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Lecture 4: Cellular Fundamentals

Chapter 3 - Continued

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I. Adjacent Channel Interference
Two major types of system-generated
interference:
1) Co-Channel Interference (CCI) discussed in last
lecture
2) Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI)
Adjacent Channel Interference (ACI)
Imperfect Rx filters allow energy from adjacent
channels to leak into the passband of other
channels
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actual filter response

desired filter response
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This affects both forward & reverse links
Forward Link base-to-mobile
interference @ mobile Rx from a ______ Tx
(another mobile or another base station that is not
the one the mobile is listening to) when mobile Rx
is ___ away from base station.
signal from base station is weak and others are
somewhat strong.
Reverse Link mobile-to-base
interference @ base station Rx from nearby mobile
Tx when desired mobile Tx is far away from base
station
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Near/Far Effect
interfering source is near some Rx when desired
source is far away
ACI is primarily from mobiles in the same cell
some cell-to-cell ACI does occur as well but a
secondary source
Control of ACI
dont allocate channels within a given cell from a
contiguous band of frequencies
for example, use channels 1, 4, 7, and 10 for a cell.
no channels next to each other

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maximize channel separation
separation of as many as N channel bandwidths
some schemes also seek to minimize ACI from
neighboring cells by not assigning adjacent
channels in neighboring cells

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Originally 666 channels, then 10 MHz of
spectrum was added
666+166 = 832 channels
395 VC plus 21 CC per service provider
(providers A & B)
395*2 = 790, plus 42 control channels
Provider A is a company that has not
traditionally provided telephone service
Provider B is a traditional wireline operator
21 VC groups with 19 channels/group
at least 21 channel separation for each group
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for N = 7 3 VC groups/cell
For example, choose groups 1A, 1B, and 1C for a
cell so channels 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, 36, etc. are used.
57 channels/cell
at least 7 channel separation for each cell group
to have high quality on control channels, 21 cell
reuse is used for CCs
instead of reusing a CC every 7 cells, as for VCs,
reuse every 21 cells (after every three clusters)
greater distance between control channels, so less
CCI

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use high quality filters in base stations
better filters are possible in base stations since they
are not constrained by physical size and power as
much as in the mobile Rx
makes reverse link ACI less of a concern than
forward link ACI
also true because of power control (discussed below)
choice of modulation schemes
different modulation schemes provide less or more
energy outside their passband.

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Power Control
technique to minimize ACI
base station & MSC constantly monitor mobile
received signal strength
mobile Tx power varied (controlled) so that
smallest Tx power necessary for a quality reverse
link signal is used (lower power for the closer the
mobile is to the base station)
also helps battery life on mobile
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dramatically improves adjacent channel S / I
ratio, since mobiles in other cells only transmit
at high enough power as transmitter controls
(not at full power)
most beneficial for ACI on reverse link
will see later that this is especially important for
CDMA systems

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III. Trunking & Grade of Service (GOS)
Trunked radio system: radio system where a
large # of users share a pool of channels
channel allocated on demand & returned to channel
pool upon call termination
exploit statistical (random) behavior of users so that
fixed # of channels can accommodate large # of
users
Trade-off between the number of available channels
that are provided and the likelihood of a particular user
finding no channels available during the busy hour of
the day.
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trunking theory is used by telephone companies to
allocate limited # of voice circuits for large # of
telephone lines
efficient use of equipment resources savings
disadvantage is that some probability exists that
mobile user will be denied access to a channel
blocked call : access denied blocked call cleared
delayed call : access delayed by call being put into
holding queue for specified amount of time

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GOS : measure of the ability of user access to a
trunked system during the _______ hour
specified as probability (Pr) that call is blocked or
delayed
designed to handle the busiest hour typically
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Erlang : unitless measure of traffic intensity
e.g. 0.5 erlangs = 1 channel occupied 30 minutes
during 1 hour
Table 3.3, pg. 78 trunking theory definitions

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Offered Traffic Intensity (A)
Offered? not necessarily carried by system
(some is blocked or delayed)
each user A
u
=H Erlangs (also called in queueing
theory)
= traffic intensity (average arrival rate of new calls,
in new requests per time unit, say calls/min).
H = average duration of a call (also called 1/ in
queueing theory)
system with U users A = UA
u
= UH Erlangs
capacity = maximum carried traffic = C Erlangs =
(equal to total # of available channels that are busy
all the time)
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Erlang B formula
Calls are either admitted or blocked




A = total offered traffic
C = # channels in trunking pool (e.g. a cell)
AMPS designed for GOS of 2%
blocked call cleared (denied) BCC

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capacities to support various GOS values













Note that twice the capacity can support much more than
twice the load (twice the number of Erlangs).
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Erlang C formulas
blocked call delayed BCD put into holding
queue
GOS is probability that a call will still be blocked
even if it spends time in a queue and waits for up to
t seconds
equations (3.17) to (3.19) in book

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Graphical form of Erlang B formulas


















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Graphical form of Erlang C formulas
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Example: Find how many users can be
supported in a cell containing 50 channels for a
2% GOS (Blocked Calls Cleared) if the average
user calls twice/hr with an average call duration
of 5 minutes.

