Thông tin tài liệu
15
Mobile Telephone
Networks
Being away from a telephone, a telex or a facsimile machine has become unacceptable for many
individuals, not only because they cannot be contacted, but
also
because they may be deprived
of
the opportunity to refer to others for advice or information. For these individuals, the advent
of
mobile communications promises a new era, one in which there will never be an excuse for being
‘out-of-touch’. This chapter discusses modern mobile radio communication technologies, covering
the principles of ‘radio telephone service’, ‘trunk mobile radio
(TMR)’
cordless telephones, the
‘global system for mobilecommunication
(GSM)’, as well as describing telephone communication
with ships, aircraft, and trains and the emerging satellite mobile networks (e.g. Iridium and
Globalstar). Mobile datacommunication networks are covered in Chapter
24.
15.1
RADIO
TELEPHONE
SERVICE
The first radio telephone services were manually operated in the high frequency radio
band. These supported international telephone services, as well as communication with
ships and aircraft. Immediately after World War
2,
a new breed of VHF (very high
frequency) radio transmitters and receivers
(transceivers)
were developed. First used for
applications such as the police, the fire service and in taxis, later development lead to
their use as full
radio telephones,
connected to the public switched telephone network
(PSTN) for the receipt and generation of ordinary telephone calls.
The technology used a radio mast located on a hill and equipped with a powerful
multi-channel radio transceiver. The mobile stations were weighty but were nonetheless
popular for commercial ‘car telephone’ service, which grew rapidly in popularity in the
mid-1970s.
For calls made to or from the radiotelephone user, the public telephone network is
connected via
mobile switching centres
(MSCs)
to a number of transmitter
base stations
which emit and receive radio signals from the mobile telephones. Two radio channels
(using different frequencies) are needed to connect each telephone during conversation,
one radio channel for each direction of conversation. Figure 15.1 illustrates a typical
automatic radio telephone system of the late 1970s.
297
Networks and Telecommunications: Design and Operation, Second Edition.
Martin P. Clark
Copyright © 1991, 1997 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
ISBNs: 0-471-97346-7 (Hardback); 0-470-84158-3 (Electronic)
298
MOBILE TELEPHONE NETWORKS
swltchlng
Mobile
centre
(MSC)
Public
switched
telephone
network
LOO
circutts
to
PSTN
Figure
15.1
A
simple
radio
telephone system
Figure 15.1 illustrates a single mobile switching centre and a single transmitter base
station, serving 3600 mobile customers within an area of 1200 km2, within a radius of
about 20 km from the base station. Calls are made or received by the mobile telephone
station by monitoring
a
particular radio channel, called the
signalling
or
call
up
channel.
When making a call, the mobile station signals a message to the base station in much
the same way as an ordinary telephone sends an
off-hook
signal
and a dialled digit train
(Chapter
7).
The base station next allocates a free pair
of
radio channels to be used
between the base station and the mobile for the subsequent period of conversation, and
the two switch over to the allocated channels simultaneously.
At the end of the call the radio channels are released for use on another call.
Incoming calls to the radio telephone connect in the same way. An ordinary telephone
number is dialled by an ordinary customer connected to the public switched telephone
network (PSTN). A particular
area
code
within the normal telephone numbering plan is
usually allocated to identify the mobile network, and all calls with this dialled area code
are routed to the mobile switching centre and via the appropriate base station
transmitter to reach the desired mobile receiver.
A
hurdle to be overcome in the design of radio telephone systems is the need for
incoming calls to be routed only to the nearest base station. Failure to do
so
causes the
failure of incoming calls, because the mobile cannot guarantee to be within the coverage
area of a particular transmitting base station. Early radio telephone systems overcame
the problem by requiring the caller to know the whereabouts of the mobile that he
wished to call. The same customer number would be used on all incoming calls, but a
different area code would have to be used, depending on which base station the caller
wished the call to be routed to (i.e. according to which zone the caller thought the
mobile was in). Figure
15.2
illustrates this principle.
We see here that if the mobile customer’s number is ‘12345’, then when a caller believes
that the mobile is in zone 1, the number 033
1
12345 should be dialled. Similarly for zones
2
and 3, the numbers 0332 12345 and 0333 12345 are appropriate. Some more advanced
CELLULAR RADIO
299
Dial area
code
Mobile as
below
plus
zone
2
0332
zone
3
0
333
Figure
15.2
Area
code routing for incoming radio telephone calls
radio telephone systems were developed with the ability to ‘remember’ the last location
from which a call was made and route the call there. Others used ‘trial-and-error’
methods, but these systems were all superseded by the advent of
cellular radio,
which has
eliminated the market for old-style radio telephones used by roaming users.
