UNIT – I

Introduction to Wireless Communication Systems &Cellular

Concept

Evolution of Mobile Radio Communications

A brief history of the evolution of mobile communications throughout the world is useful
in order to appreciate the enormous impact that cellular radio and Personal Communication
Services (PCS) will have on all of us over the next several decades. It is also useful for a
newcomer to the cellular radio field to understand the tremendous impact that government
regulatory agencies and service competitors wield in the evolution of new wireless systems,
services, and technologies. While it is not the intent of this text to deal with the techno-
political aspects of cellular radio and personal communications, techno-politics are a
fundamental driver in the evolution of new technology and services, since radio spectrum
sage is controlled by governments not by service providers, equipment manufacturers,
entrepreneurs, or researchers. Progressive involvement in technology development is vital
for a government if it hopes to keep its own country competitive in the rapidly changing
field of wireless personal communications.

Wireless communications is enjoying its fastest growth period in history, due to enabling
technologies which permit widespread deployment. Historically, growth in the mobile
communications field has come slowly, and has been coupled closely to technological
improvements. The ability to provide wireless communications to an entire population was
not even conceived until Bell Laboratories developed the cellular concept in the 1960s and
1970s .With the development of highly reliable, miniature, solid state radio frequency
hardware in the 1970s,the wireless communications era was born. The recent exponential
growth in cellular radio and personal communication systems throughout the world is
directly attributable to new technologies of the 1970s, which are mature today. The future
growth of consumer-based mobile and portable communication systems will be tied more
closely to radio spectrum allocations and regulatory decisions which affect or support new or
extended services, as well as to consume needs and technology advances in the signal
processing access, and network areas.

Mobile telephony has penetrated our daily lives compared with other popular inventions
of the 20th century. A bit misleading since the curve labeled “mobile telephone” does not
include non-telephone mobile radio applications, such as paging, amateur radio, dispatch,
citizens band (CB), public service, cordless phones, or terrestrial microwave radio systems.
In fact, in 1990, licensed non cellular radio systems in the U.S. handover 12 million users,
more than twice the U.S.cellular user population at that time .With the phenomenal growth
of wireless subscribers in the late 1990s, combined with Nextel’s novel business approach of
purchasing private mobile radio licenses for bundling as a nationwide commercial cellular
service, today’s subscriber base for cellular and Personal Communication Services (PCS) far
outnumbers all non-cellular licensed users.

EarlySystems1921

The Detroit Police Department in 1921 implemented a radio that system allowed the patrol cars
to communicate a central control point, although this system has little in common with today’s
sophisticated modern communications systems; it was the first mobile communicationssystem.
1939 – 1944 (World War II)
World War II proved that the mass production of VHF radios was possible, by the end of the
1940’s there seems to be little standing in the way of the development of mobile
communications systems.
1946
By 1946 in St. Louis it became possible link a vehicle mounted mobile radio unit to a PSTN
(Public Switched Telephone Network).
PMR & PAMR (Private Mobile Radio & Private Access Mobile Radio)
These systems were developed by during the 1950’s, usually utilizing vehicle mounted units.
These systems are mainly used by the emergency services, public utilities, road haulage and
taxis. To start with these systems were very basic single site and single channel. However they
have developed into much more complex systems, utilizing multi-site, multi-channel, selective
calling, connections PABXs/PSTN’s and direct calling. (TETRA) (Terrestrial Trunked Radio).
TACS (Total Access CommunicationsSystem)
TACS was the first real mobile communications system*. In 1985 when this system was
introduced it was mainly vehicle mounted units, but later developed.
The following Figure shows the mobile telephony
the growth of mobile telephony as compared with other popular inventions of the 20th century
by 1934, 194 municipal police radio systems and 58 state police stations had adopted amplitude
modulation (am) mobile communication systems for public safety in the u.s. it was
estimatedthat5,000radioswereinstalledinmobilesinthemid-1930s,andvehicleignitionnoise was a
major problem for these early mobile users in 1935, edwin armstrong demon- started frequency
modulation (fm) for the first time, and since the late 1930s, fm has beenthe primary modulation
technique used for mobile communication systems throughout the world. world war ii
accelerated the improvements of the world’s manufacturing and miniaturization capabilities, and
these capabilities were put to use in large one-way and two-way consumer radio and television
systems following the war. The number of u.s. mobile users climbed from several thousand in
1940 to 86,000 by 1948, 695,000 by 1958, and about 1.4 million users in 1962 [nob62].
The vast majorities of mobile users in the 1960s were not connected to the public switched
telephone network (pstn), and thus were not able to directly dial telephone numbers from the ir
vehicles. With the boom in radio and cordless appliances such as garage door openers and
telephones, the number of users of mobile and portable radio in 1995was about 100 million, or
37% of the u.s. population research in 1991 estimated between 25 and 40 million cordless
telephones were in use in the u.s, number and this is estimated to be over 100 million as of late
2001.
The number of worldwide cellular telephone users grew from 25,000 in 1984 to about
25million in 1993and since then subscription-based wireless services have been experiencing
customer growth rates well in excess of 50% per year. As shown in Chapter 2, the worldwide
subscriber base of cellular and PCS sub- scribers is approximately 630 million as of late 2001,
compared with approximately 1 billion wired telephone lines. In the first few years of the 21st
century, it is clear there will be an equal number of wireless and conventional wire line
customers through outthe world! At the beginning of the 21st century, over 1% of the
worldwide wireless subscriber population had already abandoned wired telephone service for
home use, and had begun to rely solely on their cellular service provider for telephone access.
Consumers are expected to increasingly use wireless service as their sole telephone access
method in the years to come.
Major Mobile Radio Standards in NorthAmerica
Examples of Wireless Communication Systems
The term mobile has historically been used to classify any radio terminal that could be moved
during operation. More recently, the term mobile is used to describe a radio terminal that is
attached to a high speed mobile platform (e.g., a cellular telephone in a fast moving vehicle)
whereas the term portable describes radio terminal that can be hand-held and used by someone
at walking speed. The term subscriber is often used to describe a mobile or portable user
because in most mobile communication systems, each user pays a subscription fee to use the
system, and each user’s communication device is called a subscriber unit. In general, the
collective group of users in a wireless system is called users or mobiles, even though many of
the users may actually use portable terminals. The mobiles communicate to fixed base stations
which are connected to a commercial power source and a fixed backbone network.

