Evolution of Mobile Cellular

Networks

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 It all started like this
First telephone (photophone) – Alexander
Bell, 1880
The first car mounted radio
telephone – 1921

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 Going further
1946 – First commercial mobile radio-telephone
service by Bell and AT&T in Saint Louis, USA.
Half duplex (PTT)
Push-to-talk cellular calls provide half-duplex
communications — while one person transmits, the
other(s) receive. This combines the operational
advantages of PTT with the interference resistance
and other virtues of mobile phones.

1973 – First handheld cellular phone – Motorola.

First cellular net Bahrein 1978

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 Introduction to cellular
network
A cellular network
Radio network distributed over land areas called
cells,
Each cell served by at least one fixed
location transceiver known as a cell site or base
station.
When joined together these cells provide radio
coverage over a wide geographic area.
This enables a large number of portable
transceivers (e.g., mobile phones, pagers, etc.) to
communicate with each other and with fixed
transceivers and telephones anywhere in the
network, via base stations, even if some of the
transceivers are moving through more than one
cell during transmission.
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 Some Cellular Terminology
 Cell
service area divided into small area known as cell
 Mobile
device
 Base station.
transmitter
 Mobile Switching Centre (MSC).
controls the network switching subsystem elements
 Handoff.
 handover or handoff refers to the process of
transferring an ongoing call or data session from
one channel connected to the core network to
another. In satellite communications it is the
process of transferring satellite control
6 responsibility from one earth station to another
without loss or interruption of service.
 Handoff/Handover
Mobile hosts can change cells while
communicating.
Hand-off occurs when a mobile host starts
communicating via a new base station.
 Handoff decision made based on signal
strength.

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 Cellular Fundamentals
System-level idea

Many low-power transmitters instead of single,

high power on (large cell).
 Service area divided into small cells covered by
each low power transmitter.
Each transmitter (or base station) allocated a
portion of the spectrum.
Nearby BSs assigned different channel group to
minimize interference.
Scalability: as more users subscribe, more BSs
can be
added using lower transmission power.
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 Why Cellular ?
Cellular networks offer a number of advantages
over alternative solutions:

 Wireless access (very convenient)

 Access from anywhere within the coverage
area.
 Reduced power use:
 Low power radio (hence better portability and more talk-
time per battery charge)
 “Spectral efficiency” (more users in a limited
frequency band) through frequency reuse:
 increased capacity
 larger coverage area
 reduced interference from other signals

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 Cellular principles
In a cellular radio system, a land area to be
supplied with radio service is divided into
regular shaped cells, which can be hexagonal,
square, circular or some other irregular shapes,
although hexagonal cells are conventional.
Each of these cells is assigned multiple
frequencies (f1 - f6) which have
corresponding radio base stations.
The group of frequencies can be reused in other
cells, provided that the same frequencies are
not reused in adjacent neighbouring cells as
that would cause co-channel interference. This
increased the capacity in a cellular network.

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 Cellular principles….
Example of frequency reuse factor or
pattern 1/4

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 Cont…
If there is a single plain transmitter, only
one transmission can be used on any given
frequency. There is some level of
interference from the signal from the other
cells which use the same frequency. This
means that, in a standard FDMA system,
there must be at least a one cell gap
between cells which reuse the same
frequency.

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  The key characteristic of a cellular network is the
ability to re-use frequencies to increase both coverage
and capacity.
 adjacent cells must use different frequencies, however
there is no problem with two cells sufficiently far apart
operating on the same frequency.
 The elements that determine frequency reuse are the
reuse distance and the reuse factor.

The reuse distance, D is calculated as

where R is the cell radius and N is the number of cells
per cluster. Cells may vary in radius in the ranges
(1 km to 30 km).

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 The frequency reuse factor is the rate at
which the same frequency can be used in
the network.
It is 1/K where K is the number of cells
which cannot use the same frequencies for
transmission. Common values for the
frequency reuse factor are 1/3, 1/4, 1/7, 1/9
and 1/12 (or 3, 4, 7, 9 and 12 depending on
notation).

