Chapter 2

The Cellular Concept

By Capt. Samuel Amde (Lecturer)

Wireless Cellular and Telecommunication Networks

Cellular Systems--Cellular Concepts

The cellular concept was a major breakthrough in solving
the problem of spectral congestion and user capacity.
The cellular concept has the following system level ideas
Replacing a single, high power transmitter with many low power
transmitters, each providing coverage to only a small area.
Neighboring cells are assigned different groups of channels in
order to minimize interference.
The same set of channels is then reused at different geographical
locations.

Cell Footprint
The actual radio coverage of a cell is known
as the cell footprint.
Irregular cell structure and irregular placing of
the transmitter may be acceptable in the initial
system design. However as traffic grows, where
new cells and channels need to be added, it may
lead to inability to reuse frequencies because of
co-channel interference.
For systematic cell planning, a regular shape is
assumed for the footprint.
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Cell Footprint
Coverage contour should be circular. However it is
impractical because it provides ambiguous areas with
either multiple or no coverage.
Due to economic reasons, the hexagon has been
chosen due to its maximum area coverage.
Hence, a conventional cellular layout is often defined
by a uniform grid of regular hexagons.

Cell Footprint

Cellular Systems
Advanced Mobile Phone Service(AMPS) system components
and layout
Radio base stations
Communications links
Mobile switching office

AMPS COMPONENTS FUNCTION

Cellular telephony is designed to provide communications between

two moving units, called Mobile Stations (MSs), or between one
mobile unit and one stationary unit, often called a land unit.
Each cellular service area is divided into small regions called cells.
Each cell contains an antenna & is controlled by a small office,
called the base station (BS).
Base Station is controlled by a switching office, called a Mobile
Switching Centre (MSC).
MSC coordinates communications between all the base stations and
the telephone central office. It is a computerized centre that is
responsible for connecting calls, recording call information, and
billing.

Terminology
Cell :A cell is the basic geographic unit of a cellular
system. The term cellular comes from the
honeycomb shape of the areas into which a coverage
region is divided.
Cluster :A cluster is a group of cells. No channels
are reused within a cluster.
Co-channel cell : The set of cells using the same set
of frequencies as the target cell.

 Consider a cellular system which has a total of S duplex

channels.
Each cell is allocated a group of k channels, k S .
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 1,3, 4, 7, or 12.
The frequency reuse factor is given by 1 / N

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Cellular Design Reuse Pattern

Example: cell cluster size N = 7,

frequency reuse factor = 1/7, assume S=
490 total channels, K = S/N = 70 channels
per cell
Assume S = 490 total channels, N = 7, K =
70 channels/cell
Clusters are replicated M=3 times
System capacity = 3x490 = 1470 total
channels
Only certain cluster sizes and cell layout
are possible.
The number of cells per cluster, N, can
only have values which satisfy
N i 2 ij j 2
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EX. Consider a cellular system in which there are a total of 1001

radio channels available for handling traffic. Suppose the area of a cell
is 6 km2 and the area of the entire system is 2100 km2.
(a) Calculate the system capacity if the cluster size is 7
(b) How many times would the cluster of size 4 have to be replicated
in order to approximately cover the entire cellular area?
(c) Calculate the system capacity if the cluster size is 4.
(d) Does decreasing the cluster size increase the system capacity?

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Handoff Strategies

handoff = moving a call from one zone to another zone due to

subscribers mobility
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 operation
identifying a new base station
re-allocating the voice and control channels with the new base station.

Handoff Threshold
Minimum usable signal for acceptable voice quality (-90dBm to -100dBm)
Handoff margin Pr ,handoff Pr ,minimum usable cannot be too large or too
small.
If is too large, unnecessary handoffs burden the MSC
If is too small, there may be insufficient time to complete handoff
before a call is lost.
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Two types of handoff

A hard handoff does break before make, ie. The old channel
connection is broken before the new allocated channel connection is
setup. This obviously can cause call dropping.
In soft handoff, we do make before break, ie. The new channel
connection is established before the old channel connection is
released. This is realized in CDMA where also BS diversity is used to
improve boundary condition.
MSC

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 Dwell time: the time over which a call may be

maintained within a cell without handoff.
Dwell time depends on
propagation
interference
distance
speed
Different type of users
High speed users need frequent handoff during a call.
Low speed users may never need a handoff during a
call.
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Interference and System Capacity