Mobile radio transmission systems may be classified as simplex, half-duplex or

full-duplex. In simplex systems, communication is possible in only one direction. Paging
systems, in which messages are received but not acknowledged, are simplex systems. Half-
duplex radio systems allow two-way communication, but use the same radio channel for both
Transmission and reception. This means that at any given time, a user can only transmit or
receive information. Constraints like “push-to-talk” and “release-to-listen” are fundamental
features of half-duplex systems. Full duplex systems, on the other hand, allow simultaneous
radio transmission and reception between a subscriber and a base station, by providing two
simultaneous but separate channels (frequency division duplex, or FDD)or adjacent time slots
on a single radio channel(time division duplex, or TDD) for communication to and
from the user.

In FDD, a pair of simplex channels with a fixed and known frequency separation is used to
defineaspecificradiochannelinthesystem.Thechannelusedtoconveytraffictothemobileuser from a
base station is called the forward channel, while the channel used to carry traffic from the mobile
user to a base station is called the reverse channel. In the U.S.AMPS standard, the reverse
channel has a frequency which is exactly 45 MHz lower than that of the forward channel. Full
duplex mobile radio systems provide many of the capabilities of the standard telephone, with the
added convenience of mobility. Full duplex and half-duplex systems use transceivers for radio
communication. FDD is used exclusively in analog mobile radio systems.
Time division duplexing (TDD) uses the fact that it is possible to share a singl
e radio channel in time, so that a portion of the time is used to transmit from the base station to
the mobile, and the remaining time is used to transmit from to bile to
the base station. If the data transmission rate in the channel is much greater than the end-user’s
data rate, it is possible to store information bursts and provide the appearance of full duplex
operation to a user, even though there are not two simultaneous radio transmissions at any
instant.TDD is only possible with digital transmission formats and digital modulation, and is
very sensitive to timing. It is for this reason that TDD has only recently been used, and only for
indoor or small area wireless applications where the physical coverage distances (and thus the
radio propagation time delay) are much smaller than the many kilometers used in conventional
cellular telephone systems.

PagingSystems

Paging systems are communication systems that send brief messages to a subscriber. Depending on
the type of service, the message may be a numeric message, an alphanumeric message, or a
voicemessage.Pagingsystemsaretypicallyusedtonotifyasubscriberoftheneedtocallaparticulartelepho
nenumberortraveltoaknownlocationtoreceivefurtherinstructions.Inmodernpaging systems, news
headlines, stock quotations, and faxes may be sent. A message is sent to a paging subscriber via
the paging system access number (usually a toll-free telephone number) with a telephone keypad
or modem. The issued message is called a page. The paging system then transmits the page
through out the service area using basestations which broadcast the page on a radio carrier.
Paging systems vary widely in their complexity and coverage area. While simple paging
systems cover alimited range of 2to5km,or may even be confirmed to with
individual buildings, ind
wide area paging systems can provide worldwide coverage. Though paging receiver are simple and
inexpensive, the transmission system required is quite sophisticated. Wide area paging systems
consist of a network of telephone lines, many base station transmitters, and large radio towers that
simultaneously broadcast a page from each base station (this is called simulcasting). Simulcast
transmitters may be located within the same service area or in different cities or countries. Paging
systems are designed to provide reliable communication to subscribers wherever they are; whether
inside a building, driving on a highway, or flying in an airplane. This necessitates large transmitter
powers (on the order of kilo watts)and low datarates(a couple of thousand bits per second)for
maximum coverage from each base station.
 City1
LandlineLink Paging
Terminal

PSTN
City2
Paging LandlineLink Paging
Control Terminal
Center

CityN
Paging
Terminal

Cordless TelephoneSystems

Cordless telephone systems are full duplex communication systems that use radio to connect a
portable handset to a dedicated base station, which is then connected to a dedicated telephone
line with a specific telephone number on the public switched telephone network(PSTN). In first
generation cordless telephone systems (manufactured in the 1980s), the portable unit
communicates only to the dedicated base unit and only over distances of a few tens of meters.
Early cordless telephones operate solely as extension telephones to a transceiver connected to a
subscriber line on the PSTN and are primarily for in-home
usesecondgenerationcordlesstelephoneshaverecentlybeenintroducedwhichallows up scribers
tousetheirhandsetsatmanyoutdoorlocationswithinurbancenterssuchasLondonorHongKong. Modern
cordless telephones are sometimes combined with paging receivers so that a subscriber may first be
paged and then respond to the page using the cordless telephone.Cordless telephone systems
provide the user with limited range and mobility, as it is usually not possible to maintain a call If
the user travels outside the range of the base station. Typical second generation base stations
provide coverage ranges up to a few hundred meters.
Cellular TelephoneSystems

A cellular system. The towers represent base stations which provide radio access be- tween mobile users
and the mobile switching center (MSC).

