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Advanced Wireless and Mobile Computing Networks
(CSC544)
Copyright notice: These slides may contain copyrighted material. They cannot be copied or distributed without copyright holders permission
Lecture 3 – The Cellular Concept
Dr. Sarmad Ahmed Shaikh
Email: sarmad.ahmed107@gmail.com
Sindh Madressatul Islam University (SMIU), Karachi
Spring-2022

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 In previous lecture, we discussed
– Wirl systems
• Range comparison
• Cellular systems, Wireless LANs, Satellite Systems, Paging Systems, Bluetooth,
Ultra Wide Band Systems
– The Wirl Revolution
• 1G, 2G, 3G, 4G
– Modern Wirl Comm Systems
• Cellular Telephone Systems
 In this lecture, we will study
– The Cellular Concept-System Design Fundamentals
• Frequency reuse, Co-channel Interference, etc
– Cell Shape
• Channel Assignment and Handoff Strategies
– Trunking and Grade of Service
– Improving Coverage and Capacity in Cellular Systems

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The Cellular Concept-System Design
Fundamentals

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Introduction
Cellular concept- break
through in solving spectral
congestion and user capacity
A single high power
transmitter-replaced by
multiple low power
transmitters
Each base station allocated a
number of channels from
total channels

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Frequency Reuse
 If voice channel is allocated 4kHz each
 For Karachi, with a population of ~20 million
 80GHz spectrum would be required
 Clearly impractical!

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 Neighboring base stations are allocated different channels
 Total available channels can be reused as many times as necessary
so long the interference is kept below acceptable level
 By design of antennas, the coverage area is limited within the cell
 The reuse of frequency is known as frequency planning

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Co-Channel Interference
 We would want to keep the co-interference as far as possible
 However, if we keep the same-frequency-channel very far, we’d
use it less frequently – lesser frequency reuse
 Trade-off!

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Frequency Planning for Peshawar

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Cell Shape
 As we move far apart – signal strength drops
 How much interference can you tolerate?
 Interference can be mitigated by using signal processing
techniques. So you can have more cell reuse
 In reality,
shape can be
different !!!

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Hexagon Geometry
 Cells are represented as hexagons to approximate a circle, but not
to have areas with no coverage

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 X-Y not very
appropriate.
Lets have
u,v
 U V are at
60 degrees
from one
another
 Hexagon has
a property,
that center
from the hexagon =
a side of hexagon (R)
 Interested in distance between cells in Rs

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 Axes u,v at 60 degrees
 Cell radius (R) showing distance
 i is the unit on u axis, j is the unit on v axis
 Distance between two BS would be 3𝑅

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 Use i and j – on axes u and v
 Distance between co-channel cells
𝐷 = 𝑖2 + 𝑖𝑗 + 𝑗2

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Number of cells in a cluster
 The number of cells in a cluster
𝑁 = 𝑖2 + 𝑖𝑗 + 𝑗2
 Where i and j are integers
 What are the possible values of N?
 1, 3, 4, 7, …

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Locate a Co-Channel Cell
N = 7
i = 2
j = 1

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19-Cell Reuse Example (N=19)
 GSM: N = 7
– Sometimes N = 4 : can anyone draw graph ?
2
2
j
ij
i
N 


N = 19 (i.e., i = 3, j = 2)

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Cluster and capacity
 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 the number of channels available per cell if a system
uses
– 4-cell reuse
– 7-cell reuse, and
– 12-cell reuse.

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 Total bandwidth = 33 MHz
 Channel bandwidth = 25 kHz × 2 simplex channels = 50
kHz/duplex channel
 Total available channels = 33,000/50 = 660 channels
 For N = 4
– total number of channels available per cell = 660/4 ≈ 165 channels.
 For N = 7
– total number of channels available per cell = 660/7 ≈ 95 channels.
 For N = 12
– total number of channels available per cell = 660/12 ≈ 55 channels.

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 If 1 MHz of the allocated spectrum is dedicated to control
channels, determine an equitable distribution of control channels
and voice channels in each cell for each of the three systems.
 At 1 MHz spectrum there are 1000/50 =20 control channels
out of the 660 channels available.
 For N = 4,
– We can have 5 control channels and 160 voice channels per cell.
– In practice, however, each cell only needs a single control channel
(the control channels have a greater reuse distance than the voice
channels).
– Thus, one control channel and 160 voice channels would be assigned
to each cell.
 For N = 7,
– three control channels and 92 voice channels

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Frequency Reuse
 Consider a cellular system
having a total of S duplex
channels
 Each cell is allocated a
group of k channels
 S channels are divided
among N cells
 N cells which collectively
use all set of frequencies
are called cluster
kN
S 

