PRESENTATION BY

R. N. DUBEY
M.TECH (COMMUNICATION SYSTEM)
 OUTLINE

 Why Cellular?

 Evolution of GSM Standards

 Elements of GSM Network

Why “cellular”? 
 
Radio spectrum is very limited, that’s why we have only 10-25MHz
dedicated to wireless communication

Such narrow bandwidth allows 100-400 channels of reasonable quality,

which is not rational and commercially not profitable to develop network for
such small number of mobile subscribers.

Genius idea lead to division of the whole geographical area to relatively

small cells, and each cell may reuse the same frequencies by reducing power
of transmission.

Each cell has its own antenna (base station), and all base stations are
interconnected using microwave or cable communication.
EVOLUTION OF GSM STANDARDS.( 1 )
 1980s
 Analog Mobile System AMPS, in America.
 Early 1980s
 Europeannations were developing cellular solutions, but no
common standard available.
 1982
 CEPT ( Conference of European Posts and Telegraph )
formed a study group called the Groupe Special Mobile
( GSM ).
 GSM ARCHITECTURE
MS

BTS
MS

Exchange
BSC MSC
A
BTS P
S
T
MS Microwave N
OFC/MW OFC or OFC

Exchange
MS Mobile Station.
BTS Base Transceiver Station B
BSC Base Station Controller. Fixed
MSC Mobile Switching Center. Subs.
PSTN Public Switched Telephone Network.
EVOLUTION OF GSM STANDARDS.( 2 )
 Objective of GSM
 Good speech quality.
 Low terminal and service cost.
 Support for international roaming.
 Ability to support handheld terminals.
 Support for range of new services and facilities.
 Spectral Efficiency.
 ISDN Compatibility.
EVOLUTION OF GSM STANDARDS.( 3 )
 1989
 GSM responsibility transferred to ETSI ( European
Telecommunications Standards Institute ).
 Global System for Mobile Communication.

 1990
 Phase I of GSM Specifications published.
 Mid 1991
 Commercial services started.
 1997
 Commercial services available in 110 countries.
 ELEMENTS OF GSM NETWORK

HLR

VLR
MS BTS BSC MSC
Um Abis A
EIR

X.25 AuC

OMC SMS

MS Mobile Station. HLR Home Location Register.

BTS Base Transceiver Station VLR Visitor Location Register.
BSC Base Station Controller EIR Equipment Identity Register
MSC Mobile Switching Center. AuC Authentication Center.
SMS Short Message Service.

8
 The Mobile station
A subscriber will use a mobile station (MS) to make and receive calls via the
GSM network

The MS is composed of two distinct functional entities

1. Subscriber identity module (SIM)- a removable smart card which includes

the subscriber’s unique international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI)
number which is used to identify each individual subscriber within the GSM.
The SIM also contain the subscriber’s secret authentication key.

2. Mobile equipment (ME)-which is essentially the mobile phone itself

without the SIM

•Terminal equipment (TE)- performs functions that are specific to a

particular service, for example a fax machine. The TE does not handle any
functions that are specific to the GSM system.

• Mobile termination (MT)- carries out all the functions relating to the
transmission of information over the GSM radio interface.
 The Base Station Subsystem

 composed of BTS and BSC

 A BTS performs all the transmission and reception functions relating to

the GSM radio interface along with a degree of signal processing.

 The BTSs are used to form the coverage cells in GSM and it is their
position that determines the network’s coverage and capacity.

BSC- controls multiple BTSs and manages radio channel setup, and
handovers.

 Management of radio interface which include the allocation of radio

channels to MSs on call set-up, determining when a handover is required
and identifying a suitable target BTS and controlling the transmitted power
of an MS to ensure that it is just sufficient to reach its serving BTS
MOBILE TELEPHONY ( 1 )
Cell 1

BS 1

BASE Xchg. Xchg.

STATION
CONTROLLER A B
BS 2

Cell 2

Call Through via BS 1.

MOBILE TELEPHONY ( 2 )
Cell 1

BS 1

BASE Xchg. Xchg.

STATION
CONTROLLER A B
BS 2

Cell 2

Call Through via BS 1.

MOBILE TELEPHONY ( 3 )
Cell 1

BS 1

BASE Xchg. Xchg.

STATION
CONTROLLER A B
BS 2

Cell 2

Call Through, but now through BS2.

Call has been HANDED OVER FROM BS1 TO BS2 without call interruption.
 Mobile switching centre
 MSC performs all the switching function needed for the operation of the
MS in the group of cells its services. The function of the MSC include call
routing and call control, procedures needed for internetworking with other
network, procedure related to MSs mobility management such as location
updating while roaming and authentication to prevent unauthorized
access, as well as procedure required to implement handovers.

GSM network databases

In a cellular network where subscribers are free to roam throughout the

coverage area, the network must also possess some way to track MSs so that
it is able successfully to route incoming calls to them. All of these functions
are supported using a combination of databases or registers.
Home Location Register (HLR) contains all the subscriber information for
the purposes of call control, and location determination. There is logically one
HLR per GSM net work, although it may be implemented as a distributed
database.

Visitors Location Register (VLR) is only a temporary storage while the

particular subscriber is located in the geographical area controlled by the MSC
/VLR. Contains only the necessary information provision of subscribed
services.

Authentication Center (AuC) is a protected database that stores the security

information for each subscriber (a copy of the secret key stored in each SIM).

Equipment Identity Register (EIR) is a list of all valid mobile equipment on

the network.
 Home Location Register and Visitor Location Register together with MSC
provides the call routing and roaming capabilities of GSM

 The functional blocks associated with the management of the GSM

network are the operations and maintenance centre (OMC), the network
management centre (NMC) and the administration centre (ADC)

 OMC provides the means by which the operator controls the network.
Each OMC will typically be in charge of a subsystem, e.g. the BSS or the
Network Switching Subsystem, NSS (i.e. the MSC, HLR, VLR, etc.)

 NMC is concerned with the management of the entire network and it

generally has a wider operational role than an OMC.

 ADC is concerned, with the administrative functions required within the

network.
 GSM : Radio Link Aspects
As we have mentioned above radio spectrum is very limited resource shared by
all users. The method to divide up the bandwidth among as many users as
possible, chosen by GSM, is a combination of Time- and Frequency-Division
Multiple Access (TDMA/FDMA).

FDMA divides frequency bandwidth of the (maximum) 25 MHz into 124

carrier frequencies. Each Base Station (BS) is assigned one or more carrier
frequencies.

Using a TDMA scheme each carrier frequency is divided in time, which forms
logical channels.  

Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) - the users take turns (in a round
robin), each one periodically getting the entire bandwidth for a little burst of
time. 
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) - the frequency spectrum is
divided among the logical channels, with each user having exclusives
possession of some frequency band.

 ITU Allocation for GSM 900

 Band 890 - 915 Mhz for Uplink ( MS to BSS )
 Band 935 - 960 MHz for Downlink ( BSS to MS )

 25 MHz bandwidth divided into

 125 Carriers, spaced 200 KHz apart
 8 channel per carrier (total 8 x 125 = 1000 channel)
 actually 124 carriers are used
 total of 8 burst during a frame cycle, which is defined as the
information format during one time slot on the TDMA channel