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GSM Planning & Engineering.
 GSM Reference Model
G

OMC VLR VLR

A
B
Um Abis D

MS BTS BSC MSC HLR AuC

C F

MSC PSTN ISDN EIR

 General Planning Process
Mobility and traffic models Dimensioning Equipment quantity
for the considered area (Erlang, QoS) (BTS, BSC, MSC, links, ...)

Sites positioning Frequency Frequency

BTS layout and
(radio planning) characteristics allocation plan

BTSs and BSCs BSS design BSCs and MSCs NSS, IN, WAP design
(site positions and (equipment positions and
interconnection interconnection network) interconnection interconnection network)

Interconnection with
Global network design
other networks
 Planning Process
•• Business
Business PlanPlan Capacity
Capacity
•• No. of Subscribers
No. of Subscribers Studies
Studies
•• Traffic
Traffic per
per subscribers
subscribers
•• Subs
Subs distribution
distribution **
•• GOS Plan
Plan Monitor
Monitor
GOS Initial Design •• Plan
Plan Verification
Verification
•• Spectrum Implementation
Implementation Network
Network
Spectrum availability
availability •• Quality
Quality Check
Check
•• Frequency
Frequency ReuseReuse and re-design
•• Update
Update documentation
documentation
•• Types
Types of of coverage
coverage
•• RF
RF parameters
parameters
•• Field
Field strength
strength studies
studies Network
Network
•• Available
Available sites
sites Coverage
Coverage && Optimisation
Optimisation
•• Site
Site survey
survey C/I
C/I study;
study;
Search
Search Areas
Areas **
•• Capacity
Capacity Studies
Studies
Acquisition
Acquisition of
of •• Coverage
Coverage Plan
Plan and
and Coverage
Coverage Studies
Studies
Sites
Sites •• Frequency
Frequency plans
plans and
and Interference
Interference Studies
Studies
•• Antenna Systems& Orientation Studies
Antenna Systems& Orientation Studies
•• BSS
BSS parameter
parameter planning
planning
•• Database
Database and
and documentation
documentation of of approved
approved sites
sites
•• Expansion
Expansion plans
plans
 GSM PLANNING: THE BASIC PROCESS
1. CAPACITY PLANNING
2. COVERAGE PLANNING

3. PARAMETER PLANNING

4. EQUIPMENT PLANNING

5. OPTIMIZATION.
 CELLULAR MOBILE RADIO
SYSTEM DESIGN

• Concept of frequency reuse channels

• Co-channel interference reduction factor
• Desired carrier to interference ratio
• Hand off mechanism
• Cell splitting
Note:Limitation in the system is the frequency
resource
 CELLULAR MOBILE RADIO
SYSTEM DESIGN

Challenge is to serve the greatest number of

customers
1.How many customers can we serve in a busy
hour ?
2.How many customers can we take into our
system?
3.How many frequency channels do we need?
GSM NETWORK PLANNING PROCESS - I

• Service Area
• Estimation of traffic demand
• Available frequency resources.
• Evolving an optimum coverage scheme
of placing the cells over the entire
service area so as to provide complete
mobility to the subscribers.
GSM NETWORK PLANNING PROCESS- II

• Traffic demand estimation

-Population distribution
-Car usage distribution
-Income level distribution
-Land usage distribution
-Telephone usage distribution.
GSM NETWORK PLANNING PROCESS-III

• Estimation of Cell Radius

– Service Area
• Terrain conditions
• Density of foilage
• Man made structures
– Signal level at an unit distance from base
station
– Signal strength decay per decade of distance.
GSM NETWORK PLANNING PROCESS-IV

• MOBILE RADIO NETWORK PLANNING

SOFTWARE TOOLS
– Propagation Predictions based upon various
propagation models e.g OKUMARA- HATA,
WALFISCH-IKEGAMI or special external models
written by the users
– Interference analysis
– Automatic frequency planning
– Coverage analysis by contour plots
– Comparison with actual radio field measurements
– Efficient tool to load,analyze and display system
performance evaluation
 Traffic Model
Call Mix for other services
• FAX/DATA subscribers - 5% in 40mE cities
and 2% in other cities.
• IN subscribers - 70% of total subs
– Prepaid subscribers - 80% of IN subs
– Freephone (FPH) - 5%
– MVPN - 5%
– Premium Rate (PRM) - 5%
– Universal Access No. - 5%
 Traffic Model
• Voice Mail - 100% of subscribers.
• SMSC should be dimensioned for 50% of the
total subscribers with:
– 2 messages per subscriber per day
– Max. length of SMS message 160 chars.
• WAP subscribers - 10% for high traffic cities
and 5% for others with:
– 50% on Circuit Switched Data (CSD)
– 50% on SMS
 Design Parameters
• Grade of Service
– MSC-MSC/PSTN - 1%
– MSC-BSS - 0.5%
– Um interface - 2%
– BSC-BTS - 0%
• Handover
– Total HO - 50%
– Inter MSC - 5%
– Inter BSC - 10%
– Intra BSC - 85%
 Design Parameters
• Location Update
– Normal
• Intra MSC (New LAI) - 0.3 nr/sub
• Intra MSC (new registration) - 0.18 nr/sub
– Periodic - 0.5 nr/sub
– Attach
• Subscribers registered earlier - 0.25 nr/sub
• New registration - 0.1 nr/sub
– Detach
 GSM Cell Planning Requirement
• Provision of required Capacity