Another drawback of the early radio telephone systems was their low user capacity,
and their ‘unfriendly’ usage characteristics. Not only did the automatic systems rely on
the caller to know where the mobile was, but some demanded the ‘press-to-speak’
action of the mobile user. The systems allowed the mobile user to continue to move
about during the call, but if he or she moved out of the coverage area of the base
station, the call would be terminated. There were no facilities for transferring to other
base stations during the course of a call. Together, these drawbacks lead to the demise
of
radiotelephony in its original guise and to its replacement with
cellular radio,
discussed next. The technology has, however, survived for localized radio network
coverage, such as required by taxi companies or regional haulage companies. The terms
private mobile radio (PMR)
or
trunk mobile radio (TMR)
(in Germany
Bundelfunk)
are
more commonly used nowadays. Some interest has been shown to extend the usage and
life of the technology, as demonstrated in the recent development by ETSI of new
standards for
TETRA (trans-European trunk radio),
which aims to provide relatively
low speed integrated voice and data networking capability
to
and from mobile stations
located within relatively large geographical radio coverage areas.
TETRA
is discussed
more fully in Chapter
24.
15.2 CELLULAR RADIO
A difficulty with early radio telephone systems was the small capacity in number of
users. This arose because the early systems were designed to have very wide area
coverage, but had a limited number of radio channels available within each zone.
Furthermore, the
re-use
of radio channels in other zones was precluded by the risk of
300
MOBILE
TELEPHONE NETWORKS
interference except where base stations were separated by large distances. Because the
1970s saw a boom in radio telephone demand, and because radio channel availability
was (and still is) a limited resource, there was pressure for development of revised
methods, more efficiently using the radio bandwidth, thereby greatly increasing the
available user capacity. The system that evolved has become known as
cellular radio.
The basic components of cellular radio networks are
mobile switching centres
(MSCs),
base stations,
and
mobile units,
as Figure 15.3 shows.
Cellular radio networks make efficient use of the radio spectrum,
re-using
the same
radio channel frequencies in a large number of base stations or
cells.
Oriented in a
'honeycomb' fashion, each
cell
is kept small,
so
that the radio transmitting power
required at the transmitting
base station
can be kept low. This limits the area over
which the radio signal is effective, and
so
reduces the area over which radio signal
interference can occur. Outside the
interfering zone
of the transmitter, i.e.
in
a non-
adjacent cell at a sufficient distance away from the first, the same radio channel
frequencies may be
re-used.
Figure 15.5 illustrates the interfering zone of a given cell
base station, and shows another cell using the same radio channel frequencies.
A
whole honeycomb of cells is established, re-using radio channels between the
various cells according to a pre-determined plans.
A
seven cell
re-usepattern
is shown in
Figure 15.6. Seven different radio channel frequency schemes are repeated over each
cluster of seven hexagonal cells, each cell using a different set of frequencies. By such
planning the same radio frequency can be used for different conversations two or three
cells away.
Figure
15.6
shows a 7-cell
re-use pattern.
Other patterns, some involving as few as
three cells, and some more than thirty cells, can also be used. Large repeat patterns are
necessary to cater for heavy traffic demand in built-up areas where small non-adjacent
cells may still interfere with one another.
Each cell is served initially by a single base station at its centre and is complemented
as traffic grows with directional antennas and more radio channels. Using direc-
tional antennas helps to overcome radio wave
shadows.
For example, to locate three
Cell coverage
area
/
'Cells'
?
/
MSCs
or
centres;
/\"
I/
/"
Mobile
handset Other base
statlons
Figure
15.3
The basic components
of
a cellular radio network
CELLULAR
RADIO
301
Figure
15.4
Cellular radio carphone: mounted and in use in a car
Cell
channels
re-using
1-400
v
Figure
15.5
Cellular radio channel interference and re-use. BS
=
Base Station
302
MOBILE TELEPHONE NETWORKS
Transmitter
'Cluster'of
seven
cells
Adjacent
'cluster'
W
Figure
15.6 Cellular radio
in
re-use pattern
obstacle
Radio
'shadow'
Mobile station
\
Alternative radio
path
Figure
15.7
Location
of
multiple
base stations
directional antennas, one at each alternate corner
of
the cell, helps to overcome the
shadow
effects that might otherwise occur near tall buildings by giving an alternative
transmission path, as Figure
15.7
shows.