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 Generations of Cellular Mobile
Communication
Cellular mobile communication has
generations:

Generation (0)
Generation # 1
Generation #2
Generation #2.5
Generation #3
Generation #4

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 Generation 0 (0g)
 Radio Telephone -1945

 Not officially categorized as mobile phones, since

they did not support the automatic change of
channel frequency during calls, which allows the user
to move from one cell (the base station coverage
area) to another cell, a feature called "handover".
 Technologies used in pre cellular systems included
the Push to Talk (PTT or manual), Mobile Telephone
System (MTS), Improved Mobile Telephone
Service (IMTS), and Advanced Mobile Telephone
System (AMTS) systems.

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 First generation
 Radio signals that 1G networks use are analog
[routines for sending voice] ,
 Mostly telephony only:
Virtually no data capability other than special device
with analog modem.
 In 1G network, voice calls were simply modulated to
a higher frequency, typically to 150MHz and up.
 No International roaming
 All systems are incompatible
 Little capacity – cannot accommodate masses of
subscribers
 This generation is now mostly obsolete.
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 First Generation Technology
Advanced Mobile Telephone System (AMPS)
 A total of 40MHz of spectrum was allocated from the 800MHz band
by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for AMPS. It was
first deployed in Chicago, with a service area of 2100 square miles .
 AMPS offered 832 channels, with a data rate of 10 kbps. Although
omnidirectional antennas were used in the earlier AMPS
implementation, it was realized that using directional antennas would
yield better cell reuse. A 7-cell reuse pattern was adopted
for AMPS.
 In Europe, TACS (Total Access Communications System)
was introduced with 1000 channels and a data rate of 8
kbps.
 AMPS and TACS use the frequency modulation (FM)
technique for radio transmission
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 Second Generation:
In 2G, voice communications were digitally
encrypted.
Allowed enhanced data services
The data capability includes Internet access and
picture sharing.
Introduced short messaging service (SMS).
Increased capacity
More security
Compatibility
Can use TDMA or CDMA for increasing capacity

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 A new design was introduced into the
mobile switching center of second-
generation systems.
The use of base station controllers (BSCs)
lightens the load placed on the MSC
(mobile switching center) found in first-
generation systems
In addition to enhancements in MSC
design, the mobile-assisted handoff
mechanism was introduced

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  Compared to first-generation systems, second-
generation (2G) systems use digital multiple access
technology
 One of the concepts in data communication is the idea of
allowing several transmitters to send information
simultaneously over a single communication channel.
This allows several users to share a band of frequencies
( bandwidth). This concept is called multiple access.
 Multiple access technology,
TDMA (time division multiple access) and
 CDMA (code division multiple access).
 Global System for Mobile Communications, or GSM , uses
TDMA technology to support multiple users
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 TDMA
Time Division Multiple Access
Each channel is divided into timeslots, each
conversation uses one timeslot.
Many conversations are multiplexed into a
single channel.
Used in GSM Global System for Mobile
Communication

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 CDMA
Code Division Multiple Access
All users share the same frequency all the
time!
To pick out the signal of specific user, this
signal is modulated with a unique code
sequence.

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 CDMA and TDMA
CDMA employs spread-spectrum technology
and a special coding scheme (where each
transmitter is assigned a code) to allow
multiple users to be multiplexed over the same
physical channel.
Time division multiple access (TDMA) divides
access by time, while frequency-division
multiple access (FDMA) divides it by frequency.
CDMA is a form of spread-spectrum signalling,
since the modulated coded signal has a much
higher data bandwidth than the data being
communicated.
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 Frequency Division Multiple
Access
Frequency Division Multiple Access or FDMA is
a channel access method used in multiple-access
protocols as a channelization protocol. FDMA gives users
an individual allocation of one or several frequency
bands, or channels. It is particularly common place
in satellite communication. FDMA, like other Multiple
Access systems, coordinates access between multiple
users
 In FDMA all users share the satellite simultaneously but
each user transmits at single frequency.
 FDMA can be used with both analog and digital signal.
 FDMA requires high-performing filters in the radio hardware,
in contrast to TDMA and CDMA.
 FDMA is not vulnerable to the timing problems
that TDMA has. Since a predetermined frequency band is
available for the entire period of communication, stream
data (a continuous flow of data that may not be packetized)
can easily be used with FDMA.
 Each user transmits and receives at different frequencies as
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each user gets a unique frequency slot
 Difference in TDMA,FDMA and
CDMA
An analogy to the problem of multiple access is a room
(channel) in which people wish to talk to each other
simultaneously. To avoid confusion, people could take
turns speaking (time division), speak at different
pitches (frequency division), or speak in different
languages (code division).
CDMA is analogous to the last example where people
speaking the same language can understand each
other, but other languages are perceived as noise and
rejected. Similarly, in radio CDMA, each group of users
is given a shared code. Many codes occupy the same
channel, but only users associated with a particular
code can communicate.
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 Examples of second-generation
systems are
Global System for Mobile (GSM) ,
 Cordless Telephone
 Personal Access Communications Systems
(PACS),
Digital European Cordless Telephone (DECT).
2G networks support voice and some limited
data communications, such as Fax and short
messaging service (SMS

