Global System for Mobile

Communications (GSM) and its

evolution
Beneyam Berehanu Haile
November 2016
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
GSM overview (1/2)
 GSM was the first commercially operated digital cellular system
 Developed in 1980s through the European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI)
 GSM was commercially launched in 1991 in Finland
 GSM is by far the most popular system
 Over 3.4 billion subscribers worldwide
 More than 46% mobile market share
Originally GSM operated only in 900 MHz band
 Later extended to 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz bands
 Most GSM networks operate in the 900 MHz or 1800 MHz bands
 Also 450MHz and 850MHz bands are used in some countries
 Tri- and quad-band GSM phones are common
 Hard to be uncovered with a GSM phone travelling anywhere across
the globe
GSM intro (2/2)
 Conventional GSM voice is circuit switched
 Call occupies the channel during the duration of the call
 GSM uses FDMA and TDMA
 Example: in so-called primary GSM 900 MHz the uplink frequency
band is 890–915 MHz, and the downlink frequency band is 935–
960 MHz.
 This 25 MHz bandwidth is subdivided into 124 carrier frequency
channels, each spaced 200 kHz apart
 Then each carrier subdivided into 8 time slots
 GMSK is the modulation scheme applied in GSM
 GSM is secure:
 Both voice and data are encrypted
 SIM card identified GSM users enabling network access, feature
access and billing
 Besides voice service, SMS had become a killer application of GSM
GSM evolutions: GPRS and EDGE
Basic GSM is limited to 9.6kbps CS data service with long setup
time
 High speed circuit switched data (HSCSD) enabled higher
data rate
 HSCSD is limited by the core network and its interface
General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) emerged:
Enabling packet switched data service capabilities adding
packet core network elements
Provides about ten-fold speed increase than basic GSM
The data rate increment by GPRS were not enough to meet
the growing demand
Enhanced Data Rates for GSM (EDGE) came to the market with
some enhancements to the GPRS network
 Enabled roughly three-fold speed increment than GPRS
GSM/GPRS/EDGE services
Core Services Value added services
Voice based VAS: including Premium rated call, Interactive
voice response (Help desk, booking), Color Ring back Tone (CRBT),
Voice

SMS based VAS: call me back, information-dissemination

(Alert, disaster, advertisement), information gathering and fund
Messaging raising, location based services

OTT services: Skype, Viber, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Internet

banking, M2M (Fleet management, POS, …) and Others
Data

Supplementary services: call hold/waiting/forwarding/Barring …

Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
GSM system architecture
PLMN = Public Land Mobile Network

HLR AUC

PLMN
PSTN

VLR EIR

MS

MS Mobile Station

BSS  Base Station Subsystem
GMSC?
NSS Network Switching Subsystem SMS SC?
NMS Network Management System
Mobile Station (MS)
 Direct interface to subscriber for talking/texting/data services
 An element where network quality is perceived by subscribers
 MS consists of two parts:
 Mobile equipment
 Encoding/Decoding
 Ciphering/De-ciphering
 Modulation/Demodulation
 Subscriber Identity Module (SIM)
 A microchip that stores data for operator and subscriber
 Authentication, subscriber profiling, security
 Low power and low cost handsets
 Various phones in the market
BSS: Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
 Radio interface control between BSC and MS
 Consists of transceivers (TRXs) and Omni-directional/directional antennas
 Usually 1-3 sectors
 Each sector number of TRXs is based on expected number of users
 1-16 TRXs each with its own frequency channel
 Functionalities:
 Synchronization, transmission/reception, encoding/decoding, channel encryption/de-
encryption, interleaving, diversity, filtering, frequency hopping, etc.
 Measurement:
 Uplink signal measurement
 Forwarding measurement data to BSC
 Mapping traffic and signaling to the correct TRXs
BSS: Base Station Controller (BSC)
&Transcoder Sub-Multiplexer (TCSM)
 BSC controls the BTS
 Once BSC controls several BTS in a network
 BSC is responsible for radio resource management and configuration:
 Channel assignments,
 Handover control
 Power control
 Frequency hopping and encryption management
 BSC located at BTS site, its own site or at MSC site
 Transcoder Sub-Multiplexer (TCSM)
 Physically located at MSC but controlled by BSC
 TC converts 64 kbps signal to 16 kbps and perform speech activity function
 SM rearranges the 16 kbps signals
Network Switching System (NSS)
 NSS interfaces between GSM network and public networks
 Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
 Most important element of NSS
 Call switching
 Control calls between BSS and other networks (PSTN, PLMN)
 One or more MSC for a network
 Home Location Register (HLR)
 Database that contains information of operators own subscribers
 International Mobile Subscriber identity (IMSI), Kind of subscription, Services to
be used, Subscriber location
 Fixed until the validity of the subscriptions
 One HLR per PLMN
 Visitor Location Register (VLR)
 Database that contains information of visiting subscribers.
 Dynamic and interacts with HLR for recording
 There is one VLR per MSC
Network Switching System (NSS)
 NSS interfaces between GSM network and public networks
 Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
 Most important element of NSS
 Call switching
 Control calls between BSS and other networks (PSTN, PLMN)
 One or more MSC for a network
 Home Location Register (HLR)
 Database that contains information of operators own subscribers
 IMSI, Kind of subscription, Services to be used, Subscriber location
 Fixed until the validity of the subscriptions
 Visitor Location Register (VLR)
 Database that contains information of visiting subscribers.
 Dynamic and interacts with HLR for recording
 There is one VLR per MSC
 Authentication Center (AUC)
 Policing actions: Avoid false subscribers and protects calls of true subscriber
 Authentication and encryption keys to authenticate and encrypt mobile users
 Equipment Identity Register (EIR) (optional)
 Contains list of authorized International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers
 Facilitate equipment verification
Network Management System (NMS)
 Subscriber information management
 Billing
 Ensure smooth running of the network
 Monitors performance of the network
 Generates relevant alarm if there is fault
 Corrects some faults while others may require visit
 Collect and analyze network performance data
 Input for optimization decisions
Interfaces
Interface Description