A cellular telephone system provides a wireless connection to the PSTN for any user location
withintheradiorangeofthesystem.Cellularsystemsaccommodatealargenumberofusersover a large
geographic area, within a limited frequency spectrum. Cellular radio systems
providehighqualityservicethatisoftencomparabletothatofthelandlinetelephonesystems.High
capacity is achieved by limiting the coverage of each base station transmitter to a small geo-
graphic area called a cell so that the same radio channels may be reused by another base station
located some distance away. A sophisticated switching technique called a handoff enables a call
to proceed uninterrupted when the user moves from one cell toanother.
The above Figure shows a basic cellular system which consists of mobile stations,
base stations and a mobile switching center (MSC). The mobile switching center is sometimes
called a mobile telephone switching office (MTSO), since it is responsible for connecting all
mobiles to the PSTN in a cellular system. Each mobile communicates via radio with one of
the base stations and may be handed-off to any number of base stations throughout the duration
of a call. The mobile station contains a transceiver, an antenna, and control circuitry, and may
be mounted in a vehicle or used as a portable hand-held unit. The base stations consist of several
transmitters and receivers which simultaneously handle full duplex communications and
generally have towers which support several transmitting and receiving antennas. The base
station serves as a bridge between all mobile users in the cell and connects the simultaneous
mobile calls via telephone lines or microwave links to the MSC. The MSC coordinates the
activities of all of the base stations and connects the entire cellular system to the PSTN. A
typical MSC handles 100,000 cellular subscribers and 5,000 simultaneous conversations at a
time, and accommodates all billing and system maintenance functions, as well. In large cities,
several MSCs are used by a singlecarrier.
Communication between the base station and the mobiles is defined by a standard
common air interface (CAI) that specifies four different channels. The channels used for voice
transmission from the base station to mobiles are called forward voice channels (FVC), and the
channels used for voice transmission from mobiles to the base station are called reverse voice
channels (RVC). The two channels responsible for initiating mobile calls are the forward control
channels (FCC) and reverse control channels (RCC). Control channels are often called setup
channels because they are only involved in setting up a call and moving it to an unused voice
channel. Control channels transmit and received at messages that carry call initiation and service
requests, and are monitored by mobiles when they do not have a call in progress. Forward
control channels also serve as beacons which continually broadcast all of the traffic requests for
all mobiles in the system.

Wireless Cellular Networks and Standards:

First Generation (1G) Wireless Cellular Networks and Standards:

1G (or 1-G) refers to the first generation

of wireless telephone technology (mobile telecommunications). These are
the analog telecommunications standards that were introduced in the 1980s and continued
until being replaced by 2G digital telecommunications. The main difference between the two
mobile telephone systems (1G and 2G), is that the radio signals used by 1G networks are
analog, while 2G networks are digital.Although both systems use digital signaling to
connect the radio towers (which listen to the handsets) to the rest of the telephone system,
the voice itself during a call is encoded to digital signals in 2G whereas 1G is only
modulated to higher frequency, typically 150 MHz and up. The inherent advantages of
digital technology over that of analog meant that 2G networks eventually replaced them
almost everywhere.
One such standard is Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT), used in Nordic
countries, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Eastern Europe and Russia. Others include Advanced
Mobile Phone System (AMPS) used in North America and Australia,[1] TACS (Total Access
Communications System) in the United Kingdom, C-450 in West Germany, Portugal and South
Africa, Radiocom 2000 in France, TMA in Spain, and RTMI in Italy. InJapan there were
multiple systems. Three standards, TZ-801, TZ-802, and TZ-803 were developed by NTT
(Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation), while a competing system operated by Daini
Denden Planning, Inc. (DDI)[2] used the Japan Total Access Communications System (JTACS)
standard.
The first commercially automated cellular network (the 1G generations) was launched in Japan
by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1979, initially in the metropolitan area of Tokyo.
Within five years, the NTT network had been expanded to cover the whole population of Japan
and became the first nationwide 1G network.
In 1981, the NMT system simultaneously launched in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
NMT was the first mobile phone network to feature international roaming. In 1983, the first 1G
network launched in the USA was Chicago-based Ameritech using the Motorola Dyna
TAC mobile phone. Several countries then followed in the early to mid-1980s including the UK,
Mexico and Canada.
Second Generation (1G) Wireless Cellular Networks and Standards:
2G (or 2-G) is short for second-generation wireless telephone technology. Second-generation
2G cellular telecom networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard
in Finland by Radiolinja (now part of Elisa Oyj) in 1991. Three primary benefits of 2G networks
over their predecessors were that phone conversations were digitally encrypted; 2G systems
were significantly more efficient on the spectrum allowing for far greater mobile phone
penetration levels; and 2G introduced data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages.
2G technologies enabled the various mobile phone networks to provide the services such as text
messages, picture messages, and MMS (multimedia messages). All text messages sent over 2G
are digitally encrypted, allowing for the transfer of data in such a way that only the intended
receiver can receive and read it.
After 2G was launched, the previous mobile telephone systems were retroactively dubbed 1G.
While radio signals on 1G networks are analog, radio signals on 2G networks are digital. Both
systems use digital signaling to connect the radio towers (which listen to the handsets) to the
rest of the telephone system.2G has been superseded by newer technologies such
as 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, and 4G; however, 2G networks are still used in most parts of the world.2G
technologies can be divided into time division multiple access (TDMA)-based and code division
multiple access (CDMA)-based standards depending on the type of multiplexing used.
The main 2G standards are:

1) GSM (TDMA-based), originally from Europe but used in most of the world outside North
America. Today accounts for over 80% of all subscribers around the world. Over 60 GSM
operators are also usingCDMA2000 in the 450 MHz frequency band (CDMA450).
2) IS-95 a.k.a. cdmaOne (CDMA-based, commonly referred as simply CDMA in the US), used
in the Americas and parts of Asia, accounts for about 17% of all subscribers globally. Over a
dozen CDMA operators have migrated to GSM including operators in Mexico, India, and
Australia.
3) PDC also known as JDC (Japanese Digital Cellular) (TDMA-based), used exclusively
in Japan
4) iDEN (TDMA-based), proprietary network used by Nextel in the United
States and TelusMobility in Canada
5) IS-136 a.k.a. Digital AMPS or D-AMPS (TDMA-based, commonly referred as simply
'TDMA' in the US), was once prevalent in the Americas, but most have migrated to GSM.2G
services are frequently referred as Personal Communications Service, or PCS, in the United
States.

