Wireless Communication

Technologies

Introduction
 Outline

❑ Introduction
• What is wireless and mobile networking
• History of Wireless
• Challenges of Mobile and Wireless Communication
❑ Cellular concepts
• Frequency reuse
• Handoff
• Interference and system capacity
• Sectoring
• cell splitting
 What is Wireless communication?

❑ Transmitting voice and data using electromagnetic waves in open space

❑ Electromagnetic waves
• Travel at speed of light (c = 3x10^8 m/s)
• Has a frequency (f) and wavelength ( λ)

c = f
❑ The information from sender to receiver is carrier over a well defined
frequency band-called a channel
❑ Each channel has a fixed frequency bandwidth (in KHz) and Capacity (bit-
rate)
❑ Different frequency bands (channels) can be used to transmit information in
parallel and independently.
 Why wireless?

❑Freedom from wires

No cost of installing the wires, No bunches of wires running around e.g. Bluetooth ,
Wi-Fi
❑ Global coverage
where wires communication is not feasible or costly e.g. rural areas, battle field,
vehicle and outer space (through sattelite).
❑Stay Connected
Any where any time. Rapidly growing market attests to public need for mobility and
uninterrupted access, e.g., business card
❑ Flexibility
Service reach you wherever you go (mobility). Connect to multiple devices
simultaneously
 Background of Wireless communication

❑ Ancient Systems: Smoke Signals, Carrier Pigeons…

❑ Using light and flags for wireless communication remained important for the
navy until radio transmission was introduced. Even today a sailor has to know
some codes represented by flags if all other means of wireless communication
fail.
❑ James C Maxwell ( 1831- 1879) laying the theoretical foundation for EM fields
with his famous equations
❑ Heinrich Hertz (1857- 1894 ) was the first to demonstrate the wave character
of electrical transmission through space (1886).(Note Today the unit Hz reminds
us of this discovery).
❑ Radio invented in the 1880s by Marconi
❑ The first transatlantic transmission followed in 1901.
❑ WARC – World Administration Radio Conference took place, coordinating
world wide use of radio frequencies
❑ The 1st radio broadcast took place in 1906 when Reginald A Fessenden
transmitted voice and music for Christmas
 Background of ..................

❑ The invention of electronic vacuum tube in 1906 by Lee De Forest ( 1873-

1961) &Robert Von Lieben ( 1878 –1913 )Helped to reduce the size of sender and
receiver.
❑ One of the 1st mobile transmitter was on board at Zeppelin in 1911
❑ In 1915 , the first wireless voice transmission was set up between New York
and San Francisco
❑ The 1st commercial radio station started in 1920
–Sender & Receiver still needed huge antennas High transmission power.
❑In 1926, the first telephone in a train was available on the Berlin – Hamburg
line
❑ 1928 was the year of many field trials for TV broadcasting. John L Baird ( 1888
– 1946 ) transmitted TV across Atlantic and demonstrated color TV
❑ Until 1932 , all wireless communication used AM which offered relatively
poor quality due to interference.
 Background of ..................

❑ Invention of FM in 1933 by Edwin H Armstrong [ 1890 -1954 ] .

❑ Both the modulation schemes are still used for today's radio broadcasting with
FM having much better quality.
❑ 1946, Public Mobile in 25 US cities, high power transmitter on large tower.
Covers distance of 50 Km. Push to talk, uses 120khz of RF bandwidth.
❑1950 channels doubled and BW 60KHz, and by 1960 4times increase, BW 30khz
❑ After 2nd world war (in 1958) ,a network in Germany was build namely the
analog A- Netz using a carrier frequency of 160 Mhz.
❑ Connection setup was only possible from the mobile station and no handover
was possible
❑ 1982: Groupe Spéciale Mobile was launched to develop standards for pan-
European mobile network
❑ GSM now stands for Global System for Mobile Communications
❑ 1992 Official commercial launch of GSM in Europe
❑ 1995 GSM specifications ported to PCS 1900 and 1997 - Wireless LANs
❑ 1998 - Specification for next generation CDMA starts Qualcomm starts work on
wideband CDMA spec.
 Background of ..................