What is the corresponding C from the figure?

What is A (Traffic Intensity) from the figure?

So, how many users can be supported?

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Trunking Efficiency
measure of the # of users supported by a specific
configuration of fixed channels, efficiency in terms
of users per available channel = U / C
Table 3.4, pg. 79 assume 1% GOS
Assume Au = 0.2
1 group of 20 channels:


2 groups of 10 channels, with equal number of users
per group:
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the allocation of channel groups can
substantially change the # of users supported by
trunked system
The larger the trunking pool, the better the trunking
efficiency.
as trunking pool size then trunking efficiency

What is the relationship between trunking pool size,
trunking efficiency, received signal quality, and
cluster size?
As cluster size decreases

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Note: Trunking efficiency is an issue both in
FDMA/TDMA systems and in CDMA systems
(where the capacity limit is the number of
possible codes and the interference levels).

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IV. Improving Cellular System Capacity
A cellular design eventually (hopefully!)
becomes insufficient to support the growing
number of users.
Need to provide more channels per unit coverage
area
Would like to have orderly growth
Would like to upgrade the system instead of rebuild
Would like to use existing towers as much as
possible
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Cell Splitting
subdivide congested cell into several smaller
cells
increases number of times channels are reused
in an area
must decrease antenna height & Tx power
so smaller coverage per cell results
and the co-channel interference level is held
constant

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each smaller cell keeps same # of channels as
the larger cell, since each new smaller cell uses
the same number of frequencies
this means that we keep that same cluster size
capacity because channel reuse per unit area
smaller cells micro-cells

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Illustration is for towers at the corners
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advantages include:
only needed for cells that reach max. capacity not
all cells
implement when Pr [blocked call] > acceptable GOS
system capacity can gradually expand as demand
disadvantages include:
# handoffs/unit area increases
umbrella cell for high velocity traffic may be needed
more base stations $$ for real estate, towers, etc.
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complicated design process
new base stations use lower power and antenna
height
What about existing base stations?
If kept at the same power, they would overpower new
microcells.
If reduced in power, they would not cover their own
cells.
One solution: Use separate groups of channels.
One group at the original power and another group at
the lower power.
New microcells only use lower power channels.
As load growth continues, more and more channels are
moved to lower power.

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Sectoring
cell splitting keeps D / R unchanged (same
cluster size and CCI) but increases frequency
reuse/area
alternate way to capacity is to _____ CCI
(increase S / I ratio)

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replace omni-directional antennas at base station
with several directional antennas
3 sectors 3 120 antennas
6 sectors 6 60 antennas

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cell channels broken down into sectored groups
CCI reduced because only some of neighboring co-
channel cells radiate energy in direction of main cell
center cell labeled "5" has all co-channel cells
illustrated
only 2 co-channel cells will interfere if all are using
120 sectoring
only 1 co-channel cell would interfere when using
60 sectoring
If the S/I was 17 dB for N = 7 and n = 4, what is the
S / I now with 120 sectoring?
24.2 dB

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How is capacity increased?
sectoring only improves S/I which increases voice
quality, beyond what is really necessary
by reducing CCI, the cell system designer can choose
smaller cluster size (N ) for acceptable voice quality
smaller N greater frequency reuse larger system
capacity

What would the system capacity, C
new
, now be when
120 using sectoring, as compared to the old capacity,
C
old
?
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much less costly than cell splitting
only require more antennas @ base station vs.
multiple new base stations for cell splitting
primary disadvantage is that the available
channels in a cell are subdivided into sectored
groups
trunked channel pool , therefore trunking
efficiency
There are more channels per cell, because of
smaller cluster sizes, but those channels are broken
into sectors.

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other disadvantages:
must design network coverage with sectoring
decided in advance
cant effectively use sectoring to increase capacity
after setting cluster size N
cant be used to gradually expand capacity as
traffic like cell splitting
More Handoffs
More antenna, more cost

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Next topic: Mobile Radio Propagation - Large-
scale path loss, small-scale fading, and
multipath
Free space propagation loss
Reflections
2-ray model
Diffraction
Fading
Multipath

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HW-2
3-10, 3-13, 3-15, 3-22, 3-26