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 If cluster is replicated M times, the total number of duplex
channels ,measured as a capacity (C), are given by
C=MkN = MS
 As seen, the capacity of a system is directly proportional to
number of times the cluster is replicated
 If a cluster size is reduced, while cell size is kept constant, more
clusters are required, that is M, to cover a given area, hence larger
C is achieved
 From design point of view, smallest possible value of N is
desirable, in order to maximize the capacity

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Channel Assignment Strategies
 Channel Assignment, Fixed or Dynamic
 In Fixed, each cell is allocated a predetermined set of voice channels
 In Dynamic , the serving base station has to request voice channels,
from MSC, each time a call request is made

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Handoff Strategies
 When a mobile moves into a different cell, the MSC automatically
transfers the call to a new channel
 Handoffs must be successful
 System designer must specify an optimum signal level at which to
initiate handoff
 A slightly stronger signal than the minimum usable signal is
required for handoff
 Other wise call will drop

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 In 1G analog cellular system, signal strength measurements are
made by base station and supervised by MSC, a locator receiver is
used for this purpose at base station
 In 2G systems, Handoff are mobile assisted
 In mobile assisted handoff (MAHO), every mobile reports its
received power, from surrounding base station, to its serving base
station
Prioritizing Handoffs
 Handoffs should be given priority
 Guard Channel concept, channels are reserved for handoffs
 Queuing of handoffs to avoid forced termination

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Practical Handoffs Considerations
 Pedestrians may not need a handoff
 Fast moving vehicles need many handoff
– MSC burdened
 Solution: divide the area into various micro cells
– High speed users use bigger cell
– Slow users use smaller cells

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Umbrella Cell approach

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Interference and System Capacity
 Interference is a major limiting factor in the performance of
cellular radio systems
 Co-channel Interference
 Adjacent channel interference

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Co-channel Interference and System Capacity
 Co-channel interference cannot be overcome by increasing carrier
power of transmitter
 Co-channel cells must be separated by a minimum distance to
provide isolation
 Q, co-channel reuse ratio, must be increased
𝑄 =
𝐷
𝑅
= 3𝑁

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 Smaller N, greater capacity
 A small Q provides larger capacity since N is small
 A larger Q improves transmission quality
 A trade-off must be made between these two in cellular design


i
I
S
I
S

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 Where S is the desired signal power, I is the interference power
 Propagation measurements show that average received signal
strength at any point decays as a power law of the distance of
separation between transmitter and a receiver. Mathematically
𝑃𝑟 = 𝑃0
𝑑
𝑑0
−𝑛
 Or,
𝑃𝑟 𝑑𝐵𝑚 = 𝑃0 𝑑𝐵𝑚 − 10𝑛 log
𝑑
𝑑0
 Where P0 is the power received at a close-in reference point at a
small distance d0 from the transmitting antenna and n is the path
loss exponent

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 When the transmit power of each base station is same and path
loss exponent is same through out the coverage area, S/I can be
approximated as
𝑆
𝐼
=
𝑅−𝑛
𝐷𝑖
−𝑛

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Co-channel cells for 7-cell reuse

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 Example 3.2
 Area of a hexagon
𝐴𝑟𝑒𝑎 =
3 3
2
𝑅2, where R is radius
4
4
4
4
2
)
(
2
)
(
2
)
( 











 D
R
D
R
D
R
D
R
I
S
n
i
n
4
4
4
2
)
1
(
2
)
1
(
2
1








Q
Q
Q
I
S

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Adjacent Channel Interference
 Adjacent channel interference results from signals which are
adjacent in frequency to the desired signal
 Adjacent channel interference can be minimized by using careful
filtering
 By keeping frequency separation between each channel as large as
possible

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Trunking and Grade of Service
 Trunking - to accommodate a large number of users in a limited
radio spectrum
 One Erlang, (a Danish mathematician), represents the amount of
traffic intensity carried by a channel that is completely occupied.
– For example, a radio channel that is occupied for thirty minutes during an
hour carries 0.5 Erlangs of traffic.
Grade of Service (GOS)
 a measure of the ability of a user to access a trunked system
during the busiest hour
 It is a wireless designer’s job to estimate the maximum required
capacity and to allocate the proper number of channels in order to
meet the GOS.

