CHAPTER 7: Introduction to Cells

Cellular network concept

• In the first mobile network systems, the aim was to

cover a very large area with a single high-power
antenna.
– max of 12 calls in New York City in 1970
• Cellular network concept
– replace a high power transmitter with many low power
transmitters
– each base station gets a portion of all channels
• Cellular network concept
 Cellular network concept

• Principle: As demand increases, increase the

number of base stations and reduce their
transmission power.
– It serves a relatively large number of users by reusing a
certain number of channels (channel reuse).
• The design process of selecting and allocating
channel groups for all of the cellular base stations
within a system is called frequency reuse or
frequency planning.
 Cellular structure

• Space division multiplexing method is used

– A base station covers a certain region (cell, cell)
– Mobile stations only communicate with the base
station
 Cellular structure

• Advantages of cell structures:

– higher capacity, higher number of users
– less transmission power needed
– more robust, decentralized
– base station deals with interference, transmission area
etc. locally
 Cellular structure

• Problems:
– A complex infrastructure to connect all base stations
– handover (changing from one cell to another) necessary
– interference with other cells
• Cell sizes from some 100 m in cities to, e.g., 35 km
on the country side (GSM)
 Representation of Cells

• Footprint: the actual radio coverage of a cell circle

– gaps and overlapping regions
• square; equilateral triangle; hexagon
• hexagon geometry allows the fewest number of cells to
cover a geographic area
 Channel definition

• A channel is characterized by a
– frequency band in Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)
– time slot in Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)
– orthogonal modulating code in Code Division
Multiplexing (CDM)
– or, a combination of above
 Channel reuse

• Channel reuse is possible if a second transmitter using the

channel is ``far enough’’ from the main transmitter so that
the received energy from the main transmitter dominates
the energy from the second transmitter.

Second Tx
First Tx
 Frequency planning

f3 f3 f3
f2 f2
f1
f3
f1
f3
f1
3 cell cluster
f2 f2 f2
f1 f1
f3 f3 f3

f2 f3 f7
f5 f2
7 cell cluster f4
f1
f6
f4
f5

f3 f7 f1
f2 f3
f6 f5 f2

f2 f2 f2

3 cell cluster
f1 f f1 f f1 f
3 h2 3 h2 3
h h
g2 1 h3 g2 1 h3 g2
g1 g1 g1
with 3 sector antennas
g3 g3 g3
 Capacity and cluster

• N: number of cells in a group (i.e., cluster size)

• k: number of channels in each cell of a group
• S: number of duplex channels available for use in a
group (cluster)
• S= k N
• The N cells is called a cluster.
• M: number of clusters and C: capacity
• C= MkN =MS
– cluster size: 3, 4, 7, 12, …
 Capacity and cluster

• the smallest possible value of N to maximize

capacity C
– interference
• The frequency (or channel) reuse factor of a
cellular system is given by 1/N

N =i +i× j+ j
2 2
Example
 Example

– If a total of 33 MHz of bandwidth is allocated to a

particular FDD cellular telephone system which uses two
25 kHz simplex channels to provide full duplex voice and
control channels, compute k, the number of channels per
cell if N =4, N=7, and N=12.

– 33000/ (25 x 2) = 660 total number of channel

– 660 / 4 = 165 channel/cell
– 660 / 7 = 95 channel/cell
– 660 /12 = 55 channel/cell
 Channel distribution strategies

• Fixed channel assignment:

– certain frequencies are assigned to a certain cell
– problem: different traffic load in different cells
– blocking: if all channels in a cell are occupied, a new call
is blocked
• Strategies to overcome the effects of non-uniform
loading
– non-uniform channel allocation: the number of channels
assigned to each cell depends on the expected load
 Channel distribution strategies

• Fixed channel assignment:

• channel borrowing schemes: borrow a channel
from a neighboring cell if the interference
constraints are fulfilled; borrowed channels are
returned once calls are completed
• channel locking: when a channel is borrowed,
several other cells are prohibited from using it
 Channel distribution strategies