Air/radio/Um Between MS and BTS

interface Specified well in standard

Abis interface Between BTS and BSC

Ater interface Between BSC and TCSM
A interface Between TCSM and MSC

The interface to NMS could be operator/vendor specific

Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
FDMA/TDMA/FDD
 FDMA: GSM carrier separation is 200 kHz
 For P-GSM900, there are 124 carriers
 There is 100 kHz guard band between a GSM band and a band
allocated to another service
 FDD: UL is on a lower frequency than DL
 For P-GSM900, duplex spacing is 45 MHz
 Carrier frequency: ,
 TDMA: Each carrier partitioned into 8 timeslots
 FDMA/TDMA: a time slot on a carrier is a physical channel
Power classes
 MS classes, macro BTS classes and micro BTS classes
 Max & min output powers [dBm] are specified
Tx-Rx chain
Speech and channel coding
 Speech coding: RPE-LTP speech coder
 FR: Full rate: 13 kbps
 HR: Half rate: 5.6 kbps
 EFR: enhanced full rate: 12.2 kbps
 Channel coding: combinations of block and convolutional codes
 Different combinations are used for different rates and for different services
(voice/data)
 For full rate speech, effective code rate is R=0.57
 For 9.6 kbps data, effective code rate is R =0.52
 A code block in GSM consists of 456 coded bits

RPE-LTP Regular Pulse Excitation - Long Term Prediction

Interleaving

 2 bits per burst indicate whether burst has been stolen by a control channel
 Coding block for 20 ms voice frame gives 4 full bursts in total, interleaved over 8 half bursts
Bursts
 Four burst types, for different use
 One for normal data transmissions
 One for synchronizing to the carrier frequency of the BS
 One for synchronizing to the timing of the BS
 One for MS Random Access

 Training bits to enable

channel estimation
 Start and stop bits to
ramp modulation up &
down
 Guard period to keep
TDMA orthogonal
 Access burst: long guard
period; Timing Advance
not available on RACH
Modulation: GMSK
 Gaussian Minimum Shift Keying (GMSK)
 A power efficient continuous-phase FSK modulation
 Channel bit rate 270.833 kbit/s (bit duration T=3.692 µs)
 Bandwidth parameter BT = 0.3
 3 bits interfere by construction
o small out-of band emissions
 equalizer required at receiver
 Bit-error rate (in AWGN channel):
Frame structure (1/2)
 BitBurst TDMA-frameMultiframeSuperframehyperframe
 Bit period is 48/13 = 3.69s (channel bit rate 270.833 kHz)
 A burst is transmitted in a time slot
 Burst length 15/26 ms = 0.577 ms
 A TDMA-frame consists of 8 bursts, 60/13 = 4.615 ms
 A logical channel structure is periodically repeated in a multiframe
 Traffic channel structure repeats every 26 frames (120 ms)
 Control & broadcast channel structure repeats every 51 TDMA frames
(235.38 ms)
 In a superframe the entire channel structure is repeated
 Every 26x51 TDMA frame (6.12 s): traffic and control & broadcast
channels in synch
 In the hyperframe of 2048 superframes (3.48 h) the encryption sequence and
frequency hopping sequence are repeated
Frame structure (1/2)
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
Physical and logical channels