Generation Wireless Cellular Networks and Standards:

2.5G ("second and a half generation") is used to describe 2G-systems that have
implemented a packet-switched domain in addition to the circuit-switched domain. It does not
necessarily provide faster service because bundling of timeslots is used for circuit-switched data
services (HSCSD) as well.
The first major step in the evolution of GSM networks to 3G occurred with the
introduction of General Packet Radio Service (GPRS). CDMA2000 networks similarly evolved
through the introduction of 2.5G. Its approach centered on the use of packet data. Up until this
time all circuits had been dedicated to a given user in an approach known as circuit switched,
i.e. where a complete circuit is switched for a given user. This was inefficient when a channel
was only carrying data for a small percentage of the time. The new packet switched approach
routed individual packets of data from the transmitter to the receiver allowing the same circuit to
be used by different users. This enabled circuits to be used more efficiently and charges to be
metered according to the data transferred.

Third Generation(3G) Wireless Cellular Networks and Standards:

3G, short for third generation, is the third generation of wireless mobile telecommunications
technology. This is based on a set of standards used for mobile devices and mobile
telecommunications use services and networks that comply with the International Mobile
Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-2000) specifications by the International Telecommunication
Union. 3G finds application in wireless voice telephony, Internet access, fixed wireless Internet
access, video calls and mobile TV.
3G telecommunication networks support services that provide an information transfer rate of at
least 200 kbit/s. Later 3G releases, often denoted 3.5G and 3.75G, also provide mobile
broadband access of severalMbit/s to smartphones and mobile modems in laptop computers.
This ensures it can be applied to wireless voice telephony, mobile Internet access, fixed wireless
Internet access, video calls and mobile TV technologies.
A new generation of cellular standards has appeared approximately every tenth year
since 1G systems were introduced in 1981/1982. Each generation is characterized by new
frequency bands, higher data rates and non–backward-compatible transmission technology. The
first 3G networks were introduced in 1998 and fourth generation 4G networks in 2008.
The following standards are typically branded 3G:

1) The UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service) system, first offered in 2001,
standardized by 3GPP, used primarily in Europe, Japan, China (however with a different radio
interface) and other regions predominated by GSM (Global Systems for Mobile) 2G system
infrastructure. The cell phones are typically UMTS and GSM hybrids. Several radio interfaces
are offered, sharing the same infrastructure:
2) The original and most widespread radio interface is called W-CDMA (Wideband Code
Division Multiple Access).
3) The TD-SCDMA radio interface was commercialized in 2009 and is only offered in China.
4) The latest UMTS release, HSPA+, can provide peak data rates up to 56 Mbit/s in the
downlink in theory (28 Mbit/s in existing services) and 22 Mbit/s in the uplink.
5) The CDMA2000 system, first offered in 2002, standardized by 3GPP2, used especially in
North America and South Korea, sharing infrastructure with the IS-95 2G standard. The cell
phones are typically CDMA2000 and IS-95 hybrids. The latest release EVDO Rev B offers peak
rates of 14.7 Mbit/s downstream.
The above systems and radio interfaces are based on spread spectrum radio transmission
technology. While the GSM EDGE standard ("2.9G"), DECT cordless phones and Mobile
WiMAX standards formally also fulfill the IMT-2000 requirements and are approved as 3G
standards by ITU, these are typically not branded 3G, and are based on completely different
technologies.
The following common standards comply with the IMT2000/3G standard:

6) EDGE, a revision by the 3GPP organization to the older 2G GSM based transmission
methods, utilizing the same switching nodes, base station sites and frequencies as GPRS, but
new base station and cellphone RF circuits. It is based on the three times as
efficient 8PSK modulation scheme as supplement to the original GMSK modulation scheme.
EDGE is still used extensively due to its ease of upgrade from existing 2G GSM infrastructure
and cell-phones.
7) EDGE combined with the GPRS 2.5G technology is called EGPRS, and allows peak data
rates in the order of 200 kbit/s, just as the original UMTS WCDMA versions, and thus formally
fulfills the IMT2000 requirements on 3G systems. However, in practice EDGE is seldom
marketed as a 3G system, but a 2.9G system. EDGE shows slightly better system spectral
efficiency than the original UMTS andCDMA2000 systems, but it is difficult to reach much
higher peak data rates due to the limited GSM spectral bandwidth of 200 kHz, and it is thus a
dead end.
8) EDGE was also a mode in the IS-135 TDMA system, today ceased.
9) Evolved EDGE, the latest revision, has peaks of 1 Mbit/s downstream and 400 kbit/s
upstream, but is not commercially used.
10) The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, created and revised by the 3GPP. The
family is a full revision from GSM in terms of encoding methods and hardware, although some
GSM sites can be retrofitted to broadcast in the UMTS/W-CDMA format.
11) W-CDMA is the most common deployment, commonly operated on the 2,100 MHz band. A
few others use the 850, 900 and 1,900 MHz bands.
12) HSPA is an amalgamation of several upgrades to the original W-CDMA standard and offers
speeds of 14.4 Mbit/s down and 5.76 Mbit/s up. HSPA is backward-compatible with and uses
the same frequencies as W-CDMA.
13) HSPA+, a further revision and upgrade of HSPA, can provide theoretical peak data rates up
to 168 Mbit/s in the downlink and 22 Mbit/s in the uplink, using a combination of air interface
improvements as well as multi-carrier HSPA and MIMO. Technically though, MIMO and DC-
HSPA can be used without the "+" enhancements of HSPA+
14) The CDMA2000 system, or IS-2000, including CDMA2000 1x and CDMA2000 High Rate
Packet Data (or EVDO), standardized by 3GPP2 (differing from the 3GPP), evolving from the
original IS-95 CDMA system, is used especially in North America, China, India, Pakistan,
Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Europe and Africa.
15) CDMA2000 1x Rev. E has an increased voice capacity (in excess of three times) compared
to Rev. 0 EVDO Rev. B offers downstream peak rates of 14.7 Mbit/s while Rev. C enhanced
existing and new terminal user experience.
While DECT cordless phones and Mobile WiMAX standards formally also fulfill the IMT-2000
requirements, they are not usually considered due to their rarity and unsuitability for usage with
mobile phones.
 Principles of cellular frequency reuse

