Global System for

Mobile(GSM)

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• GSM development was started in 1982.
• For a pan-European digital mobile communication
system. Two goals were supposed to be achieved:
(i) First, a better and more efficient technical solution
for wireless communications.
(ii) a single standard was to be realized all over Europe,
enabling roaming across borders.
In the following years, several companies developed
proposals for such a system in different technical areas.

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For multiple access: Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA),
Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA), and Code Division
Multiple Access (CDMA) were suggested.
• FDMA could not be employed, as it would have required
antenna diversity at the Mobile Station (MS). Here we
need increased antenna size.
• In CDMA the signal processing seemed to be too expensive
and unreliable.
• TDMA system was not a proposal from a single company
• The proposed modulation techniques: Gaussian Minimum
Shift Keying (GMSK), 4-Frequency Shift Keying (4-FSK),
QAM, and Adaptive Differential Pulse Modulation (ADPM).
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• There are 3 versions of GSM, each using different
carrier frequencies.
1.The original GSM system uses carrier
frequencies around 900 MHz.
2. GSM1800, which is also called Digital Cellular
System with a carrier frequency around 1800MHz
the total available bandwidth is roughly
three times larger than the one around 900 MHz, and
the maximal transmission power of MSs is reduced.
Apart from this, GSM1800 is identical to the original
GSM.
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3.GSM1900 or PCS-1900 (Personal Communication
System) operates on the 1,900-MHz carrier frequency,
and is mainly used in the U.S.A.

System Overview:
• A GSM system consists essentially of three parts –
namely, the Base Station Subsystem (BSS), the
Network and Switching Subsystem (NSS), and the
Operation Support System (OSS).

Base Station Subsystem (BSS):

• The BSS consists of Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs)
and the Base Station Controllers (BSCs) 5
• BTS establishes and maintains the connection to the
MSs within its cell. The interface between the MS and
the BTS is the air interface, called the Um-interface
in the GSM context.
• The BTS hosts, at a minimum, the antennas and the
Radio Frequency (RF) hardware of a BS, as well as
the software for multiple access.
• Several – or, rarely, one – BTSs are connected to one
BSC; they are either colocated, or connected via
landline, directional microwave radio links.
• The BSC controls Handover between two BTSs that
are connected to the same BSC. The interface
between BTS and BSC is called the Abis-interface. 6
• BSS covers a large set of functionalities. It is responsible
for channel assignment, maintenance of link quality and
handover, power control, coding, and encryption.

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2. Network and Switching Subsystem:
• The main component of the NSS is the Mobile-services
Switching Center (MSC), which controls the traffic between
different BSCs .
• It also interfaces with other networks, such as the Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and other mobile
networks.
• The NSS includes some databases, too. The Home Location
Register (HLR) stores subscriber-related information,
including subscriber profiles, service subscription data,
and current locations. It is a centralized database
that allows the network to manage and authenticate
subscribers.
• The Visitor Location Register (VLR) contains all the
information of a subscriber migrate from one location to
another, i.e location of subscriber in Roaming.
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• The Authentication Center(AUC)is responsible for
authenticating subscribers and ensuring the security of
the network. It generates and validates security
codes to protect against fraud and unauthorized
access.
• The Equipment Identity Register (EIR) contains centralized
information about stolen or misused devices.
3. Operating Support System(OSS):
• The OSS is responsible for organization of the network and
operational maintenance. The functions are,
(i) Accounting: It tells, how much does a specific call
cost for a certain subscriber?
(ii) Maintenance: the full functionality of each component
of the GSM network has to be maintained all the
time. Hardware maintenance is costly but nowadays
software maintenance is not complex. 9
(iii) MS management:
• Devices which cause system wide interference, have to
be identified and their further activities have to be
blocked.
(iv) Data collection:
• the OSS collects data about the amount of traffic, as
well as quality of the links.

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Various Interfaces used in GSM:

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Abis Interface:
"Abis" stands for "Air Interface for Base Station
System," and it represents the interface between the
Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and the Base Station
Controller (BSC) in GSM networks.
It serves as the link for the exchange of control and
traffic information between BTS and BSC.

A interface:
It represents the interface between the Base Station
System (BSS) and the Mobile Switching Center (MSC). It is
primarily responsible for the communication and coordination
between these two essential elements. 12
A interface uses an SS7 protocol called the Signalling
Correction Control Part (SCCP) which supports
communication between the MSC and the BSS, as well
as network messages between the individual subscribers
and the MSC.

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GSM Radio Subsystem:
▪ GSM originally used two 25MHz cellular bands.
▪ 890-915MHz band was for Subscriber-to-base
transmission(reverse link) & 935-960MHz band was
for base-to- Subscriber transmission(forward link).
▪ GSM uses FDD and a combination of TDMA &
FHMA(Frequency Hopped Multiple Access –is a digital
multiple access system in which the carrier
frequencies of the individual users are varied in a
pseudorandom fashion) schemes.
▪ The available forward and reverse frequency bands
are divided into 200KHz wide channels called
ARFCN(Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Numbers).

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Logical Channels:
1. Traffic CHannels (TCHs):
Payload data are transmitted via the TCHs. The
payload might consist of encoded voice data or “pure”
data.