Sources of interference
another mobile in the same cell
a call in progress in the neighboring cell
other base stations operating in the same
frequency band
Two major cellular interference
co-channel interference
adjacent channel interference

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Co-channel Interference and System Capacity

Frequency reuse - there are several cells that use the same set of
frequencies
co-channel cells
co-channel interference
To reduce co-channel interference, co-channel cell must be
separated by a minimum distance.
When the size of the cell is approximately the same
co-channel interference is independent of the transmitted power
co-channel interference is a function of
R: Radius of the cell
D: distance to the center of the nearest co-channel cell
Increasing the ratio Q=D/R, the interference is reduced.
Q is called the co-channel reuse ratio
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 For a hexagonal geometry

Q

D
3N
R

A small value of Q provides large capacity

A large value of Q improves the transmission quality - smaller
level of co-channel interference
A tradeoff must be made between these two objectives

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Let i0 be the number of co-channel interfering cells. The signal-to-interference ratio

(SIR) for a mobile receiver can be expressed as

S
i0

i 1

S: the desired signal power

I i : interference power caused by the ith interfering co-channel cell base station

The average received power at a distance d from the transmitting antenna is

approximated by

d
Pr P0
d0

or
d
Pr (dBm) P0 (dBm) 10n log
d0
n is the path loss exponent which ranges between 2 and 4.
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23

When the transmission power of each base station is equal, SIR for a
mobile can be approximated as
S

Rn
i0

D
i
i 1

Consider only the first layer of interfering cells

S ( D / R)n

I
i0

3N
i0

i0 6

Example: AMPS requires that SIR be

greater than 18dB
N should be at least 6.49 for n=4.
Minimum cluster size is 7

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Consider only the first layer of interfering cells

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Adjacent Channel Interference

Adjacent channel interference: interference from adjacent in frequency to the

desired signal.
Imperfect receiver filters allow nearby frequencies to leak into the pass band
Performance degrade seriously due to near-far effect.
receiving filter
response
signal on adjacent channel

signal on adjacent channel

desired signal

FILTER
interference

desired signal

interference

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cont
Adjacent channel interference can be minimized through
careful filtering and channel assignment.
Keep the frequency separation between each channel in a
given cell as large as possible
A channel separation greater than six is needed to bring
the adjacent channel interference to an acceptable level.

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Power Control for Reducing Interference

Ensure each mobile transmits the smallest power
necessary to maintain a good quality link on the
reverse channel
long battery life
increase SIR

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Traffic Intensity
Is a measure of the average occupancy of a resource during
a specified period of time, normally a busy hour.
The traffic intensity offered by each user is:

A H

Erlangs

where
H is the average holding time of a call
is the average number of call requested/hour

If there are U users and an unspecified number of channels.

The total offered traffic intensity is:

AT UA

Erlangs

Busy hours traffic: Calls/busy hours *Mean call hold time

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Traffic Intensity

- contd.

In a trunks system of C channels and equally distributed

traffic among the channels, the traffic intensity per
channel is:

Ac UA / C

Erlangs/channels

The traffic volume

is a measure of the total work done by a resource or facility,
normally over 24 hours
VT = A * T Erlangs-Hours
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Offered Traffic
The offered traffic: Volume of traffic offered to a switch
that are all processed is defined as:
Offered traffic = carried traffic + overflow
The carried traffic: The actual traffic carried by a switch.
Overflow (blocked) traffic: Portion of the traffic not
processed.
Busy Hour Call Attempts (BHCA)
Used to evaluate and plan capacity for telephone networks
Is the number of telephone calls made at the peak hour
The higher the BHCA, the higher the stress on the network
processors.
Not to be confused with Busy Hour Call Completion (BHCC),
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which truly measures the throughput capacity of the network.

Example I
A call established at 1am between a mobile and MSC. Assuming a
continuous connection and data transfer rate at 30 kbit/s,
determine the traffic intensity if the call is terminated at 1.50am.
Solution:
Traffic intensity = (1 call)*(50 mins)*(1 hour/60 min) = 0.833 Er
Note, traffic intensity has nothing to do with the data rate, only the
holding time is taken into account.
Note:
If the traffic intensity > 1 Erlang: The incoming call rate exceeds the
outgoing calls, thus resulting in queuing delay which will grow without
bound (if the traffic intensity stays the same).
If the traffic intensity is < 1 Erlang, then the network can handle more
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average traffic.