• Dynamic channel assignment (DCA):

– channels are assigned according to traffic
– Mobile switching center (MSC) chooses frequencies
depending on the frequencies already used in neighbor
cells
– more capacity in cells with more traffic
– MSC collects real-time data on channel occupancy, traffic
distribution, etc.
• DCA Strategies
• Centralized DCA: centralized controller or centralized pool
• Distributed DCA
 Channel distribution strategies

• Hybrid channel assignment (HCA):

• the total set of channels is divided into two subsets
• the first subset of channels is assigned to cells by FCA
• the second subset is kept in a central pool and assigned
dynamically to cells on demand
 Handoff (or Handover)

• Handoff (or handover): an ongoing call is transferred

from one cell to another cell as a user moves

As user moves, signal strength of base 1 and base 2 decreases and increases,
respectively (Source: G.P. Pollini, “Trends in Handover Design”, IEEE
Communications Mag., March 1996, vol.34, no.3.)
 Hard and soft handoff

• hard handover: mobile drops a channel before picking up the

next channel (in TDMA systems)
• soft handover: mobile station receives signals from two or
more base stations, compares them and picks out the best
signal (in CDMA systems)
• Softer handoff: occurs between sectors of cell
 Handoff priority

• ongoing calls versus new calls

– QoS
• call blocking rate
• call dropping rate
– Prioritizing Handoffs
• guard channel concept
• queuing of handoff requests
 Interference in cellular networks

• Interference is a major limiting factor in wireless cellular

systems
– Interference is a major bottleneck in increasing capacity
and is responsible for dropped calls
• co-channel interference
• adjacent channel interference
• co-channel cells: cells that use the same set of frequencies
– interference between these cells are called co-channel
interference
– co-channel cells must be separated by a minimum
distance
 Channel reuse rate

• reuse distance: D (the distance between centers

of the nearest co-channel cells)
• R: radius of cell

• channel reuse ratio: Q = D = 3N

R
– small value of Q provides larger capacity since N
is small
– large value of Q means better QoS (larger D)
 SIR and SNR

• SIR: Signal-to-Interference Ratio

• SNR: Signal-to-Noise Ratio

• S: Signal Avg Power

• I : Avg. Interference (or Noise) Power
 Channel reuse rate

#
Co-channel reuse ratio: ! = $ = 3&
Low Q à High capacity (C)
High Q à High QoS
'( = the number of co-channel interfering cells
) )
= ,
* ∑ / *,
,-.
S: Desired signal power
*, : The interference power caused by the ith interfering
co-channel base station
Channel reuse rate
 Channel reuse rate

! $%&
= (
" ∑ + (-( )%&
()*

If all the interfering base stations are equidistant from the base
station, we obtain

/ 1 23 (6/1)3 ( 89)3
= = =
0 (4 ×6 23 (4 (4
/
US AMPS requires 0 ≥ 18 =>
 Example

– If a signal to interference ratio of 15 dB is required for

satisfactory forward channel performance of a cellular
system,
– what is the frequency reuse factor (1/N) and cluster size
(N) that should be used for maximum capacity if the path
loss exponent is (a) n= 4, (b) n=3?
– Assume that there are 6 co-channels cells in the first tier,
and all of them are at the same distance from the mobile.
 Solution

n=4
N=6 hücreli bir sistem olduğunu kabul edelim (i=1,j=2)
6 tane interfering hücre var
! (%/')) ( ,-)) ( ,×/)0
"
= *+
= *+
= / = 54 = 17,3289
Elde edilen değer 15 dB den büyük olduğu için kullanılabilir.
n=3
N=6 hücreli bir sistem olduğunu kabul edelim (i=1,j=2)
6 tane interfering hücre var
! (%/')) ( ,-)) ( ,×/):
"
= *+
= *+
= / = 12,72 = 11,0489
Elde edilen değer 15 dB den küçük olduğu için kullanılamaz.
N değeri artırılmalıdır (i=2,j=2 à N=12)
Trunking, GoS, Cell Sector
 Trunking