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(a)Full-Rate Traffic Channels:
• Full-rate voice channels: the output data rate of the
voice encoder is 13 kbit/s. Channel coding increases
the effective transmission rate to 22.8 kbit/s.
• Full-rate data channels: the payload data with data
rates of 9.6, 4.8, or 2.4 kbit/s are encoded with
Forward Error Correction (FEC) codes and transmitted
with an effective data rate of 22.8 kbit/s.
(b) Half-Rate Traffic Channels:
Half-rate voice channels: voice encoding with a data
rate as low as 6.5 kbit/s is feasible. Channel coding
increases the transmitted data rate to 11.4 kbit/s. 16
Half-rate data channels:
• payload data with rates of 4.8 or 2.4 kbits/s can be
encoded with an FEC code, which leads to an
effective transmission rate of 11.4 kbit/s.
2. Broadcast CHannels (BCHs):
• BCHs are only found in the downlink. They serve as
beacon signals. Beacon is a small hardware device
that enables data transmission to mobile devices
within a specific range of the device.
• They provide the MS with the initial information
that is necessary to start the establishment of any
kind of connection. 17
• The MS uses signals from these channels to establish a
synchronization in both time and frequency.
3. Frequency Correction CHannels (FCCHs):
• The carrier frequencies of the BSs are usually very precise and
do not vary in time, as they are based on rubidium clocks.
• the BS provides the MS with a frequency reference via the
FCCH.
• The MS tunes its carrier frequency to this reference; this
ensures that both the MS and the BS use the same carrier
frequency.
4. Synchronization CHannel (SCH):
• In order to transmit and receive bursts appropriately, an MS not
only has to be aware of the carrier frequencies used by the BS
but also of its frame timing on the selected carrier.
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• This is achieved with the SCH, which informs the MS
about the frame number and the Base Station Identity
Code (BSIC).
5. Broadcast Control CHannel (BCCH):
• Cell-specific information is transmitted via the BCCH.
• It includes, e.g., Location Area Identity (LAI), maximum
permitted signal power of the MS, actual available TCH,
etc.
6. Common Control CHannels (CCCHs):
• Before a BS can establish a connection to a certain MS, it
has to send some signaling information to all MSs in an
area, even though only one MS is the desired receiver.
• CCCHs are intended for transmission of information to all
MSs.
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7. Paging CHannel (PCH):
• The PCH is used to broadcast local messages like
street traffic information or commercials to all
subscribers within a cell.
• the PCH is only found in the downlink.
9. Random Access CHannel (RACH):
• A mobile subscriber requests a connection.
• The RACH can only be found in the uplink.
10. Dedicated Control CHannels (DCCHs):
• the DCCHs are bidirectional – i.e., they can be found
in the uplink and downlink.
• DCCHs are dedicated to one specific connection.
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10. Access Grant CHannel (AGCH):
Upon the arrival of a connection request via the RACH,
the first thing that is established is a Dedicated Control
CHannel (DCCH) for this connection.
11. Standalone Dedicated Control CHannel (SDCCH):
• The SDCCH ensures that the MS and the BS stay
connected during the authentication process.
12. Slow Associated Control CHannel (SACCH):
• Information regarding the properties of the radio link
are transmitted via the SACCH.
• This information need not be transmitted very often,
and therefore the channel is called slow.
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13. Fast Associated Control CHannel (FACCH):
• The SACCH is associated with either a TCH or a SDCCH;
the FACCH is associated with a TCH.
GSM Frame Structure:
• The signals of logical channels are transmitted via physical
channels, which are represented by the timeslot number and
the ARFCN(Absolute Radio Frequency Channel Number).
• Eight timeslots with a duration of 577μs each are combined
as a frame. The duration of this frame, 4.61ms, is the
basic period of a GSM system.
• A total of 26 of these frames are combined as a
multiframe, which has a duration of 120ms.

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• 51 of these multiframes are contained in one
superframe, which has a length of 6.12 s. Finally,
• 2,048 of these superframes are combined into one
hyperframe, which lasts 3 h and 28 min. The
hyperframe is implemented mainly for cryptographic
reasons, in order to guarantee privacy over the air
interface.
SACCH(Slow Associated Control CHannel ):
26 frames are combined as a multiframe. Out of these
26, only 24 frames are dedicated to the TCH.
The 13th (and sometimes the 26th) frame are used by
the SACCH. 24
• The 26th frame is only employed if two half-rate
connections share one physical channel; otherwise the
timeslot of the 26th frame is an idle frame.
• The transmission rate of the SACCH is 950 bit/s.
• four multiframes might be combined into a (nameless)
higher order frame of length 480ms.
• The data bits are (i) first encoded with a (224, 184)
block code, (ii) have four tail bits added, and
(iii)then everything is encoded with the regular rate-
1/2 convolutional encoder; this leads to the total 456
bit.
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FACCH(Fast Associated Control CHannel ):
• An FACCH does not have to be permanently available.
It is only necessary in special situations – e.g., when
a handover has to be performed. Therefore, no
timeslots are reserved for the FACCH.
• The 184 bits of an FACCH are encoded in the same
way as SACCH bits. In order to transmit the
resulting 456 bits via the normal TCH timeslots, eight
consecutive frames are used: the even payload bits of
the first four bursts and the odd bits of the second
four bursts are replaced by bits from the FACCH.
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RACH(Random Access CHannel ):
• The RACH is necessary only for the uplink.
• During each multiframe, 8 data bits, encoded into 36 bits,
are transmitted via the RACH. These 36 bits are
transmitted as an access burst.
• It starts with 8 tail bits, which are followed by 41
synchronization bits.
• Afterward, the 36 bits of encoded data and 3 additional tail
bits are transmitted. This adds to a total of 88 bits and
leaves a guard time of 100μs at the end, which corresponds
to 68.25 bits.
• the timeslot numbered 0 may be used for random access
burst in every frame.
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• Caller ID: the phone number of the incoming call is
displayed.
• Closed groups: subscribers in GSM, ISDN, and other
networks may be defined as a specific user group.
Members of this group can, e.g., be allowed to make
calls only within the group.

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