Example II
Consider a PSTN which receives 240 calls/hr. Each call lasts an average
of 5 minutes. What is the outgoing traffic intensity to the public
network.
Solution
A = *H
= 240 calls/hr and H = 5 minutes
A = (240 calls /hr) x (5 min/call) = 1200 min/hr
Erlang cannot have any unit so
A= 1200 min/hr * (1 hour/60 minutes) = 20 Erlangs

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Erlangs - Example
For example, if a group of user made 30 calls in
one hour, and each call had an average call
duration of 5 minutes, then the number of Erlangs
this represents is worked out as follows:
Minutes of traffic in the hour = number of calls x
duration

Minutes of traffic in the hour = 30 x 5

Minutes of traffic in the hour = 150
Hours of traffic in the hour = 150 / 60
Hours of traffic in the hour = 2.5
Traffic figure
= 2.5 Erlangs
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Improving Capacity in Cellular Systems

Aim: To provide more channels per unit coverage area
Techniques: Three techniques are used to improve capacity
Techniques for improving capacity in cellular systems
Cell Splitting: subdividing a congested cell into
smaller cells.
Sectoring: directional antennas to control the
interference and frequency reuse.
Coverage zone : Distributing the coverage of a cell
and extends the cell boundary to hard-to-reach place.

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Cell Splitting

Split congested cell into smaller cells.

Preserve frequency reuse plan.
Reduce transmission power.

Reduce R to R/2
microcell

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Cell Splitting
Cell splitting is the process of splitting a mobile cell
into several smaller cells. This is usually done to
make more voice channels available to accommodate
traffic growth in the area covered by the original cell
If the radius of a cell is reduced from R to R/2, the
area of the cell is reduced from Area to Area/4. The
number of available channels is also increased.
Cell splitting is usually done on demand; when in a
certain cell there is too much traffic which causes too
much blocking of calls. The cell is split into smaller
microcells.
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SECTORING

Use directional antennas to further control the

interference and frequency reuse of channels.
Examples: Omni, 120O, 60O and 90O

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Sectoring
The sectoring is done by replacing a single omni-directional
antenna with 3 directional antennas (120O sectoring) or with 6
directional antennas (60O sectoring)
In this scheme, each cell is divided into 3 or 6 sectors. Each sector
uses a directional antenna at the BS and is assigned a set of
channels.
The number of channels in each sector is the number of channels
in a cell divided by the number of sectors. The amount of cochannel interferer is also reduced by the number of sectors.
Drawbacks:
Increase the number of antennas at each BS
The number of handoffs increases when the mobile moves from
one sector to another.
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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

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Cellular systems generations

1G (first generation) voice-oriented systems based on analog
technology; ex.: Advanced Mobile Phone Systems (AMPS)
and cordless systems
2G (second generation) - voice-oriented systems based on
digital technology; more efficient and used less spectrum than
1G; ex.: Global System for Mobile (GSM) and US Time
Division Multiple Access (US-TDMA)
3G (third generation) high-speed voice-oriented systems
integrated with data services; ex.: General Packet Radio
Service (GPRS), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA)
4G (fourth generation) still experimental, not deployed yet;
based on Internet protocol networks and will provide voice,
data and multimedia service to subscribers
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Evolution of cellular networks

First-generation: Analog cellular systems (450-900 MHz)
Frequency shift keying; FDMA for spectrum sharing
NMT (Europe), AMPS (US)
Second-generation: Digital cellular systems (900, 1800 MHz)
TDMA/CDMA for spectrum sharing; Circuit switching
GSM (Europe), IS-136 (US), PDC (Japan)
<9.6kbps data rates
2.5G: Packet switching extensions
Digital: GSM to GPRS; Analog: AMPS to CDPD
<115kbps data rates
3G: Full-fledged data services
High speed, data and Internet services
IMT-2000, UMTS
<2Mbps data rates

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Channel Assignment Strategies

Aim: To increase the number of available channels without
compromising the quality of service e.g.
1) Efficient Utilization of Spectrum
2) Increase Capacity
3) Minimize Interference
Channel assignment strategy two types
1. Fixed channel assignment (FCA)
The number of traffic channels is fixed. If all channels are busy a new call to
or from a mobile will be blocked (rejected by BS)
2. Dynamic channel assignment (DCA)
channels are not allocated to cells permanently.
allocate channels based on request.
reduce the likelihood of blocking, increase capacity.

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