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Key Definitions for Trunked Radio

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 The traffic intensity offered by each user (𝐴𝑢) is equal to the call
request rate multiplied by the holding time
𝐴𝑢 = 𝜆𝐻
– Where H is the average duration of a call
– λ is the average number of call requests per unit time for each user
 For U users and unspecified number of channels, the total traffic
intensity A is given as,
𝐴 = 𝑈𝐴𝑢
 Furthermore, in a C channel trunked system, if the traffic is equally
distributed among the channels, then the traffic intensity per
channel, 𝐴𝑐 is given as,
𝐴𝑐 = 𝑈𝐴𝑢/𝐶
 The AMPS cellular system is designed for a GOS of 2% blocking.
This implies 2 out of 100 calls will be blocked due to channel
occupancy during the busiest hour.

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Trunked Systems
 Blocked calls cleared system-
– It offers no queuing for call requests-
– if no channels are available, the requesting user is blocked without access-
assume that calls arrive by Poisson distribution.
 There are memory less arrivals of requests, implying that all users,
including blocked users, may request a channel at any time
 The probability of a user occupying a channel is exponentially
distributed, so that longer calls are less likely to occur as described
by an exponential distribution
 There are finite number of channels available in the Trunking pool
 This leads to the derivation of the Erlang B formula

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 The second kind of trunked system is one in which a queue is
provided to hold calls which are blocked.
 If a channel is not available immediately, the call request may be
delayed until a channel becomes available.
 This type of Trunking is called Blocked calls delayed.
 The average delay D for all those calls which are queued is given
by
𝐷 = Pr[𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑦 > 0]
𝐻
𝐶 − 𝐴
GOS
K
A
C
A
blocking K
C


 !
!
]
Pr[





!
)
1
(
!
]
0
Pr[
K
A
C
A
C
A
A
delay K
C
C

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Erlang B Trunking GOS

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Erlang B

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Erlang C

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Example 2.4
 How many users can be supported for 0.5% blocking probability
for the following number of trunked channels in a blocked calls
cleared system?
– (a) 1,
– (b) 5
– (c) 10
– (d) 20
– (e) 100.
Assume each user generates Au = 0.1 Erlangs of traffic.

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Example 2.5
 An urban area has a population of 2 million residents. Three
competing trunked mobile networks (systems A, B, and C) provide
cellular service in this area. System A has 394 cells with 19
channels each, system B has 98 cells with 57 channels each, and
system C has 49 cells, each with 100 channels.
– Find the number of users that can be supported at 2% blocking if each user
averages 2 calls per hour at an average call duration of 3 minutes.
– Assuming that all three trunked systems are operated at maximum capacity,
compute the percentage market penetration of each cellular provider.

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 Try examples 2.2, 2.6 and 2.7 at home.

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Improving Coverage and Capacity in Cellular Systems
 Cellular design techniques are needed to provide more channels
per unit coverage area
 Cell Splitting
 Sectoring
 Coverage Zone approaches

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Cell Splitting
 The process of subdividing a congested cell into smaller cells.
(each with its own base station and a corresponding reduction in
antenna height and transmitter power)
– by defining and installing new cells which have a smaller radius than the
original cells (microcells)
 Cell splitting preserves the geometry of the architecture and
therefore simply scales the geometry of the architecture
 Cell splitting increases the capacity of a cellular system since it
increases the number of times that channels are reused.

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 If we assume that every cell were reduced in such a way so that
the radius of every cell was cut in half. Now, to cover the entire
service area with smaller cells, approximately four times as many
cells would be required.
 Cell splitting are supposed not upsetting the channel allocation
scheme required to maintain the minimum co-channel reuse ratio
Q between co-channel cells.

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 In Figure 3.8, the base stations are placed at corners of the cells,
and the area served by base station A is assumed to be saturated
with traffic (i.e, the blocking of base station A exceeds acceptable
rates).
 Cell Splitting is applied, note that the original base station A has
been surrounded by six new microcell base stations. (the smaller
cells were added in such a way as to preserve the frequency reuse
plan of the system).
 Microcell G was placed half way between two larger stations
utilizing the same channel set G (also, for other microcells in the
figure).

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 Cells are split to add channels with no new spectrum usage
Figure 2.8: Illustration of cell splitting.

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 How much the transmit power must be reduced for the new
smaller cells?
 The received power (Pr) at the new and old cell boundaries and
setting them equal to each other. ( to ensure that the frequency
reuse and S/I is the same)
– where 𝑃𝑡1and 𝑃𝑡2, are the transmit powers of the larger and smaller cell
base stations, respectively, and n is the path loss exponent.
 If we take n = 4 and set the received powers equal to each other,
then

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Practical considerations for cell splitting
 In practice, not all cells are split at the same time therefore,
different cell sizes will exist simultaneously.
 Two different transmitted power levels for small and large cells
are used.
 Channels in the old cell must be broken down into two channel
groups, one for smaller cell and other for larger cell.
 The larger cell is usually dedicated to high speed traffic so that
handoffs occur less frequently.
 Antenna down tilting, which focuses radiated energy from base
station towards the ground (rather than towards the horizon), is
often used to limit the radio coverage of newly formed microcells.