• Optimum use of the available frequency spectrum

• Minimum number of cell sites

• Provision of adequate Coverage of the given area,

for a minimum specified level of interference

• Provision of easy and smooth expansion of the network in future

 Example : Basic Planning (1/3)
• Say the service provider wants to launch his network
with 20 sites or for 10,000 subscribers in a city
• The following assumptions are made in the planning process :
• 25 mE average traffic per subscriber
• Grade of Service 2%

• Mobile to Mobile traffic 10%

• Mobile to PSTN traffic 70%

• Land to Mobile traffic 20%

• Average call duration 90 seconds

Contd..
Example : Basic Planning (1/3) contd….

Traffic capacity of 1 carrier with 7 TCHs = 2.94E

(approximately 120 subscribers ); a 1/1/1 site will have
capacity of approximately 350 subscribers.

Traffic capacity of 2 carrier with 15 TCHs = 8.2E

(approximetly 330 subscribers). A 2/2/2 site will have
a capacity of about 990 subscribers.
 Example - Basic Planning (2/3)
Case 1: For specified number of sites (20)

• 1/1/1 sites (350 subs per site) … 7000 subscribers.

• 2/2/2 sites (990 subs per site) … 19800 subscribers.

Case 2: For specified capacity requirement (10000)

• 1/1/1 sites….10000/350 …. 30 sites.

• 2/2/2 sites….10000/990 …. 11sites.

 Example - Basic Planning (3/3)
For 10000 capacity, at 25mE traffic, the total traffic
is 250E. We assume a hypothetical distribution of
traffic as shown below:
Area Type % tfc tfc 1/1/1 2/2/2
Urban high density 20 50E 6 2
Urban 30 75E 10 3
Industrial 15 37.5E 5 2
Suburban 25 62.5E 7 3
Highways 5 12.5E 2 1
Quasi open 5 12.5E 2 1
Total 100 250E 32 12

• We may choose 2/2/2 sites for first 3area types and 1/1/1 sites for the rest.

• This makes a total of 18 sites. After customer’s approval,site selection is done.

 Cell Planning (1/2)
• What is the area to be covered ?
• How many sites are required for this area ?
(cell radius of 1km means an approximate coverage
area of 3 Sq.kms).
• Do we need so many sites? Can some sites be bigger?
• Decide number of sites based on capacity and coverage
requirements.
• Divide city into clutter types such as:
> Urban
> Suburban
> Quasi Open
> Water.
• Identify “search areas” covering all clutter types.
• Customer selects a few sample sites.
 Cell Planning (2/2)
• Survey sites with reference to
> Clutter heights
> Vegetation levels
> Obstructions
> Sector orientation
> Building strength and other Civil requirements
• Prepare Power budgets
• Conduct Propagation tests
• Calculate coverage probabilities
• Verify against predictions and modify planning tool
parameters
• Prepare final coverage map
 Cell Planning and C/I issues
Assume all cell are of the same size
All cells transmit the same power.

The path loss is not free space and is governed by the

attenuation constant  .
The reuse distance D and cell radius R are related to
the C/I as given below:
(D/R)  = 6 (C/I)

The C/I is in absolute value.