❑ 2000 - Bluetooth with 1Mbit/s specification, single cell Later work on 10Mbit/s
spec with multi cell capability
❑ In 2002 Camera phones are first introduced in the U.S. market.
❑ In 2005 mobile phone subscribers exceed fixed phone subscriber.
❑ iTunes Application Store (July) and Android Market (October) open in 2008
❑ In 2010 First 4G handset is introduced at International CTIA WIRELESS show.
❑ In 2010 Apple introduced the iPad, another revolution in portable “tablet”
computing.
❑ In 2010 FCC proposes National Broadband Plan, recommending 500 MHz of
spectrum be allocated for commercial use by 2020.
❑ In 2012 the number of subscriber reaches 1 million.
 Types of wireless communication systems

❑ Mobile: cellular phones (GSM, CDMA-2000)

❑ Portable: IEEE 802.11b (WiFi), IEEE 802.15.3 (UWB)
❑ Fixed: IEEE 802.16 (wireless MAN)

Typical Frequencies

Services Operating frequency

FM radio ~88 MHz

TV broadcast ~200 MHz
GSM ~900 MHz
GPS ~1.2 GHz
PCS phones ~1.8 GHz
Bluetooth ~2.4 GHz
WiFi ~2.4 GHz
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Electromagnetic Spectrum
 Wavelength of Some Technologies

❑ GSM Phones:

frequency ~= 900 Mhz

wavelength ~= 33cm
❑PCS Phones
frequency ~= 1.8 Ghz
wavelength ~= 17.5 cm
❑Bluetooth:
frequency ~= 2.4GHz
wavelength ~= 12.5cm
Federal Communications
Commission(FCC)
 Types of wireless communication

❑ Radio Transmission: easily generated, omnidirectional travel long distance,

easily penetrates buildings
--Frequency dependent, relative low bandwidth for data communication, tightly
licensed by government
❑ Microwave transmission: widely used for long distance communication, give
high S/N ratio, inexpensive
--do not pass through building walls, weather and frequency dependent
❑ Infrared and millimetre wave: widely used for short range communication
(~10m). e.g., indoor wireless LAN
❑ Lightwave transmission: unguided optical signal such as LASER used for
communication
connected two LAN in two buildings via LASER mounted on their roof.
Range comparison
Data rate from 1G to 5G
 Transmission mode

❑ Simplex : a station can transmit only in one way.

❑ Half duplex : Sender can send the data and also can receive the data but
one at a time.
❑ Full-duplex : To enable two-way communication
We can use Frequency Division Multiplexing
We can use Time Division Multiplexing

FDD: Frequency Division Duplex

 TDD: Time Division Duplex

A singe frequency channel is used. The channel is divided into time slots.
Mobile station and base station transmits on the time slots alternately
 Simple wireless communication system

Information to be
transmitted Coding Modulator Power Amplifier
(voice data)

Carrier

Information
Decoding Demodulator LNA
received

Carrier
 Wireless Communication Systems

❑ Cellular Telephony
❑ Wireless LANs
❑ Satellite systems
❑ Paging Messaging Systems
❑ PANs (Bluetooth)

Cellular Telephony

❑ The coverage area is divided into

small hexagonal cells
❑ Each cell has base station at the
centre
Wireless LAN
Paging System
Cordless Telephones
 Personal Area Network

Bluetooth

❑ Cable replacement of RF technology

❑ Short range typically from 10 m to 100 m
❑ 2.4 GHz band
❑ 1 MBPS data shared between 7 devices
❑ TDD duplex scheme

Emerging Wireless system

❖Ad-hoc network
❖ Sensor network
❖ Distributed over wireless network
❖ Ultra wideband communication
 Multiple Access