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Example 2.8
 Consider Figure 3.9. Assume each base station uses 60 channels,
regardless of cell size. If each original cell has a radius of 1 km and
each microcell has a radius of 0.5 km, find the number of channels
contained in a 3 km by 3 km square centered around A,
(a) without the use of microcells,
(b) when the lettered microcells as shown in Fig 3.9 are used
(c) if all the original base stations are replaced by microcells.
 Assume cells on the edge of the square to be contained within the
square.

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Figure 2.9: Illustration of cell splitting within a 3 km by 3 km square centered around
base station A.

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Solution to Example 2.8
(a) Without the use of microcells
 A cell radius of 1 km implies that the sides of the larger hexagons
are also 1 km in length.
 To cover the 3 km by 3 km square centered around base station A,
we need to cover 1.5 km (1.5 times the hexagon radius) towards
the right, left, top, and bottom of base station A.
 This is shown in Figure 2.9. From Figure 2.9 we see that this area
contains 5 base stations. Since each base station has 60 channels,
 The total number of channels without cell splitting is equal to
5*60 = 300 channels.

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(b) With the use of the microcells as shown in Figure 3.9:
 In Figure 2.9, the base station A is surrounded by 6 microcells.
 Therefore, the total number of base stations in the square area
under study is equal to 5 + 6 = 11.
 Since each base station has 60 channels,
 the total number of channels will be equal to 11*60= 660
channels.
 This is a 2.2 times increase in capacity when compared to case
(a).

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(c) if all the base stations are replaced by microcells:
 From Figure 2.9, we see that there are a total of 5 + 12 = 17 base
stations in the square region under study.
 Since each base station has 60 channels,
 The total number of channels will be equal to 17 x 60 =1020
channels.
 This is a 3.4 times increase in capacity when compared to case (a).
 Theoretically, if all cells were microcells having half the radius of
the original cell, the capacity increase would approach 4.

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Sectoring
 Cell splitting achieves capacity improvement by decreasing the cell
radius R and keeping the co-channel reuse ratio D/R unchanged
– increases the number of channels per unit area
 Another way to increase capacity is to keep the cell radius
unchanged and seek methods to decrease the D/R ratio
 Capacity improvement is achieved by reducing the number of cells
in a cluster and thus increasing the frequency reuse
– necessary to reduce the relative interference without decreasing the
transmit power
 The co-channel interference in a cellular system may be decreased
by replacing a single omni-directional antenna at the base station
by several directional antennas, each radiating within a specified
sector. This is called sectoring.

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 SIR is improved using directional Antennas
 A cell is normally partitioned into three 1200 or six 600 sectors.
 The channels used in a particular cell are broken down into
sectored groups and are used only within a particular sector.

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 The penalty for improved S/I and the resulting capacity
improvement is an increased number of antennas at each base
station, and a decrease in trunking efficiency due to channel
sectoring at the base station.
 Since sectoring reduces the coverage area of a particular group of
channels, the number of handoffs increases, as well.
 Fortunately, many modern base stations support sectorization and
allow mobiles to be handed off from sector to sector within the
same cell without intervention from the MSC, so the handoff
problem is often not a major concern.
 Try example 2.9 at home

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Micro cell Zone Concept
 The increased number of handoffs required when sectoring is
employed results in an increased load on the switching and control
link elements of the mobile system.
 A mobile travels from one zone to another within a cell, it retains
the same channel, unlike sectoring handoff is not required at the
MSC when a mobile travels between zones with in a same cell.
This technique is useful in high ways or along urban traffic
corridors.
 The base station simply switches the channel to a different zone
site. In this way, a given channel is active only in the particular
zone in which the mobile is traveling, and hence the base station
radiation is localized and interference is reduced

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 The advantage of the zone cell technique is that while the cell
maintains a particular coverage radius, the co-channel
interference is reduced since a large central base station is
replaced by several lower powered transmitters (zone
transmitters) on the edges of the cell.
 Decreased co-channel interference improves the signal quality and
also leads to an increase in capacity without degradation in
Trunking efficiency caused by sectoring
 An S/I of 18 dB is typically required for satisfactory system
performance in narrowband FM.

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 The Zone Cell concept

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Homework 1
 Solve the following problems set from Chapter 2 of your text book.
 2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.18 (except part d), 2.20
 Issue date: 7 November 2020
 Deadline of submission: 21 November 2020
 Quiz in next class