Traffic channels (TCH)

are utilized to transmit
the payload

Signaling channels are

used to set up traffic
channels
 overhead from
system capacity
point of view
Signaling: Broadcast (BCH)
Broadcast on DL to whole cell so that MSs can make measurements and
acquire cell and network specific parameters
 Idle mode cell selection and hand over measurements
1. Frequency Correction Channel(FCCH)
 MSs synchronize their carriers to BTS carrier frequency
 Own burst type
2. Synchronization Channel (SCH)
 Time synchronization (Burst synchronization, frame number
information)
 Base Station Identity Code
 Own burst type
3. Broadcast Control Channel (BCCH)
 Cell and network specific parameters
 Information about the cell and its neighbors, location area identity,
cell channel numbers, common control channel structure
Signaling: Common Control (CCCH)
Used for signaling related to mobility management and channel allocation
1. Paging channel (PCH) in DL
 Used by BSC to page users
2. Random Access Channel (RACH) in UL
 Used by MSs to contact BS
 Access burst transmitted with slotted ALOHA
 Own burst type
3. Access Grant Channel (AGCH)
 Used by BSC to grant access to MS, set up a dedicated control channel
(SDCCH)

Other channels not necessary for system operation

Signaling: Dedicated Control (DCCH)
1. Stand-alone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH)
 Used to signal to a user when traffic channel is not set up
2. Slow Associated Control Channel (SACCH)
 Associated with TCH or SDCCH, transmitted on same phy channel
 DL: timing advance, power control commands
 UL: measurement reports
3. Fast Associated Control Channel (FACCH)
 Steals resources from TCH
 2 stealing bits added into burst indicating whether burst is
TCH or stolen by FACCH
 used for handover

Other channels not necessary for system operation

Mapping of Logical CH to Physical CH
TCH/F + SACCH (+FACCH)
 Needs a full physical channel
 SDCCH + SACCH
 Needs 1/8 of a physical channel
 BCH (BCCH/FCCH/SCH) + CCCH (PCH/AGCH/NCH)
 Needs a full physical channel (DL)
 Each cell needs at least one BCS+CCCH channel
 CCCH (RACH)
 Needs a full physical channel (UL)
Traffic Channel Mapping

 Traffic channel structure repeats in multiframe, 26 bursts

 24 traffic channel bursts
 1 slow associated control channel burst
 1 idle burst (last frame in multiframe is measurement gap)
BCH and CCCH Mapping

 BCH and CCCH mapped to one DL physical channel

 One access slot per TDMA frame on at least one UL carrier
 multiframe is 51 frames
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
Radio Resource Management (RRM)
Discontinuous transmission
Timing advance
Slow power control
Frequency Reuse
Channel allocation
Frequency hopping
Discontinuous transmission (DTX)
 Shut off transmission in TCH silence periods
 Reduce interference, save battery power
 Transmissions on during silence periods:
 Silence Descriptors in 8 bursts per 480 ms (=4x26 TDMA frames)
 SACCH transmitted in 4 bursts per 480 ms

Assuming voice activity 0.4, average power reduction is

Timing advance
 Due to different propagation delays Example: two MSs, one
to/from different users, Timing Advance at cell edge, one close to
(TA) needed to keep UL TDMA orthogonal center of cell:
 TA is ~2x BTS–MS propagation delay

TA measurement principles

 TA measured by BTS from random access burst

 MS transmits access burst without TA
 According to timing of received signal at MS
 BTS receives access burst with delay
 Beginning of access burst is delayed 2x propagation delay from the timing of BTS
 BTS signals TA to MS using SACCH
 Maximum DL+UL delay measurement allowed by the extra guard time in Access Burst
is 60 bit periods
Show that the TA limited maximum radius is 33 km?
Slow power control
 Reduce interference, save battery power
 Power step 2 ± 1.5 dB
 PC commands sent on SACCH
 maximum rate once per 480 ms (same as measurement
reporting period)
 Compulsory in MS, Optional in BTS
Frequency reuse
 To efficiently utilize the scared frequency
resource, frequency reuse is applied
 Reuse factor (M=1,3,4,7,9, 12, …)
indicates level of reusing
 Frequency planning aim to achieve
optimal reuse factor
 The higher the reuse factor, the less the
frequency reuse effectiveness and the less
the inter-cell interference; and vice versa
 For hexagonal system with hexagon radius
R, reuse distance:

