASPECTS: SESSION KEY
 GSM PHASE II+
HSCSD, GPRS

HSCSD: High Speed Circuit Switched Data

Properties
HSCSD: STRUCTURE
 ASSESSMENT OF HSCSD

+ existing net structure and accounting model maintained

+ in comparison to GPRS only around1/5 of investment
necessary
+ HSCSD is still circuit switched
+ has defined QoS- settings (data rate, delay)
• one logical channel will be switched on all interfaces for the time of the
connection
• Non-efficient for burst-like traffic (Internet) or Flat Rate billing
(Logistics)
• no international acceptance (Roaming!)
• uses also more resources on the radio interface
• problems with handover into a new cell
 GPRS: GENERAL PACKET RADIO SERVICE

Properties

• Packet switching service (end- to- end)

• Data rates up to 171,2 kbit/s (theoretical)
• Effective and flexible administration of the radio interface
• adaptive channel encoding
• Internetworking with IP- and X.25 nets standardized
• dynamic sharing of resources with „classical“ GSM speech
services
• Advantage: Billing and Accounting according to data volume
• Disadvantage: cost intensive additional net hardware necessary
GPRS: STRUCTURE
TASKS: SGSN, GGSN
 TASKS OF THE SGSN

• Packet delivery
• mobility management
• apply/ sign off of terminals
• localization
• LLC (Logical Link Control) management
• authentication
• billing
 TASKS OF THE GGSN

• mediator between GPRS backbone and external data networks (Internet, X-25 etc.)

• converts GPRS packets, data Protocol (PDP) into the corresponding structure
• also converts PDP addresses of incoming packets into GSM address of the receiver
• saves current data for the SGSN address of the participant as well as their profile
and data for authentication and invoice
 ASSESSMENT OF GPRS

+ An up to 4 times higher data rate in comparison to ordinary GSM- data

services
+ better resource management through packet arranged service
+ „always on” data service (email, etc.)
+ GPRS is a more suitable carrier for services like WAP
- IP-derivate, no true guaranties (QoS)
- development of the network infrastructure is relatively expensive,
particularly regarding introduction to UMTS (return of investment)
- GPRS doesn’t give such data rates like advertising has sometimes promised