Cellular Concept’s

Fundamentals

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Associate Professor, IU

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Introduction

 Early Mobile Radio systems:

 Large coverage area

 Single high powered transmitter on tall tower
 Had very limited capacity since frequencies could not be reused due to
interference

 Cellular Concept:

 Replace single, high power transmitter (large cell) with many low power
transmitters (small cells), each providing coverage to only a small
portion of coverage area
 Adjacent cells assigned different group of frequency channels
 The available channels are re-used, as long as interference between co-
channel stations is kept below acceptable levels.

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse

 Cellular systems rely on an intelligent allocation and reuse of channels

throughout a coverage region.

 Each cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels to be

used in a small geographic area called a cell.

 Adjacent cells must use different channels.

 The design process of selecting and allocating channel groups for all the
cellular base stations within a system is called frequency reuse or
frequency planning.

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)
 Two main factors to consider during frequency planning:

 Interference between co-channel

 Channel capacity

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)

 The hexagon shape of base

station coverage area is an
approximation and has been
adopted for easy and
manageable analysis of cellular
systems

 The actual coverage area of a

cell is known as the footprint
and is determined from field
measurements or propagation
models.

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)
 Consider a cellular system with ‘S’ duplex
channels. If each cell is allocated a group of ‘k’
channels (k<S), and if the ‘S’ channels are divided
among ‘N’ cells into unique and disjoint channel
groups with each have the same number of
channels, the total number of available radio
channels can be expressed as
S = kN

 The ‘N’ cells which collectively use the complete set

of available frequencies is called a ‘cluster’. If a
cluster is replicated ‘M’ times within the system, the
total number of duplex channels, ‘C’ can be used as
a measure of capacity and is given by

C = MkN = MS

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)
 As seen from Eqn-2 the capacity of a cellular
system is directly proportional to ‘M’, the number
of times a cluster is replicated in a fixed service
area.

 The factor ‘N’ is called the ‘cluster size’ and is

typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.

 If ‘N’ is reduced while the cell size is kept constant,

more clusters are required to cover a given area,
and hence more capacity is achieved.

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)

Reuse Total No. of cells =49(approx) Reuse Total No. of cells =49(approx)
Cluster size (N) = 3 Cluster size (N) = 7
Total Clusters (M) = 16 Total Clusters (M) = 7
Channels/Cluster (S) = 100 Channels/Cluster (S) = 100
Capacity (C) = 100*16 = 1600 Channels Capacity (C) = 100*7 = 700 Channels

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)
 Small Cluster Size:

 Small Co-channel cell separation

 Large capacity
 High interference level

 Large Cluster Size:

 Large Co-channel cell separation

 Small capacity
 Low interference level

 The value of ‘N’ (Cluster Size) is a function of how much interference a

mobile or base station can tolerate while maintaining a sufficient
quality of communication

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)

 The geometry of hexagons is such that the number

of cells per cluster, ‘N’ can only have values which
satisfy
N = i2 + ij + j2

where i and j are non-negative integers.

 To find the nearest co-channel neighbours of a

particular cell, one must do the following:

 Move i cell along any chain of hexagon

 Turn 60 counter clock-wise and move j cells

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Frequency Reuse (Cont…)

i=3
j=2
N =19

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Example
 If a total of 33 MHz of bandwidth is allocated to a particular FDD
cellular telephone system which uses two 25 kHz simplex channels to
provide full duplex voice and control channels, compute the number
of channels available per cell if a system uses (a) 4-cell reuse, (b) 7-cell
reuse, and (c) 12-cell reuse. If 1 MHz of the allocated spectrum is
dedicated to control channels, determine an equitable distribution of
control channels and voice channels in each cell for each of the three
systems.

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Problem

 If 20 MHz of total spectrum is allocated for a duplex wireless cellular

system and each simplex channel has 25 kHz RF bandwidth, find:
(a) the number of duplex channels
(b) the total number of channels per cell site, if N = 4 cell reuse is
used

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Channel Assignment Strategies

 A variety of channel assignment schemes have been developed to

increase capacity and minimize interference. It is broadly classified as:

 Fixed Channel Assignment

 Dynamic Channel Assignment

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Fixed Channel Assignment
 Each cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice channels
 If all the channels in a cell are occupied then any call attempts from
within that cell are blocked and the subscriber does not receive service
 Several approaches exist in this situation, like:

 Delaying and send wait signal to the subscriber

 Borrowing Strategy

 In Borrowing Strategy

 A cell is allowed to ‘borrow’ channels from neighbouring cells if all of its

channels are already occupied
 Borrowing takes place under supervision of the MSC* ensuring that
borrowing does not disrupt with any calls in progress in donor cell
 Borrowing only possible when donor cell have ‘free’ channel available
at that time
*MSC = Mobile Switching Center

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Dynamic Channel Assignment

 Voice channels are not allocated to different cells permanently

 Each time a call request is made, the serving base station requests a
channel from the MSC
 The MSC allocates a channel to the requested cell keeping in
consideration cost functions such as:

