Unit: 3

Class Notes

Subject: Mobile Computing

GSM Network:

GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) is a digital mobile network that is widely used
by mobile phone users in Europe and other parts of the world.

GSM uses a variation of time division multiple access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of
the three digital wireless telephony technologies: TDMA, GSM and code-division multiple
access (CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two
other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 megahertz
(MHz) or 1,800 MHz frequency band.

GSM, together with other technologies, is part of the evolution of wireless mobile
telecommunications that includes High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HSCSD), General Packet
Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE) and Universal Mobile
Telecommunications Service (UMTS).

History

Predecessors to GSM, including Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS) in the United States
and Total Access Communication System (TACS) in the United Kingdom, were built with
analog technology. However, these telecommunications systems were unable to scale with the
adoption of more users. The shortcomings of these systems pointed to a need for a more efficient
cellular technology that could also be used internationally.

To achieve that goal, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications

Administrations (CEPT) set up a committee to develop a European standard for digital
telecommunications in 1983. CEPT decided on several criteria that the new system must meet:
international roaming support, high speech quality, support for handheld devices, low service
cost, support for new services and Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) capability.

In 1987, representatives from 13 European countries signed a contract to deploy a

telecommunications standard. The European Union (EU) then passed laws to require GSM as a
standard in Europe. In 1989, the responsibility of the GSM project was transferred from CEPT to
the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Mobile services based on GSM were first launched in Finland in 1991. That same year, the GSM
standard frequency band was expanded from 900 MHz to 1,800 MHz. In 2010, GSM represented
80% of the global mobile market. However, several telecommunications carriers have
decommissioned their GSM networks, including Telstra in Australia. In 2017, Singapore retired
its 2G GSM network.

Composition of the network

The GSM network has four separate parts that work together to function as a whole: the mobile
device itself, the base station subsystem (BSS), the network switching subsystem (NSS) and the
operation and support subsystem (OSS).

The mobile device connects to the network via hardware. The subscriber identity module (SIM)
card provides the network with identifying information about the mobile user.
The BSS handles traffic between the cell phone and the NSS. It consists of two main
components: the base transceiver station (BTS) and the base station controller (BSC). The BTS
contains the equipment that communicates with the mobile phones, largely the radio transmitter
receivers and antennas. The BSC, on the other hand, is the intelligence behind the BTSes. It
communicates with and controls a group of BTSes.

The NSS portion of the GSM network architecture, often called the core network, tracks the
location of callers to enable the delivery of cellular services. Mobile carriers own the NSS. The
NSS has a variety of parts, including mobile switching center (MSC) and home location register
(HLN). These components perform different functions, such as routing calls and Short Message
Service (SMS) and authenticating and storing caller account information via SIM cards.

Discover the differences between CDMA and GSM.

Since many GSM network operators have roaming agreements with foreign operators, users can
often continue to use their phones when they travel to other countries. SIM cards that hold home
network access configurations may be switched to those with metered local access, significantly
reducing roaming costs, while experiencing no reductions in service.

Security details

Although GSM was designed as a secure wireless system, it can still experience attacks. It uses
authentication measures, such as challenge-response authentication, which prompts a user to
provide a valid answer to a question, and a preshared key that can come in the form of a
password or passphrase.

GSM Architecture:

The Base Station Subsystem (BSS) section of the GSM network architecture that is
fundamentally associated with communicating with the mobiles on the network. It consists of
two elements: ... The BTS communicates with the mobiles and the interface between the two is
known as the Um interface with its associated protocols.
GPRS Networks:

The GPRS network adds to the existing GSM network. The main new entities required within
the network are the SGSN and GGSN, and these are required as the starting point. ... The GPRS
network architecture can be viewed as an evolution of the GSM network carrying both circuit
switched and packet data.

GPRS network architecture upgrades

With GPRS providing additional connectivity in terms of packet data, there are naturally a
number of upgrades needed to the network architecture required. A number of new elements are
needed for the network, but these can operate alongside the existing elements meaning that the
GPRS capability is an upgrade to the network and not a completely new network structure.
The main new network architecture entities that are needed are:

 SGSN: Serving GPRS Support Node - the SGSN forms a gateway to the services within
the network.
 GGSN: Gateway GPRS Support Node, GGSN, forms the gateway to the outside world.
 PCU: Packet Control Unit, PCU, which differentiates whether data is to be routed to the
packet switched or circuit switched networks.
A simplified view of the GPRS network architecture can be seen in the diagram below. From this
it can be seen that it is very similar to the more basic GSM network architecture, but with
additional elements.
 GPRS network architecture

SGSN
The SGSN or Serving GPRS Support Node element of the GPRS network provides a number of
takes focussed on the IP elements of the overall system. It provides a variety of services to the
mobiles:

 Packet routing and transfer

 Mobility management
 Attach/detach
 Logical link management
 Authentication
 Charging data
There is a location register within the SGSN and this stores location information (e.g., current
cell, current VLR). It also stores the user profiles (e.g., IMSI, packet addresses used) for all the
GPRS users registered with the particular SGSN.
GGSN
The GGSN, Gateway GPRS Support Node is one of the most important entities within the GPRS
network architecture.
The GGSN organizes the interworking between the GPRS network and external packet switched
networks to which the mobiles may be connected. These may include both Internet and X.25
networks.
The GGSN can be considered to be a combination of a gateway, router and firewall as it hides
the internal network to the outside. In operation, when the GGSN receives data addressed to a
specific user, it checks if the user is active, then forwarding the data. In the opposite direction,
packet data from the mobile is routed to the right destination network by the GGSN.