A
feature of cellular radio networks is their ability to cope with an increasing level of
demand first by using more radio channels and more antennas in the cell, and then by
reducing the size of cells,
splitting
the old cells to form a multiplicity
of
new ones. Only a
limited number
of
radio channels can be made available in a cell at the same time, and
this limits the number
of
simultaneous telephone conversations. By increasing the
number of cells, the overall call capacity can be increased. The number of channels
needed in a given cell is determined by the normal
Erlung formula
(Chapter
30).
The total call demand during the busy hour of the day depends
on
the number of
callers within the cell
at
the time. Reducing the size
of
the cell has the effect
of
reducing
the number
of
mobile stations that
is
likely
to
be in it at any time, and so relieves
MAKING
CELLULAR RADIO
CALLS
303
R
/
1
/
Metropolitan
l
zone
\
\
\
‘ A
Country
zone
Figure
15.8
Cell splitting to increase cell
capacity
congestion. Figure 15.8 shows a simple splitting of cells and a gradual reduction in cell
size in the transitional region between a low traffic (country) area and the high traffic
region surrounding a major metropolitan zone. When splitting cells in this manner, due
care needs to be taken when allocating radio frequencies to the new cells, and a new
frequency re-use plan may be necessary to prevent inter-cell interference.
15.3
MAKING CELLULAR RADIO CALLS
One or more control orpuging radio channels are used to make or receive calls between the
mobile station. If a mobile user wants to make a call, the mobile handset scans the pre-
determined channels to determine the strongest control channel, and monitors it to receive
network status and availability information. When the telephone number of the destina-
tion has been dialled by the customer and the send key has been pressed, the mobile
handset finds a free control channel and broadcasts a request for a user (i.e. radio
telephone) channel. All the base stations use the same control channels, and monitor
them for call requests. On the receipt of such a request by any base station, a message is
sent to the nearest mobile switching centre
(MSC),
indicating both the desire of the
mobile station to place a call and the strength of the radio signal received from the
mobile. The
MSC
determines which base station has received the greatest signal
strength, and, based on this, decides which cell the mobile is in.
It
then requests the
mobile handset to identify itself with an authorization number that can be used for call
charging. The authorization procedure eliminates any scope for fraud.
Following authorization of an outgoing call, a free radio channel is allocated in the
appropriate cell for the carriage of the call itself, and the call is extended to its
destination on the public switched telephone network. Incidentally, the appropriate cell
need not necessarily imply the nearest base station; more sophisticated cellular net-
works might
also
choose to use adjacent base stations if this will help to alleviate
304
MOBILE TELEPHONE NETWORKS
New stronger
signal radio path
7
New path
/
I
switching
Old cell
l
centre)
Pat
h
re1 eased
on hand
-
off
Figure
15.9 ‘Hand-off’ during
a
call
channel congestion. At the end of the call, the mobile station generates an on-hook or
end
of
call
signal which causes release of the radio channel, and reverts the handset back
to monitoring the control and paging channel.
Each mobile switching centre controls a number of radio base stations. If, during the
course of a call, the mobile station moves from one cell to another (as is highly likely,
because the cells are small), then the
MSC
is able to transfer the call to route via a
different base station, appropriate to the new position. The process of changeover to the
new cell occurs without disturbance to the call, and is known as hand-oflor handover.
This is one of the most important capabilities of a mobile telephone network. Hand-off
is initiated either by the active base station, or by the mobile station, depending upon
the network and system type. The relative strengths of signals received at all the nearest-
base-stations are compared with one another continuously, and when the current
station signal strength falls below a pre-determined threshold, or is surpassed by the
signal strength available via an adjacent base station, then hand-ofSis initiated. The
mobile switching centre establishes a duplicate radio and telephone channel in the new
cell, and once established, the call is transferred to the new radio path by a control
message to the mobile handset. When confirmed on the new channel and base station,
the original connection
is
cleared, as Figure
15.9
illustrates.
15.4
TRACING CELLULAR RADIO HANDSETS
Whenever the mobile handset is switched on, and at regular intervals thereafter, it uses
the control channel to register its presence to the nearest mobile switching centre. This
EARLY CELLULAR RADIO NETWORKS 305
enables the local mobile switching centre at least to have some idea of the location of
the mobile user. If outside the geographical area covered by the base stations controlled
by its
home
MSC,
the local MSC (i.e. the nearest to the mobile user) undertakes a
registration procedure,
in which it interrogates the
home
MSC
(or the intelligent
network database associated with it) for details of the mobile, including the authoriza-
tion number and other information. The information is held by the home MSC in a
database called the
home location register,
or
HLR.