 The frequency of use of the candidate channel

 The reuse distance of the channel
 Likelihood of future blocking within the cell

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Fixed Vs. Dynamic Channel Assignment
 Fixed Channel Assignment

 Increased blocking possibility

 Decrease channel utilization in the system
 No real time data required by MSC
 No heavy computational load on MSC
 Less storage capacity required on MSC
 Simple computational Algorithm used

 Dynamic Channel Assignment

 Reduces the blocking probability in the system

 Increases channel utilization in the system
 Requires the MSC to collect real time data on channels occupancy,
traffic distribution and Radio Signal Strength Indications (RSSI) of all
channels on continuous basis
 Increase computational load on MSC
 Huge storage capacity required on MSC
 Complex computational Algorithm used
Muhammad Zubair Ahmad
Handoff Strategies
 Handoff

 A Handoff occurs when a mobile moves into a different cell while a

conversation is in progress, the MSC automatically transfers the call
to a new channel belonging to the new base station.
 Handoff must be performed successfully and as infrequent as possible
 System designers must specify an optimum signal level at which to
initiate a handoff
 Once a particular signal level is specified as the minimum usable
signal for acceptable voice quality at the base station receiver, a
slightly stronger signal level is used as a threshold at which a handoff
is made
 Normally the minimum acceptable voice level is considered between
-90 dBm and -100 dBm, but it varies from service provider to service
provider
 This margin is given as Δ = Pr handoff – Pr minimum usable
 This margin must not be too small or too large
 If Δ is too small, there may be insufficient time to complete handoff. If
it is too large, unnecessary handoffs occur which burden MSC

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)
 The call drop event can happen when Δ is set too small or when there is
an excessive delay by the MSC in assigning a handoff.
 Probable causes for excessive delays:

 Computational load on the MSC

 Unavailability of channels on nearby base stations

So,

If Δ is too large Unnecessary Handoffs causing

burden on MSC

Insufficient time to complete

If Δ is too small Handoff. Call terminated due to
weak signal conditions

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)
 There are various factors on which designing of Handoff Strategies
depend. The most important are:

 Average Signal Strength

 Dwell Time Statistics

Before explaining the above two factors; first, we have to define Fading and
Dwell Time

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

 Fading
 Small scale fading or simply fading, is used to describe the rapid
fluctuations of the amplitudes, phases or multi-path delays of a radio
signal over a short period of time or travel distance

 Dwell Time

 The time over which a call may be maintained within a cell, without
handoff, is called the dwell time

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

 Average Signal Strength

 In deciding when to handoff it is important to ensure that the drop in
the measured signal level is not due to momentary fading
 In order to ensure this, the base station monitors the signal level for a
certain period of time before a handoff is initiated
 This running average measurement of signal strength should be
optimized to avoid unnecessary handoff and at the same time should
ensure that necessary handoffs are completed before the termination of
the call due to poor signal strength
 The length of the time needed to decide a handoff depends upon the
speed of the mobile station
 Information regarding the speed of the mobile station can be computed
using the statistics of the received short term fading signal at the base
station

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

 Dwell Time Statistics

 The dwell time of a particular user is governed by a number of factors,
including propagation, interference, distance between the subscriber
and the base station and other time varying effects
 Even when a mobile user is stationary, ambient motion in the vicinity of
the base station and the mobile can produce fading; thus even a
stationary subscriber may have a random and finite dwell time
 The Statistics of Dwell Time vary greatly, depending upon the speed of
the user and type of radio coverage

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

 Handoff in (1G) Analog Cellular Systems

 Signal Strength measured at BS
 Supervised by MSC
 Locator Receiver in each base station used to scan and determine signal
strengths of mobile users in neighbouring cells which appear to be in
need of handoff

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

 Handoff in (2G) Cellular Systems (MAHO)

 Mobile Assisted Handover (MAHO)
 Signal Strength measured at Mobile Station (MS)
 Much faster handover than 1G systems since workload on MSC is
reduced
 MAHO is particularly suited for microcellular environments where
handoffs are more frequent

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)
 Inter System Handoff
 If a Mobile Station moves from one cellular system to a different
cellular system controlled by different MSC, an inter system handoff
becomes necessary
 There are many issues that must be addressed when implementing an
intersystem hand off. For instance, a local call may become a long
distance call as the mobile moves out of its home system and becomes a
roamer in neighbouring system
 The respective two MSCs pass different information like HLR*, VLR*
etc.

*HLR = Home Location Register

*VLR = Visitor Location Register

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)
 Inter System Handoff
 If a Mobile Station moves from one cellular system to a different
cellular system controlled by different MSC, an inter system handoff
becomes necessary
 There are many issues that must be addressed when implementing an
intersystem hand off. For instance, a local call may become a long
distance call as the mobile moves out of its home system and becomes a
roamer in neighbouring system
 The respective two MSCs pass different information like HLR*, VLR*
etc.

*HLR = Home Location Register

*VLR = Visitor Location Register

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)
Y

C2 (i, j)
j

D i

C1 (0, 0) 30
X
X1 X2

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad

Handoff Strategies (Cont…)

Muhammad Zubair Ahmad