In the cellular concept, frequencies allocated to the service are re-used in a regular
pattern of areas, called 'cells', each covered by one base station. In mobile-telephone nets
these cells are usually hexagonal. In radio broadcasting, a similar concept has been
developed based on rhombic cells.

To ensure that the mutual interference between users remains below a harmful
level, adjacent cells use different frequencies. In fact, a set of C different frequencies {f1,
...,fC} are used for each cluster of C adjacent cells. Cluster patterns and the corresponding
frequencies are re-used in a regular pattern over the entire service area.

Frequency reuse plan for C = 3, with hexagonal cells.

(i=1, j =1)

Frequency reuse plan for C = 7 (i=2, j =1).

The total bandwidth for the system is C times the bandwidth occupied by a single cell.

Real-World Cells

In the cellular concept, frequencies allocated to the service are re-used in a regular pattern of areas, called
'cells', each covered by one base station. In mobile-telephone nets these cells are usually hexagonal. In
radio broadcasting, a similar concept has been developed based on rhombic cells.

To ensure that the mutual interference between users remains below a harmful level, adjacent cells use
different frequencies. In fact, a set of C different frequencies {f1, ...,fC} are used for each cluster
of C adjacent cells. Cluster patterns and the corresponding frequencies are re-used in a regular pattern over
the entire service area.
 The closest distance between the centers of two cells using the same frequency (in
different clusters) is determined by the choice of the cluster size C and the lay-out of the cell
cluster. This distance is called the frequency’re-use' distance. It can be shown that the reuse
distance ru, normalized to the size of each hexagon, is
ru = SQRT{3 C}

For hexagonal cells, i.e., with 'honeycomb' cell lay-outs commonly used in mobile radio,
possible cluster sizes are C = i2 + ij + j2, with integer i and j (C = 1, 3, 4, 7, 9,...).
Integers i and j determine the relative location of co-channel cells.

Channel Assignment Strategies

In radio resource management for wireless and cellular networks, channel
allocation schemes allocate bandwidth and communication channels to base stations, access
points and terminal equipment. The objective is to achieve maximum system spectral
efficiency in bit/s/Hz/site by means of frequency reuse, but still assure a certain grade of
service by avoiding co-channel interference and adjacent channel interference among nearby
cells or networks that share the bandwidth.
Channel-allocation schemes follow one of two types of strategy:[1]

1. Fixed: FCA, fixed channel allocation: manually assigned by the network operator

2. Dynamic:
 1.DCA, dynamic channel allocation

2.DFS, dynamic frequency selection

3.Spread spectrum
In Fixed Channel Allocation or Fixed Channel Assignment (FCA) each cell is given a
predetermined set of frequency channels. FCA requires manual frequency planning, which is
an arduous task in TDMA andFDMA based systems, since such systems are highly sensitive
to co-channel interference from nearby cells that are reusing the same channel. Another
drawbackwith TDMA and FDMA systems with FCA is that the number of channels in the
cell remains constant irrespective of the number of customers in that cell. This result in
traffic congestion and some calls being lost when traffic gets heavy in some cells, and idle
capacity in other cells.
If FCA is combined with conventional FDMA and perhaps or TDMA, a fixed
number of voice channels can be transferred over the cell. A new call can only be connected
by an unused channel. If the entire channel are occupied than the new call is blocked in this
system. There are however several dynamic radio-resource management schemes that can be
combined with FCA. A simple form is traffic-adaptive handover threshold, implying that
calls from cell phones situated in the overlap between two adjacent cells can be forced to
make handover to the cell with lowest load for the moment. If FCA is combined with spread
spectrum, the maximum number of channels is not fixed in theory, but in practice a
maximum limit is applied, since too many calls would cause too high co-channel
interference level, causing the quality to be problematic. Spread spectrum allows cell
breathing to be applied, by allowing an overloaded cell to borrow capacity (maximum
number of simultaneous calls in the cell) from a nearby cell that is sharing the same
frequency.
FCA can be extended into a DCA system by using a borrowing strategy in which
a cell can borrow channels from neighboring cell which is supervised by Mobile Switching
Center (MSC).
Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) may be applied in wireless networks with several
adjacent non-centrally controlled access points. The access points automatically select
frequency channels with low interference levels. DFS is supported by the IEEE
802.11h wireless local area network standard. DFS is also mandated in the 5470-
5725 MHz U-NII band for radar avoidance.
A more efficient way of channel allocation would be Dynamic Channel
Allocation or Dynamic Channel Assignment (DCA) in which voice channel are not
allocated to cell permanently, instead for every call request base station request channel
from MSC. The channel is allocated following an algorithm which accounts the following
criteria:

