Global System for Mobile Communication

Prof. Rajkamal Sangole Assistant Professor, MCA PCCOE, Pune rajkamal.sangole@gmail.com

Introduction

It is a digital wireless network standard designed by standardization committees from major European telecommunications operators and manufacturers. The GSM standard provides a common set of compatible mobile services and capabilities to all mobile users across European and several million customers worldwide. The basic requirements of GSM are: Services: The system will provide service portability that is, mobile station or mobile phones. The system will offer services that exst in the wire line network as well as service specific to mobile communications.

Quality of services and security: The quality for voice telephony of GSM will be at least as good as the previous analog systems over the actual operating range. Encrypted information can be offered by the system without affecting the costs to users who do not require such facility.

Radio frequency utilization: The system will permit a high level of spectrum efficiency and state of the art subscriber facilities. The system will be capable of operating in the entire allocated frequency band, and coexist with the earlier systems in the same frequency band.
Network: An international standardized signaling system will be used for switching and mobility management. The existing fixed public networks should not be significantly modified.

GSM Architecture

GSM networks are structured in hierarchic fashion.

It consists at the minimum one administrative region assigned to one Mobile Switching Center.
The administrative region is commonly known as PLMN (Public Land Mobile Network). Each administrative region is subdivided into one or many Location Area. One Location Area Consists of many cell groups. Each cell group is assigned to one Base Station Controller. For each Location Area there will be at least one Base Station Controller. Cells in one BSC can belong to different LAs.

Cells are formed by the radio areas covered by a Base Transceiver Station. Several BTSs are controlled by one BSC. Traffic from the MS is routed through MSC.

Calls originating from or terminating in a fixed network or other mobile networks is handled by the GMSC (Gateway MSC).
Following figure depicts the architecture of GSM PLMN from technology point of view.

Following depicts the same architecture from the operational point of view

Where abbrevations stand for

For all subscribers registered with a cellular network operator, permanent data such as the service profile is stored in the Home Location Register (HLR). The data relate to the following information:

Authentication information like International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI). Identification information like name, address, etc., of the subscriber.

Identification information like Mobile Subscriber ISDN (MSISDN), etc.

Billing information like prepaid or postpaid customer

Handling of supplementary services like for CFU (Call Forwarding Uncondinal), CFB (Call Forwarding Busy), CFNR (Call Forwarding Not Rechable) or CFNA (Call Forwarding Not Answered).

Storage of SMS Service Center number in case the mobile is not connectable so that whenever the mobile is connectable, a paging signal is sent to Service Center. Provisioning information like whether roaming is enabled or not.
Information related to auxiliary services like Voice mail, data, fax service, etc.

The GSM technical specifications define different entities that form the GSM network by defining their functions and interface requirements. The GSM network can be divided into five main groups The mobile station (MS): This includes the Mobile Equipment (ME) and the Subsriber Identity Module (SIM). The Base Station Subsystem (BSS): This includes MSC, Home Location Register(HLR), Visitor Location Register (VLR), Equipment Identity Register (EIR), and the Authenctication Center (AUC) The Operation and Support Subsystem (OSS): This includes the operation and maintenance center (OMC).

Air Interface

In mobile or wireless communication, the air interface is the radio-based communication link between the mobile station and the active base station. The GSM radio interface uses both FDMA and TDMA technologies. In GSM for a given distance less power is required to transmit signal over a frequency. To save power, uplink frequencies in mobile systems are always the lower band of frequencies. For this discontinuous transmission is used in GSM. Due to this whenever voice is present MS truns the tranmitter on, otherwise the transmitter is turned off. GSM also supports discontinuous reception where the MS needs to listen only to its sub channel for paging.

The time slots in uplink are derived from the downlink by a delay of three time slots. And this prevents the MS from transmitting and receiving at the same time. A timing advance value is computed because of the propagation delay, these three times slot delay cannot be accurately maintained. This time advance value is calculated by Base Station Subsystem (BSS) based on the bursts received from the MS, and is signaled to the MS twice per second to inform the MS of the appropriate timing value.

Channel Structure: Depending upon the information carried out by the defined time slot, the information can be transmitted by two types of logical channels:

Traffic Channels (TCH)

Control Channels (CCH) TCH's are intended to carry user information.

It can be of two types:

Full rate TCH (TCH/F): provides transmission speed of 13 Kbps for speech or 9.6, 4.8 or 2.4 Kbps for data. Enhanced full rate (EFR) speech coder have been implemented to improve the speech quality of TCH/F

The CCH's are intended to carry signal information.