 SELECTING A PROPER CELLSITE
When a cell site is selected
• Determine whether an UHF TV station is
nearby and whether any new ongoing
construction would affect the coverage
• Check the local noise level and no spurious
signals fall in the freq.band
• Existing multi-antenna tower can be used with
proper earthing and shielding
 RF LINK DESIGN
Radio link design is one of the most important problem
for design engineers
Fundamental parameters:
1.Transmitted power
2.Co-channel reuse design
In order to provide quality transmission ie.a specified
bit error rate (BER) and allowable outage is
decided.(outage is defined as the fraction of the
service area over which the required transmission
quality cannot be maintained within the service area)
 CELLULAR CONCEPTS-
ESSENTIAL FEATURES

• Frequency reuse-refers to the use of radio channels on the same

carrier frequency to cover different areas,which are physically
separated from each other sufficiently to ensure that co-channel
interference is not objectionable.
• Cell splitting-when the demand for service exceeds the number
of channels allocated to a particular cell, cell splitting is used to
handle the additional growth in traffic in within the particular
cell.Cell splitting involves a revision of cell boundaries, so that
the local area formerly regarded as a single cell can now contain
a number of smaller cells.These cells are called micro cells.The
transmitted power and antenna height of these base stations are
correspondingly reduced and the same set of frequencies are
reused.
Freq Reuse & C/I Requirement

N D/R= 3N C/I= 10log(1/6(D/R)3.5

3 3.00 8.917 dB
4 3.46 13.29 dB
7 4.58 21.80 dB
9 5.19 25.62 dB
12 6.00 29.99 dB
9
CO-CHL INTERFERENCE

D
R

A Multi Cell Environment

 Frequency Planning Aspects
A1 B1 C1 D1 A2 B2 C2 D2 A3 B3 C3 D3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

A1
A2
D1 A3 B1
D2 B2
D3 C1 B3
C2
C3
 Traffic Capacity of Cells
TFC CAP IN 25mE SUBS 40mE SUBS
No. of TRX Control CCH No. of TCH
ERLANG* SUPPORTED SUPPORTED

1 1 7 2.94 118 74

2 2 14 8.20 328 205

3 2 22 14.9 596 373

4 3 29 21 840 525

5 3 37 28.3 1132 708

6 3 45 35.6 1424 890

* GOS AT 2%
 Traffic Capacity of BTS
BTS No. of No. of A-bis 25mE SUBS 40mE SUBS
No. of TRX
CONFGN CELLS TS reqd. SUPPORTED SUPPORTED

1-1-1 3 3 9 354 221

1-1-2 4 3 11 564 353

1-2-2 5 3 13 774 484

2-2-2 6 3 15 984 615

2-2-3 7 3 17 1252 783

2-3-3 8 3 19 1520 950

3-3-3 9 3 21 1788 1118

3-3-4 10 3 23 2032 1270

* GOS AT 2%
 Traffic Capacity of BTS ..contd..
BTS No. of No. of A-bis 25mE SUBS 40mE SUBS
No. of TRX
CONFGN CELLS TS reqd. SUPPORTED SUPPORTED

3-4-4 11 3 25 2276 1423

4-4-4 12 3 27 2520 1575

4-4-5 13 3 30 2812 1758

4-5-5 14 3 33 3104 1940

5-5-5 15 3 36 3396 2123

5-5-6 16 3 38 3688 2305

5-6-6 17 3 40 3980 2488

6-6-6 18 3 42 4272 2670

* GOS AT 2%
 Traffic Capacity of BTS ..contd..
BTS No. of No. of A-bis 25mE SUBS 40mE SUBS
No. of TRX
CONFGN CELLS TS reqd. SUPPORTED SUPPORTED

Omni 1 1 1 3 118 74

Omni 2 2 1 5 328 205

Omni 3 3 1 7 596 373

Omni 4 4 1 9 840 525

Omni 5 5 1 11 1132 708

Omni 6 6 1 13 1424 890

2000/2C 2 1 5 328 205

HW 1-1 2 2 6 235 147

* GOS AT 2%
 A-bis Connectivity Types

BSC
MSC
BSC
Multi-drop configuration
MSC
Star configuration

Ring configuration BSC

MSC

MSC
Urban star configuration
BSC
 Basic Planning
• For 30000 lines @40mE traffic, the total traffic would be 1200E.
Assuming the IMPCS specification for traffic distribution:

% OF TFC IN
TYPE OF AREA 1/1/1 2/2/2 5/5/5 6/6/6
TFC ERLANG*

URBAN INDOOR 40% 480 E 54 20 7 5

URBAN INCAR 40% 480 E 54 20 7 5

URBAN OUTDOOR 20% 240 E 27 10 3 3

TOTAL 100% 1200 E 127 50 17 13

• Decision on choice of BTS type and TRX configuration is very crucial to

provide the specified capacity and coverage
 Coverage Model

• Indoor Coverage:
– Commercial areas, airports, etc
• In-car coverage
– Residential areas, industrial areas, roads, all
national/state highways, by-passes and
important rail routes, etc.
• Outdoor coverage
– Remaining areas of the coverage area.
 Coverage Model
TRAFFIC DENSITY
COVERAGE HIGH TRAFFIC CITIES OTHER CITIES