❑ Allow many user to share a finite amount of radio spectrum

❑ The sharing of spectrum is required to achieve the high capacity by
simultaneously allocating the bandwidth
❑ There should not be severe degradation in the performance (like QoS)

Frequency division multiple access (FDMA)

 Multiple Access

Time division multiple access (TDMA) code division multiple access (TDMA)
Multiple Access

Three user communicating with base station

 Cellular Networks: Evolution

First generation (1G)

❑ Launch in the mid of 1980 and were Analog system

❑ Frequency modulation based
❑ designed to handle voice traffic only
❑ FDMA/FDD multiple access
❑ Confined to national boundaries only e.g. AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone
Service)

Second generation (2G)

❑ Developed for voice communication

❑ Digital system and uses digital modulation scheme (GMSK)
❑ TDMA/FDD and CDMA/FDD multiple access scheme
❑ Provides data rates of the order of ~10 Kbps
 Cellular Networks: Evolution

Examples of Second generation systems

❑ Global system for mobile communication (GSM)

▪ TDMA/FDMA
▪ 900 MHz and 1800 MHz
❑ Personal Digital communication (PDC)
▪Popular in Japan
❑ IS-95
CDMA
US and south korea
❑ Provides data rates of the order of ~10 Kbps
 Cellular Networks: Evolution

Limitation of 2G

❑ Developed for voice communication and unsuitable for data traffic

❑ Average rate of the order of 10 Kbps
❑ Not suitable for internet access as that is based on packet switched service
❑ Multiple standard (no true global coverage)

2.5 G

❑ The effort remove the limitation of 2G resulted in 2.5 G

❑ Digital system
❑ Internet access through GPRS
❑ Enhanced data rate for global evolution (EDGE): uses better modulation scheme
 Cellular Networks: Evolution

3G
❑ Digital modulation
❑ Simultaneous voice and high speed data transmission
❑ voice activated calls
❑ Multimedia transmission
❑ WCDMA, CDMA-2000 ~384Kbps
❑ 3.5 G
1 EVDO 5-30Mbps

4G
❑ Digital modulation
❑ Technology: LTE
100-200Mbps
❑ WiMax ~100 Mbps
❑ Online gaming, HDTV
 Transmission capacity

Terminology

❑ Mobile ❑ Cells
❑ Portable ❑ control channel
❑ Subscriber ❑ Forward channel (Downlink)
❑ Base station ❑ Reverse channel (Uplink)
 Wireless System Definitions

Mobile Station A station in the cellular radio service intended for use while in
motion at unspecified locations. They can be either handheld personal units
(portables e.g. a walkie-talkie or cordless) or cell phone in fast moving vehicles
(mobiles)
❑ Base station A fixed station in a mobile radio system used for radio
communication with the mobile stations. Base stations are located at the center or
edge of a coverage region. They consists of radio channels and transmitter and
receiver antennas mounted on top of a tower.
 Wireless System Definitions

Mobile Switching Center Switching center which coordinates the routing of calls in
a large service area. In a cellular radio system, the MSC connections the cellular
base stations and the mobiles to the PSTN (telephone network). It is also called
Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO)
Subscriber A user who pays subscription charges for using a mobile communication
system
Transceiver A device capable of simultaneously transmitting and receiving radio
signal
 Wireless System Definitions
Control Channel Radio channel used for transmission of call setup, call request,
call initiation and other beacon and control purposes.
Forward Channel Radio channel used for transmission of information from the
base station to the mobile
Reverse Channel Radio channel used for transmission of information from
mobile to base station
 Cellular System: Basic

❑ High capacity is achieved by limiting the

coverage of each base station to small
geographic region called cell
❑ Same freq./code/time are used by spatially
separated base station
❑ A switching technique called hand-off
enables a call to proceed uninterrupted one
user moves from one cell to another cell
❑ Resolves the problem of limited radio
spectrum neighbouring base stations are
assigned different group of channels so as to
minimize the interference
❑ Systematically spacing of base station and
channel group, allows same channel group to
be used as many number of time as required
Call to Mobile Initiated by PSTN
Mobile initiated Call
 Mobile initiated Call
Capacity= M x K
Interference if all cells use same set of frequencies

R
1 2

Which cell to use?