• Future blocking probability in neighboring cells and Reuse distance

• Usage frequency of the candidate channel
• Average blocking probability of the overall system
• Instantaneous channel occupancy distribution
It requires the MSC to collect real time data on channel occupancy, traffic distribution
and Received Signal Strength Indications (RSSI). DCA schemes are suggested
for TDMA/FDMA based cellular systems such asGSM, but are currently not used in any
products. OFDMA systems, such as the downlink of 4G cellular systems, can be considered
as carrying out DCA for each individual sub-carrier as well as each timeslot.
DCA can be further classified into centralized and distributed. Some of the centralized DCA
schemes are:

• First available (FA): the first available channel satisfying reuse distance requirement is
assigned to the call
• Locally optimized dynamic assignment (LODA): cost function is based on the future
blocking probability in the neighboring cells
• Selection with maximum usage on the reuse ring (RING): a candidate channel is selected
which is in use in the most cells in the co-channel set
DCA and DFS eliminate the tedious manual frequency planning work. DCA also
handles bursty cell traffic and utilizes the cellular radio resources more efficiently. DCA
allows the number of channels in a cell to vary with the traffic load, hence increasing
channel capacity with little costs.
Improving Coverage and Capacity in Cellular Systems

When cellular service providers build their networks, their networks are designed
to provide coverage to the area of desire with the expectation of possible increase in
population in the near future. For example, a company may design a cellular network to
cover a city of area 1000 km2 with population of 1,000,000 people today assuming that
15% of the population will subscribe to their cellular service, or 150,000 people. However,
to accommodate possible increase in the percentage of subscribers or the same percentage
of subscribers but an increase in population, the network designer may build the network to
provide acceptable GOS for 200,000. Such move guarantees that the network will need any
expansion for possibly 5 years.
In some cases, it may be difficult to predict the need for network expansion or
even when network expansion is predictable, the time for network expansion arrives. There
are several techniques to expand an already existing network or to add more capacity to a
network being built. In the following we discuss two techniques.

Cell Splitting
We have seen that reducing the size of cells of a cellular system keeps the SIR
constant but results in an expansion of the network capacity because the smaller cells cover
less area and therefore more cells would be required to cover the whole region which directly
reflects on the network capacity. If the network is already functioning, it may be found that
the network needs expansion only in specific regions and not network‐wide expansion. In this
case, a cell (or multiple cells) can be split into smaller cells and frequencies are redistributed
in a way that does not cause additional interference. This is shown in the following figures.
The first figure shows a cell that has reached it capacity and needs to be split.
 This cell is split into several cells. Since the area of a cell is proportional to R2. So,
reducing the cell radius to one half of its original value, for example, the area of the cell
drops to one quarter of its original value. Therefore, theoretically, 4 of the smaller cells can
fit into 1 of the large cells. However, since it is not possible to fit 4 quarter‐size hexagonal
cells completely into 1 full‐size hexagonal cell, some regions will have to be covered by
adjacent cells.

Original Cell Distribution

Cell Distribution following the splitting of the cell labeled A in the upper figure

Note that following cell splitting, the new small cells are reassigned new
frequencies that do not cause co-channel interference with adjacent cells as shown in the
above figure. In addition, the power transmitted in the small cells is reduced compared to the
power transmitted in the large cells as it would require much less power to cover the cell
compared to the large cells. In fact the power has to be reduced by a factor of

For example, if the cell radius of the small cells is half the radius of the large cell and the
path loss exponent n=4, the power transmitted by the tower of the small cell is only 1/16 that
of power transmitted by the tower of the large cell. In addition to the advantage of having a
higher network capacity due to cell splitting, the reduced transmitted power, especially by
the mobile phone, is another major advantage because it increases the battery life of these
mobile phones. The main disadvantage of cell splitting is that it requires the construction of
new towers, which is very costly.
Sectoring

The sectoring technique increases the capacity via a different strategy. In this method, a
cell has the same coverage space but instead of using a single Omni‐directional antenna
that transmits in all directions, either 3 or 6 directional antennas are used such that each of
these antennas provides coverage to a sector of the hexagon. When 3 directional antennas
are used, 1200 sectoring is achieved (each antenna covers 1200), and when 6 directional
antennas are used, 600 sectoring is achieved (each antenna covers 600).

1200 cell Sectoring 600 Cell Sectoring

Dividing the cells into sectors actually reduces the network capacity because the
channels allocated to a cell are now divided among the different sectors. In fact, handoff takes
place when a cell phone moves from one sector to another in the same cell. The gain in network
capacity is achieved by reducing the number of interfering co‐channel cells. If sectoring is done in
120Cell
a way that channels assigned to a particular sector are always at the same direction in the different
Sectoring
cells (i.e., group A of channels is assigned to the sector to the left of the tower in all cells, and
group B of channels is assigned to the sector at the top of all cells, and so on), each sector causes
interference to the cells that are in its transmission angle only. Unlike the case of no sectoring
where 6 interfering co‐channel cells from the first‐tier co‐channels cells cause interference, with
1200 sectoring, 2 or 3 co‐channel cells cause interference and with 600 sectoring, 1 or 2 co‐channel
cells cause interference. The number of co‐channel interfering cells depends on the cluster shape
and size. By having less than 6 interfering first‐tier co‐channel cells causing interference, the SIR
is increased for the same cluster size. This allows us to reduce the cluster size and achieve the
same original SIR, which directly increases the network capacity.
Interference and System Capacity

Interference is the major limiting factor in the performance of cellular radio systems.
Sources of interference include another mobile in the same cell, a call in progress in a
neighboring cell, other base stations operating in the same frequency band, or any non-
cellular system which inadvertently leaks energy into the cellular frequency band.
Interference on voice channels causes cross talk, where the subscriber hears interference in
the background due to an undesired transmission. On control channels, interference leads to
missed and blocked calls due to errors in the digital signaling. Interference is more severe in
urban areas, due to the greater HF noise floor and the large number of base stations and
mobiles. Interference has been recognized as a major bottleneck in increasing capacity and
is often responsible for dropped calls. The two major types of system-generated cellular
interference are co-channel interference and adjacent channel interference. Even though
interfering signals are often generated 'within the cellular system, they are difficult to control
in practice (due to random propagationeffects). Even more difficult to control is interference
due to out-of-band users, which arises without warning due to front end overload of
subscriber equipment or intermittent intermodulation products. In practice, the transmitters
from competing cellular carriers are often a significant source of out-of-band interference,
since competitors often locate their base stations in close proximity to one another in order
to provide comparable coverage to customers.

