Cell phone frequencies and channels

Unit 4
Cell phone frequencies and channels
● In a cellular system, frequency management and channel assignment are
essential in order to achieve the basic objectives of spectrum utilization as well
as adaptability to traffic density.
● Different strategies are followed for the assignment of these channel sets to cells.
● Frequency management includes operations such as designation of set-up and
voice channels, numbering the channels, and grouping voice channels into
subsets.
● The channel assignment does the allocation of specific channels to cell sites
and mobile units.
● It can be done in two ways:
●Short-term assignment, where one channel assignment per call is handled by
mobile telephone switching office (MTSO).
●Long-term assignment, where a fixed channel set consisting of one or more
subsets are assigned to cell site on a long-term basis.
Numbering the radio channels
● Many cellular mobile systems operate on 666 channels.
● Each channel consists of two frequency channel bandwidths (mobile
transmit/uplink or reverse channel and cell-site transmit/downlink or forward
channel) to allow duplex operation.
● These two channel bandwidths must be separated in frequency in order to
avoid interference.
● The frequency separation between the uplink and downlink channels is
termed as channel spacing (or) duplex spacing.
● In the present 800 MHz band cellular system, the separation between the
mobile transmit and the cell-site transmit is specified as 45 MHz
Frequency management chart
● The total channels available are 832 in number.
● However, most mobile units and systems are still operating on 666 channels.
● Figure shows the arrangement of 666 frequency channels in block A and block B
systems, each containing 333 channels.
● Out of these 333 available channels in each system, 312 channels are used for
voice communication and 21 channels are used for controlling the system.
● These 21 channels are called as control channels or set-up channels.
● Therefore, a total of 42 channels are used for controlling the system.
● In channel 1, the two frequencies available for mobile and cell-site transmit are
●1. 825.030 MHz (mobile transmit)
●2. 870.030 MHz (cell-site transmit)
● In channel 666, the two frequencies available for mobile and cell-site transmit
are
●1. 844.98 MHz (mobile transmit)
●2. 889.98 MHz (cell-site transmit)
● Each market (i.e. each city) has two systems for a duopoly market policy with
each block having 333 channels.
● The 42 set-up channels also called as control channel sets are assigned as
follows:
●1. Channels 313–333 in block A
●2. Channels 334–354 in block B
● The voice channels are assigned as follows:
●1. Channels 1–312 (312 voice channels) in block A
●2. Channels 355–666 (312 voice channels) in block B
Grouping into subsets
● Since there are 21 set-up channels for each block, it is logical to group 312
voice channels into 21 subsets of 15 voice channels each (the last subgroup
has 12 voice channels only).
● Each subset then consists of 16 channels – –15 voice channels and one
control channel.
● In each set, the closest adjacent channel is 21 channels away.
Set-up channels
● The set-up channels are also called as control channels. They are designated
to set-up calls in the system.
● The set-up channels are classified with respect to their application. They are
●Access channels
●Paging channels
● Access channels
●Access channels are used for calls originating from mobile.
●When a mobile set scans all the 21 set-up channels (in block A), two
conditions are considered:
●If no set-up channels are operational in block A, then the mobile unit
switches automatically to block B.
●If there is a strong set-up channel with no message detected then within
the second setup, it will be selected by the scanner
● Paging channels
●Paging channels are used for calls originating from land.
●Every cell site is assigned its own control or set-up channels.
●For example, FOCC is the forward set-up channel in which every cell site
are mainly used to page the mobile unit with control message of same
mobile station.
●The same message is transmitted by different set-up channels
Channel Assignment
● Fixed channel assignment
●In FCA, each cell assigns its own frequency channel to the mobile
subscribers within its cell.
●The channel assignment for each voice call is determined by MTSO on a
short-term basis.
●In a FCA, the set-up and voice channels are usually assigned to the cell
site for relatively long periods.
●Channels in a channel set are usually 21 channels apart and must meet
minimum frequency spacing requirements of a multi-channel transmitter
combiner.
●Channels are usually numbered in order of increasing frequency.
Advantages of FCA
• Fixed parameters (power, frequency) for transceivers.
• Good performance under uniform- and/or high-traffic loads as cells
independently decide their channel allocation decisions.
• If each cell is allocated to a predetermined set of voice channels then the call is
blocked and all the channels are occupied.
• Borrowing strategy: A cell is allowed to borrow channels from a neighbouring cell
if all of its own channels are occupied.
• Mobile switching centre (MSC) supervises the borrowing procedure to ensure no
disrupting calls or interference with any of the calls in progress in the donor cell.
Dynamic channel assignment
● In dynamic channel assignment (DCA), the central common pool maintains all
the available channels.
● Channels are assigned dynamically as new requests for radio resource (for a
fresh originating call or handoff of existing call) arrive in the system
● Advantages
●No fixed channels are assigned to each cell.
●Out of the available channels, any channel can be assigned to any cell on need
basis.
●The serving base station (BS) requests a channel from the MSC whenever a call
request is made.
●Consideration of the likelihood of future blocking in the cell, the frequency use of
the candidate cell, the reuse distance of the channel, and other cost functions.
●MSC needs to collect real-time data on channel occupancy, traffic distribution,
and received signal strength indicator (RSSI) of all channels on a continuous
basis, which increases storage and computational load on the system.
Channel sharing scheme
● When a particular cell needs more channels in order to meet the increased
traffic demand, the channels of another sector at the same cell site can be
shared to meet the short-term overload traffic
Channel-borrowing scheme
● The channel-borrowing scheme is used for slow growing systems on a long-
term basis as an alternate to the costly cell-splitting technique to handle
increased traffic.
● One approach to address increased traffic of either mobile originating calls or
handoff calls in a cell is to borrow free available channels from neighbouring
cells
Channel assignment algorithms

• Fixed channel algorithm (FCA): This algorithm is the most commonly adopted in many
cellular systems. Here, each cell assigns its own radio channels to the vehicles within its cell.
• Dynamic channel algorithm (DCA): Here no fixed channels are assigned to each cell.
Therefore, any channel in a composite of 312 radio channels can be assigned to the mobile
unit. This means that a channel is assigned directly to a mobile unit. On the basis of overall
system performance, the DCA can also be used during a call.
• Hybrid channel algorithm (HCA): This is a combination of FCA and DCA. A portion of the
total frequency channels will use FCA and the rest will use DCA.
• Borrowing channel algorithm (BCA): It uses FCA as a normal assignment condition. When
all fixed channels are occupied, then the cell borrows channels from the neighbouring cells.
• Forcible-borrowing channel algorithm (FBCA): In this case, if a channel is in operation and
the situation warrants it, then channels must be borrowed from the neighbouring cells and at
the same time another voice channel will be assigned to continue the call in the neighbouring
cell. Channel cannot be borrowed frequently from adjacent cells