PCU
The PCU or Packet Control Unit is a hardware router that is added to the BSC. It differentiates
data destined for the standard GSM network (circuit switched data) and data destined for the
GPRS network (Packet Switched Data). The PCU itself may be a separate physical entity, or
more often these days it is incorporated into the base station controller, BSC, thereby saving
additional hardware costs.

GPRS network upgrading

One of the key elements for any network operator is the cost of capital expenditure (capex) to
buy and establish a network. Capex costs are normally very high for a new network, and
operators endeavour to avoid this and use any existing networks they may have to make the
optimum use of any capital. In addition to the capex, there are the operational costs, (opex).
These costs are for general maintenance and other operational costs that may be incurred.
Increasing efficiency and reliability will reduce the opex costs.
Any upgrade such as that from GSM to GPRS will require new investment and operators are
keen to keep this to the minimum. The upgrades for the GPRS network are not as large as
starting from scratch and rolling out a new network.
The GPRS network adds to the existing GSM network. The main new entities required within the
network are the SGSN and GGSN, and these are required as the starting point.
The base station subsystems require some updates. The main one is the addition of the PCU
described above. Some modifications may be required to the BTS, but often only a software
upgrade is required, and this may often be achieved remotely. In this way costs are kept to a
minimum.
The GPRS network architecture can be viewed as an evolution of the GSM network carrying
both circuit switched and packet data. The GPRS network architecture was also used as the basis
for the 3G UMTS network. In this way network operators could evolve their networks through
GPRS and possibly EDGE to the full 3G networks without having to replace and install more
new equipment than was absolutely necessary.
GPRS Application Environment:

UMTS Networks:

UMTS Architecture. UMTS system uses the same core network as the GPRS and uses entirely
new radio interface. The new radio network in UMTS is called UTRAN (UMTS Terrestrial
Radio Access Network) and is connected to the core network (CN) of GPRS via Iu interface. ...
The mobile terminal in UMTS is called User Equipment (UE). The UMTS 3G architecture is
required to provide a greater level of performance to that of the original GSM network. However
as many networks had migrated through the use of GPRS and EDGE, they already had the ability
to carry data. Accordingly many of the elements required for the WCDMA / UMTS network
architecture were seen as a migration. This considerably reduced the cost of implementing the
UMTS network as many elements were in place or needed upgrading.
With one of the major aims of UMTS being to be able to carry data, the UMTS network
architecture was designed to enable a considerable improvement in data performance over that
provided for GSM.

3G UMTS network constituents

The UMTS network architecture can be divided into three main elements:

1. User Equipment (UE): The User Equipment or UE is the name given to what was
previous termed the mobile, or cell phone. The new name was chosen because the
considerably greater functionality that the UE could have. It could also be anything
between a mobile phone used for talking to a data terminal attached to a computer with
no voice capability.
2. Radio Network Subsystem (RNS): The RNS also known as the UMTS Radio Access
Network, UTRAN, is the equivalent of the previous Base Station Subsystem or BSS in
GSM. It provides and manages the air interface fort he overall network.
3. Core Network: The core network provides all the central processing and management
for the system. It is the equivalent of the GSM Network Switching Subsystem or NSS.

The core network is then the overall entity that interfaces to external networks including the
public phone network and other cellular telecommunications networks.
 UMTS Network Architecture Overview

User Equipment (UE)

The USER Equipment or UE is a major element of the overall 3G UMTS network architecture. It
forms the final interface with the user. In view of the far greater number of applications and
facilities that it can perform, the decision was made to call it user equipment rather than a
mobile. However it is essentially the handset (in the broadest terminology), although having
access to much higher speed data communications, it can be much more versatile, containing
many more applications. It consists of a variety of different elements including RF circuitry,
processing, antenna, battery, etc.
There are a number of elements within the UE that can be described separately:

 UE RF circuitry: The RF areas handle all elements of the signal, both for the receiver
and for the transmitter. One of the major challenges for the RF power amplifier was to
reduce the power consumption. The form of modulation used for W-CDMA requires the
use of a linear amplifier. These inherently take more current than non linear amplifiers
which can be used for the form of modulation used on GSM. Accordingly to maintain
battery life, measures were introduced into many of the designs to ensure the optimum
efficiency.
 Baseband processing: The base-band signal processing consists mainly of digital
circuitry. This is considerably more complicated than that used in phones for previous
generations. Again this has been optimized to reduce the current consumption as far as
possible.
 Battery: While current consumption has been minimized as far as possible within the
circuitry of the phone, there has been an increase in current drain on the battery. With
 users expecting the same lifetime between charging batteries as experienced on the
previous generation phones, this has necessitated the use of new and improved battery
technology. Now Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries are used. These phones to remain small
and relatively light while still retaining or even improving the overall life between
charges.
 Universal Subscriber Identity Module, USIM: The UE also contains a SIM card,
although in the case of UMTS it is termed a USIM (Universal Subscriber Identity
Module). This is a more advanced version of the SIM card used in GSM and other
systems, but embodies the same types of information. It contains the International Mobile
Subscriber Identity number (IMSI) as well as the Mobile Station International ISDN
Number (MSISDN). Other information that the USIM holds includes the preferred
language to enable the correct language information to be displayed, especially when
roaming, and a list of preferred and prohibited Public Land Mobile Networks (PLMN).

The USIM also contains a short message storage area that allows messages to stay with
the user even when the phone is changed. Similarly "phone book" numbers and call
information of the numbers of incoming and outgoing calls are stored.
The UE can take a variety of forms, although the most common format is still a version of a
"mobile phone" although having many data capabilities. Other broadband dongles are also being
widely used.