INDOOR 40% 25%

INCAR 40% 40%

OUTDOOR 20% 35%

SIGNAL LEVEL FOR 95% OF THE TIME FOR THE COVERAGE

COVERAGE SIGNAL LEVEL MEASURED AT STREET

INDOOR SHOULD BE BETTER THAN -75 dBm

INCAR SHOULD BE BETTER THAN -85 dBm

SHOULD BE BETTER THAN -95 dBm IN 90% OF
OUTDOOR
TOTAL COVERAGE AREA
 Coverage Planning
• Involves designing two aspects of Radio:
– Link Budget
– Power Balance
• LINK BUDGET brings out whether the uplink
or the downlink is the limiting factor for
coverage.
• POWER BALANCE ensures that the coverage
of DL is equal to that of UL
 RADIO LINK ANALYSIS
• ‘Link budget’ or ‘link power budget’ is the totalling
of all the gains and losses incurred in operating a
communication link.It provides a detailed accounting
of three broadly defined items:
1.Apportionment of the resources available to the
transmitter and the receiver
2.Sources responsible for the loss of signal power
3.Sources of noise
 RF LINK BUDGET
RF LINK BUDGET UL DL
TRANSMITTING END MS BTS

Tx RF Output 33 dBm 43 dBm

Body Loss -2.0dB 0dB
Combiner Loss 0dB 0dB
Feeder Loss (@2dB/100m) 0dB 1.5dB
Connector Losses 0dB 2dB
Tx Antenna Gain 0dB 17.5dB
EIRP 31dBm (A) 57dBm ( C)

RECEIVING END BTS MS

Rx sensitivity -107 dBm -102 dBm

Rx. Antenna gain 17.5dB 0dB

Diversity Gain 3dB 0dB
Connector Loss 2dB 0dB
Feeder Loss 1.5dB 0dB
Interference Degradation Margin 3dB 3dB
Body Loss 0dB 3dB
Duplexer Loss 0dB 0dB
Rx Power -121dBm -96dBm
Fade Margin 4dB 4dB
Required Isotropic Rx .Power -117dBm (B) -92dBm ( D)

Maximum Permissible Path 148dB 149dB

 Propagation Loss
• LFS = 10 log  ( 4  d / )2 

• LFS = 32.44 +20 log (f )+ 20 log (d)

Where f = frequency in MHz
d = distance in Kms

• LFS = Lo + 10  log ( d)

Where  is the SLOPE of the attenuation

characteristic
 Multipath Environment

B
T
S
 Classical Propagation Models

• Basically curve fitting exercises

• Okumara
• Basically curve fitting exercisesCosat 231 - Hata
(similar to Hata:for 1500-2000Mhz)
• Walfisch - Ikegami Cost 231
• Walfisch - Xia JTC
• XLOS
 Okumara Model
The Okumara tests are valid for :
• 150-2000 Mhz
• 1-100 Kms
• BTS heights of 30 -100 meters
• MS antenna height , typically 1.5 m (1-10m)
• The results of Okumara tests were graphically represented
 PROPAGATION MODELS
• Hata Model
• The basic equation for the 150-1000 MHz band is given by
• Lp=69.55+ 26.16 log(f) -13.82 log (hbts)-a (hm)
+ {44.9- 6.55log(hbts)} log(d)

Where f=frequency in MHz

Hbts =BTS antenna height in meters (30-100m)
d=distance in Kms (1 to 20 Kms)
hm=mobile antenna height in meters (1-10m)
a(hm)=correction for mobile height if hm is >1.5 meters
=3.2 [log(11.75hm)-4.97 for Dense urban and
={1.1 log(f)-0.7} hm-{1.56 log (f)-0.8} for Urban areas
 Okumara-Hata Model
The path loss equation can be rewritten as :

•Lp=Lo + {44.9-6.55 log (hbts)} log(d)

• Where Lo=[69.55+26.16 log(f)-13.82 log (hbts)-a(hm)].