Co-channel Interference and System Capacity

Frequency reuse implies that in a given coverage area there is several cells that use the
same set of frequencies. These cells are called co-channel cells, and the interference
between signals from these cells is called co-channel interference. Unlike thermal noise
which can be overcome by increasing the signal-to noise ratio (SNR), co-channel
interference cannot be combated by simplyIncreasing the carrier power of a transmitter
.This is because an increase in carrier transmit power increases the interference to
neighboring co-channel cells. To reduce co-channel interference, co-channel cells must be
physically separated by a minimum distance to provide sufficient isolation due to
propagation. When the size of each cell is approximately the same, and the base stations
transmit the same power, the co-channel interference ratio is independent of the
transmitted power and becomes a function of the radius of the cell (B) and the distance
between centers of the nearest co-channel cells (D). By increasing the ratio of DIR, the
spatial separation between co-channel cells relative to the coverage distance of a cell is
increased. Thus interference is reduced from improved isolation of HF energy from the
co-channel cell. The parameter Q, called the co channel reuse ratio, is related to the cluster
size. For a hexagonal geometry

A small value of Q provides larger capacity since the cluster size N is small, whereas a large
value of Q improves the transmission quality, due to a smaller level of co-channel
interference. A trade-off must be made between these two objectives in actual cellular
design.

Let i0 be the number of co-channel interfering cells. Then, the signal-to interference ratio
(S/I or SIR) for a mobile receiver which monitors a forward channel can be expressed as

Where S is the desired signal power from the desired base station and is the interference
power caused by the i th interfering co-channel cell base station. If the signal levels of
cochannel cells are known, then the S/I ratio for the forward link can be found using
equation Propagation measurements in a mobile radio channel show that the average
received signal strength at any point decays as a power law of the distance of separation
between a transmitter and receiver. The average received power Pr at a distance d from the
transmitting antenna is approximated by

Where P0 is the power received at a close-in reference point in the far field region of the
antenna at a small distance d0 from the transmitting antenna, and n is the path loss exponent.
Now consider the forward link where the desired signal is the serving base station and where
the interference is due to co-channel base stations. If Di is the distance of the i th interferer
from the mobile, the received power at a given mobile due to the i th interfering cell will be
proportional to (Di)n.The path loss exponent typically ranges between 2 and 4 in urban
cellular systems .

When the transmit power of each base station is equal and the path loss
exponent is the same throughout the coverage area, S/I for a mobile can be approximated as

Considering only the first layer of interfering cells, if all the interfering base stations are
equidistant from the desired base station and if this distance is equal to the distance D
between cell centers, then equation simplifies to
The above equation relates S/I to the cluster size N, which in turn determinesthe overall
capacity of the system from equation. For example, assume that the six closest cells are
close enough to create significant interference and that they are all approximately equal
distance from the desired base station. For theU.S. AMPS cellular system which uses FM
and 30 kHz channels, subjective tests indicate that sufficient voice quality is provided when
S/I is greater than or equal to 18 dB. Using equation it can be shown in order to meet this
requirement, the cluster size N should be at least 6.49, assuming a path loss exponent ii = 4.
Thus a minimum cluster size of 7 is required to meet an S/I requirement of 18 dB. It should
be noted that equation is based on the hexagonal cell geometry where all the interfering
cells are equidistant from the base station receiver, and hence provides an optimistic result in
many cases. For some frequency reuse plans (e.g. N = 4), the closest interfering cells vary
widely in their distances from the desired cell.
It can be seen for a 7-cell cluster, with the mobile unit is atthe cell boundary, the
mobile is a distance D –R from the two nearest co-channel interfering cells and
approximately D + R/2, D — R/2, and D + R from the other interfering cells in the first tier
[Lee86]. Using equation (2.9) and assuming n equals 4, the signal-to-interference ratio for
the worst case can be closely approximated as (an exact expression is worked out by
Jacobsmeyer.

Equation can be rewritten in terms of the co-channel reuse ratio Q, as

For N = 7, the co-channel reuse ratio Q is 4.6, and the worst case S/I is approximated as
49.56 (17 dB) using equation (2.11), whereas an exact solution using equation (2.8) yields
17.8 dB .Hence for a 7-cell cluster, the S/I ratio is slightly less than 18 dB for the worst
case. To design the cellular system for proper performance in the worst case, it would be
necessary to increase N to the next largest size, which from equation (2.3)is found to be 12
(corresponding to i = j = 2). This obviously entails a significant decrease in capacity, since
12- cell reuse offers a spectrum utilization of 1/12 within each cell, whereas 7-cell reuse
offers a spectrum utilization of 1/7. In practice, a capacity reduction of 7112would not be
tolerable to accommodate for the worst case situation which rarely occurs. From the above
discussion it is clear that co-channel interference determines link performance, which in turn
dictates the frequency reuse plan and the overall capacity of cellular systems

Adjacent Channel Interference

Interference resulting from signals which are adjacent in frequency to the desired signal is
called adjacent channel interference. Adjacent channel interference results from imperfect
receiver filters which allow nearby frequencies to leak into the pass band. The problem can
be particularly serious if an adjacent channel user is transmitting in very close range to a
subscriber's receiver, while the receiver attempts to receive a base station on the desired
channel. This is referred to as the near-far effect, where a nearby transmitter (which may or
may not be of the same type as that used by the cellular system) captures the receiver of the
subscriber. Alternatively, the near-far effect occurs when a mobile close toa base station
transmits on a channel close to one being used by a weak mobile. The base station may have
difficulty in discriminating the desired mobile user from the "bleedover" caused by the close
adjacent channel mobile.