It is of three types:

Paging Channel (PCH): It is used by the network to page the destination MS in call termination.

Access grant Channel (AGCH): It is used by the netowrk to indicate radio link allocation upon prime access of an MS.

Randon access channel (RACH): It is used by the MS's for initial access to the network. Several MS's may acess the same RACH resulting in collision. PCH & AGCH are delivered from the BSS to the MS;s by the downlink. RACH utilizes the uplink.

Radio Aspect for Call Origination & Termination:

MS RACH (request signalling channel) AGCH (assign signalling channel) SDCCH (request call setup) BSS

SDCCH message exchanges for call setup

SDCCH (assign TCH) FACCH (complete assignment) GSM Call Origination (Radio Aspect)

Dedicated control channels are supported by GSM for a specific MS. These channels can be of different types defined as follows: Standalone dedicated control channels (SDCCH), used only for signalling and for short messages. Slow associated control channels (SACCH), associated with either TCH or SDCCH. It s used for transmission of power and time alignment control information over the downlink and measurements reports from the MS over the uplink. A TCH is always allocated with control channels SACCH to transport both user information and signalling data in parallel.

Fast associated control channels (FACCH), used for time critical signalling such as authentication, handoff. It makes use of TCH bandwidht due to which there is loss of user data. Cell broadcast channel (CBCH), used for transmission of shrot service cell broadcast messages which use the same time slot as SDCCH. CBCH is used on the downlink while, SDCCH, FACCH and SACCH are used in both downlink and uplink.

Broadcast Channels (BCH's) are used by BTS to broadcast information to MS's which are in its coverage area. They are of two types:

1. Frequency correction channel (FCCH) and synchronization channel (SCH), used to carry information from BSS to MS. The information allows the MS to acquire and stay synchronized with the BSS, 2. Broadcast control channel (BCCH), used to provide system information such as access nformation for the cells to support cell selection and location registration procedures in an MS.

For mobile call generation or to intiate call setup, the MS sends a signalling channel request to the network through RACH. The BSC informs the MS of the allocated signalling channel (SDCCH) through AGCH. Then the MS sends the call origination request via SDCCH. The MSC instructs the BSC to allocate a TCH for this call. Then the MS acknowledges the traffic channel assignment through FACCH. At last both MS and BTS tune with TCH.

MS PCH (page MS) RACH (request signaling channel) AGCH (assign signaling channel) SDCCH (respond to paging)

BSS

Call setup procedure

GSM call termination (radio aspect)

For mobile call termination, the MSC requests the BSS to page the MS. The BSC's instructs the BTS's in the desired LA to page the MS by using PCH. When the destination MS receives the paging message, it requests an SDCCH through RACH. The BTS assigns the SDCCH through AGCH. The MS responds the paging through the SDCCCH. This SDCCH is also used to setup the call as in the call origination case.

Location Services

The current location of an MS is maintained by a two level hierarchical strategy with the Home Location Register and the Visitor Location Register. When an MS visits a new location, it must register in the VLR of the visited location. Handover Mechanism: The HLR must also be informed about this registration. To access the MS, the HLR is queried to find the current VLR of the MS. The registration process of the MS moving from one VLR to another VLR can be defined as follows:

Step 1: The MS periodically listens to the BCCH broadcast from the BSS. If the MS detects that it has entered a new location area, it sends a registration message to the new VLR by using the SDCCH channel.

Step 2: The new VLR communicates with the old VLR to find the HLR of the MS. The new VLR then performs the authentication process. Step 3: After tje MS is authenticated, the new VLR sends a registration message to the HLR, if the registration request is accepted, and the HLR provides the new VLR with all relevant subscriber information for call handling. Step 4: The new VLR informs the MS of the successful registration. Step 5: After step 3, the HLR sends a deregistration i.e. cancellation message to the old VLR. The old VLR cancels the record for the MS and sends an acknowledgment to HLR for the cancellation.

When MS switch off its phone or remove SIM, it becomes inactive, it transmits a message of deregistration through network and when required it may send registration message through network.

The basic call termination procedure can be defined as follows:

1. The call is forwarded to GMSC i.e. gateway to MSC only when MSISDN is dialed, and the HLR sends request message to VLR to find the current location of MS to provide the routable address, which is called as mobile station roaming number (MSRN).
2. The VLR sends reply message, providing the MSRN number to the GMSC through the HLR.