 Note that in practice we mostly have

irregular system
 More than 1 sector sites
Example frequency reuse pattern (1/2)
Example frequency reuse pattern (2/2)
Frequency channel allocation
 Two channel allocation approaches:
 Fixed Channel Allocation (FCA)
 This is conventional approach where each cell is allocated to a
predetermined set of channels
 Channels are allocated according to frequency plan
 Radio resources (channels) can’t be transferred between cells and
network planning is usually done on ‘worst case’ basis
 Dynamic Channel Allocation (DCA)
 Channels are not allocated permanently to different cells but BS
allocates channels dynamically to coming calls
 DCA applies algorithm that take into account e.g. Likelihood of
blocking, co-channel interference, other cost functions
 In extreme case all channels are available in each cell and DCA
eliminates the need for frequency planning
Frequency hopping
 FH means that a TRX shifts frequency at every new radio
frame
 Hopping is performed approximately 1/(4.615*0.001) = 217
times per second.
 For a specific user, a new frequency is used from one time slot
to the next.
 The advantages of FH are twofold
 Frequency diversity
 Interference diversity
 The drawback with FH is that the network components
become more complex and expensive
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
Idle state
 Cell selection and re-selection
 After cell selection MS synchronizes and reads BCCH of 6 strongest non-
serving BSs
 Keeping track of average received power level of serving BS and six
strongest non-serving ones
 Minimum measurement update interval 5 s
 Location updating
 When cell with new Location Area Identifier selected
 Listening to a paging channel
 A MS belongs to a paging group, pages to a group transmitted in different
multiframes
 Between possible paging instances & compulsory measurements, Idle state MS
is in DRX
Handover and handover measurements
 Mobile assisted hard handover
 Synchronous
 When BTSs synchronous, MS can calculate Timing Advance
 non-synchronous
 BTSs not in synch, MS needs full Timing Advance procedure
 MS measures
 Power levels of serving BTS, and of up to 32 candidate BTS list sent over serving
BTS BCCH
 Raw BER of serving BTS
 Results averaged over reporting period
 Six best BTSs reported to serving BTS
 Minimum measurement reporting interval: 4 SACCH bursts associated to UL TCH = 4
multiframes = 0.48 s
 BSC (MSC) decides on intra-(inter-)BSC handover
 Based on the measurement reports
 Measurements at serving BTS
Mobility state machine
Contents
Intro
Network architecture
Physical layer
Channel structure
Radio resource management
Mobility management
Evolution (GPRS and EDGE)
Evolution of GSM standards
HSCSD
 HSCSD, High Speed Circuit Switched Data
 Use multiple time slots on same carrier
 38.4/57.6 kbit/s non-transparent data rate with 4 time-slots
 Up to 64 kbit/s transparent data rate
 Time slot allocation examples:

Performance limited by
the A interface and core
network
General Packet Radio Services (GPRS):
overview
Provides packet switched transmissions over the air
A theoretical data rate up to 171.2 kbps
 As result called 2.5G
Supports packet data protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP)
GPRS is
 An evolved GSM air interface to support packet data,
and to provide higher data rates
 A new core network to support packet data service
 with a possibility to charge by data volume
GPRS core is used in UMTS as well, with a different radio
access
GPRS network architecture
 Main GPRS functionality in core
network realized by GPRS Support
Nodes (GSNs)
 routers routing packet from
outside world to MS
 Support node towards other packet
networks (internet): Gateway GSN
(GGSN)
 Interworking with outside
world
 Support node towards RAN: Serving
GSN (SGSN)
 Discusses with a Packet
Control Unit appended to BSC
 Interface with HLR, EIR, and VLR
(over MSC)
GPRS air interface
 Uses existing network resources
 chooses packet data channels from pool of physical channels not occupied
by circuit switched services
 simultaneous circuit switched services possible
 TDMA: packet data channel shared between several users with a Reservation
ALOHA based protocol
 Up to 8 timeslots can be reserved for one user
 Up to 8 users can share a time-slot
 Adaptive coding with 4 Coding Schemes:

 Link adaptation based on GSM measurements

GPRS logical channels
 Packet traffic channels
 Packet Data Traffic Channel (PDTCH)
 A shared traffic channel
 Uplink and downlink data transmission
 Packet dedicated control channels
 Packet Associated Control Channel (PACCH)
 UL and DL; MS related signaling
 Packet Common Control Channels (PCCCH)
 Same functions as GSM CCCHs
 Packet Broadcast Control Channel (PBCCH)
 Packet data specific system information
 If not allocated, BCCH will be used
Enhanced Data Rate for GSM Evolution
(EDGE): overview
 Higher data rates, redefining parts of physical layer
 ECSD, Enhanced Circuit Switched Data
 EGPRS, Enhanced GPRS
 Symbol rate over the radio interface 270.833 kHz
 GSM backward compatible
 AMC: Both GMSK and 8PSK modulations are used
 8PSK modulation: 3 bits/symbol  channel bit rate 812.5 kbps
 With 8 slots, theoretical maximum 473.6 kbps
 As a result called 2.75G
 Fast power control in ECSD with 20 ms update period
 HARQ with incremental redundancy
 EDGE evolution
 Dual antenna terminals, Higher symbol rate, 16QAM, 32QAM, Dual
carriers  up to 1 Mbps peak rate
 GSM evolution ends with EDGE
EGPRS MCSs for AMC