Adjacent channel interference can be minimized through careful filtering and channel
assignments. Since each cell is given only a fraction of the available channels, a cell need
not be assigned channels which are all adjacent in frequency. By keeping the frequency
separation between each channel in a given cell as large as possible, the adjacent channel
interference may be reduced considerably. Thus instead of assigning channels which form a
contiguous band of frequencies within a particular cell, channels are allocated such that the
frequency separation between channels in a given cell is maximized. By sequentially
assigning successive channels in the frequency band to different cells, many channel
allocation schemes are able to separate adjacent channels in a cell by as many as N channel
bandwidths, where N is the cluster size. Some channel allocation schemes also prevent a
secondary source of adjacent channel interference by avoiding the use of adjacent channels
in neighboring cell sites. If the frequency reuse factor is small, the separation between
adjacent channels may not be sufficient to keep the adjacent channel interference level
within tolerable limits. For example, if a mobile is 20 times as close to the base station as
another mobile and has energy spill out of its pass band, the signal-to interference ratio for
the weak mobile (before receiver filtering) is approximately

S/I = (20)n
for a path loss exponent n = 4, this is equal to —52 dB. If the intermediatefrequency (IF)
filter of the base station receiver has a slope of 20 dB/octave, then an adjacent channel
interferer must be displaced by at least six times the passbandbandwidth from the center of
the receiver frequency passband to achieve52 dB attenuation. Here, a separation of
approximately six channel bandwidthsis required for typical filters in order to provide 0 dB
SIR from a close-in adjacentchannel user. This implies that a channel separation greater than
six is needed to bring the adjacent channel interference to an acceptable level, or tighter
basestation filters are needed when close-in and distant users share the same cell. Inpractice,
each base station receiver is preceded by a high Q cavity filter in orderto reject adjacent
channel interference.

Trunking and Grade of Service

In cellular mobile communication, the two major aspects that have to be considered with
extra care are: trunking, and grade of service. These aspects are to be planned very well in order to
get a better system performance. The grade of service is a standard which is used to define the
performance of a cellular mobile communication system by specifying a desired probability of a
mobile user acquiring channel access, when a definite number of radio channels are present in the
system. The cellular communication network depends on a trunking system to fit large number of
mobile users in a limited radio band. The statistical behavior of mobile users is being exploited by
trunking so that a fixed number of channels can be allocated to large mobile users. In trunking, large
number of mobile users is being accommodated to share the limited radio channels available in a
cell. In trunked cellular communication systems, each mobile user present in network is allocated a
channel on the basis of a request. After the call is terminated, the occupied channels immediately go
back to the pool of available channels. When a mobile user made a request for channels and if all of
the radio channels are occupied, then the incoming call is blocked. In few communication systems, a
queue is generally used to keep the requesting mobile users until a channel becomes free. The grade
of service (GOS) is used to determine the capability of a user to get access to trunked radio systems
during busy hours. The busy hour is generally based on customer’s request for channels during peak
load. It is, therefore, necessary to approximate the maximum required capacity in terms of
number of available channels and to allocate the appropriate number of channels in order to
meet the GOS. GOS is generally defined as the probability that a call is blocked. A call which
cannot get completed after the call request is made by a user is called a blocked or lost call, and
it may happen either due to channel congestion or due to the non-availability of a free channel.
Therefore, GOS can be computed from channel congestion which is defined as the call blocking
probability, or being delayed beyond a certain time.

The traffic intensity (Au Erlangs) generated by each user is

Au =λH
Where λ is the average number of calls generated per unit time and H is the average
duration of each call. If A is having U users and number of channels is not mentioned,
then the total offered traffic intensity A is
A = UAu
Additionally, if a trunked system is having C channels, and the traffic is equally divided
between the channels, then the intensity of traffic (Ac) for each radio channel is

Note that when the offered traffic goes past the maximum capacity of the system, the total
carried traffic gets very limited due to the limited number of channels. The maximum possible
carried traffic is the total number of channels, C, in Erlangs. The AMPS system is generally
developed for a GOS of 2% blocking and it shows that 2 out of 100 calls will be blocked
because channels are occupied during the busiest hour.

Different types of trunked radio systems commonly used in the networks are

In the first type, no queuing is offered for call requests i.e., for each user who requests service,
there exists no setup time and if free radio channel is available, it is immediately allocated to
the user. If all the channels are busy, then the requesting user is blocked. In this trunking
system, it is assumed that call arrival follows a Poisson distribution and the trunking is also
called blocked calls cleared. Moreover, it is also assumed that there are unlimited users
in the network and having the following additional features:

The channel request can be made at any time by all the mobile users (both new and
blocked users); (b) the probability of a user being allocated a channel is exponentially
distributed, therefore, occurrence of longer call duration is very unlikely as explained
by an exponential distribution; and (c) there are a fixed number of channels present in
the trunking pool, and it is known as an M/M/m queue, which leads us to the
derivation of the Erlang B formula. The Erlang B formula helps in finding the
probability that a call is blocked and also measures the GOS for a trunked radio system
which does not provide queuing for blocked calls.