3. The MSRN received by GMSC used as a route call to the MS through the visited MSC.

MS may receive the call when he/she is engaged in some another communication. Now then if the calling subscriber is activated with the call waiting service, the MSC proceeds

Value Added Services

GSM standard supports two data services: Short Message Services & Bearer Services. A Short Message Service provides a connectionless transfer of messages with low capacity and low time performance. While the bearer services are similar to ISDN services such as data circuit duplex, data packet duplex etc. With the limited data rate limited to 9.6 kbps.

These services can be employed on PC's or PDA's via PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) card when connected to MS.
Mostly short message services are provide to the subscriber as a part of the basic subscription package. To offer bearer servies, a circuit switched connection is

To provide efficient data capabilities for GSM, new data protocols have been deployed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) as a part of GSM standard. These Protocols are HSCSD (High speed circuit switched data) for high speed file transfer and mobile video applications and GPRS (General packet radio services) for bursty data applications such as email and www. High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HSCSD) is circuitswitched wireless data transmission for mobile users at data rates up to 38.4 Kbps, four times faster than the standard data rates of the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication standard in 1999.

GSM Short Message Service (SMS)

The GSM SMS provides a connectionless transfer of message with low capacity and low time performance. Every message can contain 160characters but for more than that SMS concatenation and SMS compression have been defined in GSM SMS standards. SMS can be operated in bi directional mode i.e. message can be received while the mobile users are in conversations. They are transported on SDCCH signalling channel.

It can be of two types:

Cell broadcast service: It periodically delivers sms to all subribers in a given area.

Point to point service: It send SMS toa specific user which

SMS Architecture

At the beginning, if a user sends a SMS to his buddy,the SMS first deliver from the MS which is know as Mobile Station A to SM-SC(Short Message Service Center) Via the Base Station System (BSS), and then it catch up to the Mobile Station center(MSC) and finally combine with InterworkingMSC(IWMSC). The use of Short Message Service Center (SM-SC) to carry ahead the SMS message to the GSM network through a definite GSM-MSC called the Short Message Service gateway MSC (SMS-GMSC). The SM-SC is allowed to link with several GSM networks and to several SM-GMSCs in a GSM network. The SMS-GMSC come across the contemporary MSC of the

WAP (Wireless Application Protocol)

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that uses the protocol. Before the introduction of WAP, mobile service providers had limited opportunities to offer interactive data services, but needed interactivity to support Internet and Web applications such as:

Email by mobile phone

Tracking of stock-market prices Sports results

News headlines

WAP is the set of rules governing the transmission and reception of data by computer applications on or via wireless devices like mobile phones. WAP allows wireless devices to view specifically designed pages from the Internet using only plain text and very simple black-and-white pictures. WAP is a standardized technology for cross-platform, distributed computing very similar to the Internet's combination of Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), except that it is optimized for:

low-display capability Low-memory

low-bandwidth devices, such as PDA, mobiles, and

Why is WAP Important?

Until the first WAP devices emerged, the Internet was a Internet and a mobile phone was a mobile phone. You could surf the Net, do serious research, or be entertained on the Internet using your computer, but this was limited to your computer. Now with the appearance of WAP, the scene is that we have the massive information, communication, and data resources of the Internet becoming more easily available to anyone with a mobile phone or communications device. WAP being open and secure, is well suited for many different applications including, but not limited to stock market information, weather forecasts, enterprise data, and games.

Despite

the

common

misconception,

developing

WAP

What WAP Provides?

Interoperable: It allows terminal and software from different vendors to communicate with networks from different providers. Scalable: protocols and services should scale up with customer needs and number of customers. WAP provides efficient communication between mobile devices. Reliable: it provides consistent and predictable platform for deploying services. Security: it provides preservation of user data, protection of devices and services from security problems.

Architecture of WAP

WAP is designed in a layered fashion, so that it can be extensible, flexible, and scalable. As a result, the WAP protocol stack is divided into five layers:

Application Layer: Wireless Application Environment (WAE). This layer is of most interest to content developers because it contains among other things, device specifications, and the content development programming languages, WML, and WMLScript.
Session Layer: Wireless Session Protocol (WSP). Unlike HTTP, WSP has been designed by the WAP Forum to provide fast connection suspension and reconnection. Transaction Layer: Wireless Transaction Protocol (WTP). The WTP runs on top of a datagram service, such as User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and is part of the standard suite of TCP/IP protocols used to provide a simplified protocol suitable for low bandwidth wireless stations. Security Layer: Wireless Transport Layer Security (WTLS). WTLS incorporates security features that are based upon the established Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol standard. It