 Single Cell

Single Cell with K channels Cluster N cells, with Each cell

J = K / N channels
 The Cellular Concept

Cellular concept is a system level idea which calls for replacing a

single , high power transmitter with low power small transmitters
with each providing coverage to only a small portion of service
area
Each base station is allocated a portion of total no of channels
available to entire system
Nearby base station are assigned different groups of channels so
that all the available channels are assigned to a relatively small
no. of neighboring base stations
Nearby BS are assigned different groups of channel so that
interference bt. BS is minimized
The Cellular Concept

Cluster of 7 cells

cell
 Frequency reuse

• Each cellular base station is allocated a group of radio channels within a small
geographic area called a cell.
• Neighboring cells are assigned different channel groups.
• By limiting the coverage area to within the boundary of the cell, the channel
groups may be reused to cover different cells.
• Keep interference levels within tolerable limits.
• Frequency reuse or frequency planning

“The design process of selecting and allocating channel groups for all of the
cellular base station within a system is FREQUENCY REUSE/PLANNING”
 Frequency reuse

• Consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex channels.

• Each cell is allocated a group of k channels, .
• The S channels are divided among N cells.
• The total number of available radio channels
S=kN
• The N cells which use the complete set of channels is called cluster.
• The cluster can be repeated M times within the system. The total
number of channels, C, is used as a measure of capacity
C=MkN=MS
• The capacity is directly proportional to the number of replication M.
• The cluster size, N, is typically equal to 4, 7, or 12.
• Small N is desirable to maximize capacity.
• The frequency reuse factor is given by
 Frequency reuse

• Hexagonal geometry has

– exactly six equidistance neighbors
– the lines joining the centers of any cell and each of its neighbors are
separated by multiples of 60 degrees.
• Only certain cluster sizes and cell layout are possible.
• The number of cells per cluster, N, can only have values which satisfy

N=i2+ij+j2
 Cluster size

A F

C
D E

A A E B

B G C

A
C C
F D
A
E

Eg for i=1,j=1
Eg for i=2,j=1

The factor N is called the cluster size and is given N=i2+ij+j2

 Cell reuse

i
A

i=1, j=2 , N=1+2+4=7

 Cell reuse

Method of locating co-channel cells in a cellular system. In this example, N = 19 (i.e., I = 3, j = 2). (Adapted
from [Oet83] © IEEE.)
 Cell reuse

For hexagonal cells, reuse distance is given by

D = 3N R

Co-channel Reuse ratio or reuse factor

D
Q = = 3N
R
Smaller N is greater capacity
Handoffs – the basics
 Handoffs – the basics

Larger  results in unnecessary handoffs, burdens MSC too small  may result in
loss of c
Umbrella Cells
 Numerical problems

1. If a total of 33MHz of bandwidth is allocated to a particular 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 per cell if a
system uses
(a)4-cell reuse (b) 7-cell reuse (c) 12-cell use

If 1 MHz of the allocated spectrum is dedicated to control channels, determine

equitable distribution of control channels and voice channel in each cell for each of
the system.
 Definition of some term to characterize the system

Setup time: The time required to allocate a radio channel

Blocked call: A call that can not be completed at the time of request due to congestion
Holding time: Average duration of a typical call
Request rate (λ): The average number of call per unit time
Traffic intensity: measure of time channel time utilization (Erlang)
Load intensity: Traffic intensity across the entire radio system
Erlang: A channel kept busy for one hour is defined as having load of one Erlang.
Grade of service: It is measure of congestion which is specified as a probability