It contains the mapping informa-
tion necessary for completing calls to the mobile user from the PSTN (its network
identity, authorization and billing information). The local MSC duplicates some of this
information in a temporary
visitor location register
or
VLR,
until the caller leaves the
MSC area. Once the visiting location register has been established in the local MSC,
outgoing calls may be made by the mobile user.
The
registration procedure
is
a
crucial part of the mechanism used for tracing the
whereabouts of mobile users,
so
that incoming calls can be delivered. Incoming calls are
first routed to the nearest mobile switching centre (MSC) to the point of origin (i.e. the
caller). This MSC interrogates the
home location register
for the last known location of
the mobile user (this is known as a result of the most recent mobile registration). The
call can then be forwarded to the mobile switching centre where the mobile was ‘last
heard’, whereupon a paging mechanism, using the base station control channels, can
locate the exact cell in which the mobile is currently located.
A suitable free radio
channel may then be selected for completion of the call.
Both the handsets and the network infrastructure needed to support cellular radio are
complex and expensive, although the increase in user demand is reducing the cost. The
mobile handsets come in a number of different forms, from the traditional car-mounted
telephone, to the pocket versions. The latter are expensive not only because of the feats
of electronics miniaturization that has been necessary but also because the trends
towards pocket telephones has necessitated advanced battery technology and the use of
sophisticated battery conservation methods (which, in effect, turn much of the unit
off
for as much of the time as possible, to save power). The
mobile switching centres
(MSCs) rely on advanced computers capable of storing and updating large volumes
of customer information, and also of rapidly interrogating other MSCs for the location
of out-of-area, or
roaming
mobiles. The interrogation relies on the use of the
mobile
application part (MAP)
and the
transaction capability (TCAP)
user parts
of
SS7
signalling (which we discussed in Chapter
12).
15.5
EARLY CELLULAR RADIO NETWORKS
A
number of different cellular radio standards have evolved, with the result that hand
portables purchased for use on one system are unsuitable for use on another. The most
common
of
the systems currently in use worldwide are as follows.
AMPS (Advanced Mobile Telephone System)
This was first introduced in Chicago in 1977 by Illinois Bell, at that time one
of
the
operating companies of AT&T in the United States. Developed by AT&T’s Bell
306
MOBILE
TELEPHONE
NETWORKS
Laboratories, this became the most commonly used system in North America up to the
early 1990s, when digital systems began
to
take over. It operates in the 800 MHz and
900
MHz radio bands, at a channel spacing
of
30 kHz.
NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone Service)
This commenced service in the Nordic countries in 1981 and is used in other countries
in Europe (Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain,
Switzerland). The original system was 450 MHz based but has been gradually extended
and to some extent replaced after 1986 with the later NMT-900 version.
C (Network C)
Network C was a development
of
Network
B,
a digitally controlled mobile radio system
introduced in the Federal Republic
of
Germany in 1971. Network B was 450 MHz based.
Its replacement, Network C can be either 450 MHz or
900
MHz based (hence C-450 and
C-900); it is still in use in Germany and Portugal, but being replaced by GSM systems.
TACS (Total Access Communication System)
This is a derivative
of
the American AMPS standard, modified to operate in the 900
MHz band, with a more efficient
25
kHz radio channel spacing. TACs was the system
introduced into the
UK
and Ireland during 1985.
ETACS
or
extended TACS
is a com-
patible derivative
of TACs which gives greater channel availability, particularly in very
congested areas like the metropolitan London area. The system is also used in Austria,
Italy and Spain.
Other mobile telephone standards include
NAMTS (Nippon Automatic Mobile
Telephone System
used in Japan),
Radiocom
2000
(used in France),
RTMS
(second
generation Mobile Telephone used in Italy),
UNZTAX
(used in China and Hong Kong)
and
Comvik
(used in Sweden).
Table
15.1 Comparison
of
analogue cellular radio
network
types
AMPS
C
450 NMT 450
NMT
900
TACS
(USA)
(Germany) (Scandinavia) (Scandinavia)
(UK)
Uplink band
824-849
MHz
450-455
MHz 453-458 MHz 890-915 MHz 890-915 MHz
Downlink 869-894 MHz 461-466 MHz 463-468 MHz 935-960 MHz 935-960
MHz
band
Channel
30 kHz 20 kHz
25
kHz
25
kHz
25
kHz
spacing
Multiplexing
FDMA FDMA FDMA FDMA FDMA
Modulation PSK FSK
FSK
FSK PSK
Number
of
833
222
180
1000
1000
channels
Ngày đăng: 21/01/2014, 19:20
Xem thêm: Tài liệu Mạng và viễn thông P15 ppt, Tài liệu Mạng và viễn thông P15 ppt