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 2.5 G Mobile Systems
 The move into the 2.5G world will begin with
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS).
GPRS is a radio technology for GSM networks that
adds packet-switching protocols with
 shorter setup time for ISP connections,
 and the possibility to charge by the amount of data
sent, rather than connection time.
 Packet switching is a technique whereby the
information (voice or data) to be sent is broken up
into packets, of at most a few Kbytes each, which
are then routed by the network between different
destinations based on addressing data within each
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packet.
 2.5 G
The next generation of data heading towards third
generation and personal multimedia environments
builds on GPRS and is known as Enhanced Data
rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE).
2.75G was the name given to the evolution of
EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) or
Enhanced GPRS (EGPRS).
 EDGE allow GSM operators to use existing GSM
radio bands to offer wireless multimedia IP-based
services and applications at theoretical maximum
speeds of 384 kbps with a bit-rate of 48 kbps per
timeslot and up to 69.2 kbps per timeslot in good
radio conditions.
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 2.5 G (Cont…)
Implementing EDGE will be relatively
painless as it will require relatively small
changes to network hardware and software
as it uses the same TDMA frame structure,
logic channel and 200 kHz carrier
bandwidth as today's GSM networks.
As EDGE progresses to coexistence with 3G
wideband -CDMA, data rates of up to ATM
like speeds of 2 Mbps could be available.

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 Third Generation
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a
generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile
Telecommunication services fulfilling the International
Mobile Telecommunications-2000 (IMT-
2000) specifications by the International
Telecommunication Union .
 Application services include wide-area wireless
voice telephone, mobile Internet access, video
calls and mobile TV, all in a mobile environment.
 3G: voice (circuit-switched) & data (packet-switched)
 Third generation offers multi-media communication
capabilities, at higher bit rates, with improved spectrum
efficiency.
 The EDGE standard is the development of GSM towards 3G.
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 Third Generation Technology
 Digital system with multimedia services including video
phone and relatively higher speed (say up to 1 Mbps)
Internet access.
 Permanent web connection upto 2Mbps
 Internet, phone and media: 3 in 1
 The standard based on GSM is called UMTS.
 Universal Mobile Telecommunications System
(UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular technology
for networks based on the GSM standard.

 3G has just been launched in India and is available on

select mobile operators for select cities. But to access
these services, a 3G compatible mobile phone is required.

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 3G used completely different radio frequencies
from 2G, so it required different equipment to
achieve the new high data transfer rates. Also,
the enormous costs of additional spectrum
licensing fees delayed the introduction of 3G in
many countries.
3G data transfer rates are 384kbits/s to 2Mbits/s,
so it allows for previously unavailable services
like video calls, video conferencing, online
conference call, mobile TV, online gaming etc.

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 Fourth Generation
An acronym for Fourth-Generation Communications
System, is a term used to describe the next step in
wireless communications.
A 4G system will be able to provide a
comprehensive IP solution where voice, data and
streamed multimedia can be given to users on an
"Anytime, Anywhere" basis, and at higher data
rates than previous generations.
4G mobile phones are all set to provide data
transfer rates of 100Mbit/s to 1Gbit/s,

Digital system with voice over-IP (VOIP) technology. That

is, the services are integrated into all IP network.
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 Fourth Generation
Technology
One of the main ways in which 4G differed
technologically from 3G was in its elimination
of circuit switching, instead employing an all-IP
network.
4G ushered in a treatment of voice calls just like
any other type of streaming audio media,
utilizing packet switching
over internet, LAN or WAN networks via VoIP.

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