OR more conveniently

•Lp=Lo +10  log (d)

 is the SLOPE and is ={44.9-6.55log (hbts)} /10
 typically varies from 3.5 to 4 for urban environments.
Calculate the path loss in a BTS site in an Urban environment,
given the following parameters
• Frequency : 900 MHz
• BTS antenna height 30 m
• Mobile antenna height 3m.
• Cell radius : 5Kms
• Also calculate the Attenuation slope for this site.
• Lp =[69.55+26.16 log(f)- 13.82 log (hBTS) -a (hm)]+ [44.9 -6.55 log (hBTS)] log(d).
• a(hm) = { 1.1 log (f) -0.7 } hm -{1.56 log (f) -0.8}
26.16 log (f) = 77.28 dB
13.82 log (hBTS) = 20.41dB
[44.9-6.55log (hBTS)]log (d) = 24.62 dB
a(hm) = 3.81 dB
 Path Loss Lp =69.55+77.28 -20.41 +24.62 -3.81 = 147.23dB.
Attenuation Slope  = [44.9-6.55 log (hBTS )]/10 =35.225/10 =3.5225.
 Propagation…Okumara-Hata Model
The receive signal strength RSS is given by :
RSS = ERP- {Lo +10  log(d)}.
The distance d can be calculated from :

d= 10 [ERP -Lo-RSS]/10 
Or, from the equation for RSS,

Log (d) =[ERP-RSS-Lo]/10 

ie.., d=antilog [ERP-RSS-Lo)/10  ]

Lo=69.55+26.16 log (f)-13.82 log(hbts)-a(hm).

 Example- To Calculate cell radius (d)
Calculate the cell radius for a site that has:
Frequency : 900 MHz BTS height: 30meters
Mobile height: 3 meters BTS ERP: 55dBm
Expected RSS at the cell boundary (d=R) = -75dBm.

Lo= 122.61 dB;  = 3.5 (calculated in the previous example).

122.61 -75+35 log (d) =55 dBm.

log (d) = 7.39/35 =0.2111

Therefore d= antilog (0.2111) =1.62 Kms.

 Calculating the Signal Strength
• After the terrain has been acquired in the database for the entire
site signal strength calculations can be made on the individual
stations
• The propagation model calculates the path loss using the
following components.
– Basic Path Loss - Okumura’s Model
– Diffraction Effects - Picquenard’s Multiple Knife Edge Diffraction
model
– Water Enhancement
– Antenna Patterns, Tilt amount, Tilt type
– Curvature of the Earth
– Morphology
 Morphological Categories
 Water
 Bushes
 Wet Farm land
 Dense Residential Area
 Heavy Urban Trees
Dry Farm Land
Light Residential Area
Light Urban
Heavy Urban
Location Area Planning
HLR
MSC/VLR

MSC/VLR

1 location area = several cells

 Drive Test Analysis

• Drive test gathers accurate propagation data for candidate

site for evaluation and approval.
– Uses both Omni-directional and sector antenna.
– Radiation center and ERP modeling.
– Measurement integration performed to improve modeling
efficiency.
• Based on drive data and prediction, the optimum antenna
radiation center, ERP and sector orientation determined.
 BSS Parameters setting

• GSM base station parameters setting achieves the

following functions
• MS measurement of serving and neighbouring stations
• Call set up - Call Processing, Paging, System Access, & Short Message
Service.
• Radio functions: DTX, DRX, Frequency Hopping
• BTS Radio Resource Management
• Mobiles’ uplink Power Control
• Timing Advance
• Handover - Based on PWRBGT (Power budget), RXLEV, RXQUAL,
distance and intra-cell
 Signal Variations
RSS

Long term Fa
st
Fa
average d in
g

Slow Fades

Distance
 Standard Deviation
Example

The RSS values obtained from a drive test in a BTS area in a city

- 80 dBm , - 79 dBm , - 77 dBm , -82.5 dBm , - 84.35 dB - 78.65 dBm

• Mean RSS “M” = -79.97 dBm

• Standard deviation  = 6.068
 Confidence Interval

M- 3 M- 2 M-  M M+ M+2 M+3

68 %
95.44 %

99.72 %
 Probability

• Probability (P) that a random sample of RSS will have

a value of - 92dBm or better (ASSUME M=-79 & = 8)

• Compute z =( x-M)/  = -92 -( - 79 )/8 = - 1.625

• Refer the standard table for normal distribution curve
we get P=94.74%

• Probability that RSS value would be better than -92 dBm is

P (RSS  -92 dBm ) = 94.74%
 Typical values for building penetration loss
Area 75% 50 %
Coverage Coverage
Central Business area  20 dB  15 dB
Residential area  15 dB  12 dB
Industrial area  12 dB  10 dB
In Car 6 to 8 dB

• If the minimum RF signal strength for 90 % coverage on

the street is ,say - 92 dBm , then for 75 % in building
coverage in a central business area ,we should have a
signal level of - 72 dBm on the road;

This shall provide - 92 dBm inside the building.