• trunking allows users to share a pool of channels

• trunking theory determine the number of users that can
be supported in a network
• if no channel is available, then
– blocking
– queueing
 Traffic Intensity

• (traffic intensity)
=(arrival rate of calls) X (average call duration)
=(# of calls / hour) X ( average call duration in hours)
 Earlang

• 1 Erlang represents the amount of traffic intensity carried

by a channel that is completely occupied (1 call-hour per
hour or 1 call-minute per minute)
• Example: a radio channel that is occupied for 30 minutes
during an hour carries 0.5 Erlangs of traffic.
 Grade of Service (GoS)

• GoS is a measure of the ability of a user to access a

trunked system during the busiest hour.
• For a given GoS, the job of wireless designer is to
estimate the maximum required capacity and allocate
the proper number of channels.
• GoS is usually given as the likelihood that a call is blocked
or delayed
 Total Traffic Intensity

• Each user generates a traffic intensity of Au

Erlangs
– Au = λ H
– where
– H is the average duration of call
– λ is the average number of call
– requests per unit time
• U: number of all users
– A = U Au
 Total Traffic Intensity

• traffic intensity per channel, Ac, is given by

– Ac = U Au / C

• AMPS is designed for a GOS of 2% blocking.

– During the busiest hour, only 2 calls out of 100 calls can
be blocked at most
 Trunked Systems

• There are two types of trunked systems:

– Blocked Calls Cleared
• no queuing
• Erlang B formula

– Blocked Calls Delayed

• Erlang C formula
 Erlang B

• Erlang B determines the probability that a call is blocked.

 Erlang C

• The likelihood of a call not having an immediate access to

a channel is determined by the Erlang C formula.
 Erlang C

• The probability that the delayed call is forced to wait

more than t seconds is given by the probability that a call
is delayed, multiplied by the conditional probability that
the delay is greater than t seconds
 Erlang B - Example

– How many users can be supported for

0.5%=0.005 blocking probability for the following
number of trunked channels in a blocked calls
cleared system? (a) 5, (b) 10, (c) 20, (d) 100.
Assume each user generates 0.1 Erlangs of traffic.
Erlang B Chart
Erlang B System Capacity
 Erlang C - Example

• A hexagonal cell within a 4-cell system has a

radius of 1.387 km. A total of 60 channels are
used within the entire system. If the load per
user is 0.029 Erlangs compute the following for
an Erlang C system that has 5% probability of a
delayed call:

How many users per square kilometer will this

system support?
Erlang C Chart
 Trunking Efficiency

• Trunking efficiency is a measure of number of

users which can be offered a particular GoS with
a particular configuration of fixed channels
Sectoring
Sectoring
 Facts for sectoring in a 7-cell reuse system

• Sectoring reduces interference by reducing the

number of interferers in the first tier. Therefore,
sectoring improves the S/I for each user in the
system
• Sectoring decreases the trunking efficiency. That
is, unsectoring may handle more total traffic
intensity in Erlangs (or more number of calls per
hour) than sectoring
– because the channels allocated to a cell are now
divided among the different sectors.
 Example

• Consider a cellular system in which:

• An average call lasts 2 minutes, the probability of
blocking is to be no more than 1%. Assume that every
subscriber makes 1 call per hour, on average.
• If there are a total of 395 traffic channels for a 7-cell
reuse system, there will be about 57 traffic channels per
cell.
• Assume that blocked calls are cleared so the blocking is
described by the Erlang B distribution. From the Erlang B
distribution, it can be found that the unsectored system
may handle 44.2 Erlangs or 1326 calls per hour.
 Example

• Now employing 120° sectoring, there are only

19 channels per antenna sector (57/3
antennas).
• For the same probability of blocking and average
call length, it can be found from the Erlang B
distribution that each sector can handle 11.2
Erlangs or 336 calls per hour.
Thank You..