Two measure of grade of service

❑ The probability of a call being blocked (Erlang B)
❑ The probability of a call being delayed beyond a certain time (Erlang C)
 Traffic theory

Average number of mobile user (MS) requesting service (request per unit time)
Average arrival rate=λ
Average time for which MS require service
Average holding time=T
Offered load, a= λT
e.g., In a cell with 100 MS, on an average 30 request are generated during an hour
(3600), with average holding time, T=360 seconds (6 minutes)
Therefore average arrival rate,
λ=30/3600 request/sec
offered load, a=(30/3600)*360/call
 Traffic theory

Average arrival rate during short period of time, t is given by λt

Assuming Poisson distribution of service requests, the probability P(n,t) of n calls to
arrive in an interval of length of time t is given by

(  t ) n − t
P(n, t ) = e
n!

Assume μ to be the service rate, probability of each call to terminate during an interval t
is given by μt
Thus the probability of a given call requires service for time t or less is given by

S (t ) = 1 − e − t
 Traffic theory

Thus the probability of a given call being blocked is

as 1
B ( s, a ) =
s! s
ak

k = 0 k!

Where s is the number of channel in the group

Probability of an arrived called being delayed
as
( s − 1)!( s − a )
C ( s, a ) = s −1
as at
+
( s − 1)!( s − a ) t =0 t!
 Traffic theory

Efficiency=traffic nonblocked/capacity
=Erlangs*no of non routed traffic/(number of trunks)
E.g. Consider a cell with
s=2 channels, 100 mobile station, generating on an average 30 requests/hour
Average holding time, T=360 seconds
 Channel assignment Strategy

❑Channel assignment strategies deal with the efficient utilization of radio spectrum
through a frequency reuse scheme whose objective is to increase capacity as well as
keep interference level as low as possible.

fixed channel assignment: Each cell is assigned a predetermined set of voice channels.
-----if all the channels in the cell are occupied, a newly generated call is blocked
------In another approach, a cell is allowed to borrow channels from a neighboring cell
if all its own channels are already occupied. The mobile switching center (MSC)
supervises such borrowing and also ensures that services in the donor cell are not
disrupted due to borrowing.

Dynamic channel assignment: channels are not assigned to the cells permanently.
Instead, serving base station, on receipt of a call request, asks for a channel in the MSC.
MSC based on certain considerations allocates channel Dynamic channel assignment
reduces the likelihood of blocking. However in this scheme MSC is required to collect
real time data on channel occupancy and traffic distribution
 Co-channel Interfering cells

First Tier
Interfering cells
 CELL SPLITTING

Split congested cell into smaller cells.

❑ Preserve frequency reuse plan
❑ Reduce transmission power
 Traffic theory

• Transmission power reduction from Pt1to Pt 2

• Examining the receiving power at the new and old cell boundary
Pr [at old cell boundary]  Pt1R − n

Pr [at new cell boundary]  Pt 2 ( R / 2) − n

• If we take n = 4 (path loss) and set the received power equal to each other
Pt1
Pt 2 =
16
• The transmit power must be reduced by 12 dB in order to fill in the original
coverage area.
• Problem:
if only part of the cells are splited
– Different cell sizes will exist simultaneously
• Handoff issues - high speed and low speed traffic can be simultaneously
accommodated
Cell Splitting
 Cell Sectoring

• Decrease the co-channel interference and keep the cell radius R unchanged
– Replacing single omni-directional antenna by several directional antennas
– Radiating within a specified sector

position of the
mobile

interference cells
 Microcell Zone Concept

• Antennas are placed at the outer edges of the cell

• Any channel may be assigned to any zone by the base station
• Mobile is served by the zone with the strongest signal.

• Handoff within a cell

– No channel re-assignment
– Switch the channel to a
different zone site
• Reduce interference
– Low power transmitters are
employed